Book on Virginity

669 LIBER DE VIRGINITATE. 670 declares him to be a bishop, this manner of greeting Letoius, *unanimis mihi inter episcopos Letoi* (Letoius, of one mind with me among the bishops), makes clear. Yet this work cannot be attributed to St. Basil; and Tillemont defends this not as a probable conjecture, but as a matter explored with necessary proofs. ^A For not only is there the greatest dissimilarity of style between this writer and Basil, but he also treats many things incautiously, which, since they could soil virginal modesty with unbecoming images, Basil would surely not have cast himself—nor his readers—into such danger. The writer himself (n. 65) foresaw that he would run into offense with many, and he countered the criticism with this point of reasoning: that a virgin, provided she is not pre-pubescent, ignores nothing that pertains to the nature of the male.

But arguments taken from style do not seem to many to be of such weight that they should cast aside preconceived opinions. Here, however, is a manifest contradiction of times, which leaves no room for dispute. For Letoius, Bishop of Melitene, to whom the book *On True Virginity* is inscribed, reached this dignity many years after Basil’s death. His predecessor, Otreius, was present at the second ecumenical council, which made a very honorable judgment concerning his faith, and established him in the Pontic diocese alongside Helladius of Caesarea and Gregory of Nyssa as a sort of center of communion.

Dupin felt the weight of this argument, yet he did not yield, but thinks either that Letoius was not yet a bishop when this work was inscribed to him, or that we should read "Otreius" instead of "Letoius." The learned man's first conjecture is refuted by the words just cited: "Letoius, of one mind with me among the bishops." The second is of such a sort that it ought to be utterly rejected by everyone, and entirely dismissed from critical consideration. I do not linger over Suidas, who mentions a book *On Virginity* written by Basil. The authority of Gregory of Nazianzus is far greater, on whose testimony Combefisius and Dupin rely. But when Gregory praises Basil’s writings, by which he taught how to truly cultivate virginity, he refers to the *Rules*, which contain absolutely nothing that does not pertain to the best method of cultivating virginity. And even if it were certain that Basil had written a unique work *On Virginity*, that work would be the one sought, but certainly not the one we have in our hands, which ought not to be attributed to him given such manifest dissimilarity of style and discrepancy of times.

CONCERNING TRUE VIRGINAL INTEGRITY

TO LETOIUS, BISHOP OF MELITENE (30).

ON TRUE VIRGINAL INTEGRITY,

TO LETOIUS, BISHOP OF MELITENE.

1. Most people, when they see whosoever among the worshippers of our bridegroom Christ has been wounded by heavenly love for the contemplation of virtue, practicing different species of virtue in the Church—some the praises of virginity; others, the encomiums of those who punish the body with fasts and sleeping on the ground; others still, marveling at the magnanimity of those who sell their possessions for the sake of the Lord, pursuing their proclamations in lengthy discourse—believe not that it is necessary to teach how each of the things mentioned should be practiced, but consider that the praises of the aforementioned things suffice alone for advancement in virtue. I, however, ^A 618 1. Plerique... (Many, seeing that divine love has wounded all those who are Christ’s, our bridegroom, with a longing for the contemplation of virtue, practice different kinds of virtue in the Church; some [proclaim] the praises of virginity; others, the encomiums of those who punish their bodies with fasting and sleeping on the ground; others, admiring the magnanimity of those who sell their goods for the sake of the Lord, follow their praises with a long discourse: not thinking it necessary to teach how each of the things we have spoken of should be practiced, but considering that praises alone are sufficient for progress in virtue. I, however, ...

^A have set my mind on exposing, as if in the open light, not the praises of virginity, nor the encomium of those who sell their possessions, nor the proclamation of those who emaciate their bodies with fasts, but what each of these things is, and how, when rightly practiced, it contributes to true virtue. This I have been eager to demonstrate, as if in clear air—not that I might instruct you, who have long since attained the understanding of these things, in the consideration of what is right and honorable in contemplating the distinction of virtues; but that, by explaining each one with you, what its nature is, I might provide the means for those who have not only received from you the genuine love of the good into their hearts, but also for the rest of those who read these things, to learn accurately—as if looking at the beauty of true virginity depicted upon a tablet—how and from where and with what colors of virtue it is adorned, so that each might more safely pursue the desired good, which I shall teach with all the benevolence I can.

2. For it is a truly great thing, virginity, rendering man similar to the incorruptible God, to speak in summary. Yet it does not proceed from bodies to souls; but being special to the incorporeal soul, through that soul's God-beloved virginity, it preserves the bodies incorrupt. For the soul, having conceived a notion of the truly Good, as if by a certain wing, ^B having been winged toward it by incorruption, and seeing that the like is to be honored by the like—I mean by the incorruption that is in it—that the incorruptible God is to be worshipped only in a manner worthy of Him, it brings the virginity of the body as a handmaid to the service of its own beauty. And, desiring to have it always standing by as a companion, unhindered, for the contemplation of God, it drives the clamoring pleasures of the body as far away as possible. And indeed, it makes temperance from the pleasures that are beneath the belly the handmaid of bodily virginity, and the bodily virginity itself the handmaid of its own virginity, so that all other things—abstinence from foods and the rest of the austerity—fight against the pleasures that flow through the senses against the virginity of the body; but it goes further and practices the very virginity of the body ^C for no other reason than for its own sake, so that, guarding its own virginity incorrupt from every evil thought, it may gain the likeness to the incorruptible God—who already sheds the splendors of His graces into it, as if into a most pure mirror—perfected for its own beauty and praise. Since, therefore, virginity, the true ^D [virginity], I say, as I have already briefly...

^A demonstrated in the preceding discourse, and as my ongoing argument will demonstrate even more clearly, is a property of the incorrupt beauty of the soul, for the sake of which the deeds of the body are also performed brilliantly; yet many, attending only to the name of virginity, take no care at all of true virginity. Therefore, I think it is necessary that I should endeavor, to the best of my ability, to admonish those who desire to receive the crown for virginity, so that they may not, through ignorance, neglect the primary good and consume their whole life in the service of the handmaid, and because they never served her mistress, lose even the virginity of the body after many labors—not having adorned it with the beauty within. Therefore, in order that each of the things that contribute to the beauty of true virginity may clearly be seen, come, let us consider to what mark the virgin looks when she exercises her own virginity. For thus, in each of her movements—whether she strikes ^B the intended mark, or, proposing one thing and aiming at another, she misses the mark set for her—we shall be able to recognize, as if seeing in a clear light, who is truly a virgin.

3. But as for how the female stands by nature in relation to the male, if you wish, let us examine it, so that we may also clearly perceive the mark of virginity revealed. For from a few first living creatures, as if from certain archetypal seeds, when the Creator wished to fill the world, He established from the beginning the form of the bodily animal, like a single root for each species of living creature. And upon dividing this, from the rational animal down to every species of irrational one, into male and female, and having made the female a segment of the male, He placed within each segment by nature a mysterious goad of mutual union. These [segments], then, being torn apart from each other, He binds together through the unrestrained unions of love, and from this union, He multiplies ^C every species of living creature, which sprouts from the seed of its predecessors, throughout the ages, saying: Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth. (Gen. 1, 28) Thus, I say, wishing to show the world, from the one human race of Adam, filled with the myriad differences of nations throughout the whole earth; and wishing for it to appear teeming with countless forms, from one of each of the irrational species in like manner—of quadrupeds and reptiles, and furthermore of birds and swimming creatures, and in summary of all living creatures—He subjects the female to the authority of the male, ^D while He soothes the male with the pleasure of the female; that which, indeed, was taken from the side of the male, as

from a part to a whole from which it was taken, He ordained should be submissive and obey its authority. But in order that the male might yearn for that which was taken from him and, by pursuing its embrace, might through such a union receive back his own member into himself, He established this by a certain natural necessity. Thus, He wisely showed ^A how there are two from one, and again one from two: the male and the female. And He made this mutual embrace not only pleasant to their bodies through the aforementioned ways, but He also implanted a great zeal and desire for the multiplication of offspring, which is aroused through the embrace by the torch of love. For He fashioned the male as the agent, inasmuch as he was created first, and the female as the passive one, as though torn from the side of the male. And lest the female, being passive, should be left without aid when impelled by the affection of love for the succession of her kind, He prepared the female for the male as a total potion of pleasure, and with a certain violent force draws the male to her; not by drawing the female to the male, but by the pleasure of the female, drawing the male captive to her. For just as the magnet stone, having received into its nature some secret power over iron, is not itself drawn to the iron, but from a distance draws the iron to itself, so the body of the female, having obtained an indescribable power over the male, even without the knowledge, so to speak, of its own soul, draws the body of the male spontaneously to intercourse. In this way, the Maker wished to bring aid to the weaker ^B animal, so that, by enchanting the male with the pleasure inherent in her, she might have the male as a defender, not only for the sake of procreation, but also for the sake of the very sting of intercourse itself. For this reason, therefore: "A man shall leave his father and mother"—not the female, but the male, compelled by the implanted sting toward intercourse with the female. "And he shall cleave to his wife," He says, not the wife to the husband, "and the two shall be one flesh." ^C Bestowing this authority over the one who holds dominion upon the female sex, the Creator fashioned the very description and form of the female body softer, so that by touch, by sight, by motion, and finally by the softness of her limbs, she might soften the male with pleasure, both as she looks and is looked upon, offering herself from every side to every approach of the senses.

4. But since this force is present in our bodies for the cause I have already mentioned, the virgin, perceiving that the soul is equal and the same in essence in both man and woman, and observing from the condition of the body in each sex that one is rendered effeminate and the other becomes masculine; and also ^D [perceiving] the souls from the aforementioned cause to be inherent — she, the virgin, seeing an equal and the same soul in essence existing both in the man and in the woman; yet recognizing from the predisposition of the body toward femininity and masculinity that the one is being feminized and the other is being masculinized...

^A by the amatory union of the bodies to which they are bound, to receive innumerable species of affections; she always endeavors to lead the soul away from the body's affection; and as for the woman’s natural inclination toward the male, she professes to cut it off by turning herself from the body toward a beauty and ornament proper to her. Striving to walk this path of virtue, she no longer considers the body’s own inclination toward the male, but with a swift eye she contemplates what affinity the soul, which is incorporeal while in the body, has with the incorporeal God; and having kindled a torch much brighter than the love of the incorporeal, she endeavors to show herself naked and without experience of the pleasures of the body in which she lives, through the sweats she bears for His sake. Since, therefore, virginity is a truly divine and exceptional quality of the undefiled soul, ^B and such is the mutual inclination of male and female bodies—and since the virgin, drawing no stain of female pleasure from the body and having stripped off all the passions of the flesh, endeavors to present herself pure to God, whom she professes to love—it is manifest that, knowing the kingdom of heaven to be the reward of the violent, she must do violence to her own nature toward the goal set before her; so that she not only overcomes the pleasure exciting her to marriage in a body fashioned in such a way, but also stands firmly against every kind of pleasure. For pleasure, being one in kind, gushes forth from the flesh as if from a spring, and being divided into the five senses, as if into five channels, it flows through them from within toward sensible things. And each one ^C of these channels, by the proper aperture of the senses, casting its own stream vehemently upon its corresponding sensible object, washes away whatever is akin to itself and drags it toward itself; and being filled with carnal mire, like a torrent, with a reversed motion, it flows back rapidly through the same apertures into the vortices of the flesh, and, shaking the soul, submerges it in the waves of its passions. Wherefore the virgin is necessarily required, by setting reason as a guard over the passages of the senses, to render their motion toward outward things—by no means granting them free and unhindered exit—moderate and tranquil; lest, poured out freely wherever they wish, they might at some time drag down the soul, which is superintending them, toward the things that are proper to them: and then also, when their stream ^D flows back inward toward the soul, she must strain it through the constricted passages and allow it to pass into her pure of all filth, lest, teeming with the carnal mire which it has drawn to itself through vicious affections, it might cloud the whole soul by disturbing it with its own defilements.

^A 5. Therefore, she shall not open her eyes to every aspect of visible things indiscriminately, lest, while she indiscriminately receives every appearance of figures and forms, she become troubled by the images of them. But while they are opened to look at certain things, out of the necessity of light for the use of this life, she shall close the soul's eyes against the eyes of the body; yet for the contemplation of the true Light, and of the beauty which is displayed through that Light, she shall carefully open those which were previously closed. Nor shall she offer her ear to every conversation without examination; but to evil discourses, as if to the urge of some foul-smelling slumber, she will block access; to noble ones, however, dripping with the pure stream of virtue, she will studiously lend herself. ^B And her taste, ever gaping for pleasures, she will curb with reason, and will temper it soberly for the taking of necessary things. But the sense of touch—as the most servile of all senses, which entices all the others by its own smoothness toward pleasure through certain tricks, as it were—she will keep as accurately as possible pure from every stain of desire. For this sense, diffused through the whole body, through its entire surface—not only that which appears externally, but also that which is more hidden—exercises a tyranny over the soul through vicious contacts. But grasping the hands as a most opportune instrument, through them, as if through certain nets, it captures all who may fall into its snares. ^C Nor does it leave the sense of sight immune from its own tricks. But toward confused colors and rough figures, it makes it harsh and confuses it; to those things which are smooth, and which are able to deceive through beauty of color and form, it sprinkles and soothes it from a distance, thus sufficiently displaying its own power. And also the hearing, by driving it away with harsh voices, but relaxing it inwardly with soft ones through the gently blowing air, it causes to perform that which is its own function toward the work of pleasure. I pass over the sense of taste, as it is altogether its companion. For it is constricted and nauseated at those flavors which are contrary to it; but to those which are sweet, it opens its own insatiable channels. For ^D what shall I say concerning the genital members? How, indeed, the force implanted in them for the generation of the like,

^A binding the whole man with its own enchantments, leads the man captive through the pleasure perceived by the sense of touch in their smoothness. By a certain touch, therefore, sight also was shown to be deceiving the soul toward pleasure. For with the casting of the eyes, as if with incorporeal hands, it touches from afar whatever it wishes, and what it cannot reach with the hands of the body, it embraces lustfully with the projection of the eyes, shaking the whole body with billows of the images it fashions. Hearing itself, also, capturing sweet voices through touch, by this means enchants the soul. And to sum up, every sense—just as it has received a common touch within the body in which it holds dominion—so also, through this touch, it moves each ^B sense toward its own proper pleasure, and drives our body, which is entirely situated in touch, toward universal pleasure in various ways.

6. Since, therefore, touch holds dominion in all, but especially in taste and in the genital parts, and since one touch is suspended from another like a chain, and is connected and adapted, with one serving and the other being served, but all of them conveying the operation of the senses through touch to their queen, pleasure, they make the soul still more in a way corporeal by their perturbations. And since it is proposed to the virgin to exhibit a mind pure from all corporeal pleasure, for this reason she must cut away from the soul the ^C touch which especially makes it corporeal, so that by removing the vehicle of the touches pertaining to the other senses, she may also, as much as possible, cut away the material for their own proper pleasures. What, then, is that which most makes the soul corporeal through touch, and produces in various ways the pleasures situated in the other senses? It is touch, I say, both that which is situated in taste and that which lustfully titillates the body for intercourse. Of these, the one situated in taste takes the lead, while the one in intercourse follows; for by the touch of taste, always coaxing voracity toward gluttony, the body becomes fattened, and being insatiably titillated by the smooth humors boiling within ^D it from the depths, it is spurred toward the touch of intercourse.

7. Therefore, it is necessary that she who wishes to overcome the pleasures of intercourse by virginity should, much more, show herself victorious beforehand over the pleasure perceived by taste, as it is that which supplies the fuel for the other. For from the rational and the irrational, according to the fiction of the Greeks concerning physiology, just as a certain centaur…

^A the Creator, fashioning the whole man, fitting the human form from the head down to the chest to the upper part, placed the lower part, which extends from the navel and loins, like the nature of a horse, inclined to the pleasures of the belly after the manner of beasts, and unruly for acts of procreation: not that He desired the rational part to be snatched away by the irrational, but that He most wisely committed the reins to the rational, under which the irrational part is subjected, to govern it for the necessary uses of nature. Because, therefore, of this power given to it, when the rational part does not lead, but is led by the irrational, the Scripture, chiding the charioteer as if he had been badly poured out from the higher part toward the pleasure of the irrational, says: “The horses became lustful for females; every one neighed after his neighbor’s wife.” ^B And elsewhere, indicating the domination of the irrational part over the soul through the navel and loins: “Behold,” it says, “his strength is in his loins, and his power is in the navel of the belly.” For when the belly becomes fat from taste, it is necessary that the parts subject to the belly be moved to natural operations by the overflowing humor which effervesces in the depths. For the belly, overlying these parts, provides that by which these operations are stirred up as if by a gadfly; but greed pours forth the materials from the upper part as if from a deep fountain. Therefore, let the virgin conquer the sense of taste before all else, wisely governing from the upper part the fountains of pleasures and the incentives that flow from there toward intemperance; lest, while she professes virginity, she should later immodestly prostitute herself to taste, and, being imprudent, foolishly sell her virginity for another pleasure of enjoyment. For it behooves a virgin that the taste of the virgin herself also be virgin, so that it is not corrupted toward pleasure by any bait of things that delight the throat, but that she may guard herself incorrupt in this regard also, and wisely rule the body so that it may minister to the soul for the fulfillment of its duties. ^C 8. It is also necessary that, while she guards against the pleasure of taste and constrains and attenuates the pleasures welling up from the belly, she should, in turn, convert the use of the body toward the opposite side. For, it says, “Do not turn aside to the right hand or to the left.” For just as it is truly pernicious, for the reasons we have stated, to give the sense of taste free reign over all foods whatsoever; so to obstruct it, to the point that the body becomes useless due to weakness, is altogether alien to reason. For truly, as a certain wise man says, in the end, it is an extreme in this matter as well. For just as by

^A a supply of food, our recalcitrant horse carries its charioteer wherever it wills, so too, by excessive deprivation, it becomes a hindrance to the stated path of virtue. For just as it is not right to fatten him on too much food, so that the charioteer is troubled by the disorder of his leaping, and is carried about everywhere, yielding entirely to his heated and indomitable strength—so neither should he who has set his heart on traversing the path of virtue with him, by excessive deprivation, break—I say—his strength, so that he may not become useless; lest being bound to him in his weakness, he should endure an unending struggle on his behalf, being able neither to rouse him again when he has fallen so that he may resume the course, nor, because of the natural connection with him, having the power to cast him off; but always having to groan together with him because of their fellowship, and being forced to labor in the care of his health; and by having no ^B strong support to assist him in the exercise of things pertaining to the race, through lack of training he ends up throwing away much of his own knowledge. Therefore, since we must drive the vehicle conjoined to us toward the race of virtue, neither relaxing the reins too much, nor again pulling them too tautly, it is fitting to consider both the condition of the body as it is, and the qualities of the foods, and to restrain the body that is robust and still abounding in natural heat, and through food to drive away the heat; so that by adding to the natural fat with ^C nutritive foods, or by the infusion of wine, setting the surging vigor of the body even more ablaze, we may not, according to the wise man of the Greeks, truly pour fire upon fire. But for the one who is robust and abounding in natural heat, let us temperately pour in the pure stream from the springs, quenching the flaming heat of his nature with the counteracting power of water, and with that which is milder, tempering it with the reason that is in us; but for the one who is aging and withering, let us apply support from food and drink: not only prudently measuring the quantity of food everywhere against our strength, but also most wisely discerning its very quality. For we shall not only pay attention to the superficial appearance of these things, but we shall also most wisely observe the power that is in their depth; because there are not a few things, not only of seeds and legumes, but also of vegetables, which, when used for food, even if their outward appearance seems useful, are nevertheless not beneficial for the tranquil guidance of the ascetic, but by stinging the depth of the flesh and causing itchy titillations, no less than those which ought to be avoided outright, they secretly stain and disturb the bodies. ^D

9. Therefore we shall not use even salt simply and indiscriminately, as some who are intent on ascetic life do.

^A We have seen those who, on account of extreme abstinence, reject all relishes entirely, yet use only salt with bread as their sole condiment. Nor do these people grasp that salts, being by nature fertile and causing itchiness to the body, stir the body toward indulgence more than other things do. But if in taking these things the charioteer must act wisely according to the intended purpose, much more so is it fitting to discern in the fruits of trees the affinity of their qualities to those things which are admittedly harmful, so that in every case we may prudently apply only the food necessary for life, while we reject the exquisite savor of side-dishes as temptations to pleasure. For if bread sustains the heart of man, it is not right to apply a side-dish more copiously than necessary food. For we do not take as much salt, which is the condiment of bread, as we do bread. And if no one takes as much of a condiment as of the thing for which it is the condiment, how will he apply the use of side-dishes more copiously than the principal food? For these will no longer truly be condiments for the bread, but rather the bread will be the condiment for them. And the taste, having been deceived again by another method, will by the variety of dishes lure the charioteer toward pleasure, and then it will be found that he is again pursuing what he flees through ^B ascetic exercise. Therefore, to sum it up: just as there is good harmony in a tetrachord, so because our bodies are composed of four elements—earth and water, air and fire—it will always aid the deficient through foods, and by subtraction and the guidance of exercise, it will soften the tyranny of the excess; testing not only the quantities of heat and cold in us, but also the qualities of dry and moist. And by adding to the quantity of some, and subtracting from others, and by tightening some qualities while relaxing others according to the institution of life, and by changing some while preserving those that are according to nature, in this way, freed from all dissonance and aptly instructed, the tetrachord of our body will truthfully prepare itself for the melody of virtue for the soul. And let these things be said by us concerning the method of taste for the sake of those who are trained for the course of virginity, or rather for the sake of all virtue itself.

