I dare neither to forbid you, nor to permit you, the eating of meat under the pretext of weakness. Yet she to whom strength is available, let her abstain from meat. For it is a hard condition, to nourish that against which you fight; and so to feed your own flesh that you feel it rebellious. But if a virgin uses such things as worldly people also use, it gives occasion that she may do the things which are done by worldly people. What can flesh nourished on flesh do but break out into lust, and rage with the cruelty of luxury against the wretched soul? Whence also a certain author says: 'The end of delights is corruption.' And the Apostle so brands the voluptuous widow that he says: 'She who is in delights is dead while she lives' (1 Timothy
5) But if by abstinence we scarcely restrain the wasted body from the law of sin, which dwells in our members, what will she do who so overwhelms the earth of her flesh that it can sprout thorns and thistles? The fomentation of vices is the eating of flesh: and not only of flesh, but also the excessive satiety of other foods. For it is not the quality of the food that is blamed, but the quantity that is reckoned a fault. For whatever is taken to excess weighs down the soul, and the stomach, distended with overabundant food, dulls the senses of the soul. A virgin ought only to be healthy, not stiff; to wear a pale countenance, not a ruddy one; one who sends up sighs of the heart to God, not who belches the crudities of foods. Those, therefore, who have need of bodily strength, let them have the use of flesh:
namely, those who dig out metals; who strive in earthly contest; who construct the summits of lofty buildings, or in various crafts sweat with bodily labour; for these the use of flesh is suited for restoring their strength. The virgin who rather sustains the failings of the body is a good virgin. For what uses will she take flesh, except that the wretched body may flood with the dregs of vices? But if infirmity compels, flesh is to be taken medicinally. For it is medicinal which does not burden, but relieves: since the skilled in that very art so administer the medicine itself that, applied gradually, it may not burden the sick, but lighten them. Whence that saying of the philosophers is also true: 'Nothing in excess.'