Anti-Arian Works 6 part 4/24

The virginity of mind and body is better than other gifts. 11. It is therefore clear that among the other gifts of the Church, the chief gift of the spiritual charism is there, where the very virtue of integrity deserves by a perfect appellation to be reckoned a virtue. For although there be prophecy according to the proportion of faith, or ministry in ministering, or he that teaches in doctrine, he that exhorts in exhorting, he that gives in simplicity, he that rules in solicitude, he that shows mercy in cheerfulness (Romans 12:6-7), these diverse gifts are found to be called by their proper names.

But the integrity of the flesh faithfully consecrated to God, and preserved in virginity of heart, with God helping and protecting, is for that reason properly called virginity, that in it the perfection of true virtue may be shown to reside. 12. Better, therefore, than the other actual gifts is inviolate virginal holiness, which by the grace of the divine gift seems to draw the origin of its name from virtue, so that from its very name it may know itself to be ever admonished that it ought to preserve the things which are of virtue. Whence not without reason the Teacher of the Gentiles, and the Vessel of election, distinguishes the celibate and the married life by such a definition, that the former, careful for the things of God, pleases God in sanctification of body and spirit;

but the latter, given over to worldly cares, bears the zeal of pleasing a husband, he confirms. He that is without a wife, he says, is careful for the things of the Lord, how he may please God. But he that is with a wife is careful for the things of the world, how he may please his wife, and he is divided. And the unmarried woman and the virgin thinks on the things of the Lord, that she may be holy in body and spirit; but she that is married thinks on the things of the world, how she may please her husband (1 Corinthians 7:32-34). CHAPTER 8. Holiness is ascribed to the married also, but greater to virgins. 13. Nevertheless the Apostle, in saying this, did not so ascribe holiness of body and spirit to virgins as to take it away from the married, or deny it to widows:

especially since in a higher place of the same Epistle he calls the bodies of the faithful members of Christ and the temple of the Holy Spirit; for he says: Know you not that your bodies are members of Christ? (1 Corinthians 6:15). And a little later, Or know you not that your members are the temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you are bought with a great price. Glorify therefore and bear God in your body (ibid. 19). And that he might show that he was writing to the married also, he immediately subjoined: Now concerning the things whereof you wrote to me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman; but for fear of fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband (1 Corinthians 7:1-2).

In the Epistle to the Ephesians too he was certainly speaking to the married, to whom he said: Husbands, love your wives, as Christ also loved the Church (Ephesians 5:25). And a little later, He that loves his wife loves himself. For no man ever hated his own flesh; but nourishes and cherishes it, as also Christ does the Church, because we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones (ibid. 29-30). Peter the apostle also does not hesitate to call married women faithful and holy, saying: For after this manner heretofore the holy women, hoping in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection to their own husbands: as Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him lord (1 Peter 3:5-6).

Therefore the apostle Paul does not separate faithful married women from the sanctification of body and spirit, but says that they think on that in which he knows their thought to be more held. For who does not know that the thought of holy virgins recurs rather to spiritual things, and the thought of holy married women serves rather conjugal necessity? CHAPTER 9. Marriage is not sin, but a gift of God. A manifold comparison between virginity and wedlock. 14. We know, therefore, that marriage is not sin, but the work of God and the gift of God: which the Lord Himself joined by the bond of faith, favoured with the gift of blessing, multiplied by the increase of propagation. We know marriage to be honourable in all, and the bed undefiled (Hebrews

13:4); we know that God will judge not marriages, but fornications and adulteries: For fornicators and adulterers God will judge (ibid.). For we confess that the fidelity of marriages, the charity of spouses, the fruitfulness of nature, are from God; but because everyone has his proper gift from God, one indeed thus, and another thus (2 Corinthians 7:7), we too so distinguish the degree of each gift that we do not deny either gift to be bestowed by God on the faithful. We do not therefore drag down into fault the lesser gift of God, when we prefer the grace of the better gift; nor when we set the first gift of chastity before the others, do we condemn the second or third; nor in the fact that we acknowledge the summit of virginal integrity, do we assert the crime of conjugal chastity;

nor do we so ascribe virginity to the wheat as to reckon marriage among the tares. Marriage is not the fruit of nocturnal seed, because in the Lord's field it was not the envious sower who oversowed this (Matthew 13:25), but the good Lord who instituted it. 15.