10. But they demonstrate how, just as the dominance of the body ^C over the soul is an impediment to the acquisition of virtue, so conversely, weakness—because the bodily instrument is unable to serve the desires of the soul—suppresses the course of virtue. For not even the burden of the flesh, which pulls the wings of the soul toward the depths ^D more than anything,

or the weakness of the body, which occupies and afflicts it, allows it to soar toward the heavenly realms as it desires. This does not merely deprive it of the presence of the acquisition of good things through inability, but also plunders the beauty of what has already been acquired, on account of the neglect arising from this weakness. ^A For just as a fat belly (not fat by constitution and nature, but one into which the fatness of food flows abundantly through gluttony, clouding the mind and making it sluggish) does not beget a subtle intellect; so the one that is excessively thin, rendering it lifeless through exhaustion, in the infirmity of the body extinguishes even that which was already finely begotten. And it is not that one ought simply to reject some foods and be sated by others without discernment, but that it is proper in these matters not only to measure the quantity with temperance—a quantity which, by its abundance, is capable of producing the same result as forbidden foods—but also to discern the quality, which often has the same force as food that is manifestly harmful. And, in short, those who worship the Word must follow reason as their guide in the ascetic life, and not an impulse alien to reason.

11. Now, because you love your neighbor as yourself, and because of this commandment we assist with diligence the One who said: "I was naked and you clothed me; I was hungry and you fed me; I was sick and you visited me" (Matth. xxv, 36). ^B He simulates the observance of the commandment who is eager to assist another, yet cruelly destroys his own self when it is infirm. For it is evident that he who does not know how to love himself loves his neighbor falsely, even while he is eager to provide for him. And how can one justly fulfill the commandment if he has not judged the case of the servant-body correctly, but, under the pretext of discipline, has promised to chasten it, while in reckless impulse he has wrongly wasted and destroyed it? For how will it still be a servant to its master ^C when it has taken the master himself into service for the violence it suffered from him? How will it serve the master in doing good to the brethren, having taken all those who are able to do good as servants for its own care? For it will no longer serve the master for the works of virtue; but, lying in infirmity, it will become an occasion for the benevolence of all others, having a master who is worthy of pity because of the wretched labor around it, and a servant who is equally miserable because of the incurable wounds received from the master. For neither can the master any longer perform his own duties, being occupied with that, nor can he find a plan to escape freely, being necessarily bound to it; nor can the servant, while it is still being kindly cared for, recover the service appropriate to the master. But since each is to the other a subject for incurable torment, they sustain the reproach of madness ^D, branded by the master of the contest—who bound both to this prison—and by the spectators, for the reason that they—

^A having enrolled themselves for a heavenly race, fell into folly; not only did they fail to exercise prudently anything pertaining to the stadium, but they also unjustly struck down the one who ought to have served them in the race, and foolishly brought themselves down along with it. Therefore, we necessarily cry out again to those who chastise the body for the sake of acquiring virtue: "Do not turn aside to the right hand or to the left" (Deut. v, 32). For just as it is dangerous to deflect toward gluttony, so it is truly most irrational to reduce the body through excessive fasting to uselessness due to weakness. For abstinence from the pleasures of the belly is not a good in itself, but because it contributes to the acquisition of virtue. But if we neglect the very thing for whose sake we choose abstinence from food by reason of an even more intense abstinence, the form of our practice will, through irrationality, turn against us; since, because of the wasting away and perversion of the instrument, we will no longer be able to converse with God through constant readings and prayers, nor be able to listen to what is good for the benefit of the brothers. Therefore, one must take care of the body, not for the sake of the body, but—I say—to have it as a minister ^B for philosophy. For it is impossible for those who do not possess a body that is ready and agile for service to philosophy to be equal either to the readings suitable for acquiring philosophy, or to bend the mind, which is languishing in the body, properly toward prayer, or even to perform at all any of those things that pertain to philosophy for their own benefit or for the benefit of those with whom they share a life. Therefore he says: "I chastise my body, and bring it into subjection" (I Cor. ix, 27). For wishing to rise up against its master on account of the vigor of the flesh, I bring it into subjection with the blows of abstinence, compelling it to acknowledge who is lord. For I do not strike it, he says, in such a way as to make it useless for service through immoderate blows, but the purpose for me in chastising it is that I may bring it into subjection to perform its ministry to the master. But he who beats his servant with such deprivations ^C that he not only becomes useless for the service of the master, but is also unable to help himself—what else has he done but made himself the servant of the servant? For it is necessary, when the body can no longer serve, but has been dissolved by weakness, for the master to serve it, being always forced to labor in showing concern for its infirmity, and no longer being permitted to keep in mind his own proper works, he consumes his whole ^D life in caring for it.

12. Therefore, he did not forbid caring for the flesh simply, but "to the lusts," he says. Thus, that which is lustful and pleasure-loving in the flesh, through...

^A the ascetic life must be cut away; but that which is useful, as it provides for the acquisition of virtue, must be preserved. "For food does not commend us to God." For the kingdom of God is not food and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. On this account, the abstinence from foods is also adopted with reason. For if you examine abstinence from foods by itself, it says: "Neither if we do not eat are we lacking, nor if we eat do we abound." For neither do those who do not eat have an advantage in virtue over those who eat, in respect only to the not eating; nor are those who eat inferior to those who do not eat, in respect only to the eating, if their inward virtue is equalized. Therefore, we must direct all that concerns the body toward the virtue within the soul. For things that are not good in themselves become good through the service they provide to what is good. Therefore, lest the service to what is good be hindered by the weakness of the body, "Use a little wine," he says, "for the sake of your stomach and your frequent infirmities." ^B For just as it is not fitting—as has already been said—to pour fire upon fire for a body that is boiling over through vigor and strength, so too, for one becoming cold through infirmity, it is not fitting to pour in that which is cold, which would be even more harmful. But just as in the former case we exhaust the naturally hot element by removing materials from outside, so we shall restore this [element] when it has been exhausted by labors and subsequently extinguished by age or disease, by providing aid through external fomentations. For we must also provide for peace in the body of the infirm, since the four parts ^C from which we are composed stand round everywhere, lest, should that which is hot or cold or any one of the four in general prevail in us, it fill the soul with war and discord and the goad arising from infirmity. And thus much may suffice concerning one of the senses, namely taste alone, regarding bodily virginity. Henceforth we must move on to the other senses, having set before ourselves the goal of seeing the true virgin.

13. One must know that those who guard a virgin through abstinence from foods and other austerity, that it is possible for one to have a virgin body who does not have a virgin soul. For even the appearance of looks can imprint the types of shameful things upon the soul, and ^D speech seasoned for pleasure, falling into the ears, can corrupt the mind toward licentiousness. The bridesman therefore is cautious, lest not only the body be corrupted, but the thoughts of those who are betrothed to Christ. Wherefore, it is necessary that the virgin, before the body, should especially guard the soul, not guarding it with one form of watchfulness while leaving it unguarded in another,

so that neither should a word flowing from her voice infect the hearer of the discourse with pleasure, nor, on the other hand, should a word falling from someone else from without, through the sense of hearing, agitate her heart toward desire. For so too is it fitting to act in regard to one’s gaze: neither looking softly, lest she send forth through this gaze the phantoms of pleasure to those who see her; nor allowing a gaze sent from without to affect her, lest, being struck in the heart by this as if by some fiery dart, she be inflamed and kindled toward the images of pleasure. For, he says, you shall be as one wounded in the liver by a dart (Prov. VII, 22). ^A But she must repel from her soul the external image that responds to her own gaze, while providing to those who see her a sign of her own modesty. For even a restless movement of the eyelids can stimulate and goad one toward pleasure, by which these things stir the soul. For when she has fixed her gaze keenly upon beauty seen by her eyes, she imprints the images of the seen form upon her soul, softened by pleasure as if in wax; the one who produced the images has indeed departed and is by himself, but the form of the one who was seen, being imprinted upon the mind, is ever urging her toward deeds convenient to it, and mocks the soul with phantoms. Therefore, the virgin must at the beginning most especially guard against fixing a keen gaze on anyone, or, if she has fixed it, she must by a contrary force repel the images that strive to be imprinted, so that no corporeal species is imprinted by the persistent goads of habit. But if it should ever happen that, unwittingly, she receives images of corporeal things, she ought to erase them from herself by continuous recollections of good things; ^B by the turning of the mind toward divine things, she should abolish the species imprinted from the corporeal form as if in wax, and should inscribe in their place the species of holy things by assiduous meditations. But if she allows the received species to remain entire in the mind, as if in a seal, it is necessary that, as the mind is occupied with the impressed form, the virgin should despise all other good things and, always being suspended toward the inherent species, be incited voluptuously to enjoy it. And it profits such a one nothing to keep the body incorrupt from thoughts, when the soul is always being corrupted by the pleasures of corporeal love introduced into it through the eyes. For, retaining by fear or by shame—and not without simulation—the preconception of the opinion of outward virginity regarding herself, and thinking it unbecoming to be stripped of that, she cultivates and preserves it; but with the incorporeal hands of thought ^C she is inseparably intertwined with the one whom she loves, having him imprinted and inscribed upon herself, and she carries him always with her; and the things which she fears to perform in the body, she turns over in her mind under the guise of an external modesty, judging it worthy of shame, and keeps this practiced; but in her heart she is corrupted by those things which she has let in through the external gaze of the corporeal love. For she is held by the fear or shame of the opinion of external virginity [which she has previously established], and [believes] that the unclothing [of this status] is improper, and thus she cultivates and preserves it; yet with the incorporeal hands of thought she is inseparably intertwined with the one whom she loves, having him imprinted and inscribed upon herself, and she bears him always with her; and the things which she fears to perform in the body ^D [she accomplishes in her thoughts].

^A One could no longer properly call such a person a virgin even in body. For it is necessary that, when he whom she loves is inseparably mingled with her in her mind, her body also should be fashioned to the passions of her soul, and, being in sympathy with the movements within her mind, should be corrupted along with its mistress who is corrupted, and both in waking states and during dreams, while she has erotic visions, it should share in those dreams as well. When the soul is held by such a passion, the abstinence from foods and the rest of the body’s austerity become superfluous; for it is not as if the horse were dragging the rider along by its own impetuosity, but the rider himself is goading the horse forward by the sting within him. For just as in some whose bodies are weakened by old age, the mind, ailing from some previous intemperance, exerts force upon the body beyond its strength toward the image of pleasure, so in those whose souls labor under the disease of love, the soul goads even a body weakened by the ascetic life toward its own desires; not by the malady passing from the vigor of the body into the soul, but by being perversely moved from the soul toward those things that are proper to the body. If, therefore, a glance is the spark of such a great fire, let us listen to the one who cries out: *Let your eyes look straight, and let your eyelids incline toward just things; and do not be snatched away by your eyelids, nor be caught by your eyes.*

14. For the look is a certain touch of the eyes cast upon bodies; and just as by staring too long at those who have eye diseases we become sharers in the malady, while by casting our eyes upon those who are naturally healthy we are secretly benefited; so also by casting our eyes upon the symbols of pleasure, the mind is filled with the disease of pleasure; and in the same way, by casting them upon those things which are truly good, we receive benefit into our soul through our eyes. If these things are so, besides the fact that a virgin contracts a disease through her eyes, it is absurd that she should indiscriminately touch with the touch of her eyes those things which she would never dare to touch with her hand. For that touch effected through the eyes is, so to speak, a procurer and a matchmaker for that which is accomplished through the hands, and it anticipates it from afar. And this very thing—I mean the touch through the hands—is a hotter servant than that through the "embrace"; and she who does not flee from the first touch of the eye would not, as far as it depends on her, flee from the touch of the hands either. Furthermore, she who has been lasciviously ensnared by such a touch would certainly not be found pure from defilements.

^A For just as when we touch fire, we receive the signs of fire through the burns that develop upon us, and it is impossible for the one who has touched fire with his hand to show that hand pure from its burning power—but rather, pustules suddenly rising up at the touch, and painful, seething, and throbbing, they threaten to break forth immediately into sores, or else the bitter sores are already seen imprinted upon the hand—so too is it impossible for the one who has touched the fire of lust to show his hand pure from the signs of it; but, in the same manner as the touch of the hand, pustules rising secretly in the heart, the dire perturbations of love, seethe and throb, and being agitated by uncontrollable impulses, they threaten to break forth immediately into the sores of sin, or else they show the whole heart already ulcerated within. For "the fire is kindled," it says, "in all the members"; and whatever it invades, it destroys root and branch. Therefore, since this fire is kindled in all the members ^B, those who wish to present a body pure from burnings must be wary of the touch of any member, lest they receive the power of the fire kindled in a member, through the touch, not only in the member they touched, but in the whole body and in the soul itself. For if someone merely touches the tail of a serpent, even if the head is positioned far away in the middle of the body, it immediately turns toward the touch made upon the tail; and if our toe strikes something, immediately the hair on our head stands on end. Certainly, a lascivious touch, even if it happens only on the hand, drags the body along from the head down to the tips of the nails toward the sensation of pleasure, according to the will of the one touching. And just as a stone cast into the water of a cistern ^C disturbs not only the adjacent part of the water where the stone fell, but, stirring up circle after circle, often agitates them even to the extremities: so a lascivious gaze, or a speech of pleasure softened by enticements, having fallen vehemently into the soul of the virgin as into pure water, raises up in the depths other amorous thoughts after one another, and shakes her whole soul, struck by the image of the one who cast the gaze.

15. Therefore, it is necessary for the virgin to repel as far as possible from her own senses both the gaze and the flatteries of the voice, which are poisonous philtres of corrupting pleasure; sealing her hearing within by chaste meditation, and knowing how to turn her eyes away by reason of the modesty of her sex. For if once they find an entrance into the soul through the eyes and ears, and ^D then take on the other kind of flattery, namely that of the hands, as their ally, they will surely accomplish their own purposes in the course of time. For just as a soldier arriving in a city with a military cohort seeks a house for himself to dwell in by going around in a circle, and either by force at the doors...

[...blocked] ^A or by some other art repelled by the master of the house, he turns elsewhere; or if, having managed to gain an easy first entry into the interior, he lays aside one of his military instruments—a lance, or a helmet, or a shield—even if he seems to be outside because of his companions, he is nonetheless powerful within through the instrument he deposited, making the house his own, as well as that of his companions, whom he is shortly to introduce with him. Just so, the base soldier of pleasure and sin, seeking a house for himself in the circuit, is either excluded from the first entrance and turns elsewhere; or, if he has managed to obtain an easy first entry into the interior through the senses, and deposits one of his weapons—I mean the lance of the gaze, which wounds from afar through the eyes, or the helmet of pleasure, which is the seductive word singing through the ears, or, as it were, a shield, the touch of the hands that stirs the whole body toward pleasure—in the soul, even if he ^B seems to be outside, not yet having corrupted the body through the perpetration of sin, he is nevertheless within in power; for through the arms deposited there he corrupts the mind and makes the soul, which has received any of these things, a house set apart for his pleasure and for the companion perturbations of the soul. The first entrance through the senses must therefore be closed to the soldier of the flesh, so that the virgin may secure the senses on every side, as doors or windows, with the bars of constancy, lest he ascend craftily through one of these and introduce with him death, his companion. For death, it says, has climbed up through your windows 68. For the senses are truly the windows of the soul, through which the soul, like a certain chaste woman, ^C is enlightened by the light of exterior sensible things for the attentive consideration of the work appropriate to it, opening them moderately; or, behaving shamelessly with curious consideration of exterior things, like a certain immodest harlot, she looks out at the pleasures, twisting her neck perversely, and slips into pleasures through these windows. For looking out from the windows of her house 69, whoever of the foolish youths lacking in mind she sees passing by, she says those things for which she has already prepared herself entirely for intemperance, on account of the restless and wandering senses. But she who is chaste within, I say, as if on the hearth in the midst of the heart, establishing the throne of thoughts and senses, if anything useful for virtue flows in, pure from every passion, she receives it; but if anything is useless and alien to virtue, she wisely excludes it, fastening them from outside the windows with the hands of prudence. Therefore, those who flee the sin of carnal union ought not to be entangled, through dangerous things and in the matters we have mentioned, in falls

^A For the touch that comes through the voice and the eyes moves secretly toward the touch of the hands. ^B All these forms of touch, linked together as if in a chain, become the ushers of that touch which is in carnal union. Therefore, not only that touch which relates to carnal union, but every kind of multiform touch—from which every species [of pleasure] is born through the senses—must be diligently kept uncorrupted by the virgin. ^C Thus, by the opposing breezes of modesty, she may extinguish from afar the sparks sent by the eyes, the voice, and the rest of the movements of pleasure, and may also wisely extinguish the flame kindled by them; or rather, that she may not even receive the first sparks of pleasure, and never have any fire of pleasure ignited in her flesh at all. Therefore, let the virgin’s hearing, her sight, her touch, and her every movement be that of a virgin.

