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Treatise II.3170
On the Dress of Virgins.
Argument.—Cyprian Celebrates the Praises of Discipline, and Proves
Its Usefulness from Scripture. Then, Describing the Glory,
Honour, and Merits of Virginity, and of Those Who Had Vowed and
Dedicated Their Virginity to Christ, He Teaches that Continence Not
Only Consists in Fleshly Purity, But Also in Seemliness of Dress and
Ornament, and that Even Wealth Did Not Excuse Superfluous Care for
Dress on the Part of Those Who Had Already Renounced the World.
Rather, Since the Apostle Prescribes Even to Married Women a Dress to
Be Regulated by Fitting Limits, Moderation Ought Even More to Be
Observed by a Virgin. Therefore, Even If She Be Wealthy, She
Should Consider Certainly How to Use Wealth, But for Good Purposes, for
Those Things Which God Has Commanded, to Wit, for Being Spent on the
Poor.3171
| 3171 After
this he teaches from the Apostle, and from the third chapter of Isaiah
also, that distinctions of dress and ornaments are more suited to
prostitutes than to virgins; and he infers that, while so many things
are offensive to God, more especially are the sumptuous ornaments of
women; and therefore making a transition from superfluous ornament to
the different kinds of dyes and paints, he forbids such things, not
only to virgins, but absolutely also to married women, who assuredly
cannot with impunity strive to improve, to transfigure, and to
adulterate God’s work. | Moreover,
Also, He Forbids to Virgins Those Things Which Had Negligently Come
into Use, as Being Present at Weddings, as Well as Going to Promiscuous
Bathing-Places. Finally, in a Brief Epilogue,3172
| 3172
[Written, a.d. 248. Compare
Tertullian, vol. iv. p. 14.] | Declaring What Benefit the Virtue of
Continency Affords, and What Evil It is Without, He Concludes the
Book.
1. Discipline, the safeguard of hope, the
bond of faith, the guide of the way of salvation, the stimulus and
nourishment of good dispositions, the teacher of virtue, causes us to
abide always in Christ, and to live continually for God, and to attain
to the heavenly promises and to the divine rewards. To follow her
is wholesome, and to turn away from her and neglect her is
deadly. The Holy Spirit says in the Psalms, “Keep
discipline, lest perchance the Lord be angry, and ye perish from the
right way, when His wrath is quickly kindled against
you.”3173
And
again: “But unto the ungodly saith God, “Why dost
thou preach my laws, and takest my covenant into thy mouth?
Whereas thou hatest discipline, and hast cast my words behind
thee.”3174
And
again we read: “He that casteth away discipline is
miserable.”3175
And
from Solomon we have received the mandates of wisdom, warning us:
“My son, despise not thou the discipline of the Lord, nor faint
when thou art rebuked of Him: for whom the Lord loveth He
correcteth.”3176
But if God rebukes whom He loves,
and rebukes him for the very purpose of amending him, brethren also,
and especially priests, do not hate, but love those whom they rebuke,
that they may mend them; since God also before predicted by Jeremiah,
and pointed to our times, when he said, “And I will give you
shepherds according to my heart: and they shall feed you with the
food of discipline.”3177
2. But if in Holy Scripture discipline is
frequently and everywhere prescribed, and the whole foundation of
religion and of faith proceeds from obedience and fear; what is more
fitting for us urgently to desire, what more to wish for and to hold
fast, than to stand with roots strongly fixed, and with our houses
based with solid mass upon the rock unshaken by the storms and
whirlwinds of the world, so that we may come by the divine precepts to
the rewards of God? considering as well as knowing that our members,
when purged from all the filth of the old contagion by the
sanctification of the laver of life, are God’s temples, and must
not be violated nor polluted, since he who does violence to them is
himself injured. We are the worshippers and priests of those
temples; let us obey Him whose we have already begun to be. Paul
tells us in his epistles, in which he has formed us to a course of
living by divine teaching, “Ye are not your own, for ye are
bought with a great price; glorify and bear God in your
body.”3178
Let us
glorify and bear God in a pure and chaste body, and with a more
complete obedience; and since we have been redeemed by the blood of
Christ, let us obey and give furtherance to the empire of our Redeemer
by all the obedience of service, that nothing impure or profane may be
brought into the temple of God, lest He should be offended, and forsake
