Then Thallousa, holding back a little and considering something within herself, said this: "But, O Arete, I ask you to stand by me as a helper according to my mind, that first of all we may appear to speak worthily of you and of those present. For the greatest and most illustrious votive offering and gift—than which men can bring nothing else of equal worth to offer to God—I am sufficiently persuaded to be the prize of virginity, having perceived it from the sacred writings. For not without reason, while many performed many good things by way of vows in the law, those alone were said to fulfill a great vow who offered themselves to God by their own self-chosen counsel. For the text runs thus: 'And the Lord spoke, saying: Speak to the sons of Israel, and you shall say to them: A man or a woman who shall greatly vow a vow to purify himself with a purity unto the Lord.' One vows, bringing golden and silver vessels into the temple, to dedicate them; another to dedicate the tithe of the fruits; another of his substance; another the best of his flocks; another consecrates his property; and not yet is any of these said to have vowed a great vow to the Lord—but rather that one who has dedicated himself wholly and entirely to God."
For we must attempt, by a true account, O virgins, to set forth to you the spiritual sense of the Scripture. For he who keeps guard and gives heed in one part, but in another is distracted and offends, is not wholly dedicated to God; for the perfect man ought to dedicate all—both the things of the soul and the things of the flesh—that he may be complete and not deficient. For in this way too God instructs Abraham, saying, "Take for me a heifer of three years, and a she-goat of three years, and a ram of three years, and a turtledove and a pigeon"—which means, auspiciously (for mark that he enjoins that also concerning these): Offer to me, and keep, your soul unyoked and unharmed, like a heifer; and your flesh and your reasoning—the one like a she-goat, since it ranges over the lofty and precipitous places, and the other like a ram, that it may by no means leap away and fall and slip out of the truth. For thus you will be complete and blameless, O Abraham, dedicating to me both the soul and the perception and the mind—which he symbolically called a heifer and a she-goat and a ram of three years, as it were having taken up the unfeigned knowledge of the Trinity. And perhaps he also hints at the first and the middle and the last path of the age of our life, wishing that, as far as possible, we should offer to him the time of childhood and of manhood and of old age, having lived chastely. In the same way our Lord Jesus Christ also exhorts in the gospels, legislating thus: "Let your lamps not be quenched, and let your loins not be ungirded. Therefore you too become like men who wait for their lord, when he shall return from the wedding feasts, that when he comes and knocks they may immediately open to him. Blessed are you, for he will make you recline, and passing by will rouse you; and if in the second watch, and if in the third, blessed are you." For consider that, by laying down three watches of the night—evening and second and third—and three comings of himself, O virgins, he hinted at the three changes of our age—the boyish and the youthful and the aged—wishing that, even if leading the first age, that is, being children, should he come to take us up from the world, we be ready and pure, having practiced nothing perverse; and likewise if in the second, and if in the third. For the evening watch is the time of man's prime and youth, in which the governing faculty begins to be disturbed, troubled by the changes of life, his flesh now coming to its prime and turning toward the passions. And the second is when, having advanced into a perfect man, the mind begins to take on stability and steadfastness amid the tumults and the self-conceit. And the third is when most of the fancies of the desires wane, the flesh now withering and advancing into old age.
Therefore it is fitting that we, having kindled the lamp of faith inextinguishable in our heart and girded our loins with chastity, should keep watch and ever await the Lord; so that, whether He should choose to take some of us in our first age, or in our second, or in our third, He may come and find us most ready and working at what He has commanded, and may make us recline in the bosom of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob. And Jeremiah too says that it is good for a man, when he takes up a heavy yoke in his youth, that his soul should never depart from the Lord. For it is good indeed, when a man from childhood has bent his neck to the divine watchfulness, that he should not shake off the rider until old age, who rides upon a pure mind, while the evil one ever drags down the reasoning toward worse things. For who does not welcome the pleasures and delights that come through the eyes, who not those through the ears, who not those through taste and smell and touch, when he cannot bear the charioteer—chastity, which restrains and bloodies the horse of vice? One man, then, looking at one set of things, will glorify them; but we say that one must dedicate oneself wholly to God, who from childhood makes it his ambition to keep the flesh undefiled, practicing virginity. For swiftly she brings the most coveted and great gifts of hope to those who long for her, withering away the destructive passions and incitements of the soul. Come then, let me set forth how we are dedicated to the Lord.