16. To adorn the true virgin

goods, should have already become equal to the other, while there is nothing in it that would distinguish it from the former as time progresses by way of the body. ^A

17. For it is not difficult to discern quickly what the purpose is for which they deck themselves out. For if it is to aid in the purpose of virginity, they certainly do the opposite of what they profess, as they absurdly incite more tempters against themselves through their ornamentation. But if it is so that they might appear beautiful, it seems unreasonable, unless they intend, from those from whom they are eager to carry off praise, to become sated with the beauty they suppose themselves to possess, by taking thought for this. But if it is so that they might get those whom they are eager to please, they will clearly show that they have fallen in the opposite direction, having stood forth as harlots instead of virgins—unless, caught in the middle by the desire for both, they are torn asunder, wishing to enjoy their exterior lovers and therefore taking pains to make their appearance a seasoning for common desire, while holding fast to their interior lover out of shame or fear. ^B For it is not possible for the mind of such a person to be guileless, while it is inciting those outside toward her body through some artifice, and wishing to please the one within only by half. And no longer will her intent be smoothly in agreement with itself; but just as if in a no-man’s-land, it will be wrongly torn between the interior lover and the one without. For no one can serve two masters. For he will either hate the one, and love the other; or he will hold to the one—that is, the outside one, by decking herself out for him—and will despise the one within. But the unmarried woman is anxious about the things of the Lord, how she may please the Lord; just as the married woman is anxious about the things of the world, how she may please her husband, and both the wife and the virgin are divided. ^C Since it is impossible at once to be anxious about how to please the One within, and to deck herself out for those outside, as if on a stage. But just as one who is speaking to a teacher under the sun, cares nothing for the shadow that follows him—which imitates and expresses the movements of his hands and the image of his whole form—but is intent upon the teacher’s discourse; so also the virgin, caring nothing for those idols of the body, whether they appear beautiful or misshapen, and nothing for the mockeries about them, is turned entirely toward her teacher and bridegroom, ^D speaking intently with him throughout her life in the purest light. For she is anxious about how she may please the Lord.

^A And she pleases him such as he himself willed to fashion her.

18. Not only, therefore, must the virgin not adorn herself, nor craft an exquisite form as a condiment of pleasure for an impudent eye, but she must also, as much as possible, deliberately obscure the natural beauty of her body. For since, according to the previous discourse, woman is a fomentation of pleasure to the male, and fashioned with an eye softer than that of the male for the allurement of sight, and instructed with a sonorous voice for the seduction of the ears, and by the apparent softness of her members—in a word, by her whole bodily appearance and movement—formed for the trap of pleasure; and since a woman not only by speaking and looking, but also by sitting and walking, through the natural power innate in her over the male, draws him to herself as a magnet pulls iron from afar; for this reason, the virgin must provide and take care that she be not in any way enmeshed in the nets of pleasure. She must make her gaze firm and her voice steady, and by her gait and every movement of her body, she must restrain the lures of pleasure; so that she may not herself be ensnared by arts devised for pleasure, nor make her own body a trap for others and for her own soul, but rather, she must bravely raise herself up with temperate movements towards the disciplined form of virtue.

19. Destroying, therefore, the feminine pleasure in herself ^B and cutting off the inclination of the male toward the female, she will also order her own goings-out as a virgin, not behaving wantonly with continuous outings, nor intruding herself into houses beyond the necessity befitting a virgin. But every going-out shall be measured by the time prescribed by the duty of virtue: the commandment of the Lord will be the guide of her going-out, and the appropriate time of day will determine the occasions for these. For she shall not simply make the commandment of the Lord a subject of dissipation and reproach ^C because of Him who said, "I was sick, and you did not visit me," and the rest. ^D Daring to go out at any hour and beyond what is proper, and showing herself unseasonably in every lane to many, she will not perversely turn the noble commandment of God, by not using it opportunely, into her own reproach, nor will she go out licentiously, taking no account of her age, but, while still in her youth, she shall go out simply only to the house of God, and not alone. Moreover, when the commandment of the Lord calls her for necessary reasons to go elsewhere, she shall win approval for her going-out by the company of those with whom she is seen walking. For it is not fitting for a virgin to be gregarious, she who...

has cast off the bonds of marriage, ^A to go strutting about everywhere with authority, as if she fled marriage for this reason—not that she might always sit in the presence of the better Bridegroom, but that she might have the license to go wherever she wishes. For she did not avoid the union with a man so as not to have a witness or a judge of her life, nor that she might wallow in whatever she pleases, free from jealousy, having no one to examine her movements; but rather that, having fled the pleasures of the flesh and the pains of child-birth and the painful, laborious anxiety of earthly cares, she might direct her own life toward immortality under the gaze of God, who is a witness and a jealous guardian of virtue. For "I am," He says, "a jealous God," ^B jealous of the one who by adultery corrupts my beauty in you. For if, having cast off the yoke of a husband, she were to be useless to life—for which she was created, for the keeping of the house and the generation of children—and were to bring disgrace upon the virginity she professes, she suffers loss on every side. And if she defiles her soul with dissolute thoughts and her body with lascivious movements, it would be much more preferable that she were joined to a man, having him as a governor of her life, paying back to him useful labor for the sake of helping with domestic affairs as if it were a wage for his governance, and showing forth good children as a comfort for old age for the succession of the lineage; and so, at least in one part, on account of the husband's jealousy, preserving herself as a virgin for God as much as possible; just as the word of truth does not even recognize as virgins those who flutter about dissolutely through the streets and houses. For, being idle, they learn to go around the houses: and not only are they idle, but also talkative and curious, speaking things that are not fitting.

20. ^C But if a widow, who has already had experience of a man and is accustomed to be in the eyes of men, ought not to move her tongue and feet toward just anyone without modesty, lest she fall into the aforementioned accusations; how much more does it behoove a virgin, who has never taken off the garment of modesty toward men, to keep her tongue chaste and virginal, and to advance her step toward necessary business with caution? For only those things are to be said by a virgin which, when heard, will benefit the mind of those hearing, and through an apt answer to them, will adorn her own soul even more for the understanding of divine things. For the stream of speech that is carried forth through the tongue becomes a *witness* ^D of the fountain from which it flows. "For out of the heart come forth evil thoughts, murders, adulteries," and the rest: "by these fruits the tree is known." And she who is truly a virgin ought, as if from a pure fountain of integrity of morals, to pour forth her speech gently, pure from all defilement, which not only neither thought nor

^A to be carried away to deceitful pleasure, nor pushed toward any ruinous thing, but that she also never manifests it void or idle to the scrutiny of the rational mind. For whoever draws incorrupt speech from the fountain of a virgin, ought, as if with a cup of integrity, to satisfy the mind, modestly offering in return similar things to her from whom she received the benefit. Such will the virgin be when she speaks, if even it should be necessary to speak at all. For it must be accurately considered to whom, and how, and when it seems proper for her to speak. For a virgin’s speech ought not to be wasted indiscriminately before any chance persons, nor, on the other hand, boldly laid bare before those who are worthy of veneration; nor, if it lacks utility, should it be poured forth indecorously for the person of a virgin; nor even if utility necessarily draws it from the virgin mouth, should it flow forth beyond measure for the sake of ostentation. But everywhere, regard must be had for the person, and the utility, and the time, so that when necessity compels her to speak, she says much fewer things than she hears. For nature, too, measuring the utility of speech with hearing in equal proportion, fashioned for us two ears but one tongue; because it is fitting to listen twice as much for the sake of instruction, but to bring forth a shorter speech in response to inquiries. And so, even by the ordinance of nature, with whomsoever the virgin speaks at the proper time, she will hear much more than she will speak: and all her speech, bringing nothing but what is useful to the hearers, will proceed from her lips, or, procuring instruction for the mind through interrogation, will modestly come forth from her mouth. But at other times she will be silent in the secret place, praying far more than all others at every time: *Set, O Lord, a watch to my mouth, and a door of restraint around my lips.* ^B And thus she will fortify her mouth with prayers. Not less will she guard her hearing with sentinels, so that nothing evil may flow into it from without. She will also obstruct her mind with a door, when both hearing and tongue are at rest, always beseeching the Lord: *Do not turn away my heart into words of malice, to make excuses for excuses in sins.*

21. But this is far more blameworthy than those things which we have said, and alien to the virginal manner, that a virgin should not only flutter about through houses, but also become a bridesmaid for nuptials. *Marriage is indeed honorable in all* ^C, but it is suitable for others, not for a virgin. Nor is it fitting that she, departing from her own path, should be found mixed with the rest of the crowd in the crossroads of the world. For there is one way, I say, for those who seek marriage, and another path for those who honor virginity.

The virgin is divided from the one who has married. Therefore, the virgin must withdraw from topics concerning marriage; or rather, she should not even touch upon them from the beginning. ^A But let others—those who have chosen to tend to their carnal spouses—be, if they wish, the matchmakers for such marriages and display their concern for them, if that is their inclination. But let the virgin, who always attends to her own Spouse (if it is pleasing to her to serve the office of matchmaker at all), rather join the undefiled bride to Him for immortality. Let those others labor over a mortal marriage chamber; but let her, holding a burning lamp with the wise, dance around the Lord, following the Spouse with the light of her own virginity, and joining others to Him by the virginal covenant. For it is truly a shameful and utterly disgraceful thing for a virgin if, when those who have been pre-occupied by marriages—as if having become involved, through inexperience, in the pains of those marriages that are yet to come—earnestly urge the unmarried to avoid similar troubles, and greatly praise and bless the undefiled honor of the Spouse and of those united to Him, both in this present life and in the life to come, and call them to virginity, the virgin should hasten to be a matchmaker for marriages, ^B thereby showing, I think, through her actions, what she feels contrary to what she professes. For, having been preoccupied by the promise of virginity, she is forced by shame to feign the appearance of it. But, by choosing marriage in her soul, and perhaps thinking with regret of the pleasures of which she is deprived, she does not obscurely reveal what she feels about marriage in her soul, wishing openly and clearly to show the brides that she congratulates them on being about to receive such pleasure. Therefore, the virgin, being divided in her life and her whole conduct from the woman who is married, will always recognize the works that are appropriate for a virgin, preserving the beauty of virginity uncorrupted in every work, lest, by being carelessly poured out toward things that are not fitting, she should overturn by her actions that which she intends to pursue.

22. And so in speaking and in being silent, and in moving about, the true virgin shall be cautious. She must, as I have said, not act carelessly or casually, nor alone, but—in accordance with the aforementioned purpose—move about with women of decorous life and age, never being seen in inappropriate narrow lanes or in marketplaces where it happens that the gatherings of idle men are assembled. ^C But she should be seen in public only at the appropriate time for going out, and in such a way—in her attire, her gait, and in her every movement—before those who happen upon her, that all who encounter her, as if looking upon a statue of God, might be struck with reverence for her countenance, have their minds moderated by the reminder of the good, and venerate the sight; and as

^A images of satyrs, when seen, cause laughter in those who view them, and are full of mockery, and other images hold the minds and gazes of those who see them to an impression of grimness, and, although none of these things moves, they dispose the gaze of the viewers toward themselves, and in their unmoving form still move the dispositions of the living and reshape them toward their own manifestations, so too the virgin, as an image of temperance, or rather as a statue of virtue itself, by the mere sight of her ought to turn the gaze of those who see her toward the thought of the divine. Let, then, one who is licentious be struck in his soul, having been reminded of the beauty of temperance by the sight of the virgin. And let one be reminded of God by seeing the image practicing zeal for His commandments. And in sum, let the gaze and movement of all who encounter ^B the virgin be reshaped toward the apprehension of the good; and let all who meet her have their minds sobered. Let no one, seeing her appearance as that of a satyr or of pleasure, be dissolved toward sin, carrying away as a provision of blame the sight of the virgin—which is subtle—nor carry away the meeting with the virgin as a stimulus for a greater sin. Therefore, the virgin, having configured herself in all things as an image of God, and, as one might say, as a carving, will place herself entirely outside the cares of the world; she will divert her soul from the pleasures of the body, and having stretched all of her mind toward the love of the heavenly, she will trample upon all the delights here on earth; not choosing to revel in those things deemed brilliant, but rather ^C reasonably pitying the misery which they endure in this life.

23. For comparing the manifold deaths, so to speak, which the married woman already suffers here, she will consider her own purpose to be truly noble. For she who is yoked to a mortal marriage, adding to her own care another care for her husband, sustains a double anxiety for the one soul from the conjoined body: she is no longer laboring with her body, but is always torn in one soul, both for herself and for her husband. Furthermore, by the offspring born from this, she is rent by the soul for each one who is born and joins the existing host of hardships. And even though she has a husband, she continually sustains hardships for fear of his death; and if he is present, she suffers grief of soul, and if he is absent, because of unexpected occurrences. On the other hand, if she be yoked to a harsh man, she suffers her whole life as a punishment; and if she is not joined to a man, she does not have the inconveniences ^D of the law of chastity, nor does she suffer the death of a husband.

^A And there is another path, I say, for those who cherish virginity. And the virgin and the married woman are divided. Therefore, the virgin must depart from nuptial considerations; or rather, she should not even be compared with them at the start. But the others, to whom it has pleased to cherish husbands of the flesh, let them be matchmakers, if they so desire, of such marriages, and if it pleases them, let them display their zeal concerning them. ^B But the virgin, who always cherishes her own bridegroom (if it pleases her to act as a matchmaker at all), let her rather betroth unstained brides to him for the sake of incorruption. And let those others labor around a mortal bridal chamber; let her, with the prudent, having lit her lamp, dance around the Lord, following the bridegroom or betrothing others to virginity with the light proper to her own virginity. For it is truly a thing full of shame and reproach for a virgin, when those who have been forestalled by marriages—who, as if through inexperience of the sorrows of marriage in which they were about to be entangled, and having tasted them, ^C strive to keep the unmarried from experiencing similar painful things, and who truly pronounce blessed, both in this present life and the life to come, the purity of the bridegroom and of those betrothed to him, and exhort them to virginity—are countered by a virgin who hastens, I say, to be a matchmaker for marriages, showing by what she does, I think, the opposite. For, being already forestalled by the promise of virginity, she is compelled by shame to henceforth fashion herself accordingly. But choosing marriage in her disposition, and perhaps repenting of what pleasure she has been deprived of, she shows not without moderation in her actions what disposition she holds in her soul ^D regarding it. It is as if she openly wished to show those being married that she rejoices with them, seeing what kind of pleasure they are about to enjoy. The virgin, therefore, being divided from the married woman, will acknowledge in her life and her whole manner of being the works befitting a virgin, preserving the beauty of her virginity incorrupt in every deed, lest, being indifferent and poured out toward things that are not fitting, she might spoil by her actions that which she strives to pursue. And so it is, whether in speaking or in remaining silent, and in walking, with her who is truly a virgin. It is necessary, moreover, as I have said, not to go out indiscriminately or as it happens, nor alone, but in accordance with the aforementioned purpose, moving forward with women who are respectable in both life and age, never being seen in unsightly alleys or markets, where it happens that the gatherings of immodest people are brought together; but, hitting upon the right time for going abroad, she should be seen by those meeting her in such a way—in her dress, her gait, and her every movement—that all who encounter her, looking upon her as if she were a statue of God, are entirely struck in their eyes toward modesty, their minds are brought to order by the reminder of what is good, and they revere the sight, and as they [revere] the zeal surrounding them.

These two are divided: the woman and the virgin. The unmarried woman cares for the things that are of the Lord, that she may be holy in body and spirit. ^B 24. Therefore, she who is solicitous for the things of the world behaves differently; she who is joined to a mortal husband has cast off the worries of the world for the sake of corruptible things, whereas she [the virgin] has laid upon herself cares regarding incorruptible things that are kindred to her own bridegroom. Wherefore she is found to be concerned about nothing of the world, lest she seem to share the same worry as the other; but being purely purified from all secular cares, she is turned toward the bridegroom with a pure and untroubled mind. For she does not, as the other woman, grow disturbed about necessary things, distrusting the productive power of her own husband; but relying on his love for her and on his power, which is sufficient for all things, she is concerned with nothing other than how she might please him, and through this very concern as to how she might please him, she increases his benevolence toward herself.

And what is it for a virgin to please God, if not to show her natural beauty, ever-shining through the cultivation of virtues, and to keep it incorrupt forever? So that to will to please God is nothing other than to make oneself praiseworthy and blessed and similar to Him. And she who is careful as to how she may please the Lord is found, not to be bringing profit to Him through this concern—to Whom she is concerned with pleasing—but to herself, as she gathers beauty and incorruption through her concern for Him. If, then, the profit of the virgin is so great, and through those things for which she is concerned as to how to please the Lord she turns the whole benefit upon herself and makes herself blessed, then she ought never to be found solicitous about the things of the world. ^C For it is necessary that while she is solicitous for the things of the world, she neglects the care that is owed to the Lord, and proves herself untrusting towards her guardian. For it is not possible to believe in Him as one capable of providing for all things, and at the same time be terrified by the worry of secular matters.

But if she is concerned about how she may please the Lord, she must by all means know that He Himself is also concerned about how He may please her, remaining in no respect a debtor. For if a woman—who has instituted a mortal man as the director of her life—receives from him this return for her concern for him, namely, that he takes upon himself the care of all things, how much more does she—who has committed herself to be governed by God and has chosen to live with Him—receive a more abundant reward for her concern for Him from Him who provides for all things? You have also the pledge of faith from the preceding providence; for if He took thought for her even when she was not yet concerned with pleasing Him, and willingly handed Himself over for her sake, that He might sanctify her with His own blood, how much more will He take thought for her when she desires to please Him, and along with other things that contribute to the true life for her, He will also take upon Himself her external needs.

^A For it is not fitting to give to Him things that interrupt her own pleasing of Him as she turns toward the pleasures of the body; nor is it beneficial for her to receive things which, distracting the mind from the care ^B of pleasing Him, prevent it from attending to the Lord. Rather, having prudently set the necessity of the life in the body as the limit of her needs, she will ask for nothing in excess of these. Nor, when oppressed by the lack of necessities, will she be grieved with a small-minded spirit; but, bearing all things, hoping all things, enduring all things, and being fixed upon Him with unfeigned affection, having her soul—as one might say—undistracted by the outer body, which is as if dead and void of sensation, she will be satisfied with His beauty.

For just as a lover of temporal beauty not only squanders his money and all his wealth without sparing for the sake of his love, but also disdains food and sleep and clothing and apparel and every reputation, and furthermore his very body and the life within it, that he may become master of his love alone, and boldly leaps over walls and houses and everything in between, charging wildly against swords—and if he should be likely to fail, he is no more concerned about this while walking upon his accustomed path toward his love, than he is if it were necessary to endure with pleasure a transformation into an unbecoming guise in order to attain it—so, he who truly loves God, and is anxious about how he may please Him whom he loves, must despise not only money and wealth, for the sake of satisfying the Beloved by obeying the commandments, but must also neglect necessary food and sleep and external appearance, and the truly corrupt reputation of this world, and even his own body and the life in it, for the sake of attaining the heavenly love, and leap over the walls of kinship and the houses of parents and the world in between, and, should the occasion arise, rush upon the swords of martyrdom; ^C and if he should not be likely to attain his love while living in his accustomed manner, he should gladly endure a life that is poor and disgraceful to many, so that, rightly seized by a divine mania—if one might call it that—for the enjoyment of the Good, he may enjoy Him who is truly lovable as much as he desires. The Beloved, calling this lover back to Himself from the passions of the earth, said: "Go forth from thy land, and from thy kindred, and from the house of thy father, and come into the land which I shall show thee." ^D And he, as though seeing what he desired, followed with a ready and willing spirit, and gladly endured wanderings and exile for the sake of love, saying: "Who shall separate us from the love of God? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nu-

- ^A gedness, or peril, or sword?" For he knew that he who loves father or mother more than the truly good is not worthy to enjoy Him; and that he who does not renounce all that he possesses, and furthermore even his own soul, is not worthy to be called a friend and lover of the Lord. Wherefore, those who care only for what pertains to Him, wishing to demonstrate their sincere love for Him, say: "Behold, we have left all, and followed Thee; what shall we have?" But He, proclaiming to them even then the worthy reward of their love for Him, says: "Amen, amen, I say to you, that you who have followed Me, in the regeneration, when the Son of man shall sit on the throne of His glory, you also shall sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone who has left houses, or fields, or brothers, or sisters, or wife, or children, for the sake of My name, shall receive a hundredfold, and shall inherit eternal life." For it was ^B fitting that those who have shown their love for Him pure in very deed throughout their whole life should receive rewards worthy of the labors endured for Him.

