論童貞 第 1 章 第 4/5 段

For fire, too, if wood and stubble and grass, or anything else of what is consumed by fire, be not supplied beneath it, has no nature to remain by itself;

so too the power of death will not operate, if marriage does not supply it with fuel and prepare, as it were, those doomed to die as its condemned victims.

But if you doubt this, consider the names of the calamities that are brought upon human beings from death, as has already been said at the beginning of this discourse.

Whence does it take its beginning? Is it possible to lament widowhood, or orphanhood, or misfortune concerning children, without marriage having gone before? For the eagerly sought-after gladness and joys and pleasures, and all that is zealously pursued in connection with marriage, come to their end in such griefs.

For just as, of a sword, the hilt is smooth and pleasant to the touch, polished all around and gleaming, and fitted to the shape of the palm, while the rest is iron, an instrument of death, fearful to look upon, but more fearful still to come to the test of — something of this sort is marriage also: like a hilt adorned by some skillful engraving, it holds out to the touch of sense the smooth and superficial surface of pleasure; but when it comes into the hands of one who has laid hold of it, it brings in together with itself, conjoined, the presence of pains, becoming for human beings a fashioner of mourning and calamities.

This it is that has displayed the pitiable spectacles full of tears;

children bereaved while yet untimely in age, and lying exposed as plunder to those who lord it over them, often smiling at their misfortune because of their ignorance of these evils.

And what other origin does widowhood have than marriage? Therefore withdrawal from this brings, all at once, exemption from all these evil offices, and this is nothing unreasonable;

for where the condemnation determined from the beginning against those who transgressed is dissolved, and the afflictions of mothers are no longer multiplied according to what is written, nor does grief precede human generation, the calamity arising from this life has altogether been abolished together with it, and the tear has been wiped away from faces, as the prophet says:

for the conception is no longer in iniquities, nor is the conceiving in sins, nor is it of blood, nor of the will of man and the will of the flesh, but the birth comes to be of God alone.

And this comes to pass, whenever one conceives, in the vital part of the heart, the incorruption of the Spirit, and gives birth to wisdom and righteousness, sanctification and redemption.

...for them, the mortal is swallowed up by life; and the life lived in virginity seems to be a kind of image of the blessedness in the age to come, bearing within itself many of the marks of the goods that are laid up through hope.

And it is possible to recognize the truth of what has been said by examining the matter closely;

for, first, having died once for all to sin, he lives for the remainder to God, no longer bearing fruit unto death; and, having brought about within himself, so far as it lies in him, the completion of the life according to the flesh, he thereafter awaits the blessed hope and the appearing of the great God, working out no interval between himself and the presence of God through intervening generations.

Then, too, he reaps even in the present life the surpassing excellence of the good things belonging to the resurrection;

for if the life which has been promised by the Lord to the righteous after the resurrection is equal to that of the angels, and it is the property of the angelic nature to be free from marriage, then he has already received the good things of the promise, mingling with the splendors of the saints, and, by the unstained purity of his life, imitating the incorporeal beings.

If, then, virginity becomes the procurer of these things and things like them, what discourse could adequately admire this grace? And what other of the soul's goods will appear so great and precious as to be made equal, by comparison, to the magnitude of this gift? Chapter 15: That true virginity is contemplated in every pursuit.

But if the surpassing greatness of this gift has been grasped by us, it is fitting to perceive also what follows from it: that this achievement is not simple, as one might suppose, nor does it stop at the level of bodies, but extends and passes over, in its conception, to all things that are and are reckoned achievements of the soul.

For the soul that has, through virginity, been joined to the true bridegroom will not only keep itself apart from bodily defilements, but, beginning its purity from this point, it will proceed likewise, and with equal security, to all other matters, lest, the heart having inclined improperly toward communion with something evil, it should admit some adulterous passion in that particular respect.