the temple which He inhabits. The words of the Lord giving health
and teaching, as well curing as warning, are: “Behold, thou
art made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto
thee.”3179
He
gives the course of life, He gives the law of innocency after He has
conferred health, nor suffers the man afterwards to wander with free
and unchecked reins, but more severely threatens him who is again
enslaved by those same things of which he had been healed, because it
is doubtless a smaller fault to have sinned before, while as yet you
had not known God’s discipline; but there is no further pardon
for sinning after you
have begun to know God. And, indeed, let as well men as women, as
well boys as girls; let each sex and every age observe this, and take
care in this respect, according to the religion and faith which they
owe to God, that what is received holy and pure from the condescension
of the Lord be preserved with a no less anxious fear.3180
| 3180 One
codex adds here: “since it is written, ‘He who
perseveres unto the end, the same shall be saved.’” |
3. My address is now to virgins, whose
glory, as it is more eminent, excites the greater interest. This
is the flower of the ecclesiastical seed,3181
| 3181
Otherwise, “These are the flowers of the ecclesiastical
seed.” | the grace and ornament of spiritual
endowment, a joyous disposition, the wholesome and uncorrupted work of
praise and honour, God’s image answering to the holiness of the
Lord, the more illustrious portion of Christ’s flock. The
glorious fruitfulness of Mother Church rejoices by their means, and in
them abundantly flourishes; and in proportion as a copious virginity is
added to her number, so much the more it increases the joy of the
Mother. To these I speak, these I exhort with affection rather
than with power; not that I would claim—last and least, and very
conscious of my lowliness as I am—any right to censure, but
because, being unceasingly careful even to solicitude, I fear more from
the onset of Satan.
4. For that is not an empty carefulness nor
a vain fear, which takes counsel for the way of salvation, which guards
the commandments of the Lord and of life; so that they who have
dedicated themselves to Christ, and who depart from carnal
concupiscence, and have vowed themselves to God as well in the flesh as
in the spirit, may consummate their work, destined as it is to a great
reward, and may not study any longer to be adorned or to please anybody
but their Lord, from whom also they expect the reward of virginity; as
He Himself says: “All men cannot receive this word, but
they to whom it is given. For there are some eunuchs, which were
so born from their mother’s womb; and there are some eunuchs,
which were made eunuchs of men; and there are eunuchs which have made
themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s
sake.”3182
Again,
also by this word of the angel the gift of continency is set forth, and
virginity is preached: “These are they which have not
defiled themselves with women, for they have remained virgins; these
are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth.”3183
For not
only thus does the Lord promise the grace of continency to men, and
pass over women; but since the woman is a portion of the man, and is
taken and formed from him, God in Scripture almost always speaks to the
Protoplast, the first formed, because they are two in one flesh, and in
the male is at the same time signified the woman also.
5. But if continency follows Christ, and
virginity is destined for the kingdom of God, what have they to do with
earthly dress, and with ornaments, wherewith while they are striving to
please men they offend God? Not considering that it is declared,
“They who please men are put to confusion, because God hath
despised them;”3184
and that Paul also has gloriously and
sublimely uttered, “If I yet pleased men, I should not be the
servant of Christ.”3185
But continence and modesty
consist not alone in purity of the flesh, but also in seemliness, as
well as in modesty of dress and adornment; so that, according to the
apostle, she who is unmarried may be holy both in body and in
spirit. Paul instructs and teaches us, saying, “He that is
unmarried careth for the things of the Lord, how he may please God: but
he who has contracted marriage careth for the things which are of this
world, how he may please his wife. So both the virgin and the
unmarried woman consider those things which are the Lord’s, that
they may be holy both in body and spirit.”3186
A virgin ought not only to be so,
but also to be perceived and believed to be so: no one on seeing
a virgin should be in any doubt as to whether she is one.