26. The virgin must be such a lover, despising pleasures and wealth and the delights considered desirable in the world; trampling underfoot short-lived glory, pride, beauty of body, and sinful flatteries, and following the Lord with an unwavering eye, saying: "But for me it is good to cling to God, to place my hope in the Lord"; showing all things that seem good to those who are excited about this life, by whatever name anyone might wish to call them, to be ridiculous shames; and looking only to the one true Good, following it with an intent eye. For the Bridegroom, rewarding the love she has for Him, even if she be a handmaid and ignoble, and even if she be poor and obscure, and even if she be despised and forsaken in this life on earth, by reason of her communion with Him makes her a queen of heaven, honoring not only her nature with the nobility of immortality, but also adorning her as His own bride with a varied, ^C refined, and external vesture. The Psalmist, admiring her glory, says to the Bridegroom: "The queen stood at Thy right hand in gilded clothing, surrounded with variety"; so that she who is now deemed vile in tattered garment and servile habit, may be found in the kingdom of heaven as queen and noble, adorned and standing by the King. And truly it is absurd that, while the Bridegroom, because of His love for her, despised nobility and riches and shame, and endured the extreme poverty of Adam, that we might be enriched by His poverty, the bride should not pay back even equal things for her own immortality to Him who died for her sake, but should flow with softness and luxury, and accommodate herself to the world. ^D

Neither should she fail, together with Him who became poor for her sake, to be poor in this life and at the same time to be humbled, so that when He returns to the wealth proper to His divinity, she who has become poor for His sake may also be found ^A a partaker of His riches and of His kingdom in the heavens. Let her therefore disregard everything that is seen by the eyes, even if it seems to some to have the appearance of virtue; or rather, let her not even deem it worthy of being looked at at all. But let her, having departed from the senses and from fellow servants, through such a divine ecstasy as he experienced who said in his ecstasy, "All men are liars" (Ps. CXV, 11), be filled—I mean, with a naked mind—with love for her own Spouse; by no means carrying her glance, nor her movement, nor her word impassionedly towards anyone, but making all her own powers handmaidens of her own Spouse. For since He sees everywhere, He observes more accurately the inner disposition of her soul ^B through all things.

27. For in no part should the virgin be an adulteress, neither by tongue, nor by hearing, nor by eye, nor by touch, nor by any other sense at all, and even more so not in mind; but she should have her body, like some temple or bridal chamber of the Spouse, well-prepared, and in it she should harbor her soul as a pure bride together with the Spouse. For He accurately explores not the things seen by the eyes of men, but the things that lie hidden in the mind, and no adulteress could escape His eye. For those who live with mortal men, whenever they are inclined toward evil, ^C busy themselves with the works of adultery, watching the comings and goings of men, guarding their own eyes and ears as cunningly as possible, stealing away the hidden word and the adulterous look, and filling their hearing and sight with licentious pleasure. But she who is wedded to the Lord, being unable to flee from either His sight or His hearing or His presence, does everything in His view. Therefore, the virgin must know, even if she speaks something when alone, that she speaks in the ears of the Spouse; and even if she does something when alone, she must not be ignorant that He perceives it accurately; and even if she thinks something, she must be persuaded that He knows it as soon as it is stirred in her heart. For will anyone, He says, do things in secret, and I shall not know? And how will "He who planted the ear not hear? Or He who formed the eye, not perceive? Or He who corrects the nations, not reprove? He who teaches man knowledge, how shall He not know all things, or how shall [all things not be] naked and laid open to His eyes?" (Ps. XCIII, 9-10; Heb. IV, 13). Therefore, the man of sin, blinded in mind by his own wickedness, and deceiving himself, says as he pleases: "Darkness has covered me, and walls are all around me, who sees me?" (Eccli. XXIII, 26). But ^D the one who is pure...

always receives the light of the Bridegroom into her own mind, and let her utter, according to each moment, things worthy of the wisdom that ought to be in her: "For darkness shall not be obscured by thee: and night shall be as day lightened: as the darkness thereof, so also the light thereof" (Ps. CXXXVIII, 12). Let the bride, then, examine her own vision of the Lord; and if, in seeing, she finds favor, then indeed let her move forward confidently. ^B But if she does not please Him, let her not deceive herself, because no man sees her, into thinking that she also remains hidden from Him. Thus, let her examine her speech, her thoughts, and every movement of her limbs and fingers. And if she is pleasing in these things, let her move forward in each of them; if not, let her stand in awe of His gaze, for He truly sees. For if she is anxious about how she might please the Lord, she ought not to do anything that is displeasing to Him. 28. But if anyone fears neither to do nor to speak [a wrong thing], she is, first of all, as is self-evident, her own accuser, having within her the very intent to remain hidden—an accuser of a wicked conscience. ^C Furthermore, she is clearly caught being blind to the dignity of the Bridegroom. For since He is incorporeal, He stands in the midst of whispers, glances, and thoughts; He turns away from the deceitful mind of such a virgin and demonstrates that He hates the outward appearance of virginity. Because, while she persuades the deceived eyes of men that she is wedded to Him for her whole life, she is neither His bride nor is she openly a woman to a man, but she steals the praise of virginity among men through the appearance of virginity, while in the eyes of the Bridegroom, by parading her virginity before men, she is an adulteress. ^D And in addition to the sin of adultery, which she commits against her own Bridegroom, she is also impiously insulting toward Him, in that she judges the sight of men more worthy of reverence than His sight, not daring to do unbecoming things before them for the sake of reputation, but doing everything impudently before Him who is always present. Therefore, the virgin will do all things as if the Bridegroom were seeing and hearing everything. 29. And let her not only take care, in case anyone should be seen or heard, or should be thought to be a future concealer or helper, that she does not commit anything that displeases the Lord: not only if an man be present, but even if a woman—and that girl one of her maids—she will dare nothing for adornment or for human affection that is displeasing to the Lord; but even if she herself is alone, with no human being present at all, she will do absolutely nothing that is unworthy of the Bridegroom.

^A For although no other person may be present, the virgin is nevertheless present to herself, and she ought to revere herself more than all others. For surely she will not guard herself against others as being worthy of reverence, while dishonoring herself as unworthy of it. But, as I said, she will first revere herself and her own conscience, even if she is completely alone, and then the guardian angel who stands by her. For "their angels," he says, "always behold the face of My Father who is in heaven" (Matt. XVIII, 10). And it is not fitting that, while escaping the view of men, she should despise the angel who has been entrusted with the care of her salvation; and this is especially true of a virgin, who has that very angel as the escort and guardian of her virginity. But before the angels, let her revere the Bridegroom Himself, who is present everywhere, and His Father, and the Holy Spirit. And why should I speak of each one? There are the numberless hosts of angels, and with them, the holy spirits of the fathers. For there is none of these who does not behold everything everywhere, not being seen himself by the eyes of the body, but surveying all things into knowledge with an incorporeal gaze. Thus, for this reason as well, if the virgin wishes to remain hidden from many, she will, as is likely, revere these—who are so many and so great—much more than men. And since she chose to keep her sinfulness hidden from the multitude, and since it is impossible to hide from these, who are a multitude, she will never do anything that is inappropriate. By thinking on such things in the present life regarding herself, I believe she will secure herself on every side.

30. But if she remembers that we must appear ^C before the judgment seat of Christ, she will fear not only to do anything shameful, but even to think it. For our mind is like a painter; in the soul, as if on a tablet, it fashions thoughts as it wills; and being free and unrestrained because of the power of choice—and nowhere, because of its incorporeal nature, suffering any narrowness of space for the magnificence of its painting, but finding as much breadth of place as it desires—it inscribes, I say, whatever it wishes in its thoughts. Then, just as a painter, having filled his tablet with a varied history in some hidden, secluded place, suddenly brings it into the middle, and having removed the outer coverings, displays it to the view of the many—no longer becoming the interpreter of what was painted, but leaving to all the spectators, and even to those in the future, the power to judge what the painting is like—so too the mind, after the departure from life, ^D as if it were a covering of the tablet which cloaks the soul, and which throughout the whole life it painted with its thoughts, once the body has been removed, makes manifest what was painted in secret.

^A And it is possible to see the tablet of the soul filled with a varied history, and laid out for all to behold. If, therefore, certain divine histories, drawn from holy readings and virtuous thoughts, are seen to be depicted, the mind that painted them and the tablet of the soul that received this painting are judged worthy of every praise; and those who see the painting have no desire to turn away from this spectacle because it is worthy of being seen; and all admire the beauty and the figures of each of the things depicted, and also the divine form of the things inscribed, and they call blessed that divine painter, because he used his life in the flesh well, having engraved upon the tablet of the soul with a beauty-loving hand, under this cloak of the body by night and by day, such paintings, beyond all the expectation of the spectators. But if the paintings appear shameful and indecorous, the painter will appear to all to be worthy of shame and laughter; for, perhaps he had shown other hopes before the tablet of his soul was stripped bare, but after the covering of the body is removed, he shows to the spectators all things that are contrary to what was expected. Where, then, shall this man hide, who is to be judged by all in comparison with another? ^B With their thoughts accusing or even defending one another. But where, then, will that tablet of the soul be deposited, which has filled the eyes of the spectators with shameful histories and every absurd image? For just as those who have birthmarks on their body, before they are stripped naked, hide them with their clothing and keep them withdrawn from the eyes of many, and often, being adorned with a most splendid garment, are even thought to be beautiful within because of their outer adornment; but if they take off their clothing and appear naked in a bath, they seem ridiculous, while they show the body that is deformed by countless birthmarks despite that great external beauty: and after the naked body has appeared to all, there is no need of an interpretation as to where and what kind of birthmark one has; but as soon as it is ^C stripped, the birthmark of each member openly reveals itself to the eyes: so also, after we have stripped off the covering of the flesh, we will be able neither to clothe the blemishes of the soul that are not to be allowed, nor to hide them in any way; but being conspicuous to all eyes, we shall display naked to all eyes those things which, while hiding them with the body as with a garment, we remained unobserved as having, and there will no longer be any room for denial or reasoning, when the works themselves are discerned and are recognized in their author by the very sight of them.

31. For the things are not seen in a confused and summary manner, but as they are depicted they are known one by one; how, for example, he arose from the bed, hastening to adultery, with what steps he walked, ^D of what sort was the body composed, and with what sort of form he proceeded, and from where he crept up to touch another person.

^A For just as on a tablet, I say, everything will be seen accurately inscribed in detail, and not only the deeds that have already been brought to pass, but even the thoughts that have been formed in the tablet of the soul [note: (33)], even though the deeds did not advance to fulfillment. For there is no writing in the soul, nor any thought about anything formed within it; and there is no imaginary and discursive thought in the soul, which is not inscribed with the colors, magnitudes, and furthermore the shapes of the imagination, which the mind has depicted within it. And just as one who has learned the art of shorthand has in his soul the shapes and names of all the signs, and even the forms of the octads and tetrads, and for the use of what is dictated he shows on the tablet by his hand what is inscribed in the memories of the soul; and some signs he has shown, having engraved them with the stylus, while others, not yet shown by the hand, nevertheless lie stored away as they were inscribed in the soul; so too the soul, while it brings to act the thoughts it carries out through the body, preserves in itself those that it has not yet ^B brought to completion for us through the body, formed within itself, even if not corporally, yet by its own proper work, bringing them to fulfillment incorporeally by itself. For as it is the work of the body to perform something corporally, so it is the work of the soul to bring to fulfillment, as it wills, the imaginations that please it through thought. Hence, even the sins that are situated in thought must be judged rightly as works performed in the soul, not simply as thoughts. Just as, therefore, even if the hand does not write the signs, the whole soul is nevertheless inscribed everywhere with the shapes of the signs, and if one were to remove the body, he would see the whole soul entirely inscribed, as it is said, with the commentary; so after we have stripped off the body, every thought will be seen inscribed upon the soul as in a painting. And just as he who has not learned the signs does not have their forms inscribed in his soul, ^C whereas he who has learned them, even if his hand does not write, has inscribed their forms in his soul by learning; so also he who has not thought of any sin does not have its image inscribed in his soul, but he who has thought of it, even if the deed does not proceed to action, nevertheless has in his soul the images of the things he has thought of, clearly inscribed as if on some tablet. But just as there, he who has learned the signs, if he neglects to write them, would cast them out of his memory by forgetfulness, so that in the progress of time he no longer retains the shape, or form, or name of any octad; so also he who has thought of absurd things, if he neglects these thoughts and occupies his mind with better ones, ^D casting them out from his memory at some time as time progresses, he will erase them by forgetfulness from the tablet of the soul. For there is nothing else that is memory, but the impression of thoughts, as it were a painting in the soul. And how shall one be able to escape the penalties of such thoughts—

^A how can it flee the scrutiny of those thoughts, whose memory, still being stirred within the soul, displays the images vivid upon the tablet to those who see? Since, therefore, that the tablet of our soul may not appear full of shameful things, let us wipe away with forgetfulness the memories of evil thoughts, and in their place impress the memories of good ones, so that, while we are now covered with the cloak of the body, we may not, after putting it off, be seen by all to be shameful in our defects and disgraceful in our depictions, contrary to the reputation we hold in the present life.

32. Perhaps this is what the Apostle says: "Some men’s sins are open beforehand, going before to judgment; and some they follow after." For those sins which are manifest to all men, by which they have also evilly scandalized those who saw them into blasphemy and similar actions, go before. ^B But those which are unknown to men and are committed in secret do not remain so because they are hidden from men, but they follow them inseparably, in order to reveal both themselves and the author of them who was hidden from the many, and to deliver him to men who were ignorant of them, and to the righteous judgment; so that that wretch might be caught by his own evils: being dragged to judgment by the manifest sins that go before, and driven by those hidden ones that inseparably accompany him. And explaining this thought, he adds and says: "Likewise also the good works, which shine before men, that seeing they may glorify our Father who is in heaven, are manifest; and those that are otherwise cannot be hid." For even if the quality of our works is now ignored, we must be manifested before the judgment seat of Christ, "who will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts." ^C And then shall every man have praise of God, when we shall receive every one the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.

33. We must not omit the other thought, which is more capable of inciting the prudent virgin to the contests which she must endure. For just as with the admirable Paul, while still dwelling in the body, some works went before him, with many who had been perfected through his teaching and life having gone before him into that life, and preparing for him the rewards of the labors he had shed for them before the just Judge, God; ^D while other works follow him even after he has departed and is dwelling with Christ, as those who are exercised in virtue through the sacred writings of his epistles send from here praises and rewards to that good teacher; so also, on the contrary, some sins go before, when those who through evil speeches

^A For some sins of those who are harmed by evil words or deeds precede them into Hades, and prepare torments there for the authors of the harm; but others also follow, of those who even after their death are harmed by the evil they left behind in life. For just as the blessed David still helps even now toward the worship of God and the recognition of providence, and those who are helped by him send forth from here, on account of his own accomplishments, the voices of praise that follow him; so too do Marcion and the others who have sown heretical doctrines in life cause harm, handing over those who initiated the evil to more bitter torments there, even though they have long been dead, for all those who are harmed by them from that time on. For if, he says, anyone causes one of the little ones to stumble, he is judged worthy of such a death, how much more would he who has caused so many to stumble—by leaving behind examples for the corruption of morals through an evil life, or by having kindled soul-destroying doctrines—rightly and justly be declared guilty of the deaths of all those who die because of him, in such a way that, according to each one who is wounded or dies here because of him, the author himself is wounded and dies in the life to come? ^B And if, in this way, some actions precede and others follow, and just as those which follow from evil deliver the author to a greater punishment according to each one who is harmed, so too those from virtue make the teacher worthy of greater rewards according to each one who is helped and turned back from evil; then the virgin also has, in either respect—of virtue or of vice—some actions that precede and others that follow. And miserable is she who, beyond the punishment for her own sin, is delivered to an ever more bitter torment because of the fall of others to whom she showed the slips toward sin, but thrice-blessed is she who, in addition to her own crowns, is crowned—each day and even after death in the life to come—because of those who are crowned on account of the zeal they had for her. ^C 34. If, therefore, there is nothing hidden that will not be revealed, for all the aforementioned reasons the virgin, even when she is alone, will take care to avoid sin, respecting not only the eyes of other men but, I say, much more her own and those of the angels who behold everything everywhere. For this reason, he says, a woman ought to have authority upon her head because of the angels. For it is not fitting, even if the virgin sits alone at home, because no one among men is present, that she should be indifferent about being uncovered. For I maintain that the nature of the female is very alluring, so as to draw every masculine nature to itself. ^D And not only for this reason must she be on her guard, always suspecting the outrages of demons who invisibly lie in wait for us, but because of the angels, who are—as he says—reverenced by all, she ought to have authority. For a man, since he has in a certain way an angelic rank,

^A A woman, however, having received a nature much inferior to that of man, should have authority upon her head; by having authority upon her head, she becomingly acknowledges her subordination to one who is superior. Therefore, he says, nature herself covered their heads with hair, teaching of her own accord that it is not fitting for a woman ever, not only as regards any other member, but not even as regards her head, to be uncovered indifferently; and because they sometimes do not fear to do this when men are absent, he added a dignity more venerable than men, saying: *Because of the angels*, who are everywhere present and see what is done. Let every woman, therefore, and much more the virgin, revere the angels, even if she is alone at home without any men; and when the necessity arises to attend to her body, while arranging both her head and everything else individually, let her hasten the task, and as far as possible, cover her members, so that she may always revere not only her own eyes and those of the angels, but also, as if in a private sanctuary of piety, diligently exercise herself in modesty.

35. If she would not even then, when she is alone, uncover herself indifferently, ^B much more, when brethren in Christ are present, shall she modestly adorn herself both with a tunic and with modesty; not only not allowing any of the members which ought to be covered by clothing to be rashly uncovered, but also, with the greatest attention, composing herself to avoid harm, so that not only may she remain unharmed, but those who see may also receive no material for harm from the sight. *For seeing*, he says, *the sons of God the daughters of men, that they were beautiful, they descended unto them*. For exposed beauty is enough to entice even the sons of God to pleasure, and, ^C as men who die because of it, to make them mortals. Therefore, she ought not to be concerned only for her own safety, without any regard for the salvation of those who might be harmed; but she ought, from every side, both to preserve the inviolable beauty of her own virginity and to procure for those who see her the profit of life, not death from sin. For even if she herself trusts in the unshakable resolve of her virginity, she must nevertheless take care, as he says, not to place a stumbling-block for her brother, or an occasion for scandal.

36. Thus, then, is the virgin, in mind and movement and appearance and habit, and both when alone and when with others, soundly composed according to the will of her bridegroom, so that she may converse chastely with the friends of the bridegroom. ^D For we have not shut her away out of any misanthropy, but with precise patterns she must be marked out, from head to feet, as if she were the image of God.