What I mean is this — for I shall take up the argument again —

the soul that has been joined to the Lord so as to become one spirit with him, and that has, as it were, laid down a kind of marital covenant to love him alone with the whole heart and strength, will neither be joined to fornication, so as to become one body with it, nor will it admit anything else opposed to salvation, since there is one and the same commonality of defilements in all such things, and, if it should be defiled through even one of them, it can no longer keep the unspotted state within itself.

And it is possible also to establish this argument by means of an example.

Just as the water in a lake, so long as no disturbance from outside falls upon it to stir the stillness of the place, remains smooth and unmoved, but if a stone should happen to fall into the lake, the whole is shaken together in a circle, being made to surge along with the partial disturbance — for the stone, under its weight, sinks down to the depths, while the waves around it, being raised up in circles one after another, and being pushed outward toward the edges of the water by the motion in the middle, cause the whole surface of the lake to be roughened in a circle, sharing the condition of the depths —

so too the calm and quiet of the soul, through some single passion falling into it, is shaken as a whole together, and perceives the harm arising from that one part.

...to grasp, in the strict sense of the word, some one virtue without also having touched upon the rest; but rather, whomever one of the virtues attends, the others necessarily follow as well.

Therefore, conversely, harm concerning any one thing within us extends its effect over the whole of the life according to virtue, and indeed, as the Apostle says, the whole is disposed together with the members: whether one member suffers, the whole suffers with it, or whether it is glorified, the whole rejoices with it.

Chapter 16: That to be outside virtue in any way whatsoever carries an equal danger.

But countless are the deviations toward sin in the course of our life, and the Scriptures signify this multitude in manifold ways;

for it says, 'Many are those who pursue me and afflict me,' and 'Many are those who war against me from on high,' and many other such sayings.

Perhaps, then, it may properly be said that many are those who plot adulterously to corrupt this truly precious marriage and the undefiled bed;

and if one must enumerate these adulterers by name, the adulterer is wrath, the adulterer is covetousness, the adulterer is envy, resentment, enmity, malice, hatred;

and all that has been enumerated by the Apostle as opposed to sound teaching constitutes an enumeration of adulterers.

Let us suppose, then, that there is a certain woman among women who is comely and worthy of love, and who, on account of this, has been joined in marriage to a king, but who, because of her beauty, is plotted against by certain licentious men.

This woman, then, so long as she is hostile toward all who lie in wait to corrupt her, and accuses them before her lawful husband, is chaste, and looks only toward that bridegroom, and the deceptions of the licentious have no place against her.

But if she should give in to any one of those who plot against her, her chastity with regard to the rest does not exempt her from punishment;

for it is enough for condemnation that the marriage bed has been defiled even through one such person.

So also the soul that lives to God will not fall in love with any of the seemingly good things that present themselves to her through deception;

but if she has admitted defilement into her heart through some passion, she too has broken the rights of the spiritual marriage.

And just as Scripture says that wisdom will not enter into a soul devised for evil, so it can truly be said that neither can the good bridegroom take up residence in a soul that is prone to anger and malice, or has within itself any other such fault.

For what device could join together what is, by nature, alien and incompatible? Hear the Apostle teaching that there is no communion between light and darkness, or between righteousness and lawlessness, or, to put it comprehensively, between all that the Lord is — thought of and named according to the various things contemplated in him — and all that is thought of, by contrast, in wickedness.

If, then, communion between things by nature incompatible is impossible, then the soul that has been seized by some evil is altogether alien to, and incapable of receiving, cohabitation with the good.

What, then, do we learn from these things? That the chaste and thoughtful virgin must keep herself separate from every passion that touches the soul in any way whatsoever, and must guard herself pure for the bridegroom who has lawfully betrothed her, having neither spot nor wrinkle nor anything of the sort;

for there is but one path, straight and truly narrow and constricted, admitting of no deviations to either side, and to be outside of it in any way whatsoever carries an equal danger of falling away.

Chapter 17: That he who is deficient even in one single point of virtue is imperfect with regard to the good.