Perfectness should show itself equal in all things; nor should the
dress of the body discredit the good of the mind. Why should she
walk out adorned? Why with dressed hair, as if she either had or
sought for a husband? Rather let her dread to please if she is a
virgin; and let her not invite her own risk, if she is keeping herself
for better and divine things. They who have not a husband whom
they profess that they please, should persevere, sound and pure not
only in body, but also in spirit. For it is not right that a
virgin should have her hair braided for the appearance of her beauty,
or boast of her flesh and of its beauty, when she has no struggle
greater than that against her flesh, and no contest more obstinate than
that of conquering and subduing the body.
6. Paul proclaims in a loud and lofty voice,
“But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our
Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto
the world.”3187
And
yet a virgin in the Church glories concerning her fleshly appearance
and the beauty of her body! Paul adds, and says, “For they
that are Christ’s have crucified their flesh, with its faults and
lusts.”3188
And
she who professes to have renounced the lusts and vices of the flesh,
is found in the midst of those very things which she has
renounced! Virgin, thou art taken, thou art exposed, thou boastest one thing and
affectest another. You sprinkle yourself with the stains of
carnal concupiscence, although you are a candidate of purity and
modesty. “Cry,” says the Lord to Isaiah, “All
flesh is grass, and all the glory of it as the flower of the
grass: the grass withereth, and the flower fadeth; but the word
of the Lord endureth for ever.”3189
It is becoming for no
Christian, and especially it is not becoming for a virgin, to regard
any glory and honour of the flesh, but only to desire the word of God,
to embrace benefits which shall endure for ever. Or, if she must
glory in the flesh, then assuredly let her glory when she is tortured
in confession of the name; when a woman is found to be stronger than
the tortures; when she suffers fire, or the cross, or the sword, or the
wild beasts, that she may be crowned. These are the precious
jewels of the flesh, these are the better ornaments of the
body.
7. But there are some rich women, and
wealthy in the fertility of means, who prefer their own wealth, and
contend that they ought to use these blessings. Let them know
first of all that she is rich who is rich in God; that she is wealthy
who is wealthy in Christ; that those are blessings which are spiritual,
divine, heavenly, which lead us to God, which abide with us in
perpetual possession with God. But whatever things are earthly,
and have been received in this world, and will remain here with the
world, ought so to be contemned even as the world itself is contemned,
whose pomps and delights we have already renounced when by a blessed
passage we came to God. John stimulates and exhorts us,
witnessing with a spiritual and heavenly voice. “Love not
the world,” says he, “neither the things that are in the
world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not
in him. For all that is in the world, is lust of the flesh, and
the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, which is not from the
Father, but is of the lust of the world. And the world passeth
away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth
for ever, even as God also abideth for ever.”3190
Therefore eternal and divine
things are to be followed, and all things must be done after the will
of God, that we may follow the divine footsteps and teachings of our
Lord, who warned us, and said, “I came down from heaven, not to
do my own will, but the will of Him that sent me.”3191
But if the
servant is not greater than his lord, and he that is freed owes
obedience to his deliverer, we who desire to be Christians ought to
imitate what Christ said and did. It is written, and it is read
and heard, and is celebrated for our example by the Church’s
mouth, “He that saith he abideth in Christ, ought himself also so
to walk even as He walked.”3192
Therefore we must walk with equal
steps; we must strive with emulous walk. Then the following of
truth answers to the faith of our name, and a reward is given to the
believer, if what is believed is also done.
8. You call yourself wealthy and rich; but
Paul meets your riches, and with his own voice prescribes for the
moderating of your dress and ornament within a just limit.
