THALEIA: Taking up from here, then, as I think, she herself now also said: You seem to me, O Theophila, both in deed and in word to surpass all, and to bear off the second prize for wisdom to no one. For there is no one who will fault your discourse, not even if he were utterly contentious and given to dispute. Only that one point of the other things rightly said, O blessed one, seems to disturb and grieve me, when I reflect that the most spiritual and wise man—I mean Paul—would not idly have referred to Christ and the Church the joining of the first-formed man and the woman, if the Scripture imagined nothing loftier than the literal words and the history. For if the Scripture is to be taken simply altogether as a type concerning the union of man and woman, for what reason did the Apostle, recalling these things and leading us, as I think, into the way of the Spirit, allegorize the matters concerning Eve and Adam by referring them to Christ and the Church? For the text of Genesis says thus: "And Adam said, This now is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of her man. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall be one flesh." But the Apostle, examining this very passage, no longer wishes it to be taken, as I said, according to its literal sense regarding the union of woman and man—as indeed you also do. For you, working out the argument more naturally, granted the Scripture to declare only concerning conceptions and births: namely, that the bone taken from the bones might be begotten as another man, in that the living creatures come together, swelling and travailing like trees in the season of bearing fruit. But he, teaching that the word is to be taken up more spiritually into Christ, said thus: "He who loves his own wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the Church, because we are members of his body. For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall be one flesh. This mystery is great; but I speak of Christ and the Church."
And let it not move you, if, while discoursing about certain things he leaps over to others, so as to suppose that he mixes in and inserts things unlike the matters at hand, departing from the inquiry, as also now. For wishing, as is likely, that his carefully-prepared discourse concerning chastity be made firm, he first corrects the undertaking beforehand, beginning with the smoother form of expression; for indeed the character of his words, being most varied and worked out by gradual increase, begins more on the surface, but pours forth into the higher and more magnificent; then again, changing into depth, sometimes it ends in the simpler and plainer, sometimes in the more forceful and subtle, introducing nothing foreign to the main heads in its variations, but, encompassing all by a certain wonderful fitness, brings everything to the one inquiry of the theme set before him. For one must more courageously uncover the sense of the arguments according to the Apostle, rejecting nothing of the things said before. For those things too you seem to me to have gone through sufficiently and brilliantly, O Theophila, working over more safely the words of the Scripture as they stood. For it is altogether perilous to despise the things written, as has been said—especially those of Genesis—where the unalterable decrees of God are brought to bear upon the constitution of the universe, by which the world is even now still most beautifully directed in perfect measure, until he who arranged it, wishing again to re-order it, shall by another decree dissolve the first ordinances of nature. But since one ought not to leave the demonstration of the argument untested and, as it were, lame on one side, come then, let us too render its counterpart according to the higher sense, examining the Scripture more deeply. For one must not despise Paul, who rises above the literal and strains it both toward Christ and toward the Church.
And first we must examine—for it is likely that some will raise objections from one quarter or another—how Adam can be likened to the Son of God, when he was found in the lapse of transgression and heard the words, "Dust you are, and to dust you shall return." And how shall he be reckoned the firstborn of all creation, who was molded of clay after the earth and the firmament had already been made? And how shall he himself be allowed to be the Tree of Life, when he was cast out because of his transgression, lest he should again stretch out his hand and eat of it and live forever? For that which is likened to another, of which it is a likeness, must in many respects be made similar to it, and not derive its constitution from things opposite and foreign. For no one of sound mind would be approved who dared to equate the unequal with the even, or harmony with discord; but rather the equal with what is by nature equal—even if it be equal only in some small measure—and white with white, even though it should display only the faintest and most moderate semblance of that whiteness, on account of which it too is called white. Now that the sinless and incorruptible is equal and resplendent—Wisdom itself—is beyond doubt plain to everyone; whereas the mortal and the sinful, that which has been cast out through condemnation and come under sentence, is uneven and unharmonious.
Now the objections raised by the many are, I think, more or less of this kind—those, that is, who are unwilling to refer the first man to Christ, despising, as it seems, the understanding of Paul. Come, then, let us consider how soundly he traced Adam up to Christ, regarding him not merely as a type and image, but as having himself actually become Christ, because the Word that existed before the ages descended into him. For it was fitting that God's first-begotten, his first shoot and only-begotten, even Wisdom, should be blended with the first-formed and first and first-begotten of men, and become man. For this is what Christ is: a man filled with the unmixed and perfect Godhead, and God contained within a man. For it was most fitting that the most ancient of the aeons and first of the archangels, when about to hold converse with men, should take up his dwelling in the most ancient and first of mankind, Adam. For in this way, refashioning anew from a virgin and the Spirit the things that were from the beginning, he frames the same man; since in the beginning also, while the earth was still virgin and untilled, God took dust and formed from it that most rational creature without seed.
