When Thallousa had said these things, Theopatra related that Virtue touched Agathe with her scepter; and she, perceiving it, at once arose and answered, saying: With much boldness and persuasiveness, O Virtue, and with the reputation of speaking well, since you accompany me, I too will try according to my power to bring something to the matter before us—yet in my own way and not in rivalry with what has been said. For I could not philosophize in a manner to vie with these things, so variously and brilliantly wrought; I should seem to incur the reproach of foolishness if I were to leap forward to be made equal with my betters in wisdom. If, then, you will bear with even those who declaim however it may turn out, I undertake to speak, in no way slackening my eagerness. And here is where I must begin. An irresistible beauty, O virgins, akin to wisdom and well-suited to it, we all possess as we come into this world. For souls are then most accurately fashioned by Him who begot and molded them, when, shining forth the undefiled idea after His likeness, they preserve such forms of that countenance toward which the Father looked when He fashioned them, having an immortal and rational shape. For the unbegotten and incorporeal Beauty, which neither begins nor wanes, but is unchangeable and ageless and in need of nothing, self-existent and abiding as light in things unspeakable and unapproachable, containing all things by the abundance of its power and creating and transforming them, fashioned the soul as an image of His own image. Wherefore it is rational and immortal; made after the image of the Maker, the Only-begotten, as I said, it has an unsurpassable beauty. For this reason also the spiritual hosts of wickedness love it and lie in wait for it, striving by force to defile that godlike and lovely idea of hers—even as the prophet Jeremiah sets forth, reproaching Jerusalem, saying, 'You had the look of a harlot; you became shameless toward your lovers,' speaking of her who gave herself up to the adverse powers for profanation. For the lovers are the devil and the angels about him, who contrive to stain and defile the rational and discerning beauty of our intelligence by their commerce, desiring to become adulterers of every soul that is betrothed to the Lord.
If, then, one keeps this beauty unstained and unharmed and such as He who composed and depicted it stamped it—imitating the eternal and intelligible Nature, of which man is the impress and likeness, having become as it were a most beautiful and sacred statue—he shall thence be translated to the city of the blessed, the heavens, and shall dwell there as in a temple. Our beauty is best and most securely kept undefiled then, when, sheltered by virginity, it is not blackened from without by the scorching heat of corruption, but, abiding in itself, is adorned with righteousness, led as a bride to the Son of God. Even in the manner He Himself sets forth, exhorting that as in lamps the inextinguishable light of chastity must be kindled in our own flesh, since the number of the ten virgins is meant to measure the souls that have believed in Jesus, the figure being represented by the ten, which alone marks out the road that leads straight to the heavens. But five of them proved prudent and wise, while five were foolish and unwise; for they did not provide beforehand to make their vessels full of oil, but were left empty of righteousness. For by these He hints at those who, hastening to come to the very limits of virginity, do all things decorously and soberly to fulfill this love, and at those who profess and pride themselves on aiming at this, but are negligent and overcome by the world's distractions, and as it were sketch rather an image of virtue than work it as the living truth itself.
For the saying that the kingdom of heaven is likened to ten virgins, who took their lamps and went forth to meet the bridegroom, means to signify that all had taken up the same way of practice, on account of the import of the ten. For they set themselves to it in like manner, having alike avowed themselves to this, and on this account are called ten, since they chose, as I said, the same purpose; yet they no longer went forth alike to meet the bridegroom. For some provided abundant nourishment, and a future supply, for their oil-fed lamps, while others were heedless, taking care only for the present. Wherefore they are divided into equal numbers, by fives, since some of them guarded the five senses pure and virgin from sins—which most have named the gates of wisdom—while the others, on the contrary, marred them, kneading them with multitudes of wrongs in vice. For those who, mastering themselves and keeping chaste, bore good fruit in righteousness, prospered rather in good deeds; whence it came about that the others, shut out beyond the holy precincts, were left to go their way. Whether we do rightly or transgress, through these senses both kinds of things are confirmed—the good works and the evil deeds. And just as Thallousa said there is chastity also of psalms and of the ears and of the tongue and of the rest of the senses, so here too she who has guarded the faith inviolate through the five avenues of virtue—sight, taste, smell, touch, and hearing—is called five virgins, because she has restored to Christ the five chaste impressions of sense-perception, from each of which a torch shines brightly with holiness. For our five-lighted lamp, as it were, is the flesh, which the soul bears like a torch and presents to the bridegroom Christ on the day of the resurrection, making faith shine forth bright through all the senses—even as He Himself taught, saying, 'I came to cast fire upon the earth, and what would I, if it were already kindled?' He called our tabernacles 'the earth,' meaning that He desired the swift-moving and fiery practice of His teaching to be quickly kindled. For the oil is to be compared to wisdom and righteousness; for when the soul rains down these things abundantly and pours them upon the body, the light of virtue is kindled into a height inextinguishable, shining forth its good deeds before men, that the Father who is in the heavens may be glorified.