Now what is laid down as law in Numbers—'to vow a great vow'—signifies just this, which I shall declare by expounding it more fully, showing that chastity is a great vow above all vows. For then I am manifestly wholly dedicated to the Lord, when I strive to keep not only the flesh untouched by intercourse, but also unspotted by the rest of the unseemly deeds. For 'the unmarried woman,' it says, 'cares for the things of the Lord, how she may please the Lord'—not only that she may not carry off a glory that is lame in some part of virtue, but that, according to the apostle, she may be sanctified in both, in spirit and in body, having dedicated her members to the Lord. For one must say what it is to dedicate oneself wholly to the Lord. If I open my mouth concerning some things, and shut it concerning others—for example, open it concerning the interpretations of the Scriptures, to praise God rightly and magnificently according to my power, but shut and place a door and a guard upon it, not to speak vain things—then my mouth is chaste and is dedicated to the Lord, and my tongue is become the pen of a swift writer, an instrument of wisdom. For through it the Word, the Lord, the swift-writing scribe of the ages, writes in clear letters, illuminating the law of the spirit out of the depth and subtlety of the Scriptures; for swiftly and sharply He alone records and fulfills the counsel of the Father—'swiftly spoil, quickly plunder.' Of this scribe my tongue is the pen; for it has been purified for Him and is dedicated, a pen as it were beautiful, writing things more beautiful than the poets and prose-writers who establish human doctrines. If I train my eyes also not to lust after the beauty of bodies, nor to delight in unseemly sights, but to look upon the things above, then my eyes too are chaste and dedicated to the Lord. If I stop my ears against blasphemy and whisperings and open them to God, frequenting the company of the wise, I have set my hearing also against vice and offered it to the Lord. If I shake off my hands from huckstering, from re-selling, from love of money, from striking, then my hands too are chaste before God. If I keep my walking from going in crooked ways, I have dedicated my feet as well, not passing into law-courts and revelries, where men who pervert justice are found, but unto setting right and fulfilling some of the commandments. What remains for me, if I also keep my heart chaste, dedicating all its thoughts to the Lord? I think nothing base, I reason on nothing worldly; no pride nor anger has citizenship with me; I meditate on the law of the Lord both by day and by night. And this is to be chaste with chastity, having vowed a great vow.
For I shall try, O virgins, to set forth for you also what follows upon these ordinances, since these too depend upon their proper achievements, being statutes concerning virginity and oracles teaching from what the virgin ought to abstain and that she should be uplifted in mind. For thus it is written: 'And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the children of Israel and say to them, A man or a woman, whoever shall greatly vow a vow to consecrate himself to the Lord, shall abstain from strong drink and from wine, and shall drink no vinegar of wine nor vinegar of strong drink, nor whatever is made from the grape, and shall eat no fresh grapes or raisins all the days of his vow.' Which is to say: he who has pledged and dedicated himself to the Lord shall not pluck of the plant of the wickedness of begotten things, because by nature it ever produces drunkenness and ecstasy. For we have perceived from the Scriptures two different kinds of vine, which exist apart from one another and are unlike. For the one yields immortality and righteousness, the other madness and frenzy. The sober and gladdening vine, which after the manner of branches cheerfully suspends from its teachings the clusters of grace dripping love, is our Lord Jesus, who plainly says to the apostles, 'I am the true vine, you are the branches, and my Father is the husbandman.' But the wild and death-bearing vine is the devil, distilling rage and venom and wrath, even as Moses too instructs, writing concerning him: 'Their vine is of the vine of Sodom, and their tendril of Gomorrah; their grape is a grape of gall, their cluster of bitterness; their wine is the wrath of dragons, and the incurable wrath of asps.' Having gathered from this vine, the inhabitants of Sodom were driven by frenzy into a fruitless lust for males, turning to what is against nature. From it those of Noah's day, having grown drunk, slid into unbelief and were sunk beneath the waters in the flood. From it Cain, having drawn, stained his fratricidal hands and first defiled the earth with kindred gore. From it the nations, drunken, whet their passions against one another into mutual-slaughtering battles. For a man does not so lose his wits from wine and rave as from envy and wrath; nor does one become so drunken from wine and lose his reason as from grief, from lust, from incontinence. From this vine the virgin is commanded not to taste, that, sober and unwearied, free from the cares of life, she may kindle to the Word the bright lamp of righteousness. 'Take heed,' says the Lord, 'lest at any time your hearts be weighed down with surfeiting and drunkenness and the cares of this life, and that day come upon you as a snare.'