“Let women,” said he, “adorn themselves with
shamefacedness and sobriety, not with broidered hair, nor gold, nor
pearls, nor costly array, but as becometh women professing chastity,
with a good conversation.”3193
Also Peter consents to these same
precepts, and says, “Let there be in the woman not the outward
adorning of array, or gold, or apparel, but the adorning of the
heart.”3194
But if
these also warn us that the women who are accustomed to make an excuse
for their dress by reference to their husband, should be restrained and
limited by religious observance to the Church’s discipline, how
much more is it right that the virgin should keep that observance, who
has no excuse for adorning herself, nor can the deceitfulness of her
fault be laid upon another, but she herself remains in its
guilt!
9. You say that you are wealthy and
rich. But not everything that can be done ought also to be done;
nor ought the broad desires that arise out of the pride of the world to
be extended beyond the honour and modesty of virginity; since it is
written, “All things are lawful, but all things are not
expedient: all things are lawful, but all things edify
not.”3195
For the
rest, if you dress your hair sumptuously, and walk so as to draw
attention in public, and attract the eyes of youth upon you, and draw
the sighs of young men after you, nourish the lust of concupiscence,
and inflame the fuel of sighs, so that, although you yourself perish
not, yet you cause others to perish, and offer yourself, as it were, a
sword or poison to the spectators; you cannot be excused on the
pretence that you are chaste and modest in mind. Your shameful
dress and immodest ornament accuse you; nor can you be counted now
among Christ’s maidens and virgins, since you live in such a
manner as to make yourselves objects of desire.
10. You say that you are wealthy and rich; but it
becomes not a virgin to boast of her riches, since Holy Scripture says,
“What hath pride profited us? or what benefit hath the vaunting
of riches conferred upon us? And all these things have passed away like a
shadow.”3196
And the
apostle again warns us, and says, “And they that buy, as though
they bought not; and they that possess, as though they possessed not;
and they that use this world, as though they used it not. For the
fashion of this world passeth away.”3197
Peter also, to whom the Lord
commends His sheep to be fed and guarded, on whom He placed and founded
the Church, says indeed that he has no silver and gold, but says that
he is rich in the grace of Christ—that he is wealthy in his faith
and virtue—wherewith he performed many great works with miracle,
wherewith he abounded in spiritual blessings to the grace of
glory. These riches, this wealth, she cannot possess, who had
rather be rich to this world than to Christ.
11. You say that you are wealthy and rich,
and you think that you should use those things which God has willed you
to possess. Use them, certainly, but for the things of salvation;
use them, but for good purposes; use them, but for those things which
God has commanded, and which the Lord has set forth. Let the poor
feel that you are wealthy; let the needy feel that you are rich.
Lend your estate to God; give food to Christ. Move Him by
the prayers of many3198
to grant you to carry out the glory of
virginity, and to succeed in coming to the Lord’s rewards.
There entrust your treasures, where no thief digs through, where no
insidious plunderer breaks in. Prepare for yourself possessions;
but let them rather be heavenly ones, where neither rust wears out, nor
hail bruises, nor sun burns, nor rain spoils your fruits constant and
perennial, and free from all contact of worldly injury. For in
this very matter you are sinning against God, if you think that riches
were given you by Him for this purpose, to enjoy them thoroughly,
without a view to salvation. For God gave man also a voice; and
yet love-songs and indecent things are not on that account to be
sung. And God willed iron to be for the culture of the earth, but
not on that account must murders be committed. Or because God
ordained incense, and wine, and fire, are we thence to sacrifice to
idols? Or because the flocks of cattle abound in your fields,
ought you to immolate victims and offerings to the gods?
Otherwise a large estate is a temptation, unless the wealth minister to
good uses; so that every man, in proportion to his wealth, ought by his
patrimony rather to redeem his transgressions than to increase
them.