And let the prophet Jeremiah come forward as a sure and clear witness for me, saying, "And I went down into the potter's house, and behold, he was making a work upon the stones. And the vessel which he was making fell to pieces in his hands. And again he made it into another vessel, as it seemed good in his sight to make it." For while Adam was still being molded of clay, being as he was both meltable and watery, and had not yet attained, like baked earthenware, to be hardened in incorruptibility and turned to stone, sin, dripping and trickling over him like water, dissolved him. Therefore God, soaking and remolding him anew from above unto honor, first strengthening and fixing the same man in the virgin's womb, and uniting and blending him with the Word, brought him forth into life unmeltable and unbreakable, that he might not again be flooded from without by the streams of corruption and, breeding decay, fall to pieces. —And in the parable concerning the recovery of the sheep, my Lord is plainly teaching the same thing, where he says to those standing by: "What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go after that which is lost, seeking it until he find it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, and coming home he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying, Rejoice with me, for my sheep which was lost has been found."
For since he truly was and is, being in the beginning with God and being God—the commander-in-chief and shepherd of the heavenly hosts, whom all rational beings obey and follow, who shepherds in good order and numbers the multitudes of the blessed angels (for this is the full and perfect number of immortal beings, divided according to kinds and tribes)—man too was here counted together into the flock; for he also had been created free of corruption, that he might glorify the King and Maker of all, singing in answering melody to the cries of the angels borne down from heaven. But since it came to pass that, having transgressed the commandment, he fell a ruinous and dreadful fall and was reconstituted unto death, for this reason the Lord declares that he himself came down from the heavens into the world, having left the ranks and armies of the angels. For we must liken the mountains, on the one hand, to the heavens, and the ninety-nine sheep, on the other, to the powers and principalities and authorities, which the commander and shepherd left behind when he came down to seek out man. For there was lacking yet the man to complete their number; and the Lord took him up and clothed himself with him, that he might not again, as I said, be flooded by the surging waves and the deceits of pleasure and be drowned. For thus the Word took up man, that through himself he might dissolve the sentence of doom that had been passed, defeating the serpent. For it was fitting that the evil one should be conquered not by another, but by the very one over whom he boasted of having tyrannized by deceiving him; since in no other way was it possible for sin and condemnation to be undone, unless that same man, on whose account it had been said, "Dust you are, and to dust you shall return," wrestling anew, undid the sentence that through him had been pronounced upon all; so that, just as in Adam formerly all die, even so again, in the Christ who took up Adam, all might be made alive.
And as for the point that man became the instrument and garment of the Only-begotten—the Only-begotten being he who took up his dwelling in him—this, I think, has now reached its conclusion; but that there is neither inequality nor disharmony must again be briefly examined from the beginning. For he who says that Wisdom, after God, is that which is beautiful by its own nature and just and holy by its own nature—by participation in which all other things become beautiful—speaks most rightly; and again, that sin is unholy and unjust and evil. For these two are utterly opposed to one another: life and death, incorruption and corruption. For equality is life, but inequality is corruption; and harmony is righteousness and prudence, but disharmony is injustice and folly. And he who is between these two is, in himself, neither righteousness nor yet injustice; but, standing midway between incorruption and corruption, into whichever of them he leans and inclines, he is said to be changed into the nature of that which prevails. For inclining toward corruption he becomes corruptible and mortal, but toward incorruption, incorruptible and immortal. For being placed on the boundary between the Tree of Life and the knowledge of good and evil, of whose fruits he tasted, he was transformed into the shape of that very thing—being himself neither the Tree of Life nor the tree of corruption, but appearing mortal by participation in and presence of corruption, and again incorruptible and immortal by affinity and anointing with life. As Paul too taught, saying, "For corruption shall not inherit incorruption, neither death life"—reasonably defining corruption and death as that which corrupts and that which kills, but not that which is corrupted and dies; and incorruption and life as that which makes immortal and gives life, but not that which is made immortal and given life. So that man is neither disharmony and inequality, nor yet equality and good harmony; but when he received disharmony—that is, transgression and sin—he became unharmonious and unseemly; and when he received harmony—that is, righteousness—he became a well-harmonized and seemly instrument, so that the Lord, the incorruption that conquered death, might melodiously sing the resurrection to the flesh, not suffering it again to be inherited by corruption. And concerning these things let what has been said now suffice.