And not only is the virgin commanded by no means and in no manner to touch the things made from that vine, but also their imitations and counterparts; for every artificial and adulterated wine is called 'strong drink,' even though it be made from dates or from other tree-fruits. For just as draughts of wine, so these too violently stop the reasoning. And, if one must speak to you with a true word, the wise call 'strong drink' everything that, after the wine of the vine, brings drunkenness and ecstasy to the soul. So then, that she may not, while guarding herself against the generic sins of wickedness, be defiled by its imitations and counterbalances—mastering some things, but mastered by others—that is, growing dainty over differing weaves of garments, or over jewels and gold and covetousness and the other adornments about the body, which themselves also intoxicate the soul—for this reason He lays down these laws: that she pour not herself out into womanish affectations and laughter and deceits and silly talk, being stirred up, things which whirl about and confound the reasoning. Just as He signified also in other places, saying, 'You shall not eat the hyena' and the things like it, 'and the weasel' and the things like it. For this is the upright and direct journey to heaven: not to draw to oneself any encumbrance among the things that overthrow the man who is fluttered about pleasures and delights, and not even their imitations. For the assembly of the chaste has been handed down to be a bloodless altar of God. So great and glorious a thing does virginity appear to be. Wherefore it must be kept undefiled and altogether pure, sharing in nothing of the impurities of the flesh, but gilded with wisdom within, before the presence of the testimony, set up in the Holy of Holies, sending up to the Lord the fragrance of love. 'For you shall make for me,' He says, 'beyond the bronze-overlaid altar (onto which the whole burnt-offerings and the offerings were brought up) another altar of incorruptible wood, and you shall overlay it with gold, and you shall set it opposite the veil that is over the ark of the testimony, before the mercy-seat, which is of the testimonies, where I shall be made known to you there. And Aaron shall burn upon it incense to the Lord, of fragrant spices, in the morning, when he trims the lamps; he shall burn upon it incense continually before the Lord throughout your generations. You shall not offer upon it strange incense, nor whole burnt-offering; you shall not pour upon it sacrifice or drink-offering.'
If the law, according to the apostle, is spiritual, containing the images of things to come, come then, let us strip off the veil of the letter spread over it and contemplate the exact truth bared. The Hebrews were commanded to fashion the tabernacle as a likeness of the Church, that through sensible things they might foreannounce the image of divine realities. For the pattern shown on the mountain, according to which Moses fashioned the tabernacle, was an exact representation of the heavenly dwelling, which we now serve more clearly than the types, but more dimly than the truth. For the truth has not yet come pure to men, as is natural, who cannot even here bear to behold incorruption undiluted, seeing that we cannot even gaze freely upon the rays of the sun. But the Jews announced the shadow of the image, third from the truth, while we vividly extol the image of the heavenly economy. For the truth itself shall be exactly revealed after the resurrection, when face to face we shall behold the holy tabernacle, the city that is in the heavens, whose craftsman and maker is God, no longer through riddles and in part.
For the Jews proclaimed beforehand our things, and we foreannounce the heavenly things, since the tabernacle was a symbol of the Church, and the Church of the heavens. Wherefore, since these things are so and the tabernacle is taken as a type of the Church, as I said, the altars also must bear some token of the things within the Church: the bronze-overlaid altar is to be likened to the council of elders and the circle of widows (for they are a living altar of God, bringing up the calves and the tithes, and we perform the voluntary sacrifices to the Lord), while the gilded altar set within, in the Holy of Holies before the presence of the testimony—unto which sacrifice and drink-offering are brought up—is to be compared with those in virginity, who with incorruptible gold have secured their bodies as imperishable wood against intercourse. For two things are commonly extolled in praise of gold: that it does not admit rust, and that its color is imagined to resemble, in moderate measure, the beams of the sun. And this is fittingly a symbol of chastity, which admits no stain or spot, but is ever illumined by the light of the Word. Therefore it stands within, in the Holy of Holies, nearer and in front of the veil, sending up with undefiled hands its prayers to the Lord after the manner of incense, acceptable for a sweet-smelling savor. Even as John signified, declaring that the incense in the bowls of the four-and-twenty elders are the prayers of the saints. These things, then, O Virtue, I too contribute on the spur of the moment, according to my power, on behalf of chastity.