12. The characteristics of ornaments, and of
garments, and the allurements of beauty, are not fitting for any but
prostitutes and immodest women; and the dress of none is more precious
than of those whose modesty is lowly.3199
| 3199
Perhaps this sentence would be more literally translated, “and
the dress of no women is, generally speaking, more expensive than the
dress of those whose modesty is cheap;” i.e., who have no modesty
at all, or very little. | Thus in the Holy Scriptures, by
which the Lord wished us to be both instructed and admonished, the
harlot city is described more beautifully arrayed and adorned, and with
her ornaments; and the rather on account of those very ornaments about
to perish. “And there came,” it is said, “one
of the seven angels, which had the seven phials, and talked with me,
saying, Come hither, I will show thee the judgment of the great whore,
that sitteth upon many waters, with whom the kings of the earth have
committed fornication. And he carried me away in spirit; and I
saw a woman sit upon a beast, and that woman was arrayed in a purple
and scarlet mantle, and was adorned with gold, and precious stones, and
pearls, having a golden cup in her hand, full of curses, and
filthiness, and fornication of the whole earth.”3200
Let
chaste and modest virgins avoid the dress of the unchaste, the manners
of the immodest, the ensigns of brothels, the ornaments of
harlots.
13. Moreover Isaiah, full of the Holy
Spirit, cries out and chides the daughters of Sion, corrupted with
gold, and silver, and raiment, and rebukes them, affluent as they were
in pernicious wealth, and departing from God for the sake of the
world’s delights. “The daughters of Sion,” says
he, “are haughty, and walk with stretched-out neck and beckoning
of the eyes, trailing their gowns as they go, and mincing with their
feet. And God will humble the princely daughters of Sion, and the
Lord will unveil their dress; and the Lord will take away the glory of
their apparel, and their ornaments, and their hair, and their curls,
and their round tires like the moon, and their crisping-pins, and their
bracelets, and their clusters of pearls, and their armlets and rings,
and earrings, and silks woven with gold and hyacinth. And instead
of a sweet smell there shall be dust; and thou shalt be girt with a
rope instead of with a girdle; and for a golden ornament of thy head
thou shalt have baldness.”3201
This God blames, this He marks
out: hence He declares that virgins are corrupted; hence, that
they have departed from the true and divine worship. Lifted up,
they have fallen; with their heads adorned, they merited dishonour and
disgrace. Having put on silk and purple, they cannot put on
Christ; adorned with gold, and pearls, and necklaces, they have lost
the ornaments of the heart and spirit. Who would not execrate and
avoid that which has been the destruction of another? Who would
desire and take up that
which has served as the sword and weapon for the death of
another? If he who had drunk should die by draining the cup, you
would know that what he had drunk was poison; if, on taking food, he
who had taken it were to perish, you would know that what, when taken
could kill, was deadly; nor would you eat or drink of that whence you
had before seen that others had perished. Now what ignorance of
truth is it, what madness of mind, to wish for that which both has hurt
and always will hurt and to think that you yourself will not perish by
those means whereby you know that others have perished!
14. For God neither made the sheep scarlet or
purple, nor taught the juices of herbs and shell-fish to dye and colour
wool, nor arranged necklaces with stones set in gold, and with pearls
distributed in a woven series or numerous cluster, wherewith you would
hide the neck which He made; that what God formed in man may be
covered, and that may be seen upon it which the devil has invented in
addition. Has God willed that wounds should be made in the ears,
wherewith infancy, as yet innocent, and unconscious of worldly evil,
may be put to pain, that subsequently from the scars and holes of the
ears precious beads may hang, heavy, if not by their weight, still by
the amount of their cost? All which things sinning and apostate
angels put forth by their arts, when, lowered to the contagious of
earth, they forsook their heavenly vigour. They taught them also
to paint the eyes with blackness drawn round them in a circle, and to
stain the cheeks with a deceitful red, and to change the hair with
false colours, and to drive out all truth, both of face and head, by
the assault of their own corruption.