If, then, these things are so, one must, as far as possible, correct the customary practice of the many;

namely, all who fight strongly against the more shameful pleasures, but in another way hunt after pleasure in honors and love of power, thus doing something similar to what a household slave would do, who did not strive to get outside of servitude altogether, but instead exchanged his owners, supposing the mere change of masters to be freedom — for all are equally slaves, even if not ruled by the same masters, so long as some rule holds sway over them at all, together with dominion.

And there are, again, those who, through their great struggle against pleasures, have become somehow easily overcome by the opposite passion, and, in the intense rigor of their life, are easily captured by griefs and irritations and resentments and all the rest that stands opposed, in the contrary direction, to the passion of pleasure, and escape from these only with difficulty;

and this comes about whenever it is not reason according to virtue, but some passion, that governs the course of one's life.

For the commandment of the Lord is exceedingly radiant, as Scripture says, so as even to enlighten the eyes of infants, declaring it to be good to cleave to God alone.

But God is neither grief nor pleasure, neither cowardice nor rashness nor fear nor anger nor any other such passion which holds sway over the uneducated soul, but rather, as the Apostle says, wisdom itself and sanctification, truth and joy and peace and all such things.

How, then, is it possible for one who is held fast by the opposite qualities to be joined to him who is these very things? Or how is it not unreasonable for one who strives not to be brought under any one of the passions to consider its opposite virtue — as, for instance, one who flees pleasure to be held fast by grief, or one who avoids what is rash and precipitate to abase the soul with cowardice, or one who has striven to remain unconquered by fits of anger to have crouched down in fear?

For what does it matter to fall from virtue in this way or that, or rather to become outside of God himself, who is complete virtue? For indeed in the case of bodily illnesses one would not say the evil differs whether one is destroyed through excessive deficiency or through unmeasured satiety, since the result of both immoderations ends at the same limit.

Therefore the one who cares for the life and health of the soul will keep himself in the middle of dispassion, remaining unmixed and unparticipating in the opposition lying on either side of virtue.

This is not my own statement, but that of the divine voice itself;

for the doctrine can be clearly heard from the Lord's teaching, in which he teaches the disciples, as lambs living among wolves, not to be doves only, but to have something also of the serpent in their character.

This means not to pursue to the extreme what seems praiseworthy among men in respect of simplicity, since such a disposition, taken to its limit, approaches utmost folly;

nor again to consider the cleverness and cunning praised by the many, unmixed with their opposites and unadulterated, as virtue;

but out of the seeming opposition to fashion a single blended condition of character, cutting away from the one its folly, and from the other its wisdom in wickedness, so that from both a single fair practice is accomplished, blended of simplicity of mind and shrewdness.

"Be therefore," he says, "wise as serpents and innocent as doves." Chapter 18. That all the powers of the soul must look toward virtue.

Therefore let what has been said here by the Lord be a common doctrine for the whole of life, and especially for those who approach God through virginity, that one should not, by looking to one single achievement, remain unguarded against the opposites, but should seek out the good for oneself from every side, so that security might attend life in every respect.

For neither does a soldier who has fenced certain parts of himself with weapons run risk with the rest of his body left bare.

For what profit is there to him from his partial armament, if he receives the fatal blow against the parts left bare? And who would call that man well-formed from whom, through some misfortune, something contributing to beauty has been cut away? For the shame concerning what is lacking ruins also the grace of what is healthy.

But if he is ridiculous, as the gospel somewhere says, who set his hand to the building of the tower, but fixed his effort at the foundations and did not attain the end, what else do we learn from this parable than that we must be zealous to bring every lofty purpose through to its completion, perfecting the work of God with the various superstructures of the commandments? For the whole building of the tower is not a single stone, nor does a single commandment bring the perfection of the soul to the measure sought; rather the foundation must by all means be laid, and, as the apostle says, the building of gold and precious stones must be added upon it.

For thus the works of the commandments are named, according to the prophet who said: "I have loved your commandments above gold and much precious stone."

