One of the biggest themes I noticed during our reading was how purity and divinity is not only often portrayed juxtaposed to nature, but also how it is contrasted to man-made barricades to the divine. In The Canterbury Tales, this can be seen when Palemon and Alcite are both confined in the prison and watch the natural beauty of Emelye from their imprisonment. On line 1053, Emelye is described as gathering “flowers, mixed white and red” in order to “make an intricate garland for her head” as “she sang (as) heavenly as an angel”. This passage ties holiness and nature together, and contrasts it with the prison Elcite is held in, keeping him away from the divine. Athanasius the Great’s On the Incarnation also compares natural beauty to the divine, and just like in The Canterbury Tales, contrasts it with being outside of paradise. He writes, on page 110, “But if they went astray and went astray and went vile, throwing away their birthright of beauty, then they would come under the natural law of death and no longer live in paradise, but, dying outside of it, continue in death and corruption”. Finally, in The Life of St. Anthony, the 49th passage also uses nature to amplify holiness. It reads; “he came to a very lofty mountain, and at the foot of the mountain ran a clear spring, whose waters were sweet and very cold; outside there was a plain and a few neglected palm trees.” St Antony is later described as having been “moved by God, loved the place”. The distinction is also made between the holiness of the Oasis St. Antony finds himself in the godless outer desert, which contrasts itself with the holy natural beauty of the natural spring. All three texts recognize the beauty innate to holiness, and the outer ugliness that contrasts it.