15. And indeed in that very matter, for the
sake of the fear which faith suggests to me, for the sake of the love
which brotherhood requires, I think that not virgins only and widows,
but married women also, and all of the sex alike, should be admonished,
that the work of God and His fashioning and formation ought in no
manner to be adulterated, either with the application of yellow colour,
or with black dust or rouge, or with any kind of medicament which can
corrupt the native lineaments. God says, “Let us make man
in our image and likeness;”3202
and does any one dare to alter and to
change what God has made? They are laying hands on God when they
try to re-form that which He formed, and to transfigure it, not knowing
that everything which comes into being is God’s work, everything
that is changed is the devil’s. If any artist, in painting,
were to delineate in envious colouring the countenance and likeness and
bodily appearance of any one; and the likeness being now painted and
completed, another person were to lay hands on it, as if, when it was
already formed and already painted, he, being more skilled, could amend
it, a serious wrong and a just cause of indignation would seem natural
to the former artist. And do you think yourself likely with
impunity to commit a boldness of such wicked temerity, an offence to
God the artificer? For although you may not be immodest among
men, and are not unchaste with your seducing dyes, yet when those
things which belong to God are corrupted and violated, you are engaged
in a worse adultery. That you think yourself to be adorned, that
you think your hair to be dressed, is an assault upon the divine work,
is a prevarication of the truth.
16. The voice of the warning apostle is,
“Purge out the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are
unleavened; for even Christ our passover is sacrificed. Therefore
let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of
malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and
truth.”3203
But are
sincerity and truth preserved, when what is sincere is polluted by
adulterous colours, and what is true is changed into a lie by the
deceitful dyes of medicaments? Your Lord says, “Thou canst
not make one hair white or black;”3204
and you, in order to overcome the word
of your Lord, will be more mighty than He, and stain your hair with a
daring endeavour and with profane contempt. With evil presage of
the future, you make a beginning to yourself already of flame-coloured
hair; and sin (oh, wickedness!) with your head—that is, with the
nobler part of your body! And although it is written of the Lord,
“His head and His hair were white like wool or
snow,”3205
you curse that
whiteness and hate that hoariness which is like to the Lord’s
head.
17. Are you not afraid, I entreat you, being such
as you are, that when the day of resurrection comes, your Maker may not
recognise you again, and may turn you away when you come to His rewards
and promises, and may exclude you, rebuking you with the vigour of a
Censor and Judge, and say: “This is not my work, nor is
this our image. You have polluted your skin with a false
medicament, you have changed your hair with an adulterous colour, your
face is violently taken possession of by a lie, your figure is
corrupted, your countenance is another’s. You cannot see
God, since your eyes are not those which God made, but those which the
devil has spoiled. You have followed him, you have imitated the
red and painted eyes of the serpent. As you are adorned in the
fashion of your enemy, with him
also you shall burn by and by.” Are not these, I beg,
matters to be reflected on by God’s servants? Are they not
always to be dreaded day and night? Let married women see to it,
in what respect they are flattering themselves concerning the solace of
their husbands with the desire of pleasing them, and while they put
them forward indeed as their excuse, they make them partners in the
association of guilty consent. Virgins, assuredly, to whom this
address is intended to appeal, who have adorned themselves with arts of
this kind, I should think ought not to be counted among virgins, but,
like infected sheep and diseased cattle, to be driven from the holy and
pure flock of virginity, lest by living together they should pollute
the rest with their contagion; lest they ruin others even as they have
perished themselves.