Nevertheless, weighing the merits of both things by fitting discernment, we say only this: that holy virginity stands apart, by a worthier degree, from holy marriage—where those wed who cannot contain themselves—by as much as better things are distant from good, lofty from lowly, heavenly from earthly, more blessed from blessed, more holy from holy, purer from pure; as an immortal wedlock from a mortal wedlock, spirit from flesh, virtue from infirmity, the fruit of an abiding seed from the offspring of a passing progeny; as security from tribulation, tranquillity from disturbance, and, from a good which is momentary with distress, a better which is everlasting with gladness. CHAPTER 10. Virginity far superior to carnal wedlock.

The misfortunes of marriage regarding bodily offspring. The good of virginity regarding spiritual offspring. 16. Nor do we hesitate to say that the intercourse of this infirm and mortal flesh (though granted by God) stands as far apart from the holy virginity of flesh and spirit of the faithful married, as the likeness of beasts is distinguished from the imitation of angels. In the one, indeed, the spirit is pressed down to earth by the earthly pleasure of the flesh; in the other, however, the earthly flesh is raised to heavenly things by the heavenly delight of the spirit. For to please carnal wedlock, worldly countryside often solicits the mind:

but to please spiritual wedlock, the mind, intent on the sweetness of heavenly contemplation, chastises its own body while growing fat with spiritual delight. 17. In the work of bodily nuptials the virginity of the flesh is lost, that one may come to the fruitfulness of the flesh. Yet there sometimes human delight is so cheated of its fruit of uncertain hope that she who has ceased to be a virgin cannot be a mother, and, restrained by the obstacle of sterility, can neither repair in the body what she has lost, nor obtain from the body what she desires. Very often (which is more grievous) with a heavier grief she loses the offspring of the flesh whom she received with grievous pain;

and to this end she bears perils and groanings, that, losing those whom she had borne with groaning, she may groan the worse. But in the union of spiritual matrimony, the soul is so wedded to Christ the spouse that even the flesh is kept intact. The more virginal integrity flourishes, the more immortal fruitfulness prevails. For there there is no mortal fruit from the body, so that immortal offspring is not lacking from the heart. There marital approach does not corrupt the body, because the spiritual embrace of Christ preserves both soul and body. In such wedlock no effect is granted to seething desire, because the fervour of holy charity is nourished by spiritual refreshment. O virtue of angelic imitation, not human in men!

O ineffable glory of the supernal and everlasting gift! which they who receive it meditate upon in mortal flesh, that which they are to take up in immortality: for they choose the good part, which shall not be taken away from them (Luke 10:42), but shall be perfected in them. For what is now kept inviolate by them in deed, shall be rendered back to them, heaped up with the glory of immortality, as a gift. CHAPTER 11. Let virginity so walk that it turn neither to the right nor to the left. The left-hand way is the pleasure of the flesh. The right-hand way is the proud boasting of virtues. 18. Wherefore she who is not the world's virgin, but Christ's, ought, as she should not be adorned with necklaces, so to be adorned with virtues.

But the adornment of a virgin is to preserve the good of virginity no less in mind than in flesh: that is, always to show herself worthy of so great a gift, and so to hold the way of truth that she turn aside neither to the right nor to the left. The left, indeed, the throng of carnal vices besets; the right, the proud boasting of spiritual virtues holds. The one strives to delight the flesh with public delights; the other does not cease to murmur into the mind the praise of its own virtue.

For the one, flattering the virgin, tries to persuade her that, provided only the integrity of the flesh be preserved, whatever pertains to the delicacies of foods, the elegance of garments, the comforts of baths, the softness of bedding, the smoothness of unguents, the merriment of jests, under the guise of avoiding infirmity and preserving bodily health, the virgin may love, seek, and hold; and, as it were on a gentler slope, it shows the one walking the downward descent of the broader way, by which she may not ascend to heaven, but be rolled down into hell: it insinuates that the labour of the narrow path must be avoided, lest one arrive at rest. 19. But the other, the more secretly, the more perilously prepares a precipice for the virgin, while it cunningly praises her ascent.