^A image, we prudently bring her forward to those of the household of faith, so that by her appearance and her speech, being truly seen as the bride of the Lord, she may be of benefit to those with whom she converses. Let her therefore converse, as a bride would, with the ministers of the bridegroom—for that is what I mean—and let her converse everywhere while maintaining sobriety. For she must be guileless as a dove, but prudent as the serpent. ^B Since souls in the body, being unable to converse with one another nakedly about virtue, are forced to use the surrounding bodies as instruments for both speech and sight, whoever cannot see the beauty of a soul bound to a body, or hear it through reason, looks upon the movement of the body in which it resides and, listening to the voice emitted through it, judges its beauty from these things. And it is not only the voice and the look that show the soul’s form, as in a mirror, but the man’s manner of dress, his laughter, and his step also give testimony about him. But some, from hearing a musician with pleasure, have, without realizing it, soon come to love not the musician, but the instrument they see, through which they enjoy the musician’s art. Because of this, it is necessary for the virgin to guard her hearing and her sight with accuracy, lest she inadvertently love that through which she speaks in place of the soul that is speaking. For the one who envies our desire for the good is cunning; he seeks by every means to take away from us what we desire and to substitute, with guile, his own property in its place. For this is how some, from hearing the word about virtue with pleasure and having affection for the soul that utters it, have, through continuous hearing and sight, become unknowingly imprinted with the form of the body's features, and their hearing has been strangely charmed by the voice. No longer do they love the soul that acts through the voice—which is the human being they formerly loved—but they come instead to love the body that was serving them the good things of the soul. For the Greeks say that the vices are neighbors to the virtues. For to each gate of virtue, vice has fitted a most similar image on either side, so that the one who is zealous for virtue, when first standing at its gate and seeming to knock upon it, might, once a gate of vice has been opened to him on one side or the other, be deceived by the similarity and enter as if into the house of virtue; then, being mocked for this deception by all, he might learn by time and experience that he is not only far from the virtue whose gate he had at one time seemed to be knocking upon, but that he has not even crossed its threshold at all, nor, as he previously thought, had he stood by its doors and knocked. For thus he shows those who wish to be courageous toward virtue by deceiving the rash, while those who are fearful...

of the passions he has made cruel and inhuman. ^A Just as he has also brought those who pursue the beauty of love to a shameful end in the pleasures of the flesh and a life blamed by all, through a love falsely so-called, or, by causing those who are wary of the reproach attached to these things to become haters of their brothers and insensible to what is good. Therefore, again: *Do not decline to the right hand or to the left*, lest, being deceived, you slip into any one of the gates of wickedness; but walk the middle path of virtue, and everywhere observing how you walk carefully, *not as unwise, but as wise*, because you walk in the midst of snares and pass over the pinnacles of cities, take care that you do not, through negligence, cast your foot into a snare, lest you fall from the wall of our city and perish miserably.

39. Therefore, those who call upon the Bridegroom must love, but love must be just and not confused, lest by constantly listening to the servants of the Bridegroom as they speak about the Bridegroom, one who has sometimes loved the ministers as much as the Bridegroom might overturn the dignity of the Bridegroom, and by honoring the groomsmen ^B as much as the Lord, might do the greatest injury. Indeed, some have already been caught, having impiously loved the ministers not equally to the Bridegroom, but even more than the Bridegroom; and having once forgotten the Bridegroom to whom they were betrothed, they have become the brides of the Bridegroom’s servants, or rather, they have been found to be not even the base women of the Bridegroom’s servants, but of certain strangers. ^C For our Bridegroom is not found to have any carnal minister, but all are living by the Spirit. Those who have not betrothed themselves to the spirit of those who serve the Bridegroom, but to their flesh, have shown, as is manifest, both that they are alien to the ministry of the Bridegroom, and that they have betrothed themselves not to the Bridegroom’s ministers, but to alien slaves. Therefore, they must also converse cautiously with these, prudently cutting away the bodily familiarity that grows secretly from conversation; and in conversing, being on their guard, lest, through overconfidence as if with the Bridegroom’s own servants, they might unwittingly either turn them toward things they should not, or absurdly cast themselves down from their proposed goal into the pleasures of the flesh. But one must have love for one’s neighbor, because *You shall love your neighbor as yourself*, ^D and this commandment the Bridegroom has given to his bride as pleasing to him. And he says: You shall love, and inasmuch as you do it to one of these, you do it to me, your Bridegroom. But love must not be subject to lust, nor should it, while belying the name of love, in reality overturn the dignity of true love. For as long as you seem to love the brothers for the sake of the love of the Bridegroom, you preserve the gravity of love both toward him and toward them. But if you no longer

seem to love them for his sake, but rather for their own sake through familiar habit, then having corrupted your love for him and having rendered it impassioned ^A and falsely named, you do not possess true love. For love does not touch the passions of the flesh; nor, being irrational, does it, through animal habit, indiscriminately transfer its own gravity onto bodies. But being rational and entirely full of wisdom, it prudently balances itself according to the merit of the persons, as is just; it honors the servants of the Bridegroom with reason for his sake, but it honors him not because of them—as if it were listening to them speak about him—but rather it cherishes him for his own sake. And if anyone is a lover of Him, it considers him a friend because of the love for the Bridegroom; but if anyone neglects the love for Him, it no longer looks upon this person as an intimate, even if he flatters it. Nay, it even suspects treachery from his flattery, in that he who neglects the Bridegroom, whom she herself is eager to please, ensnares her with a feigned devotion for the Bridegroom, pretending to sympathize with her ^B for the sake of earning His pleasure, while he strives through constant conversation to transfer her love from Him to himself, having cunningly become, under the name and guise of a "friend of the bridegroom," an adulterer of the bride. From this, indeed, many, in the name of love, gradually being led down by habit toward the passions of the flesh, are found to be harlots and adulteresses, alienated entirely not only from the betrothal to the Lord but also from the marriage that is lawful among men according to the flesh. For those who have vowed virginity to the Lord, then overcome by the pleasures of the flesh, wish to cloak the sin of fornication under the name of marriage; and they are not ignorant, I suppose, even if they pretend to be ignorant, that she who has violated her right hand given to her Bridegroom cannot be considered either the spouse of him whom she has lawlessly abandoned, nor the wife, according to the laws, of him to whom she has joined herself through lust.

38. For then, indeed, marriage is established legitimately and according to the divine ^C Scriptures, when the passion of pleasure does not anticipate the necessity of the law, but when reason, having set before itself the necessity of the matrimonial purpose for the sake of mutual aid and the succession of children, truly betroths the marriage in honor. When the requirements of marriage have been anticipated by reason, and a holy foundation in the Lord has been laid according to the laws, there follows as a result of that which is necessary in marriage the pleasure of union, which makes the two into one flesh. For since the reason within the soul has successfully laid hold of the souls and joined them according to the necessity that appears, naturally a lawful union of the bodies in which they exist follows the souls that have been joined in advance. But when the souls hold another purpose from the beginning, the bodies, having occupied themselves with what is their own for the sake of pleasure, ^D [the souls] that are...

which become a consequence of the evils of the flesh perform an unlawful union. For since neither the word within the soul nor the law has led the way to such a work, this is altogether branded by conscience as unlawful. For this reason, he says, "The wife is bound by the law as long as her husband lives; but if her husband be dead, she is at liberty to be married to whom she will; only in the Lord," ^A he says. For indeed she who has been made free for marriage by the death of her husband is not free simply, but must marry in the Lord. What is it, then, to contract marriage in the Lord? It is not to be dragged beforehand to intercourse by the pleasures of the flesh, but to choose marriage by judging that which is useful for life. For this cause the Creator also ordained the necessity of marriage in nature.

39. But if these things are so, let not the woman who has fallen from virginity into the passions of the flesh deceive herself, I say, by thinking that marriage will be accounted to her as a sin. First, because she has laid for herself a bad foundation for the union: namely, pleasure and the sin of transgression. Furthermore, because, not being free (for her husband has not died, that she might marry whom she will), while her immortal husband lives, she will be termed an adulteress, introducing a mortal man into the bridal chamber of the Lord on account of the passions of the flesh. For as to what concerns a legitimate marriage occupied by the bridegroom, the habit of virginity, the giving of the right hand, and the procession into public view for the sake of the covenant entered into with him, all bear witness before everyone that she, glorying in him as her husband, has gone out into the public ^B in the fact that she was already preoccupied by a husband. For if a virgin does not go forth from her paternal chambers before she has been joined to a lawful husband, and having openly acknowledged him as master and director of her life, she subsequently goes forth from the paternal house under the name of the man who has obtained her; then that virgin, having professed herself the bride of a lawful husband and having been placed under his authority, has indeed gone forth from the paternal chambers as one who has inscribed to herself a lawful bridegroom and goes in procession to the public under his guardianship. Now if those who see these things are witnesses of the processions, then the same are witnesses of to whom she is joined, or what man she has inscribed, when she went forth into the midst from the paternal house. But if this marriage is manifest to the witnesses and the processions and in all things, and her husband has not died—I say—then such a one commits adultery, living as an adulteress throughout her life while her husband is alive; or rather, she plays the harlot for the enjoyment of pleasure, and because her husband lives, she is defiled by a nefarious adultery. ^C Nor indeed do I see how she, for the sake of an immortal God, embraces a mortal man to her own destruction, always acting impiously against him in the eyes of her husband through such illegitimate embraces; or how that man has dared, in his madness, to ascend to the bed of the Lord. For it is necessary that the punishment of those who sin in such a way be reckoned from human affairs. ^D

^A What punishment is worthy of a noble woman who ruins herself with her own slave, and brings an attendant into the master’s bed for treachery; and what punishment is worthy of that slave who rushes impudently upon his mistress and the master’s bed?

40. But those wise women, who have dared such impiety against themselves on account of fleshly lusts, beyond the fact that they do not weep, so that they might prepare for themselves a milder place through tears, even deny the virginity which they earlier promised. For since they know that their violated virginity is shameful and a reproach because of their servitude to pleasure, and is known as such by all, they think to soothe their sin with the greater evil of denial; they stand in awe of men, to whom they offer the denial as an excuse for their transgression, ^B but they no longer fear the Lord, to whom their right hands were given, to the point that they have fallen into the depths of evils. They do not realize, in fact, that they are foolishly preparing for themselves a double crime, both before men and before the Lord: for men, on account of their previously celebrated fame for virginity—even if they deny having promised it—loathe and hate their madness and impudence in denying that which is certain and known to all; and the Lord, moreover, condemns with greater severity in His judgment the denial added to the violated covenants of virginity as if it were repentance. Therefore, lest the virgin fall into this pit of sin in the name of love, let her pursue a love that is free from passion and pure. For indeed, if she has slipped into pleasure, the mask of marriage will have no place in it; ^C nor will she be able to mock her own husband in the name of marriage, being in no way released from him, impiously preferring a mortal over him for the act of adultery after so many honors received from him. For it is not absurdly said of such as these by the Apostle: *When they have grown wanton against Christ, they wish to marry; having condemnation, because they have made void their first faith* (I Tim. v, 11): not pursuing marriage, but nefariously pursuing adultery throughout their life.

41. Let no servant, therefore, be carried away by such impiety as to touch the Lord’s bride. Let no one be so mad a sacrilegist as to touch the undefiled priestess with unchaste hands. Let no one come to such a point of madness that, seeing such great punishment hanging over sacrilegists, he does not seize inanimate vessels made of gold and silver, ^D but rather seizes with a predatory hand, impurely, those who are living and animate votive offerings. Or rather, let no one be so wicked as to set on fire with the torches of lewdness not the inanimate vessels in the temple, but the temple of the Lord itself, that is, the body of the virgin, and the soul of the virgin within it, which is the most venerable of all, the most sacred votive offering in the temple of the Lord. But if the virgin has given herself of her own accord, violating the covenant made with the Bridegroom, and everything, and the temple

and the votive offering, and the friendship towards him, and the fellowship of the kingdom, all mixed up together and trampled upon for the sake of the pleasure of passion, do not join yourself to such a person in the communion of sin. For even the noble Joseph did not wish to use himself for the satisfaction of the lust of the mistress who was infatuated with him. But if you were not the one who came to the betrothal of marriage, she gives herself to another. Let him, then, bear the responsibility for the sin that is his; but you, keep yourself pure and untainted ^A regarding the responsibility for the transgression against the Lord. “It is necessary,” it says, “for the Son of Man to be betrayed. But woe to him through whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for him if he had not been born.” Does not she who had previously promised her virginity, but has changed her purpose and yoked herself to some man for the enjoyment of pleasure, undergo a similar judgment, even if she says, “It is necessary for me to marry, just as it is necessary for the Son of Man to be betrayed”? But it is not “necessary” for her, through whom she breaks the covenants with the Bridegroom, to fulfill her own desire. For I venture to say it would have been better for that man ^B if he were not born, than to be judged as a fellow-conspirator in the transgression of that wanton woman against the Lord. For do you not hear that he who marries a woman who has been put away also commits adultery? For even if she was put away, it says, because of some fault, her husband still lives.

42. Therefore, why do you cause trouble for the one who has been put away? Why do you not give time both to her, that she might amend the things for which she was put away, and to the one who put her away, that he might be moved to compassion for her who has been amended, and ^C restore his own member to himself again; but instead, you snatch away the time of amendment by marrying the woman put away while her husband is still living? Let her, it says, return to the living husband and be restored, having become a better woman, or else, remaining neither a widow nor a wife, pay the penalty for the cause of dismissal which she provided to her husband. But you, before she even understands the particular sin for which she was put away, by rashly entering into wedlock with her, make her more audacious in her absurd sins; and while you are always committing adultery with another man’s wife while he is still alive, you absurdly confirm her ease in violating the covenants of marriage. For if one who takes a woman put away by a mortal man commits adultery impiously, ^D much more impiously does he commit adultery throughout his life who dares to corrupt the bride of the immortal Husband, who has never been put away. For even if she has cast herself away, fleeing to the lusts of the flesh, you, however, must not touch her. For her husband lives, and he does not wish to put her away. Grant her leave to look at herself to see where she has fallen, to digest her malady, to wash away carnal love, to consider the progress of time, and the magnitude of the outrages she dares to commit; and she will certainly return to the Bridegroom. For if Christ is light, and resurrection, and incorruption

and life, and the other goods that come to us from the Father, she who has loosened herself from Christ—what else has the wretched woman done but brought herself down from light into darkness, and from life into death, and from incorruption into corruption, and from resurrection into the greatest fall of Hades and of death? If she who has been visited—since there is an abyss of how many evils—considers this, she will shudder at the darkness of sin, full of confusion and gloom, and will yearn all the more for the sweetness of the light in which she was before. And seeing the terror of death and the hideousness of corruption, she will spring back more sharply from these toward life and immortality, and, casting her eyes upon the most grievous ruin of Hades, she will embrace with greater fervor the resurrection granted to her by the Lord. For she is not so full of madness that, when the disease has been calmed by time, she would prefer the mortal to the immortal bridegroom. Why, therefore, do you hasten the fall of the wretched woman? Why do you snatch away the time for considering the sin? Why do you shut out the time for counsel, so that, by taking as your wife her who has not been released by the Lord, you prove yourself not a husband, but an adulterer who has impiously ascended into the bed of the Lord? ^B

43. Let the virgin, being as she is a most precious gift of God, be untouched by any hand. Let her keep herself unstained both in body and in thought, and let her, I say, converse cautiously even with her brethren in Christ. For to this end, the true servant of God, sharpening her diligence, says: "But I would have you to be wise in what is good, and simple in what is evil." "For I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ; but I fear lest, as the serpent seduced Eve in his craftiness, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ." Wherefore, before all things, the thoughts of the virgin must remain altogether incorrupt. For if the soul remains incorrupt, the body is also kept incorrupt. But if the soul is corrupted by wicked thoughts, even if the body appears to remain incorrupt, yet the incorruption of it is not found to be pure, since it is corrupted by the filth of the thoughts. Therefore, one must love, but with reason and wise judgment, measuring the amount of love. For "charity doth not behave itself unseemly," and: "Art thou loosed from a wife? seek not a wife." But it is absurd that one who is eager to be free should, under the name of charity, cast himself into the bonds of pleasures through habit and familiarity, and be no longer able, either in body or in soul, to be loose according to his profession. For neither is the soul of such a man free, being occupied with the passions of carnal habit; nor is the body, which...

^A has accepted the bonds of marital cares. For even if the name of marriage is not mentioned, yet the solicitude of the married, once implanted in them, makes them slaves to those bodily cares to which they have unreasonably bound themselves, and subjects them to blame. It is absurd for those who pursue the virginal life to be foolishly entangled in the imitations of marriage; and while professing that the care of their Bridegroom is sufficient for them, to associate with men as their guardians to their own disgrace. If you love after the manner of him who is understood to be the true lover, you ought utterly to despise all other things, gladly preferring—even if lying naked on the floor in any form of poverty—to enjoy your friend, rather than, in your eagerness to live more sumptuously with him, to seek from men the things necessary for that purpose, and thus unworthily fall away from divine love. For the virgin who lives in luxury is dead while she lives. Do not, therefore, let your good name of virginity be spoken of ill, being tarnished by carnal vices under the name of unblemished charity. For charity is not a deceitful affection, nor a simulation of benevolence, nor a servile pleasure, nor an animal propensity; but a benevolence untroubled by any carnal affections, a rest from vices, and a sanctification in the Holy Spirit. But if your brother is grieved on account of your charity, you are no longer walking according to charity. Do not by your charity dissolve the work of true charity; nor, under a falsely named charity, bring destruction upon your brother, leading him into base suspicion, for whom Christ died. If someone sees you, who have the knowledge of the true Good, reclining in an idol's temple, and instead of true and pure incorruption, sees you fawning upon an image of it in the flesh, will not his conscience, being weak, be defiled, and be emboldened to commit sin? Thus, by sinning against your brethren and wounding their weak conscience, you are sinning against Christ. Therefore, if food scandalizes my brother, I will never eat meat, lest I scandalize my brother. Do we not have the right to eat and to drink? Do we not have the right to take along a sister as a wife? But, he says, I have not used this right; it is good for me rather to die than that anyone should make void my boast of virginity. Therefore, the tribe of Levi separately, and their wives separately.

44. Nor do we by this discourage the loving of our ^D brethren, but we permit all to be loved as those from the same womb; yet we give counsel that those from the same womb be loved cautiously. For there is danger, lest sin, taking occasion from our habit and confidence, should work in us every concupiscence. For sin is quite capable, whether by the touch of a brother's hands or by a kiss that is for now benevolent, of secretly exciting the mind of the flesh toward things that are its own, and of...

opening the eyes of desire more widely toward evil, just as happened to Adam after the tasting of pleasure. ^A Therefore, let not even a sister of the same womb constantly indulge in the touch and kisses of her brother, lest a vice born of such familiarity might, over the passage of time, reveal itself, especially when the beauty of the body kindles still more the torches of love in their eyes. For doctrine, even that which is secular, restraining us from such a flame, says that the kisses of beautiful persons are to be avoided, just as the bites of venomous animals. For, it says, the venom of pleasure is diffused through the kiss into the whole body. For this reason, "Greet one another," it says, "with a holy kiss" (I Pet. v, 14), as if by setting the carnal kiss in the pure fragrance of the Holy Spirit, binding these things together.

45. llbracketB We are not, in my opinion, to be blamed for arriving at this point of precision because of the purity of the virgin. For if sin had not already long since arrived to renew its ancient scars in these persons against our life, perhaps we would be thought worthy of blame by some for having pursued our discourse to this extent. But if [sin] has been able to bring forth every species of sin against mothers and sisters through the pleasures of the flesh (just as it branded Amnon with the marks of infamy for the violation of his sister) (II Reg. xiii, 14, sqq.), we are not, I believe, worthy of blame for introducing this precaution for the sake of the virgin's integrity. For the goad of love, I say, implanted in the bodies of males toward females is sufficiently vehement, so that it connects them to one another, all judgment being despised, as if by its own volition, and even when the thoughts within are reluctant. Now, when females ^C touch the bodies of females, and again males those of males, they have an immobile natural habit toward one another; unless someone, while pricked by the memory of him toward whom he has received a natural motion of love according to his imagination, acts wickedly against that which is foreign by transferring the sting to that which is fitting for himself. But a female, while she touches the body of a male, or conversely a male that of a female, even if their souls fortify these things with thoughts, are nevertheless stimulated by one another toward an embrace in a secret manner. And just as tow touching tow, or again fire made bright by pure fire, does not stir up smoke; but if tow scents fire, it is quickly ignited, and there is no need of much labor, nor must someone be sought who from without ^D might blow, so that the fire might shine forth from the tow, but only that it be joined together, and immediately it holds those burning flames; so the female body, touching that of the male, or conversely the male that of the female, has no need of...

much labor or of love breathing toward union; but because they have a natural affinity toward one another, the moment it touches, it immediately has within it, secretly smoldering, the spark of pleasure. For this reason, he says, *Shall one take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned? Or can one walk upon hot coals, and his feet not be burned?* So shall not everyone who touches a woman be innocent. But if the Lord gave Himself up for His bride, that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water, and that He Himself might present her to Himself as glorious, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she might be holy and blameless both in body and in spirit; and for this reason the virgin ought to be anxious how she may please the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit.

