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Translation
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What the Fathers say
Eastern Fathers
Oecumenius
And he says: And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. By Jerusalem he associates the blessed end and dwelling of the saints, which having called Jerusalem figuratively both now and in the times to come he has adorned magnificently and fittingly, that from sensible things we may send our mind to the intelligible blessedness and conduct of the saints. …
Irenaeus
But in the times of the kingdom, the earth has been called again by Christ [to its pristine condition], and Jerusalem rebuilt after the pattern of the Jerusalem above, of which the prophet Isaiah says, "Behold, I have depicted thy walls upon my hands, and thou art always in my sight," And the apostle, too, writing to the Galatians, says in like manner, "But the Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all." He does not say this with any thought of an erratic Aeon, or of any other power which departed from the …
Western Saints
Augustine of Hippo
This city is said to come down out of heaven in the sense that God created it by means of heavenly grace, as he told it through Isaiah: "I am the Lord creating thee." Indeed, its descent from heaven began with the beginning of time, since it is by God's grace coming down from above through the "laver of regeneration" in the Holy Spirit sent from heaven that its citizenship has continuously grown up on earth. …
Bede
And the holy city, new Jerusalem, etc. This city is said to descend from heaven because it is made by the grace of God, which is heavenly. It is prepared as a bride adorned for her husband; for there is another Jerusalem that is not adorned for her husband, but for an adulterer.
Bernard of Clairvaux
Plainly, her whom he foreknew from eternity, whom he chose, whom he loved, whom he created, it was not reasonable for her to be declared found by the same one. Yet that she was prepared by him so that she might be found, I will say confidently. For he who saw bore witness, "and we know that his testimony is true" (Jn 19:35). "I saw," he says, "the holy city, the new Jerusalem, descending from heaven, prepared by God as a bride adorned for her husband" (Rev 21:2): and he was one of the watchmen who guard the city.
Translation