For it has been demonstrated above, by no contemptible proofs from Scripture, that the first-formed man can properly be referred to Christ himself—being no longer merely a type and likeness and image of the Only-begotten, but having actually become Wisdom and Word. For man, like water blended with Wisdom and life, became this very thing which the unmixed light that entered into him was. Hence the apostle aptly applied to Christ the things concerning Adam. For thus most especially would the Church be shown to have come into being out of his bones and flesh; for whose sake the Word, having left the Father who is in the heavens, came down to cleave to the woman, and slept the ecstasy of his passion, dying for her, that he might present the Church to himself glorious and without blemish, having cleansed her by the laver, by means of the spiritual and blessed seed which he himself sows, instilling and planting it in the depth of the mind, while the Church, like a woman, receives it and gives it form, so as to bring forth and nurture virtue. For in this way, too, "Be fruitful and multiply" is fittingly fulfilled, as she grows day by day in greatness and beauty and number, through the union and communion of the Word, who even now still comes down to us and goes into ecstasy in the remembrance of his passion. For the Church could not otherwise conceive believers and regenerate them through the laver of regeneration, unless Christ also, for their sake, emptying himself, that he might be contained according to the recapitulation, as I said, of his passion, again died, coming down from the heavens and cleaving to his own wife, the Church, and granted that a certain power be taken from his side, so that all who are built up in him, who are born through the laver, might grow up out of his bones and flesh—that is, having received a share of his holiness and his glory. For he who says that the bones and flesh of Wisdom are understanding and virtue speaks most rightly; and that the side is the Spirit of truth, the Paraclete, from whom, receiving him, the enlightened are fittingly regenerated unto incorruption. But it is impossible for anyone to partake of the Holy Spirit and to be counted a member of Christ, unless the Word first descend also upon him and go into ecstasy, falling asleep, so that, rising again together with him out of the sleep of the one who slept, he too may be able to partake of renewal and renovation, being filled with the Spirit. For this, properly speaking, would be the side of the Word: the Spirit of truth, the sevenfold one according to the prophet; from whom God, taking after the ecstasy of Christ—that is, after the incarnation and the passion—fashions the helper for him, I mean the souls that have been harmonized and betrothed to him. For sometimes they call the very assembly and gathered company of the believers the Church in many senses, when the more perfect, by their progress, are gathered up into one person and body, that of the Church. For those who are stronger and have drawn in the truth more clearly—these, through perfect purification and faith being delivered from the absurdities of the flesh, become Church and helper of Christ, harmonized and betrothed to him as a virgin, according to the apostle, that, having received the pure and fertile seed of the teaching, they may cooperate, helping the proclamation toward the salvation of the rest. But the others, still imperfect and only beginning the lessons unto salvation, are travailed and given form, as it were under mothers, by the more perfect, until, being brought to birth, they are regenerated unto greatness and beauty of virtue; and then again, having themselves in turn by progress become Church, they minister to the birth and rearing of other children, accomplishing, womb-like, in the receptacle of the soul the unblemished will of the Word.
For we must also consider the things concerning the renowned Paul: that when he was not yet perfect in Christ, he is first born and nursed, Ananias evangelizing and renewing him through baptism, as the history in the Acts relates; but when he had become a man and had already been built up and refashioned into spiritual perfection, and had been declared a helper and bride of the Word, having received and conceived the seeds of life, then he who was formerly called a child becomes Church and mother, himself also travailing those who through him have believed in the Lord, until Christ be formed in them too. For he says, "My little children, of whom I travail again until Christ be formed in you"; and again, "For in Christ Jesus I begot you through the gospel." Therefore it is established in this way that the theme concerning Eve and Adam is referred to the Church and to Christ. For this is the great mystery, truly transcending the world, which I, through the weakness and dullness of my mind, am unable to declare according to its worth and greatness. Nevertheless we must attempt it; for it would now be fitting to go on and speak to you also of what follows next.