^C 46. Nor ought one indeed to be wary of some things, while trusting in herself indifferently regarding others; she ought, rather, to remove from afar absolutely all occasions that bring upon her a spot or wrinkle, that she may be holy in body, bringing no defilement from it into the soul, and holy in spirit, clouding it with no thought. For passions do not pass from the body into the soul alone, but, originating also from the soul—even when, as I say, the bodies are sometimes unable to serve them—they are completed by the imagination, as if they were being performed through bodies, in the understanding. For just as those who mix water with oil, by applying force to this combination, destroy the grace of each, clouding with the mire of the water the luminous quality that is in the oil, and in turn defiling the nature of the water by the intermingling of the oil; so too those who mingle the soul with the body through passions pervert, to their own hurt, what is useful to both for life: they so defile the soul, which is luminous and brilliant, with the mire of carnal pleasures, and by this method of commingling they render that which is pure and bright in the body useless for life. But just as oil and water commingled with one another forfeit their natural grace; yet when the tumult of them subsides, having attained stillness, they are separated from each other, and each runs back, gathering itself into its own nature, and the oil settles as pure upon the water, while the water becomes a transparent vehicle for it; so too the soul and the body, if they are commingled with one another by mutual vices, corrupt the proper nature of each other, defiled as they are by one another; but having attained tranquility, returning to their own proper nature, they are separated. And the soul, indeed, as a luminous charioteer, illuminates the body with its own beauty shining from above; while the body, inasmuch as it is heavy, settling down in submission to the dignity of the soul, becomes a vehicle for it for necessary uses.

47. When, therefore, the virgin understands that her nature is thus constituted, she will neither disturb the light of her mind with the passions that arise from the flesh, nor with those that...

^A arise from the soul will she allow it to be clouded; but keeping each in its own place, order, and use, she will wisely secure peace for the parts, and by training both soul and body to remain in peace according to their nature, she will display the harmonious form of both in purity—maintaining the light-like radiance of the soul entirely undisturbed and unclouded, and by ascetic practice preserving the form of the body clean from every muddy motion that comes from pleasures. For the body, when it seethes with gluttony, drunkenness, and the pleasures of intercourse, issues forth against the beauty of the soul; but the soul, when it is agitated by folly ^B, brings forth against the body emulation, anger, hypocrisy, and enmity. And it sometimes happens that after we have rendered our bodies as though dead to their own peculiar passions through fear of the faults of the flesh, by fasting and a more austere life, we carry about the peculiar vices of the soul within a dead body; whence it is manifest and clear of its own accord that which limps toward perfection. For one part compared without the other proves that the work is imperfect toward true virtue. For we do not show an exercise of the body useful for virtue if we cut off the body’s vices through fasting, yet leave the soul clouded by its own peculiar motions of emulation, hypocrisy, and other passions. Nor, if we cleanse the soul of its own peculiar passions, ^C but leave the body unbridled and free for the pleasures of the flesh and other softening tendencies, are we able to show our life to be perfect in virtue, even if the impurity of fornication is not present. But he who wishes to show a course of virtue pure from every defilement must add to the good of the soul the good things of the body, and must show the achievements of the soul in harmony with those things laboriously practiced for the body. For a life could not be shown to be blameless and true if the members of the soul and the body did not have harmony and agreement with one another. Since it is also impossible, I think, for the good things of the soul to be accomplished while those of the body hinder them, or for the good things of the body to be present if the good things of the soul ^D do not take the lead. But it is necessary that the soul itself be in harmony with itself, and taking the body as a fit companion for itself, thus show the blessed life as one from both soul and body, moving obediently toward a single course. Therefore the virgin, like oil upon water, always keeping her soul pure and resting upon the body, and by its light governing the body that is subject to it, just as she will mix nothing muddy from the pleasure of the body’s mire of passions with the beauty of the soul, but will suppress the fervors erupting from it by fasting and ascetic life, and will purge away the greatest part of its earthliness with the praise of continence; so also will she impart nothing from the vices of the soul, nothing from emulation and hypocrisy, nothing disturbed by folly to the body, but from every madness,

and anger, and every absurd desire, showing her mind clear and luminous in her life. But if the human instrument composed of soul and body ought to be free from the commingling of passions, and each ^A should remain in its own nature, tranquil and manifesting its own need, it behooves her, just as she repels the muddy streams flowing into the body through the stomach, so also to turn away those that flow into the soul. For thus would each remain in its natural state undisturbed for her; since, so long as the passions disturb the soul, the virginal beauty cannot in any way be seen undefiled; or rather, besides the fact that the exercise of the body will profit nothing, much reproach also is discerned in the soul from the perversity of the vices.

48. For if that which is propagated from the body into the soul ^B is turbid, [and] through ascetic discipline, as if by a sedimentation, she has calmed the necessity of nature, [yet] she is disturbed by the passions within the soul, the purity of the body profits her nothing, since the bridegroom is unable, on account of the disturbance of the vices, to rest in such a soul; or rather, she who is such even harms herself, not investigating through inexperience what truly pleases the bridegroom, and defrauding herself, on account of the perversity of her mind, of the reward 661 for her bodily achievements. For if we practice the integrity of the body because of the beauty of the soul, the apparent integrity of the body is useless, while the soul is corrupted by myriad vices. For the devil, having taken the body as an instrument of sin, attacks the soul through it. But as for those whom he is not permitted to invade in the flesh on account of continence and austerity, often, taking the soul naked, without the body, he fulfills his own desire by exciting disturbances in it. For such are those who, having driven him from the flesh with fasts and sleeping on the ground and the rest of the strenuous corporeal exercise, yet cherish him in the soul with the disturbances of wrath, and fury, and simulation, and emulation. But by how much the body is less in dignity than the soul, by so much, I think, the sin which is committed through the body appears less than that committed through the naked soul. For there, natural food and appetite for gluttony or fornication tickle the body through the pleasures that accompany them; but here, without any bodily pleasure, the perversity of the will introduces disturbances into the soul contrary to nature. And if the corruption of the virgin is a passion of the soul, then anger is also a passion of the soul, and contention, and all the other things which the Apostle has spoken of, and even ^D more so, envy. Certainly, he who loves and he who envies sustain a most similar pain. For just as the soul of the lover and the body, failing of its desire, [is consumed by the...]

for as love wears away the soul and body of a lover when he fails ^A to obtain his desire, in the same way envy consumes both soul and body of the envious person. For lovers who fail to attain their desire are no more worn away by love than the envious are consumed in soul and body by envy when they fail to attain their own desire. They undergo a passion precisely like that of waxen images, which are fashioned by creative artists at night, but when the sun rises, they melt away under the solar rays. For they, as long as night and darkness encompass them, display the form in their shadow just as they were fashioned, hardened by the nocturnal air, in the state that is wont to appear in images; but when the sun shines forth and completes its proper course, while all other things are nourished by the solar power and enjoy the light, they melt away, their forms and figures becoming confused and vanishing with their solidity. So too the envious, as long as they are in the darkness of the devil, as if in the night, are pondering the works of envy, they seem for a time to manifest to one another solid thoughts and figures with forms, just as they were fashioned by envy; but when a virtuous man, like the sun, rises in the morning to the works of virtue, all the rest, whoever admire the manner of a life that is beautiful and pleasing to God, being brilliantly filled with the knowledge of divine love from him, nourish the seeds of virtue; but the envious, when they see him invincible like the sun because of his love for God, and becoming more and more conspicuous through his works of virtue, suddenly melt away—like wax, as I said—both in their bodily forms and in their souls filled with envy.

49. Therefore, the soul of the virgin must be calm, ^C and like a pool stagnant with divine contemplations from some purest fountain of the mind, it must be waveless, neither agitated by words from without that are cast in through the ear, nor ruffled in its serene state by the phantasies that fall in through the sight; so that as in a purest mirror, seeing both its own image and the beauty of the Bridegroom, it may be more genuinely filled with love for Him. Wherefore, no other countenance should peer into the mirror of this water, lest by shaking the face already depicted there, it efface it. Nor must it be agitated at all by anger or grief or certain other passions, lest, while it is agitated, it display to the mind various images at different times; but, remaining always the same and suffused with joy in God, it must be kept free of passions throughout, waveless, and, keeping the image of no other in itself but that of the Bridegroom, ^D

^A that He may always behold His own beauty mirrored in it, and that the soul alone may have His form shining forth in the mirror which is itself, and may desire to be adorned by the beauty of His form. Therefore, the most wise discourse, safeguarding her soul, says: "If the spirit of the ruler rise up against thee, leave not thy place" (Eccl. X, 4); lest, if the thought of the power rises up, the imagination, finding a place—as one does in a mirror—should present the images of sin, even when no one is present. But let every place, it says, within the soul of the virgin be filled with the vision of Christ. Let no place at all be vacant in her, where a curious thought might ascend and find a place to represent its own things. Let the mirror of the virgin's soul be of no one, to speak briefly, whether present or absent, except for her holy Bridegroom; nor let any other form be seen in it except for Him alone; nor let her laboriously polish the mirror of her soul for any other than the Bridegroom, so that by representing in it the image of His own beauty, He may make her blessed. For if any of mortals fix their eyes upon this mirror, it is necessary that the mind, occupied with the contemplation of that form, should no longer behold the former form ^B of the Bridegroom, now hidden and slipped away. But just as he who is joined to a harlot is one body, so he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him (I Cor. VI, 16, 17), having been purged of the passions of the body, and having sealed the soul into the same beauty of the form.

50. And we do not, when we lead the virgin to true virginity, ^C implant in her any marital thought through the example of the Bridegroom; but from the union which is in marriage, we wisely demonstrate the union of the rational soul with the Word of God. For just as bodies, through the nuptial union, participate in the same pleasures and passions and corruption, acting in concert for this work in the pleasure and in the passions and in the corruption of intercourse; so too the rational soul, through the bridal union with the Word of God, might enjoy virtue and incorruptibility and the true freedom from passion in the Spirit; so that by that freedom from passion and incorruptibility, through the sincere union of the Word of God toward her sanctification, it may become pure. Therefore, it is fitting for her who has been betrothed to Christ through the promise of virginity, as one who has betrothed herself through her whole life to Wisdom and the Word, to be wise ^D and prudent; casting out all the ugliness of folly and foolishness through the continuous meditation on divine things, and adorning her mind with the beauty of the Wisdom to whom she is joined. Since, if it is appropriate for any other who hastens to be blessed, it is especially appropriate for the Bride of Christ, having turned the operations of the soul that occur through the senses away from external things toward the interior things, to converse with the Bridegroom always in the secret chambers of the mind, as with the Word of God, and in the

^A law of His to meditate day and night; and to take delight in those who act as bridesmaids—I mean the Law and the Gospel, and whoever else is of one mind with them—as they recount the beauty of the Bridegroom; and by the holy fruits of the Word’s thoughts, to be found ever more and more rational and wise, until, uniting the whole of herself with the whole of Wisdom, she becomes one with Him to whom she cleaves, and from corruptible becomes incorruptible, and from ignorant becomes prudent, I say, and wise, just like a rib of the Word to whom she has cleaved; and, to express it in a word, from human she is shown to all to be an immortal God, just like Him to whom she is united. For just as her Bridegroom, leaving thrones and dominions, cleaved to the mortal condition, that having become one with her by compassion, He might transform her into the impassibility of His own self; so also must she cleave, according to the immortal, to Him who for her sake divested Himself of the principalities ^B and powers, and emptied Himself from the form of God into the form of a servant because of His love for the Bride, so that she may ascend with Him as He ascends to the Father into the heavenly bridal chamber. For "because of this," He says, "a man will leave his father and mother, and will cleave to his wife, and the two will be into one flesh." Interpreting this, he who betroths the Bride to Christ for the sake of incorruption says: "This mystery is great; but I speak in regard to Christ and the Church." For Christ did not descend that, having cleaved to the bride, He should remain on earth, but that having taken her up and transformed her, He should lead her up from earth to heaven. And she who is betrothed to Christ ^C does not have only John serving her for the bridal baths, but also angels singing the epithalamium as she ascends to the Father’s banquet hall. The virgin, therefore, remains incorrupt not only while she is being united with the incorruptible Word, but also after the union has taken place. For not as the bridegroom of bodies, who by the union corrupts the incorrupt virgin and makes her a woman, does our Bridegroom also corrupt the incorrupt soul by the communion with Himself when He weds her. But having taken her as one corrupted by carnal pleasures through the devil, and having become his wife wrongly through corruption, by the communion with Himself He makes her an incorrupt virgin out of a woman. For teaching us this mystical wedlock also through the prophet, He says ^D to His own bride: "Did you not call me as a house, and a father, and a leader of your virginity?" as if he were saying, "and a leader of your incorruption." For just as the husband is the leader and lord of the corruption of the wedded wife, becoming her lord through this, so the Lord is the leader and lord of the incorruption of each of us; and through incorruption is our Lord and is endowed with the leadership. Whom we must also recognize as the house of our incorruption, remaining and dwelling in Him, because—

since we live and move and have our being in Him, we may not fall away—as they who go down into ^A His house of all virtue and incorruption for the duration of life—from the hearth of incorruption that is in Him. For just as He dwells and walks about in those who are worthy, so again do the worthy dwell in Him. Therefore, when He takes us from the affairs of the world, and we, having entered into Him and dwelling in Him, are provided for by Him regarding our not falling away, He says: "Abide in me, and I in you."

51. Now, with regard to all other things, virginity is understood as something great and most splendid; here it is already shown to be a certain very abundant seed of the resurrection and of the incorruptible life. For if in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like the angels, and shall become the children ^B of God, then those who cultivate virginity are angels, carrying about human life in incorruptible flesh; and they are not merely obscure angels, but are even very distinguished. For while those [the angels] without flesh preserve incorruption in heaven—in a place and nature inviolable—before the King of all, God, these others, buffeted on earth by the pleasures of the flesh and exposed to the temptation of the devil, have preserved that incorruption which is like that of the angels, through virtue, in a more wondrous manner for the Creator. And here especially one might admire the beauty of the virgins: that although they are clothed in a feminine body, they have, through the exercise of virtue, repelled the form imposed upon the soul by it; and they have proved themselves equal to the males, just as they were also created equal in their soul, through virtue. And just as those men, through the exercise of virtue, pass from being men to the order of angels, so also these women, through the exercise of virtue, are transferred from being women into that same dignity as they, so that, although in the present life they are equal in soul to the males, but limp in their equality on account of the covering of the feminine body, in the age to come they shall be found to be altogether equal in virtue to those who have become angels. For if, because they are shown to be equal to the ^C angels, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, then those who have attained this through the exercise of virtue in the present life have already, through this fact, shown themselves to all to be equal to the angels; for they cut away, through virtue, the properties of the bodies of both male and female—I mean those relating to intercourse—and they dwell among men on earth with naked souls. And if the soul is not shaped toward passions by the body in which it dwells, through any sense of pleasure either toward the male or toward the female, there is no longer male and female, there is no longer passion and pleasure, but all things and in all ^D is Christ, with the bodies being indeed dead on account of the cessation and inactivity of the pleasure relating to the properties of the male and the female, but only the soul living in these bodies incorruptibly through virtue.

^A Let her receive the brother without pretense according to the command of the Lord, washing his feet; let her tend to another needing care, touching the dead body with the dead hands of the body. For since she has mortified her members which are upon the earth, and she no longer lives, but Christ lives in her, and what she now lives in the flesh, she lives in faith; let her perform the works of virtue, with Christ alone living in her and working his own deeds, carrying about a body crucified with Christ to sin and dead. And let her perform the commands of the Bridegroom, through every action making the beauty of her soul shine more brightly. For when, upon the body being touched, the soul is not affected toward any fantasy of the male, but touches it, in a way, without sensation, the pleasure remains dead in it, as that which is touched from without cannot stir it toward its own passion. ^B For so it is that when virgins in times of persecution were given over to impious men because of their faith in the Bridegroom, they were either preserved incorrupt in their bodies, because He for whom they did not hesitate to be surrendered rendered the attempt of the impious men futile and dead within their flesh, and kept their bodies entirely incorrupt by a signal power; or, if they suffered violence, since the soul did not consent to the pleasure, though the bodies seemed to suffer injury, they showed their soul incorrupt and not conformed to the pleasure of the violator, made more splendid to their Bridegroom by both faith and virginity. In these, perhaps, the Lord wished to show that they preferred their confession to Him over any outward appearance of the body; ^C whence they neither corrupted their soul by denial, nor were their bodies corrupted in any way, while not consenting to pleasure. Unless someone, through immense madness, wishing to inflict rape upon a slaughtered virgin, should be said to corrupt her through this intercourse with a dead body. For he may indeed be able to inflict lashes upon her, but to corrupt her, he cannot. But he himself corrupts and is corrupted; the virgin, however, is incorrupt, as the soul is not present. ^D Similar to these are those who, in persecutions or at any time, have suffered harassment from men; since they are dead to the flesh, whatever they may have suffered, they remain incorrupt. For the time of ascetic life that has passed has sufficiently trained them for the trial, so that while living in the flesh, they do not war according to the flesh. Therefore, calling others to a like virtue, they say: "Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh." Such as these, I say, let them also demonstrate brotherly love through hospitality. For indeed, Mary also, kissing the feet of the Lord, did not kiss them as the feet of a man, but as the feet of the Lord, the old pleasure of the fire...

within her by her tears, while wisely kindling the spirit in her soul through her disposition toward the Lord and her holy kisses. She lived, therefore, in the Spirit, and walking in the Spirit, she performed all things regarding the Bridegroom ^A with prudence for her own sins. She was dead to sin, having fearfully mortified, by the touching of his feet and by her kisses, the very thought of male and female.

53. Let, then, one who is such as this, and who fulfills the command toward the Lord, touch him. Yet, let even one who is such as this be wisely vigilant, even when she touches him elsewhere, lest by constant touch pleasure gradually creep from the flesh into her secretly; and it happen to her, being bitten by the venom of this—may it not be!—that she say: "When pleasure came, sin revived; but I died, and the commandment of charity, which was for life, was found for me to be unto death." For if even the angels fall, those who are equal to the angels ought to fear a fall all the more, lest, after they have become equal to the angels through the ^B exercise of virginity, they see that the daughters of men are fair, and, through the pleasures of the flesh, they descend to them, and it be said to them: "I said: You are gods and children of the Most High all of you. But you, having slipped back again into the things of the flesh, die as men and fall as one of the princes." Wherefore, it is far more noble for the virgin to provide for her own safety and to avoid being a stumbling block to others, being prudently separated on all sides from every association; so that she would rather endure the reproaches of rusticity than be drawn into pleasure or the detriment of others; despising all other things, and ^C looking continually only to the Lord; and, between the distinctions of female and male, displaying even now, from the present life to the age of regeneration, the angel-like beauty of incorruption unblemished. For virginity gathers our life from corruption unto incorruption.

