The very economy of the Christian religion--the ordering of its mysteries, wherein humanity is represented as ruined by a woman and saved by a virgin, and all flesh is involved in Eve's curse--led to the triumph of virginity and the exaltation of a condition which, in the words of a Father of the Church, is in the flesh, yet not of the flesh. "It is because of virginity," says Saint Gregory of Nyssa, "that God vouchsafes to dwell with men. It is virginity which gives men wings to soar towards heaven." Celibacy raises the Apostle John above the Prince of the Apostles himself. At the funeral of the Virgin Mary, Peter gave John a palm branch, saying: "It becometh one who is celibate to bear the Virgin's palm."[776] [Footnote 776: Voragine, _La legende doree_ (Assomption de la Vierge).] Throughout western Christendom the Virgin Mary--the Virgin _par excellence_--had been the object of zealous devout worship[777] ever since the twelfth century. The great cathedrals of northern France, dedicated to Our Lady, celebrated the feast of their patron saint on the day of the Assumption. On the sculptured pillar of the central porch was the Virgin, with her divine Child and the Virgin's lily. Sometimes Eve figured beneath, in order to represent at once sin and its redemption: the second Eve redeeming the first, the Virgin exalted the woman humbled. Marvellous scenes are portrayed on the tympanums of porches. The Virgin is kneeling; at her side is a flowering lily in a vase. The Angel, book in hand, greets her with an AVE, thus transposing the name EVA, _mutans Evae nomen_. Or again, with her feet resting on the crescent moon, she rises to the highest heaven: _Exaltata est super choros angelorum_. Further, from Jesus Christ she receives the precious crown: _Posuit in capite ejus coronam de lapide pretioso_. In gems of painted glass, church windows portrayed the figures of Mary's virginity; the stone which Daniel saw dug from the mountain by no human hand, Gideon's fleece, Moses' burning bush, and Aaron's budding rod. [Footnote 777: Le Cure de Saint-Sulpice, _Notre Dame de France ou histoire du culte de la Sainte Vierge en France_, Paris, 1862, 7 vols. in 8vo. Abbe Mignard, _La Sainte Vierge_, Paris, 1877, in 8vo, pp. 382 _et seq._] In an inexhaustible flow of images, expressed in hymns, sequences, and litanies, she was the Mystic Rose, the Ivory Tower, the Ark of the Covenant, the Gate of Heaven, the Morning Star. She was the Well of Living Water, the Fountain of the Garden, the Walled Orchard, the Bright and Shining Stone, the Flower of Virtue, the Palm of Sweetness, the Myrtle of Temperance, the Sweet Ointment.