For Paul, calling all to holiness and self-control, in this way, by a second consideration, shot up the theme of the first-formed man and of Eve unto Christ and the Church, in order to silence the ignorant who strip themselves bare for want of a pretext. For, living licentiously because of the excessive fluxes of the pleasures within them, they dare to force the Scriptures against orthodox reasoning, holding forth as a kind of bulwark of their incontinence both the saying "God said, Increase and multiply," and the saying "For this cause a man shall leave his father and his mother"; nor are they ashamed to run roughshod over the Spirit, but, as though over something still smoldering, they fan into flame the gadfly's sting, kindling it with provocations. Wherefore, very sharply cutting off these their thievish ill-considerings and feigned pretexts, when he came to ordain how husbands ought to behave toward their wives, and declared that it should be just as Christ also handed himself over for the Church, that he might sanctify her and cleanse her by the laver of water in the word, he ran back to Genesis, recalling the sayings concerning the first-formed man, smoothing them out toward the meaning of the subject set before him, so as not to give a handhold for those who advocate, on the pretext of childbearing, the abrasions of bodies, to abuse these chapters.
For consider, O virgins, that, wishing to intimate to believers through many proofs the dignity of chastity, while willing them to be self-controlled, he sometimes says, "Now concerning the things whereof you wrote to me: it is good for a man not to touch a woman," thereby at once plainly showing that not to touch a woman is good, setting it forth first and stating it absolutely. Then, again perceiving the weakness and the inflammation of the more incontinent toward intercourse, he conceded to those unable to rule the flesh that they should use their own spouses, rather than fall indecently and pour themselves out into fornication. Indeed, after permitting these things, he immediately added this: "that Satan tempt you not because of your incontinence"—which is as much as to say: But if you, sirs, are utterly unable to be self-controlled because of incontinence and the moistness of your bodies, I have rather permitted you to consort with your own wives, lest, being reputed to profess continence, you be continually tempted by the evil one, inflamed toward women not your own.
Come now, let us examine the very texts more carefully, to see that the apostle did not concede these things to the many absolutely, but first added the reason on account of which he was led to this. Having then declared that it is good for a man not to touch a woman, he added, "but because of fornications, let each have his own wife"—that is, because of the necessity of fornication, since you cannot chastise the pleasure. "And let each woman have her own husband. Let the husband render to the wife her due, and likewise also the wife to the husband. The wife has not authority over her own body, but the husband; and likewise also the husband has not authority over his own body, but the wife. Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a season, that you may have leisure for prayer; and come together again, that Satan tempt you not because of your incontinence. But this I say by way of concession, not by way of command." And this too is most deliberately put. For he indicated that he was now counseling by way of concession, and not by command, since he takes up the command in the matter of self-control and of not touching a woman, but the concession in the case of those unable, as I said, to chastise their desire. And concerning the once-married, men and women, whose union still endures, he again legislates these things; but concerning the men who have already lost their wives, or the women their husbands, we must trace out the apostle's very utterance precisely, what he there oracularly declares. He says, "But I say to the unmarried and to the widows: it is good for them if they remain even as I. But if they have not self-control, let them marry; for it is better to marry than to burn." Here too he persisted in preferring continence. For taking himself as the greatest example, he called forth this resolve to provoke his hearers to emulation, teaching that it is better for one yoked to a single wife to remain by himself, just as he too does. But if even this should be hard for someone to achieve, because of the burning and the prime of the body, he allowed such a one to pass by way of concession to a second marriage—not declaring that bigamy itself is good, but judging it better than burning. For just as if someone, on the day of Passover, were to offer food to one dangerously ill and bid him, because of his weakness, taste of what was offered, saying: "As for what is truly good, sir, you ought, just as we and you also, to have partaken steadfastly of the same things (for it is forbidden today to make any mention at all of diet); but since, being overtaken beforehand by sickness, you have grown weak and cannot endure, therefore, granting you a concession, we counsel you to reach out for food, lest, being utterly unable through your sickness to hold out against the desire for food, you perish"—so too the apostle here, having first said that he wished all to be self-controlled, just as he himself is, afterward, for those sick with the passions, lest by fornicating they be utterly ruined through the titillations of the generative members unto the mingling of alien seed, permitted bigamy, judging it rather better than to burn and behave indecently.