54. For the first men, as I said, replenished the whole earth with humanity through mutual marriages. But virginity gathers into the storehouses of heaven that which was sown over the whole world through the pleasure of marriages. For the Lord, signifying this gathering of those things that have been sown unto incorruption, said: "Lift up your eyes and see the regions, for they are already white for harvest." For when the earth, having previously lacked inhabitants, had subsequently been populated, our Lord, seeing that there was already a great ear of humanity, heavy with fruit in every region, judges that it is already time for these ears to be harvested. Wherefore virginity, since it perceives according to nature that, just as for the sowing of the present life through the pleasure of ^D marriages...

^A the seeds of humanity were cast down, so also into the life beyond, the seeds of our life are even now being cast from hence through incorruption; it strives of itself to prepare pure seeds of incorruption for the Husbandman of the incorruptible life. By checking with a more vigorous hand the natural conjunction of female bodies with males, it turns them backward, and by a power devoid of passion, it prepares its own beauty to be more resplendent for the age of regeneration. Therefore, virgins have already anticipated by the achievement of virtue that which is to be accomplished in the regeneration through the transformation of the resurrection of bodies, by the power of God. Henceforth, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, like the angels, but are equal to the angels by the virtue of their soul and the incorruption of their body. And that the Lord willed virginity to be the seed of the incorruptible life, ^B sent forth wonderfully from earth to heaven, wishing our bodies even now to contemplate the beauty of incorruption through the incorruption of virgins, is evident from the fact that, while He obeyed the law in all things, He alone renounced marriage. For it was fitting that He who was born in the flesh from an incorrupt virgin should be incorrupt, and that He should not experience the corruption of marriage; for it was not fitting that the corruption of the body through marriage should serve our incorruption, which is according to nature, but rather that it should serve from those who have been corrupted by marriages, according to our natural incorruption. And just as Adam became the seed of the present life through the pleasure of marriages, so it was fitting that He should be the seed of the life to come through the incorruption of virginity; so that, just as we followed him who sowed the life of men on earth through marriages, ^C so we might prudently follow the Lord, who sowed the age of the life to come through virginal incorruption. But if you do not examine the paradise and the life lived there by Adam in a superficial manner, you would find that in paradise he had no need to "know" his wife; but after the transgression, and death, and the fall from paradise, then he "knew" his wife, that he might console the mortality of his nature by the succession of children. Conversely, the virgin who follows the One who leads into paradise, already enjoys delights in paradise with Him, incorrupt, fleeing that malediction which was spoken outside of paradise: *In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children* (Gen. III, 16), and the rest; and she is not even able to understand there how Adam knew his wife. For this was not said while he was in paradise, ^D but after he had been cast out.

55. We do not say these things as if we were now imposing virginity as a law for the lives of men; but we are speaking to those who...

^A have set their minds on purchasing the precious pearl of virginity, and we are showing them its pure luster from every side. "But concerning virgins I have no commandment of the Lord: yet I give my counsel, as one that hath obtained mercy of the Lord," he says; since not even our Master prescribed virginity for our nature in the Law or in the Gospel. For how could He, who fashioned such a relationship for the male towards the female, and again for the female towards the male, as the account described in the beginning, because of the necessity of marriage, and who prepared the succession of the race for those who had become mortal from immortal—devising, as we have said, that immortality—and who on that account said, "Be fruitful and multiply" (Gen. I, 28), have prescribed virginity at that time? Especially since He saw that a multitude of descendants was necessary to replace those who perished in wars because of their own wickedness. And in the Law through Moses, indeed, the begetting of children was even considered worthy of blessing (Deut. XXVIII, 4). But after the world had flourished everywhere with its own fruits, and the earth had been sown with such a multitude of men that it could no longer contain the number of those being born, and that which had been prophesied concerning the advent of our Lord had been fulfilled—that men, ^B wisely overcome by his teaching, would beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks, and that nation would no longer take up the sword against nation, nor learn to wage war (Mich. IV, 3)—then virginity, contrary to those who are corrupted through the body, wonderfully caused incorruption to sprout forth from bodies. Nevertheless, as I said, the Lord does not prescribe virginity through Moses, taking into account the nature of the bodies of males and females, nor does He command it in the Gospel. But taking up the Law of Moses, He teaches that which was lacking for perfect virtue, saying: "It was said, Thou shalt not commit adultery; but I say unto you, Thou shalt not covet" (Matth. V, 27), and what follows. And when He had sat on the mount, He began to open His mouth with the beatitudes; and after He had reviewed the laws of Moses and directed all things toward true virtue, and had delivered the commandments leading to salvation, He fulfilled the ministry of teaching and descended from the mount, having nowhere in the commandments, neither in the Old nor in the New Testament, prescribed virginity. ^C For He wished the achievement of virginity not to be a command, but an excellent deed of a soul that loves virtue, performing of its own free will that which is above commandment and above law. For marriage was instituted for the sake of nature, and the law of the Lawgiver is adapted to nature. Virginity, however, transcending nature, is not rendered a slave to the law, but offers the praise of incorruption above the law to the Creator and Lawgiver. For this reason, then, the Lord, I say again, nowhere commanded virginity; but He conceded it, so that just as one might, through unrestrained power, ^D fall from incorruption into corruption contrary to nature...

so too, from corruption into incorruption, one might do violence to his own nature by a deliberate choice superior to nature. ^A And I say He does not legislate, nor does He command this feat, knowing it to be something exceptional, and above nature and above the law, for a soul that is studious of virtue. Having heard him who said to Him, *It is not expedient to marry*, He, demonstrating the transcendent excellence of virginity, says: *Not all men can receive this saying*.

56. Just as the most divine Apostle, following in His footsteps, prescribes in his Epistles those things ^B necessary for life, and adorns the Church in every rank as one body—from the head down to the extremities, so to speak, even to the nails—but concerning virgins he pronounces nothing of his own; however, being asked, he imitates the Lord and says: *Now concerning virgins I have no commandment of the Lord*. For nowhere do I find, neither in the Law nor in the Gospel, that the Lord has commanded this greatest treasure of the soul that is studious of virtue. But just as the Lord, when asked, answered those who questioned Him, *Not all men can receive this*, yet did not hide either the greatness or the manner by which one might achieve virginity, but by bringing forward the third kind of eunuch, He pointed it out; so too, even if I have no commandment of the Lord, I give an opinion. ^C For where this feat is about to be accomplished above nature, all servile commandment is cast out from there; and a free counsel, whispering how one who is free from every commandment, having become through his own power superior, ought to do violence to his nature for the sake of incorruption, is opportunely introduced. As, therefore, the Lord, being asked about the ways of virginity-based eunuchism, opened them up, so also the disciple of virginity introduced his counsel, saying: *Now concerning virgins I have no commandment of the Lord; but I give my opinion as one that hath obtained mercy of the Lord to be faithful. I think therefore that this is good for the present distress, that it is good for a man so to be. Art thou bound unto a wife? and ^D hast thou been overtaken by this bond before knowing the good that is in virginity? Seek not to be loosed. Art thou loosed from a wife? seek not a wife.* As if saying: Do not seek to be bound by a bond. *But and if thou marry, thou hast not sinned. And if a virgin marry, she hath not sinned. But such will have tribulation in the flesh*, opening for themselves through marriage a workshop of sorrows. *But I spare you. But this I say, brethren, the time is shortened. For the fields are white, and already are they ready for harvest*, so that *they that have wives may be as though they had none.* He does not say, let those who do not have, be as those who have. Just as truly some, not having them on account of the profession of virginity, as if they had, bring disgrace upon virginity. *And they that weep, as though they wept not*

and they that rejoice, as though they rejoiced not; and they that buy, as though they possessed not; and they that use this world, as not abusing it*. For the fashion of this world passeth away. But I would have you without carefulness. He that is unmarried careth for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please the Lord. But he that is married careth for the things that are of the world, how he may please his wife; and the woman that is married, and the virgin, are divided. The unmarried woman careth for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit. But she that is married careth for the things of the world, how she may please her husband. And this I speak for your own profit, not that I may cast a snare upon you, but for that which is comely, and that ye may attend upon the Lord without distraction. ^B But if any man think that he behaveth himself uncomely toward his virgin, if she pass the flower of her age, and needs so require, let him do what he will: he sinneth not: let them marry; yet let him know that he chose rather to please a mortal man and the world than to please the Lord through the enjoyment of pleasure. But he that standeth stedfast in his heart, having no necessity, but hath power over his own will, and hath so decreed in his heart that he will keep his virgin, shall do well. So then both he that giveth his virgin in marriage doeth well; for it is better to marry than to burn; and he that giveth her not, doeth better, affiancing her not to a mortal man, but to the Lord.

57. But the Lord, to those who had learned the burdens of marriage and who lamented the difficulty of the dissolving of the marriage bond, and who said, *It is not good to marry*, saith, *All men cannot receive this saying*, but they to whom it is given. For there are eunuchs, which were so born from their mother’s womb; as many as, by a bounty of nature, have had the incitement to cohabitation cut off, and despise marriages. And there are eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men, who by instruction and guardianship have been persuaded to live in virginity; just as also the virgin kept by her father, of whom it is said: *But he that hath stood stedfast in his heart to keep his virgin, shall do well*. And there are eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven: who are even ^C better than the others, because, having neither from nature any aid toward chastity, nor being kept by men, they have exercised themselves in virginity for the kingdom of heaven, despising marriage and the age for the sake of this kingdom, and ^D applying themselves entirely to the desire for the kingdom, not without athletic sweat. For he who is a eunuch from his mother’s womb, being chaste by nature, can show no personal work in the beauty of virginity; as one who, by the benefit of nature, as I have said, not from love of virginity

^A nor by turning away from marriage through any disposition toward virginity. Just as, therefore, he who has been made a eunuch by men will preserve virginity while being compelled to practice it, so he shows that this incorruption ^B is not his own individual achievement, but that of those who guard him. But he who has made himself a eunuch, since he proves that the beauty of virginity is an excellent work through self-control and through exercise in all things, is adorned in the kingdom by his own — not another’s — accomplishments.

Note, however, that while he takes up the word in Isaiah ^C directed to the eunuchs, he hands down the difference regarding eunuchism, persisting in his manner of teaching. For just as through Moses the prohibition was simply "not to commit adultery," but in the Gospel the Lord explained also the "how" and the manner of not committing adultery: so also through Isaiah he showed that there were eunuchs, but in the Gospel he showed the "how," and that eunuchism is not of one kind, but that a third type of it is understood; so that there, indeed, the eunuch is characterized for us generically, but here also specifically. And these things said do not conflict with what was set forth above. For he does not legislate or command castration in Isaiah, but declares what rewards the good eunuchs are worthy of.

58. It is well to examine the words themselves. ^D *Thus says the Lord to the eunuchs, who keep my Sabbaths, and choose what I will, and hold fast to my covenant: I will give them in my house and within my walls a place named, better than sons and daughters. I will give them an everlasting name, and it shall not fail.*

Therefore, he does not promise these mentioned good things to those who are eunuchs by circumstance and in a simple sense, but to those who, he says, "keep my Sabbaths, and choose what I will." Now a Sabbath is understood not in work, but in the cessation of activity. For he wishes the virgin to keep the Sabbath, not by working to preserve virginity, but by remaining immovable toward activity, guarding incorruption.

Like a statue of God, he says, the virgin is fashioned on earth, consisting of soul and body. Let her mystically keep the Sabbath, moving neither hand, nor foot, nor eye, nor any other of her members, nor even her mind to corrupt the natural beauty; but let her stand like a good sculpture of God, immovable toward every fantasy and contact, standing forever upon the rock; so that no one, through sight or hearing or any other sense, may steal in secretly or disturb ^A the forms impressed upon the soul according to the image of God, or, by confusing the original archetypes, wickedly engrave his own; and thus let her not ruin the beauty of the soul, nor fill the body, being material, with stains and blemishes through certain destructive contacts. Let the Lord’s statue, I say, stand immobile, keeping a perpetual Sabbath, so that not even while

moving of itself it may be stirred anywhere, or in that motion by striking against something it may shatter any of its natural characteristics, nor, being shaken by an external hand, may it be despoiled of its natural beauty.

59. It indicates perhaps through this sabbatizing also how it is possible to acquire virginity at once naturally and miraculously. For even as He, setting forth the mode of our salvation, says: *Say not in thy heart: Who shall ascend into heaven?* that is, to bring Christ down; *Or who shall descend into the abyss?* that is, to bring Christ up from the dead. *But what saith it? The word is near thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart.* And you have no need to search out things so remote from you, heaven or the abysses; but you should use the help that is near and ready to hand. *For if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thy heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.* Thus also regarding virginity He says: Do not say, "How shall I ascend into heaven, to bring down from thence the incorruption of my virginity? Or how shall I descend into the abyss, that I may recover for myself that which was long ago corrupted by the devil?" But what does it say? It is near you, it says, and virginity is born with you according to nature. Therefore, you have no need to cross seas to acquire it, nor to fly through the boundless air, nor to traverse the circuits of the earth in searching and tracking it out, nor to fly up from the earth to heaven to gain entry for its discovery; but, as I have said, desisting from searching out distant spaces, examine yourself to see what you are, and you will find it lying hidden within you according to nature.

And if you wish this to remain inviolable in your possession, keep the Sabbath throughout your life; that is, remain what you were born. Do not move your hand to the touch of a man, nor braid what is unbraided, nor bind up what is unbound, nor corrupt your incorrupt members by entangling them with members of a different kind; but remain in your bed as you are, seeking nothing more. Keep the Sabbath within yourself, doing nothing that dissolves that which is according to nature. You have no need to leap over walls and partitions to hunt after virginity. Indeed, if you do these things, you will perhaps lose your virginity. But by keeping the Sabbath in your bed, you will guard yourself pure, and thus easily, it says, you will have virginity as a most precious possession. For it is not by discovering or doing something new that you will claim it for yourself; but by remaining unstained, you will always appear to all as the good virgin you were born from the womb. But if you lose this possession of virginity, even if you do all the things I have mentioned, and wander through heaven and earth, sea and abyss, and the entire air, you will in no way be able to recover it. For how can that which has been corrupted become incorrupt again? How can she who has known a man be, as it were,

^A accounted as having not known him? And how can that which has been once wounded by desire and pleasure and passion ever become unwounded, while the signs of corruption remain throughout in both soul and body? For repentance indeed releases the sin; but since it is unable to make that which has been corrupted incorrupt again, it mourns throughout life. Therefore, since this possession is most great, and the reward for those who achieve it most glorious, being persuaded by the teaching of the Lord, let us keep the Sabbath in such a way as the discourse has suggested from the beginning to the end, preserving the natural beauty of the divine image undefiled and untouched by any stain throughout. And do not let the virgin merely keep the Sabbath, he says, but "let her also choose those things that I will." For what else does the Lord desire but incorruptibility? This, having chosen in virginity in comparison with the corruption in marriage, and adhering to the covenant with the Lord in the observance of the commandments, ^B she shall receive from Him in His house and in His wall a place of renown, a place better than sons and daughters. For not only to the eunuchs who keep My Sabbaths and choose the things that I will, but also to those who adhere to My covenant, will I give the things spoken of. Therefore, the virgin ought to remember the covenant of the Bridegroom night and day, a covenant which 33 He established in writing for her sake, as He was dying for her sake, for her incorruptibility. And remembering the covenant in His death for her sake—that He gave Himself up for her so that He might sanctify her—let her adhere to His covenant throughout her whole life; that is, let her not disregard the dispensation accomplished in His death for her salvation. But since they had sold away her 34 freedom, He redeemed her with His own blood, and having redeemed her, He not only honored her with freedom, but also, having betrothed her as a bride to Himself, He deemed her worthy to be made a queen by His surpassing grace. For this reason, let her adhere to His covenant; that is, to speak in more common terms, as if this were a kind of dowry of His covenant with her, the marriage having been established legally and in writing, let her always adhere to the solicitations and treaties of this life together, behaving herself blameless in all things toward Him, so that, having lived here in a manner worthy of Him, she may enjoy the goods prepared by Him there. ^C 60. "I will repeat," He says, "and to those who choose the things that I will, and who adhere to my covenant, I will give in My house and in My wall a place of renown, better than sons and daughters." For as they might not appear to be, as it were, seedless and barren and worthy of reproach, thus, He says, they shall be my kinsfolk and friends, so as to remain in My house and within My wall 35. And they shall be judged worthy of such great honor in My sight that no nobility of children can possibly compete with the degree of their honors. For I will give them a place, He says, not only of habitation, ^D

^A but also of advancement and dignity, so that being conspicuous to all, it may noble them with a splendor of dignity beyond the succession of children. And what more, He says, have I to say concerning the mystical eunuchs? I will give them an everlasting name, which shall remain to them beyond the succession of children, and shall not fail. For here, indeed, the children of the body, assuming the name of their fathers, just as they receive life that is being extinguished by their old age, so too by succeeding the failing name of the dying fathers, they kindle it again in themselves. And then they themselves, after having in a short time in some way restored the life and name of their ancestors, nevertheless themselves also, wholly carried away by mortal nature, will in the progress of time fail, leaving their lineage nameless. But the name which is given by Me to the eunuchs, together with a place among those in the first rank, in place of all succession of lineage—I say again—will endure continually, so that both they themselves and all who see them may judge from the outcome how much more excellent this name is than sons and daughters, who often render their lineage shameful, both as a place of vileness and by the name of sin. For a name, He says, instead of a human one, I will give them, that of the immortal angels, and it shall not fail; so that they may have heaven and the most beautiful place of heaven for a dwelling. In the most illustrious place of heaven, that is, in My house, living within My bounds ^B, they shall not only henceforth have the nature and immortal dignity of angels (being always sufficient for themselves in place of successors in everlasting life) but shall also obtain a place among the angels that is most distinguished, and a name indelible on account of the splendor of their extraordinary virtue. Let them take heed, however, lest as they ascended from men and earth into heaven and the dignity of angels, they might fall again from the angels and heaven to the earth with a most great plunge. For I saw, He says, him who once shone in heaven, falling like lightning from heaven. Having heard this, it is fitting for them to be cautious in every way. Those who are, according to the mind, divine eunuchs shall therefore be found worthy of such rewards in the kingdom. Nor shall those lack the same who were violently made eunuchs by a tyrannical hand in their tender age. But if, in that bodily castration which happened to them against their will, they have castrated themselves by a voluntary castration of the mind, so that they observe a sabbath from all wickedness, and choose what the Lord wills, and adhere to the testament of His commandments, being by no means unfruitful in virtue in their soul, they shall have a place in the house of the Lord better than sons and daughters; nor shall they any longer be held as a dry tree, on account of the unfruitfulness of the flesh; but as green plants, adorned from all sides with many fruits of justice. For they shall be seen, He says, planted in the house of the Lord, in the courts of the house of our God they shall flourish. ^D I will not, therefore, say again that He has prescribed virginity like a law, but with free choice

^A leaving it to them, he has indicated what reward those who have overcome nature deserve, by the manner of this mystical eunuchism.