For indeed, if abstinence be kept in foods, if the garment be not elegant but despised, if fastings beget in the body a boxwood pallor with the ruddiness removed, if contempt of washing dims the whiteness of the flesh, if sleep be given to the weary body on harder bedding, if the smoothness of the skin be roughened by unguents despised, if a more contracted countenance ever resists laughter and jest—all these things she attributes not to divine help, but assigns to the powers of human capacity. CHAPTER 12. Christ's virgin ought to flee the delicacies of the flesh. 20. Accordingly, for the preserving of exterior and interior virginity, the virgin ought always to keep anxious watch with caution.

Let the sacred virgin utterly flee the delights of the flesh and the pleasures of the body, which not so much necessity demands for her as pleasure. For the spiritual Bridegroom of virgins does not seek in a virgin flesh pampered with delicacies, but chastened by fasting. When the Teacher of the Gentiles says that he does this, he intimates that it must be done by us as well, saying, 'I chastise my body, and bring it into subjection' (1 Cor. 9:27). And again: 'In many watchings, in hunger and thirst, in many fastings' (2 Cor. 11:27). But of the widow he says: 'She that liveth in pleasures is dead while she is living' (1 Tim. 5:6). Let not the virgin of Christ, then, seek the delights of the flesh, which she sees are not even permitted to a widow. Sodom, living in fullness of food (Gen.

Gen. 19:24ff.) deserved to become food for fire; while the people of Nineveh (Jonah 3:5) turned aside the divine wrath that already hung over the necks of all by fasting and tears. Therefore, if visible desire is conquered in the body, the invisible enemy power does not rule in the heart. We conquer the former happily if we contend bravely with the latter; and from the former a triumph is won when the latter is trampled underfoot. CHAPTER 13. The moderation of fasting. Moreover, such moderation is to be applied to fasting that fullness may not excite our body, nor immoderate abstinence weaken it. Let therefore such and so great a refreshment follow the virgin's fast that it neither entices the body by its sweetness nor inflames it by its fullness.

For by sweetness the almsgiving of the poor is diminished, and by fullness the body is made warlike. In the one case the debt owed to the brethren is encroached upon, in the other aid is supplied to the enemy. For when we wish to gratify the craving of the gullet with various delicacies, pleasure consumes what the needy ought to have received. Therefore let neither weakness snatch away the fast beforehand, nor fullness take it away. For both fight for our adversaries: because the one, going before, removes the usefulness of the fast, and the other, coming after, obstructs the effect of the following fast. Fullness makes us fast in vain, weakness makes it impossible for us to fast. CHAPTER 14. What kind the garments of virgins should be. Let the garment of the sacred virgin be such as to be a witness of her inner chastity.

Let no elegance be sought in the attire of the outward man, lest the attire of the inner man be defiled. The virgin who affects the adornment of bodily clothing strips her soul of the splendor of virtues; nor does she have true chastity, who prepares an allurement for those who behold her; nor does she keep faith with Christ, who seeks to please the people rather than her Bridegroom. Consequently it must needs be that she who sows lust in the sight of men reaps wrath in the sight of God. For 'he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh shall reap corruption; but he that soweth in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting' (Gal. 6:8).

But concerning these things and things like them, which pertain to the care of the flesh and cause the soul to slumber in concupiscences under the name of virginity, those virgins rather are to be admonished who are given to delights, who are wandering, who are addicted to jesting. CHAPTER 15. But since we are now speaking to the spiritual virgin, something must be recalled about avoiding those snares which (so to speak) the adversary stretches not in earthly things, but in the very heavenly ones; nor does he lead astray from the way by manifest error, but (as the prophet says: 'In the way wherein I walked, they hid a snare for me' [Ps.

Ps. 142:3]), where he perceives men walking well in good works, there more violently and more perilously, under the color of pretended peace, he fights back with hidden ambushes; and being unable to destroy the virginity of the flesh in the flesh, he strives to take away the virginity of the spirit. 24. Wherefore the virgins of Christ must not too carelessly consider how far the virginity of the heart outweighs the virginity of the flesh. For if this virginity of heart be preserved in this life even by faithful married persons and widows through the faith which worketh by love, even without bodily virginity, in the future they will not be deprived of the virginity of the flesh, and will enjoy the blessedness of the heavenly kingdom;