Such oil, indeed, those of old too offered in Leviticus—unmixed oil, pure, beaten, to burn a lamp outside the veil before the Lord. But to them was enjoined to tend a very small light, from evening until morning. For their lamp seems to be likened to the prophetic word, which sheds its frank light upon chastity, nourished by the deeds and the faith of the people; and the temple to the portion of the inheritance, since a lamp can shine for only one house. Before the day, then, this lamp had to be burning; 'for they shall burn it,' it says, 'until morning'—that is, until the coming of Christ. For when the sun of chastity and of righteousness has risen, there is no need of a lamp. So long, then, as that people stored up the things that nourish the lamp, supplying the oil through their works, the lamp of chastity was not quenched for them, but was ever shining and gleaming in the portion of the inheritance. But when the oil failed, as they turned aside from faith into licentiousness, the lamp was utterly quenched, that the virgins might again flash forth their lamps in successive relays from above, lighting up incorruption for the world like beacons. We too, then, must even now supply the unmixed oil of good works fearlessly, and of understanding, filtered clean from all the corruption that weighs downward, lest, if the bridegroom tarry, our lamps also be quenched in like manner. For the tarrying is the interval before the coming of Christ; the slumbering and sleeping of the ten virgins is the departure from life; the midnight is the kingdom of Antichrist, during which the destroying angel goes through the houses; and the cry that arose, saying, 'Behold, the bridegroom comes; go forth to meet him,' is the voice from the heavens and the trumpet, when all the saints, their bodies having risen, shall go off upon the clouds, snatched away to meet the Lord. For one must note that, after the cry, the word says all the virgins were awakened—that is, after the shout borne from the heavens the dead shall rise—as Paul too somewhere advises, that 'the Lord Himself with a command, with the voice of an archangel and with the trumpet of God, shall descend from heaven; and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we who are alive shall together with them be caught up,' meaning the souls. For we, properly speaking, are the souls who are alive, who, together with the bodies, having received these back, shall meet Him in the clouds, bearing our lamps adorned not with any alien and worldly ornament, but with prudence and chastity, gleaming like stars and filled with their ethereal radiance.
These, O fair virgins, are the rites of our mysteries; these are the consecrations of those initiated into virginity; these are the rewards of the undefiled contests of chastity. I am wedded to the Word, and receive as a perpetual dowry the crown of incorruption and riches from the Father, and through the ages, crowned, I march in triumph radiant, wreathed with the bright and unfading flowers of wisdom. I dance in chorus with Christ who awards the prizes, in heaven about the King who is without beginning and imperishable, having become a torch-bearer of the unapproachable lights, and I sing the new song together with the company of the archangels, proclaiming the new grace of the Church. For the word resounds that the throng of virgins ever follows the Lord and joins His festal company wherever He may be. This too John hints at in his account of the hundred and forty and four thousand. Go, then, O youth of the new ages, go, fill your vessels with righteousness; for it is high time at last to awake and to go to meet the bridegroom. Go, lightly passing by the enchantments and allurements of life that whirl about and bewitch the soul; for you shall attain the promises—yes, by Him who has shown us the path of life. To you, O Virtue, I too, having woven and adorned it, offer this plaited crown from the prophetic meadows.