61. But those who have not understood what it is: *There are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven*, have absurdly mutilated themselves, by this very act accusing their own lust from afar. For those who cast away the instrument of carnal love lest it operate if it be present, it is manifest that they are driven by desire toward intercourse, but having stripped themselves of their arms, they cherish virginity not because they do not wish to, but because they cannot. ^B But the divine law judges not the action, but the thought; for everyone who has not committed adultery by the deed, but has looked with the intent to lust, has already committed adultery. Now the cutting off of the members accuses the one who is mutilated of a greater adultery than that which is committed through the concupiscence of the eyes. For, distrusting himself as to whether he can master his lust, he cut off that with which he would bring the act of desire to pass. Or rather, being convinced that if it were present he would act incontinently, he removed the instrument of lust by the excision, so that he might not seem to be lustful through the body, yet he is lustful nevertheless in his desire, and he incontinently commits adultery with everyone. For the undertaking itself cries out from afar against his intemperance. Wherefore, after the excision, one might rightly call these men more incontinent. For since they cannot control ^C themselves, and then fear that they might be caught in the deed, so that they may have license to use their lust as they wish, being slaves to pleasure—yet not wishing the completion of the act to be an impediment to their future and perpetual enjoyment—they, having cast off the proof of the act, rage licentiously toward intercourse. But if one who strikes with a sword at someone protected by a breastplate, even if the breastplate prevents the blow and the murder from happening, still sustains the crime of homicide; and if one who wishes to plunge a sword into an unarmed man, and then by accident strikes the sword from his hand, is rightly judged as a murderer, because the law judges not the work but the intention; then, likewise, he who is armed with the generative member, even if he cannot, though he has attempted it, corrupt as he wishes one protected by the breastplate of faith, is worthy of punishment as a corrupter; just as, therefore, ^D he who finds one unprotected and then rushes toward the act, but has cast away his weapon by the excision, and the defilement does not occur, is justly judged as having committed the defilement, because the law judges the intention. In which matter, furthermore, she also is found, not unreasonably, to be accused along with him of unchastity even in this. For how shall we believe her, that she would have repulsed the blow of defilement brought upon her by the lecherous man, since the weapon is not present? For where one struggles valiantly for integrity against him who is armed by nature, the contest of chastity is manifest. But where the man is unarmed, and the association with him is indifferent in all respects, or rather flows from a love of pleasure;

^A his chastity is doubtful, and a multitude of votes from all sides declares his incontinence. But these things apply to those who have excised their entire sexual organs together with their testicles. For they say that those who excise only the testicles after reaching manhood and attaining the capacity for intercourse, are stung to intercourse more sharply and uncontrollably, and not only are they stung, but—as they themselves believe—they also defile whoever they chance upon without danger. For they say that when the testicles are cut away from below, the pores which supply semen from the loins and kidneys to the rest of the genital member become obstructed above after the resection; but as lust boils in the kidneys and thus froths the semen, the man is incited to the discharge of the seminal fluid. ^B And since he cannot shed the boiling semen because he has saved it for the act of intercourse, he is armed thereby. Once he has astutely made the castration of the testicles a lure to deceive a woman, he engages in intercourse more intemperately. For a man who is whole by nature, since his testicles receive the seminal fluid from above and thence distribute it, rests as soon as the seed has elapsed and lust has been relaxed; but he who has nothing from which he can evacuate that which tickles him scarcely abates his impulse until, as they say, exhaustion dissolves this madness. Nor is this testified to only by the rationale of nature, but also by experience in our own age, just as a certain venerable man, aged in both hair and character, narrated to me concerning a woman who had made her confession to him. ^C He said that the woman had told him that the eunuch, to whom she had been entrusted by her husband or master, was accustomed to have illicit intercourse with her. And he was bolder, she said, in his wickedness, because, as a eunuch, he did not fear childbirth. Nor he alone, but also another of those who are like-minded with us—a man, indeed, who would not lightly lie—related that a certain virgin of the Church, a canoness, had lamented to him that a certain eunuch had entered her bedroom and embraced her lustfully; and, clinging to her whole body with his whole body, since he could not satisfy his desire, he had used his teeth, ^D wildly manifesting with bites the madness of intercourse boiling in his flesh. She added that the virgin, because of her simplicity, had been entangled in this temptation by the bait of his castration; but after the experience, she had turned away from the man, and had wept over the defilements of his lust towards her, not only in his presence, but before many others too. But the testimony of two men is true, so that we may not, by listing many others, become more prolix than our purpose requires.

we have exposed these matters, not only for the sake of safeguarding virginal integrity, but also because we have endeavored to restrain many of this sort of eunuchs who have now become prevalent in the Church. ^A For it is evident that this work is the cunning of the devil, since former ages introduced these eunuchs among the Gentiles, and even now among us, absurdly, and he has innovated the name of chastity—which was given at that time to such an excision—to something contrary to nature. For he is shrewd who lies in wait for our faith in the Lord, to work evil through that which is believed to be a virtue, a fact which is easy to discern from past events. For just as through those things by which God ought to have been known, he caused the Gentiles to be ignorant of God—for the world is a monument to the purpose of the Creator; but they, from the beauty of the things that are seen, by no means glorified the beauty of their Maker as they ought to have, but worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator (Rom. 1, 25)—and just as through those things by which Christ ought to have been known, he causes him to be ignored, by ^B devising cunningly, through the Scriptures that preach Christ, an ignorance of Him by means of heretical opinions, and just as he craftily sows disbelief and denial of Christ under the trusted name of Christ, so also through the name of mystical castration, under the guise of temperance, he creates eunuchs and the unchaste. Therefore, it is not fitting for a virgin to associate indiscriminately even with these. For if women, when they are lovingly joined in the same bed with women, while their passion seethes within, are often, through the mutual touch of their bodies, stimulated in their imagination toward those bodies with which they have by nature received an inclination (for he who ^C stirs up the law of sin in our members is capable, by slipping secretly between the flesh, of making off with the pleasure born of the friendly and kindly delight of women with each other, and fraudulently inserting the masculine [pleasure] of the flesh)—how much more must the virgin be on guard against male bodies, even if they are those of eunuchs? For even if he is a eunuch, he is still a man by nature.

63. For just as a bull that strikes with its horns, when its horns have been cut off, has by no means become a horse by the removal of its horns, but is still a bull even if it does not have horns; so also the male who has had all his parts cut off has by no means become a woman by this excision, but is always a male, even if he does not have the parts. ^D And just as the bull that strikes, though it has had its horns cut off, is nevertheless a striker in its fury (for by lowering its neck and positioning its head for the strike, it gladly displays its threat; but

^A in this way it is disposed, being carried away by impulse, not simply striking, but just as it formerly did, as if wounding with a horn). So too the male who has had his genitals cut off is still a male in the desire of his passion. Therefore, even he, preparing himself in a similar way for the act, breathes out love and absurd fury. And even in rushing to embrace, even if he does not defile the virgin with that part, nevertheless, as if he were defiling her, he is so affected by desire through his imagination. Yet, by inciting her more vehemently toward sin, he corrupts her whole mind and goads the body itself toward the act of lewdness.

64. Therefore, if the goal is for the virgin to keep her inward purity, she must ^B always act with caution even in conversations with such men. For if we accept the admonition of Sirach, which conduces to the integrity of a virgin—*As a eunuch*, he says, *embracing a virgin and sighing*—it is surely because he is unable to do what he desires. Likewise: *The desire of a eunuch is to deflower a maiden*. For even if, as he says, he cannot make her a mother because of his sterility, yet he desires to rob her of her virginity. Therefore, those whose genitals have been removed ought not to be praised for chastity. For we do not praise horses because they do not gore with horns; rather, we praise them if they do not kick; and in the case of oxen, if they do not gore, we rightly commend their gentleness. For a person is not admired for what he cannot do, but for that in which, ^C though he has the power, he does not use that power for injustice. But if they think that the excision of the genitals contributes to the sinlessness of the soul, let them also gouge out their eyes, which look at many things against reason; let them cut off their hands at the same time, and their feet; let them also stop up their ears, so that none of these may become instruments of sin. Or if this is at once absurd and insane—to cut off all the limbs from every side and to throw away the remaining body, now useless like a trunk, as the saying goes, together with the cause of vice itself, while still sinning in the mind because of the images previously introduced through the members—it is better to leave the body as it was fashioned, according to the principle mentioned above, and to steer all the members with a temperate mind, making the noble achievement a matter ^D not of necessity, but of our own free choice. And we have not spoken these things that we have set forth so far regarding all eunuchs generally, but regarding those who, in order to procure for themselves license to live with women as they wish, have foolishly gelded themselves. And we speak these things generally regarding those who pursue familiarities with women. For we know that just as men touch women holily, so also eunuchs...

who, after the castration of the body, not unwillingly undergone, bring upon themselves a voluntary ^A castration of the soul through chaste and temperate reflection, move among women purely. But for the sake of both precision and purity, we bear witness that just as men who freely associate with women rightly stir up shameful suspicions against themselves, so too do eunuchs who strive to make their lurking places in the company of women fail to keep themselves pure from such suspicions. For those who make their association with the feminine gender not indifferent, but rather more eager, might not irrationally be censured by those using the aforementioned arguments of nature as being worse than other men. For in the case of the latter, the power to act, by placing the outcome of the sin before their eyes, holds them back from the sin of the will through the fear of a fall. But here, the inability to perform what they desire, making them bold ^B toward the enjoyment of lust, inflames the sin of the will within them all the more.

65. Let no one lash out at this discourse as though it were unfitting for virginal character to delve into the contemplation of the nature of the male. First, because no virgin is so truly an infant, provided she be of nubile body, as to be ignorant of anything pertaining to the nature of him from whose side she was torn. For as long as her bodily members are imperfect and immature for natural function, the law of sin is dormant, and one might perhaps say that for the time being there is an ignorance of the natural act within the members, even if nature as much as possible ^C proceeds spontaneously toward that which is suited to it, as can be seen in the brute beasts, which, taught by nature of their own accord, are moved immediately toward coitus. Indeed, even infants have been caught imitating the masculine coitus while their members were yet immature. But when these reach puberty and are seen to be fit for the condition for which they were created, immediately the law of sin enters, legislating the action for each member, marshalling the members against the law of the mind, and taking captive every man through his members to the law of sin. And no member, having the law as its teacher, could pretext an ignorance of the sin to which nature is led. But the lips know for what use they are suited by nature in matters of love, and each member knows its counterpart in the other sex just as well as it knows itself by nature. For it would not have desired the function of the member if it were ignorant of its nature and its use. Thus, we are not deserving of blame for having unfolded in due time what is known by virgins, but was passed over in silence due to necessity. Furthermore, even if they were ignorant of the male nature, lest this ignorance become a lure for them...

we have considered this with non-absurd caution, so that, just as they are simple as doves, so too may they be prudent as serpents, avoiding all injury to their integrity by the proposed teaching. In addition to these things, as we have undertaken a purification of speech for the common virginity, just as we owe benevolence to the virgins, so too do we owe it to the males: it was necessary to show to these what injures and what benefits, so that they, not at all attending to the name of castration, fall into the opposite; but knowing what sin the illicit cutting off of virile parts is, and who is the eunuch worthy of the Lord's approval, they may be instructed in mind for true castration, but being prudently reflected back by the word, they may refrain from the absurd impulse of cutting off their members, lest many thereafter be carried off into this vice.

66. Therefore, the one who truly prepares to lead a life as a virgin will always keep herself pure from all contact with the male, and sleeping with females, with a mind turned in upon itself, she will have her intention in heaven, and entirely lifting herself out of the body, she will say the same things as the one who said: "I know myself, whether in the body I do not know, or out of the body I do not know, God knows, that I was caught up into paradise and heard unspeakable words." For if she truly perceives the bridegroom’s vigilant love for her from heaven, and that the darkness of the night is not an opportunity for sin, but an opportunity ^B for divine discourse, she will not be perturbed by exterior things in the darkness of the night; but with her whole mind she will be illuminated by the light of the Word, and she will diligently adorn her mental lamp in secret throughout the night; and deservedly will He snatch her up even to the third heaven into paradise, and will speak to her such words as are declared to be unspeakable for those still living in the body. Yet if she makes such progress that she does not know whether she lives in the body or out of the body, these things will be in a mystery. Wishing that all the chorus of virgins be found thus, and praying for protection against the things that defile the beauty of virginity, I have expounded these things, not that by contemplating them we may learn how it is necessary to slip into harmful things, but that, having learned the manner of these slips, we may see how it is necessary to jump away from them and avoid them. For teachers of medicine, when they contemplate poisons and all health-destroying things in general, do not exhort their students to the use of these, so that, having equipped their minds with the knowledge of harmful things for evil, they may be shown to be destroyers of life instead of physicians; but so that, having learned what is destructive of our natural power, they may protect themselves against these by contrary powers, and if they somehow happen to occur to their bodies, they may remove them by their knowledge. Therefore, following the third manner of eunuchism, there are three paths which our Lord has shown leading us to virginity, through which he says, "He who is able to receive it, let him receive it." For the one that travels this path through one of these two is acceptable, but more blessed is the one that runs through the better one. ^{C D}

And those who are eunuchs not by involuntary bodily castration, ^A but who have voluntarily castrated themselves by a temperate judgment of the soul, associate purely with women. But for the sake of both accuracy and purity, we bear witness that just as men, by associating more freely with women, justly stir up base suspicions against themselves; so too eunuchs who are eager to linger in the company of women do not keep themselves free from suspicion. For those who do not treat association with the female sex as a matter of indifference, but rather with greater eagerness, could not unfairly be blamed on the basis of the aforementioned natural reasonings, even more than other men. For in the case of the latter, the power to be able, by placing the result of sin before their eyes, restrains them from the sin that proceeds from the will, through fear of the fall. But here, the inability to perform what they desire, by making them bold toward the enjoyment of lust, kindles the sin of the will within them yet more. ^B It is appropriate for a virginal character to delve into the contemplation of the male nature. First, because no virgin is so infantile, provided she is physically nubile, that she is ignorant of anything regarding the nature of him from whose side she was torn. For so long as the members of her body are imperfect and immature for natural operation, the law of sin remains idle; and one might perhaps say that for a time there is an ignorance of natural action within the members—even if nature moves of its own accord toward that which is proper to it, as one can see in the case of brute animals, which are guided by self-taught nature directly to mating. Indeed, even infants have been caught in the immaturity of their members imitating the male embrace. But when these become nubile ^C and appear fit for the relationship for which they were born, the law of sin immediately enters, legislating action for each member, marshalling the members of the law against the mind, and taking captive every person to the law of sin through their members. And not one of the members, having the law as a teacher, could pretext ignorance of the sin to which it is naturally inclined. For the lips know in matters of love for what use they are naturally suited, and each of the members knows the member of the opposite sex as much as it knows itself by nature. For it would not have desired the action of the member if it were ignorant of its nature and its use. Therefore, we are not worthy of blame if we have brought to light at the proper time what is known to virgins, but mentioned silently due to necessity. ^D Furthermore, even if they were ignorant of the male nature, lest this ignorance become a lure...

it possesses the power of enjoying it; ^A but, having been taught to enjoy whatever it desires without restraint, it is insatiable in its power to be carried away in many ways toward everything that is desired. They say that one ought not to cut off each head of pleasure in this way, but rather to overcome it through endurance by not yielding to what is sweet.

68. But the divine word, when sacrificing the calf before the most wise Moses through the members of which the holocaust is made, shows the manner of exercising virtue by natural reason, while ordering that the extreme part of the liver, and not the whole liver, and the fat which covers the belly, and not the belly itself, and of the kidneys not only the fat, but also the kidneys themselves together with the fat, be consumed by fire. For ^B since the liver is the organ of desire (according to which it is said of him who is wrongly smitten toward desire, "You shall be as a stag struck by an arrow in the liver" *), it is fitting by nature to burn up only the lobe, as the peculiar desire for sin, in which also the gall is found, and to keep the rest, which is pure of the gall and of base desire, for the desire of good things; and concerning the belly, to remove only the excess from which we grow fat toward irrationality, and to keep only what is necessary. But in the case of the kidneys, he orders that not only the fat, which foams forth a great abundance of seed toward intemperance, but also the kidneys themselves be consecrated; ^C speaking (most naturally) in riddles about what is necessary for life, and what is noble for desire, and what is pure for temperance. For since it is impossible to live in the body without food, the organ of food—the belly, I mean—it leaves bare, having removed all gluttony; and it rightly removes the fat that covers it. Again, since it is impossible for us to attain any good unless we possess the natural faculty of desiring it, it cuts off the evil species of desire, I mean, like the lobe with the gall, but it leaves the good kind of desire for virtues pure and intact. But regarding the kidneys, since they appear necessary neither for life, like the belly, nor for desire—as they undertake only the particular desire for sexual union—it ^D delivers to the fire not only their fat, I mean, but also they themselves, because it is possible to live without kidneys, that is, without marriage, and from then on to practice the life of virginity, which is equal to that of the angels, throughout our life. Being instructed in all wisdom by these things, it behooves us to resist universal pleasure wisely, as if it were a many-headed hydra, and not to bring to perfection through the senses the heads that are always sprouting forth by the appearance of cursing them, but to burn them firmly with endurance and intense self-control.

And to offer our bodies as a holy sacrifice, well-pleasing to God, like a calf for the priesthood, consuming with the divine fire of self-control wherever there is depraved desire, just as if it were the extremity; wherever there is superfluous food, like the fat that covers the belly; and wherever there is the entire desire for nuptial intercourse, just as if it were the loins with the fat that supplies them with seed; so that, according to the proposed goal of virginity, finding ourselves through the ascetic life superior to every depraved desire and every pleasure, we may be found worthy of the prize set before us in the contests and of the crown of incorruptibility, through Jesus Christ, through whom be glory to the Father with the Holy Spirit for the ages. Amen. ^D

ADMONITION ON THE FOLLOWING SERMON

I. There appeared at Florence, in the year 1703, from a codex in the Medicean Library, a sermon *On Synisactae*, attributed to Basil the Great. The very learned man who first published it in Greek, Angelus Maria Bandinius, expressing his opinion regarding a booklet of this kind, speaks thus: "We have applied incredible diligence... to bring to light whether it was an unpublished work [a sermon *On Synisactae*] or not. For first we turned over all the works of St. Basil; and when there was nothing within them, we consulted those two orations of St. John Chrysostom, the one *To those having virgins as synisactae*, and the other *To those who have wives as synisactae*, so that if by chance it were a fragment of either, and an error, as often happens, had crept into the title, we might dig it up: but nothing similar was found by us therein. St. Gregory of Nazianzus occurred to us, a very fierce persecutor of the synisactae and agapetae; but since he had written on this matter only in verse, he cut off all hope. Finally, besides Suicerus, we perused that most learned dissertation of Muratori *On Synisactae*, which is inserted in his Greek Anecdota, to see if by chance any mention of this sermon of Basil's might be made by him: but here too was a strange silence regarding it. Whence we easily arrived at the opinion that we should present this sermon to the public light as unpublished: and all the more willingly because this matter is being enacted in precisely the situation against which so many holy Fathers seized their pens; namely, that most wretched custom, brought in among Christians in the first centuries of the Church, whereby virgins lived with men, and vice versa, men with virgins, and were not ashamed of the cohabitation: which indeed is defeated in this sermon with the full force of eloquence and every kind of argument. But that it is in truth a work of Basil, we dare not affirm with certainty: yet since it is attributed to him in the codex, following its authority, we present it under his name, especially since it does not in the least depart from the style of his works." Thus far the aforementioned learned man.

II. And such a conjecture regarding the author of the *Sermon on Synisactae* being Basil the Great seems to rely not only on the authority of the manuscript codex and the similarity of style, but also in a certain way on the testimony of the same holy Doctor. For it is agreed that Basil, anxious about restoring discipline at the beginning of his episcopacy, among other regulations of pastoral governance, issued a decree in particular against "foreign women," namely those virgins from whose cohabitation presbyters and other ministers assigned to church service were deriving use, and who were thus bound by the law of continence just as if the profession of virginity would preclude any occasion for suspicion. Now we interpret *synisactae* as "foreign women," because Jerome, Rufinus, Fulgentius Ferrandus, and other ancients rendered this word in this way, as learned men have noted after Cujacius, Gothofredus, Lupus, Suicerus, and recently Prudentius Maranus, who says that "foreign women" are called *synisactae*, so that they may be opposed to those whom nature has given, such as mothers, sisters, and aunts: for the third canon of the Council of Nicaea allows these, because they are beyond suspicion otherwise.