but bodily virginity, even though consecrated to God, if it has not kept the virginity of the heart, will profit nothing though preserved in the body, if spiritual chastity has been corrupted in the mind. 25. The devil assails both virginities: that of the flesh, through men; that of the mind, through himself. The cunning enemy's varied temptation against virgins. He pursues both, he besets both with crafty counsels. But the virginity of the flesh he endeavors to snatch away through a man, while the virginity of the heart he strives to take away through himself. For often he does not assail the virginity of the flesh, which is the lower, in order that he may undermine the foundations of that which is the higher; and as if with diverse engines, so he uses countless devices;

and when he yields in open combat, he shows himself vanquished for this end, that he may conquer; he feigns flight for this end, that he may slay his pursuer with arrows shot behind his back. Defend yourself against such things: for he provokes with evident vices while he assails the virginity of the body, in which, if he be openly overcome, he at once most perniciously hurls the dart of pride; and the author of vices, in that which he cannot conquer by his own vices, conquers by another's virtues; he rises by the very weapons with which he is struck down, and casts down by the very virtue by which he is cast down. He praises the virtue by which he perceives himself overcome, that being conquered he may take captive the conqueror: for he injects vaunting of heart, that by a graver fall he may cast down from on high those whom he sees fighting with firmer step in humble things.

For (by way of example) when he offers the delights of the gullet, if they be accepted, he supplies fuel for lust; if they be rejected, he sows boasting over abstinence. He suggests love of money: if it win assent, he pierces the incautious soul with the sword of avarice; but if he be repulsed, the wicked one lays through liberality the snares which he could not stretch through niggardliness; and in the work of mercy he makes pride of heart sprout up, so that, by what one bestows on the needy, he seems to have great merits for himself. In many ways he does these things, and especially he is wont thus to assail the spiritual servants and handmaids of God; so that if anyone is not conquered by harmful and deadly things, he may be slain by vital remedies.

To good things he works evil, to wholesome things harm, to just things injustice, and to advantages he brings disadvantages. This he first wrought in himself, who took the origin of his crime not from his condition, but from the exaltation of his own excellence: he willed to hold the truth in unrighteousness, and, fallen through unrighteousness, he stood not in the truth. For how could he stand, whom he who never falls resisted for his pride? 'For pride is the beginning of all sin' (Ecclus. 10:15); 'Wherefore God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble' (Jas. 4:6). CHAPTER 16. Pride the beginning of all sin. Hypocrites proud in mind. 26. Now this pride is called the beginning of all sin for this reason, that every sin may be shown to sprout from it as from a root:

which, bringing death to the wretched in manifold ways, casts down the carnal in open combat; but the spiritual, if it finds any of them incautious, it lays low by more hidden conflict. For who does not know that fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, the effeminate, sodomites, thieves, the avaricious, drunkards, the abusive, the rapacious, lift up proud necks against God, and by most wicked works fight rather for the devil? There are others whom pride shows forth in the sight of men as its enemies, while inwardly it holds them as its most wicked soldiers. By these iniquity is craftily carried on, so that to human eyes righteousness may be falsely displayed. Such our Lord thus rebukes: 'Ye are they which justify yourselves before men;'

but God knoweth your hearts.' And to show them clearly as proud, he added following: 'For that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God' (Luke 16:15). 27. To those also who live under the Christian profession, and by manifestly sinning despise the precepts of Christ, Christ himself thus speaks: 'And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?' (Luke 6:46). Such persons the Teacher of the Gentiles also rebukes with these words: 'They profess that they know God; but in works they deny him, being abominable, and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate' (Titus 1:16). And blessed James also says: 'What shall it profit, my brethren, if a man say he hath faith, but hath not works?

Can faith save him?' (Jas. 2:14). Humility, therefore, which Christ taught, saying, 'Learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart' (Matt. 11:29), consists not in faith alone, but in faith together with work. For it is written that 'the devils also believe and tremble' (Jas. 2:19); who nevertheless are not for that reason humble. Wherefore the apostle Paul also asserts: 'Because the wisdom of the flesh is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be' (Rom. 8:7); which wisdom, according to the sentence of James, 'is not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish' (Jas. 3:15). CHAPTER 17. Twofold pride. The parable of Christ concerning the Pharisee and the Publican. 28.