18. And since we are seeking the advantage
of continency, let us also avoid everything that is pernicious and
hostile to it. And I will not pass over those things, which while
by negligence they come into use, have made for themselves a usurped
licence, contrary to modest and sober manners. Some are not
ashamed to be present at marriage parties, and in that freedom of
lascivious discourse to mingle in unchaste conversation, to hear what
is not becoming, to say what is not lawful, to expose themselves, to be
present in the midst of disgraceful words and drunken banquets, by
which the ardour of lust is kindled, and the bride is animated to bear,
and the bridegroom to dare lewdness.3206
| 3206 [The
utterly intolerable paganism here exposed, and fully sustained by
Martial and other Latin poets, accounts for much of the discipline of
the early Church, and its excessive laudations of virginity.] | What place is there at weddings for
her whose mind is not towards marriage? Or what can there be
pleasant or joyous in those engagements for her, where both desires and
wishes are different from her own? What is learnt
there—what is seen? How greatly a virgin falls short of her
resolution, when she who had come there modest goes away
immodest! Although she may remain a virgin in body and mind, yet
in eyes, in ears, in tongue, she has diminished the virtues that she
possessed.
19. But what of those who frequent promiscuous
baths; who prostitute to eyes that are curious to lust, bodies that are
dedicated to chastity and modesty? They who disgracefully behold
naked men, and are seen naked by men, do they not themselves afford
enticement to vice, do they not solicit and invite the desires of those
present to their own corruption and wrong? “Let every
one,” say you, “look to the disposition with which he comes
thither: my care is only that of refreshing and washing my poor
body.” That kind of defence does not clear you, nor does it
excuse the crime of lasciviousness and wantonness. Such a washing
defiles; it does not purify nor cleanse the limbs, but stains
them. You behold no one immodestly, but you yourself are gazed
upon immodestly. You do not pollute your eyes with disgraceful
delight, but in delighting others you yourself are polluted. You
make a show of the bathing-place; the places where you assemble are
fouler than a theatre. There all modesty is put off together with
the clothing of garments, the honour and modesty of the body is laid
aside; virginity is exposed, to be pointed at and to be handled.
And now, then, consider whether when you are clothed you are modest
among men, when the boldness of nakedness has conduced to
immodesty.
20. For this reason, therefore, the Church
frequently mourns over her virgins; hence she groans at their
scandalous and detestable stories; hence the flower of her virgins is
extinguished, the honour and modesty of continency are injured, and all
its glory and dignity are profaned. Thus the hostile besieger
insinuates himself by his arts; thus by snares that deceive, by secret
ways, the devil creeps in. Thus, while virgins wish to be more
carefully adorned, and to wander with more liberty, they cease to be
virgins, corrupted by a furtive dishonour; widows before they are
married, adulterous, not to their husband, but to Christ. In
proportion as they had been as virgins destined to great rewards, so
will they experience great punishments for the loss of their
virginity.
21. Therefore hear me, O virgins, as a
parent; hear, I beseech you, one who fears while he warns; hear one who
is faithfully consulting for your advantage and your profit. Be
such as God the Creator made you; be such as the hand of your Father
ordained you. Let your countenance remain in you incorrupt, your
neck unadorned, your figure simple; let not wounds be made in your
ears, nor let the precious chain of bracelets and necklaces circle your
arms or your neck; let your feet be free from golden bands, your hair
stained with no dye, your eyes worthy of beholding God. Let your
baths be performed with women, among whom your bathing is
modest.3207
| 3207
Otherwise read, “among you;” or possibly, “whose
bathing is modest towards you.” | Let the
shameless feasts and lascivious banquets of marriages be avoided, the
contagion of which is perilous. Overcome dress, since you are a
virgin; overcome gold, since you overcome the flesh and the
world. It is not consistent to be unable to be conquered by the
greater, and to be found no match for the less. Strait and narrow
is the way which leadeth to life; hard and difficult is the track which
tends to glory. By this pathway the martyrs
progress, the virgins pass,
the just of all kinds advance. Avoid the broad and roomy
ways. There are deadly snares and death-bringing pleasures; there
the devil flatters, that he may deceive; smiles, that he may do
mischief; entices, that he may slay. The first fruit for the
martyrs is a hundred-fold; the second is yours, sixty-fold. As
with the martyrs there is no thought of the flesh and of the world, no
small, and trifling, and delicate encounter; so also in you, whose
reward is second in grace, let there be the strength in endurance next
to theirs. The ascent to great things is not easy. What
toil we suffer, what labour, when we endeavour to ascend the hills and
the tops of mountains! What, then, that we may ascend to
heaven? If you look to the reward of the promise, your labour is
less. Immortality is given to the persevering, eternal life is
set before them; the Lord promises a kingdom.
