The Whore's Damnation

Veni, ostendam tibi damnationem meretricis magnae... Perditorum multitudo, quae, relicto Creatore, daemonibus se prostravit constuprandam, in fluctibus, id est, in discordia populorum sedere memoratur. E contrario autem multitudinis credentium erat cor unum et anima una. Quos despondit Apostolus uni viro virginem castam exhibere Christo. Cum qua fornicati sunt reges terrae, etc. Universitas partibus praeeminet. Reges enim et inhabitatores terrae sunt singuli terrena superbe petentes, quos illecebra saeculi, vitiorum libidine constuprat, et insania mentis debriat. Et abstulit me in desertum in spiritu. Desertum ponit divinitatis absentiam, cujus praesentia paradisus est. Sanctus Beda, Explanatio Apocalyspsis, Caput XVII Source: Migne 93.182c-d

Come, I shall show to you the damnation of the great whore... 1 The multitude of the ruined, forsaking God, have prostrated themselves to be ravished by demons, and in the waters, he tells us, she sits, that is, amid the strife of the peoples. For on the contrary the multitude of the faithful are of one heart and soul, which the Apostle declares to be as a presenting of one chaste maiden before the one man Christ. 2 With her the kings of the earth have fornicated... He speaks of a part for all. For 'the kings' are the inhabitants of the earth, each one of whom proudly seek worldly things, who are ravished by the allurements of the world and the lust of the vices, and drunk with maddened minds. And he took me off in the spirit into the desert... The waste he gives for the absence of the Divine, whose presence is paradise. St Bede, Commentary On The Apocalypse, Chapter 17 1 Apoc 17.1 2 2 Cor 11.12