Manifest pride, therefore, is detected when one sins openly; but when iniquity is covered with the paint of righteousness, that pestilence of pride creeps in more venomously, insinuates itself more perilously, when by those who pursue the zeal of righteousness either the life of others is despised as unworthy, or in good works something is assigned to human strength. That pride, in short, by which the rest are despised as sinners by those who seem righteous to themselves, is condemned in the Pharisee, as also the holy evangelist testifies, saying: 'And he spake this parable unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others. Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican.

The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself: God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess. And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying: God be merciful to me a sinner. I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted' (Luke 18:9-14). In the sight of the merciful and just Judge, the proud vaunting of good works is not accepted, but the humble confession of sins.

Those also who strive to assign proudly to their own strength the virtue of good will or of good action are thus marked out by the Apostle: 'For being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own, they have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God' (Rom. 10:3). In his own unrighteousness, therefore, he assuredly fails, who does not submit his proud neck to the righteousness of God. 29. Now in these four kinds of pride, by which the devil is borne as if by a four-horse chariot, and is dragged with deadly course to the hell of the wretched over whom he sits, by two he oppresses the souls which he perceives lying in the flesh, by the other two he casts down the souls which he knows to be flying from the flesh. The former he takes captive by the delight of vices, the latter he circumvents by the elation of virtues;

the virginity of the former he so snatches away that they do not hesitate to commit fornication; the latter he so defiles and stains that they do not reckon themselves trodden underfoot. CHAPTER 18. The proud virgin is not the bride of Christ. 30. Accordingly, that virginity consecrated to God may remain whole, just as the integrity of the body is guarded, much more must the humility of the heart be guarded. For if any woman be truly a virgin of Christ, she cannot be joined to Christ except by humility of heart. The bridal chamber of the Son of God does not receive the proud, and the humble Bridegroom expels the proud from his marriage. Let it therefore be your endeavor, as befits a sacred virgin, to follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, charity, patience, meekness;

yet do not, out of consideration of yourself, despise any Christian women whatsoever, even those placed in a lower profession, nor exalt yourself in good works by presumption of your own virtue. For whatever of spiritual gifts you have more than others have, it is no small loss of virtue, if in that principal virtue itself, which is humility, you do not excel others, since you are not unaware that it is written: 'How great soever thou art, humble thyself in all things, and thou shalt find grace before God' (Ecclus. 3:20). CHAPTER 19. Christ is both Lord and Bridegroom of virgins, therefore he demands both humility and integrity. 30b. Consider, then, in yourself the love of your Bridegroom, ponder the goodness of the Lord. Kind is the Lord, who made you his handmaid;

a comely Bridegroom, who has made you chaste as his bride. Yet the same, because he is a true Lord, and a true Bridegroom, exercises the rights of both powers. He requires from the handmaid humble service, in the bride he seeks whole chastity. Serve therefore the Lord with fear, and rejoice in the Bridegroom with trembling. For because he is Lord, he strikes terror; and because he is Bridegroom, he is jealous. Fearing, then, keep the command of the terrifying Lord, and trembling, love the affection of the jealous Bridegroom. In the handmaid of the Lord let no plunderer find anything of his own, in the bride of Christ let no adulterer recognize anything of his own. As in the body of a virgin lust does not rule, so in the heart of a virgin let no elation rule. With fear and trembling work out your salvation.

For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure (Phil. 2:12-13). 31. As often as you think about the perfection of virtues, do not consider what others have less than you have, but what you have less than you already ought to have; nor for that reason think yourself perfected in virtues, if you see any other given over to crimes; nor for that reason assign to yourself any swiftness, if you see any others either turning back or walking sluggishly. For neither is the blear-eyed man to be pronounced to have healthy eyes because he seems altogether removed from the blindness of the sightless; nor is he to be called healthy who lies half-alive with a grievous wound, if another be found slain by a graver wound;

nor ought anyone to claim glory for himself as a victor, whosoever, although he be not slain by the enemy, is nevertheless held captive by the enemy. CHAPTER 20. A man ought to compare himself not to others, but to himself. The help of divine grace is always to be sought. 32. Do not, then, compare yourself to others, but to yourself. Hear the Apostle doing this, and admonishing us to do it wholesomely. Writing to the Corinthians, he says: 'For we dare not make ourselves of the number, or compare ourselves with certain who commend themselves; but we, measuring ourselves by ourselves, and comparing ourselves with ourselves' (2 Cor. 10:12).