22. Hold fast, O virgins! hold fast what you
have begun to be; hold fast what you shall be. A great reward
awaits you, a great recompense of virtue, the immense advantage of
chastity. Do you wish to know what ill the virtue of continence
avoids, what good it possesses? “I will multiply,”
says God to the woman, “thy sorrows and thy groanings; and in
sorrow shalt thou bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy
husband, and he shall rule over thee.”3208
You are free from this
sentence. You do not fear the sorrows and the groans of
women. You have no fear of child-bearing; nor is your husband
lord over you; but your Lord and Head is Christ, after the likeness and
in the place of the man; with that of men your lot and your
condition is equal. It is the word of the Lord which says,
“The children of this world beget and are begotten; but they who
are counted worthy of that world, and of the resurrection from the
dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage: neither shall they
die any more: for they are equal to the angels of God, being the
children of the resurrection.”3209
That which we shall be, you have
already begun to be. You possess already in this world the glory
of the resurrection. You pass through the world without the
contagion of the world; in that you continue chaste and virgins, you
are equal to the angels of God. Only let your virginity remain
and endure substantial and uninjured; and as it began bravely, let it
persevere continuously, and not seek the ornaments of necklaces nor
garments, but of conduct. Let it look towards God and heaven, and
not lower to the lust of the flesh and of the world, the eyes uplifted
to things above, or set them upon earthly things.
23. The first decree commanded to increase
and to multiply; the second enjoined continency. While the world
is still rough and void, we are propagated by the fruitful begetting of
numbers, and we increase to the enlargement of the human race.
Now, when the world is filled and the earth supplied, they who can
receive continency, living after the manner of eunuchs, are made
eunuchs unto the kingdom. Nor does the Lord command this, but He
exhorts it; nor does He impose the yoke of necessity, since the free
choice of the will is left. But when He says that in His
Father’s house are many mansions, He points out the dwellings of
the better habitation. Those better habitations you are seeking;
cutting away the desires of the flesh, you obtain the reward of a
greater grace in the heavenly home. All indeed who attain to the
divine gift and inheritance by the sanctification of baptism, therein
put off the old man by the grace of the saving laver, and, renewed by
the Holy Spirit from the filth of the old contagion, are purged by a
second nativity. But the greater holiness and truth of that
repeated birth belongs to you, who have no longer any desires of the
flesh and of the body. Only the things which belong to virtue and
the Spirit have remained in you to glory. It is the
apostle’s word whom the Lord called His chosen vessel, whom God
sent to proclaim the heavenly command: “The first
man,” says he, “is from the earth, of earth; the second man
is from heaven. Such as is the earthy, such are they also who are
earthy; and such as is the heavenly, such also are the heavenly.
As we have borne the image of him who is earthy, let us also bear the
image of Him who is heavenly.”3210
Virginity bears this image,
integrity bears it, holiness bears it, and truth. Disciplines
which are mindful of God bear it, retaining righteousness with
religion, stedfast in faith, humble in fear, brave to all suffering,
meek to sustain wrong, easy to show mercy, of one mind and one heart in
fraternal peace.
24. Every one of which things, O good virgins, you
ought to observe, to love, to fulfil, who, giving yourselves to God and
Christ, are advancing in both the higher and better part to the Lord,
to whom you have dedicated yourselves. You that are advanced in
years, suggest a teaching to the younger. You that are younger,
give a stimulus to your coevals. Stir one another up with mutual
exhortations; provoke to glory by rival proofs of virtue. Endure
bravely, go on spiritually, attain happily. Only remember us at
that time, when virginity shall begin to be rewarded in
you. E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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