And concerning continence and marriages and self-control and the union of men, and in which of these the profit lies for the establishing of righteousness, I have now nearly reached my end; but it remains to speak further about virginity, if there is anything to be said about this also; so concerning these matters too we must treat. For it stands thus: "Now concerning virgins I have no commandment of the Lord; but I give my judgment, as one who has obtained mercy of the Lord to be faithful. I think, therefore, that this is good because of the present distress: that it is good for a man so to be. Are you bound to a wife? Seek not to be loosed. Are you loosed from a wife? Seek not a wife. But even if you marry, you have not sinned; and if the virgin marry, she has not sinned. Yet such shall have tribulation in the flesh; but I spare you." Having very cautiously introduced his discourse on virginity, and being about to counsel that whoever wishes may give his own virgin in marriage—so that nothing pertaining to holiness should be done by necessity and force, but according to the self-determining purpose of the soul (for this is acceptable to God)—he does not wish these things to be spoken to him on the Lord's own authority and judgment, that is, that the virgin should be given in marriage. Indeed, having said, "But even if the virgin marry, she has not sinned," he again, taking great caution, disturbed the assent, intimating that he counseled these things by way of human concession, not divine. At once, then, after saying, "and if the virgin marry, she has not sinned," he added, "Yet such shall have tribulation in the flesh; but I spare you"—which is as much as to say: I, sparing you, sirs, agreed to these things, since you yourselves chose so to think, but in order that I might not seem to drive you to this by force and to compel some. Nevertheless, if you prefer rather to turn to this chastity, even though wearied, I consider that it is profitable in this way for you to master the provocations of the flesh, not abusing your own vessels unto uncleanness on account of having married. He goes on, then: "But this I say, brethren: the time henceforth is shortened, that even those who have wives may be as though they had none." Then again, persisting and calling forth to the same points, he worked out the argument, strongly fortifying the cause of virginity. Connecting expressly, then, what follows with what was said before, he exclaimed: "But I would have you to be without care. He that is unmarried cares for the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord; but he that is married cares for the things of the world, how he may please his wife. And there is a difference also between the wife and the virgin. The unmarried woman cares for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit; but she that is married cares for the things of the world, how she may please her husband." For it is to all indisputably evident that to care for the things of the Lord and to please the Lord is far better than to care for the things of the world and to please one's wife. For who is so foolish and blind in his eyes as not at once to perceive that Paul's exhortation inclines more toward chastity? For he says, "This I speak for your own profit, not that I may cast a snare upon you, but for that which is seemly."
Now mark, in addition to what has been said, how he also enjoins that the practice of virginity is a gift granted by God; whence those who, on the pretext of vainglory, have advanced to this from among the more incontinent, he rejects, counseling them to marry, lest, when the time of the body's prime is producing throbbings and inflammations for them, they behave indecently, their soul goaded as by a gadfly. For we must examine what he hands down. "But if anyone thinks that he is behaving unseemly toward his virgin," he says, "if she be past the flower of her age, and need so requires, let him do what he will; he does not sin: let them marry"—here properly preferring marriage to unseemliness in the case of those who have chosen to remain virgin but afterward chafe at it and grow weary, and who in word, out of shame before men, boast that they persevere, but in deed are unable to continue even a little longer. To him, however, who by an autonomous and self-chosen purpose judges to keep his own flesh virgin and has no necessity—that is, a passion summoning the loins to intercourse (for there are also, as is likely, differences of bodies)—to such a one, who both struggles through and zealously perseveres in the profession, and carries it through excellently, he urges to remain and to keep it, assigning the first prize to virginity. For he says, "He that is able and ambitious to keep his own flesh virgin does better; but he that is not able, and keeps within lawful bounds and does not corrupt in secret, does well." And concerning these things, enough. But let whoever wishes take in hand the Epistle to the Corinthians, and, conversing with each of the things written therein, let him then also examine, by comparison, the things said by us, whether they do not hold to full agreement and concord with them. These things, then, for chastity, O Arete, I too contribute, according to my ability. EUBOULION: Through very many words indeed, O Gregorion, she scarcely arrived at the matter in hand, having measured out and traversed a most vast sea of discourse. GREGORION: So it seems. But come, let us also go through the rest in order, most faithfully recalling them—of which I think I still have the hearing ringing in my ears—before they fly away and escape; for old men's memories of new things heard are easily wiped out. EUBOULION: But speak; for it is for these very things that we have come gladly, to hear the discourses. GREGORION: Well then, just as you said, after Thaleia had brought her course down to land in unruffled runs, Theopatra, taking up the discourse next in turn, said that she herself spoke as follows.