Let, then, the zeal for virginity be laid down as a kind of foundation for the life according to virtue, and upon this foundation let all the works of virtue be built.

For even if one believes this to be exceedingly precious and befitting God—as indeed it is, and is believed to be—yet if the whole of life does not accord with this achievement, but is defiled by the remaining disorder of the soul, this is that ring in the snout of the pig, or the pearl trampled underfoot by swine.

But concerning these matters, let this much suffice.

But if someone counts it as nothing that his life is not fitted together in all its parts through what is appropriate to each, let him observe the things in his own household and be instructed concerning the doctrine.

so I think it necessary that the master and steward of our tabernacle—I mean the mind—should arrange well all that is within us, and make fitting and good use of each of the powers of the soul, which the Craftsman fashioned for us in place of certain instruments or vessels.

But if this discourse is not to be condemned as some idle chatter and prolixity, it will be said also for each power how one, using what is present to him, might manage his life to his own advantage.

We say, then, that desire ought to be established in the pure part of the soul, and that, having set it apart like some votive offering or firstfruit of one's own goods and consecrated it once for all, one should keep it untouched and pure, nowhere defiled by the filth that comes through life;

and that one should employ it against nature as against a thief and enemy, who steals in for the ruin of the divine treasure and comes for this very reason, that he may steal and slaughter and destroy.

And that one should carry courage and boldness in hand instead of a weapon, so as never to be terrified when terror comes upon one, and when the assaults of the impious come.

And that one should lean upon hope and endurance instead of a staff, if ever one grows weary under trials.

And that one should keep the possession of grief ready at hand for the season of repentance for sins, should this ever happen, since it is never useful except for this service alone.

And righteousness will be for him a rule of straightness, guiding him to be unstumbling in everything, in word and in deed, showing how the things in the soul ought to be disposed and how one might render to each what is his due.

And as for the desire for more, which is implanted abundantly and immeasurably in the soul of each person, adding it to the desire that is according to God, he will be blessed for his covetousness, forcing his way there where forcing is praised.

And he will have wisdom and prudence as counselors of what is advantageous, co-administering his life with him, so that he may nowhere be harmed by ignorance or folly.

But if one does not use the aforesaid powers according to nature and according to what is proper to them, but exchanges their use contrary to what is fitting—applying desire to the most shameful things, readying hatred against his own kin, loving injustice and playing the man against his own parents, being bold in absurdities and hoping for vain things, driving prudence and wisdom out of dwelling together with him, and taking on gluttony and folly as companions instead, and doing likewise concerning the rest—such a person would be absurd and monstrous, so that no one could even speak worthily of the absurdity.

For just as if someone, arming himself in reverse, should turn the helmet around so as to cover the face and have the crest hanging back behind, and should put his feet in the breastplate and fit the greaves to his chest, and should take up in his right hand what belongs to the left, and should throw the right-hand armor over to the left—

what such an armed man would likely suffer in war, this it is likely also that the person suffers in life who confuses his judgment and exchanges the use of the powers of the soul.

We must, therefore, take forethought for the harmony in these matters, which true temperance is by nature disposed to produce in our souls.

And if we must consider the most perfect definition of temperance, perhaps this would properly be called temperance: the well-ordered management, together with wisdom and prudence, of all the movements of the soul.

And such a condition of the soul will no longer need any labor or business for participation in things lofty and heavenly, but in great ease will naturally accomplish what for the time seemed hard to attain, possessing what is sought through the removal of the opposite;

for it is altogether necessary that the one who has come outside darkness be in light, and that the one who has not died be alive.

And so, if anyone does not take up his own soul in vain, he will altogether be on the way of truth;

for the forethought and knowledge of not being turned aside is a kind of exact guidance for the journey along the straight path.

And just as freed household servants, having ceased serving those who ruled over them, when they become their own masters, turn their zeal toward themselves, so I think also the soul, once freed from bodily servitude and deceit, thereafter comes to know its own activity, proper to it and according to nature;

and freedom is, as we have also learned from the apostle, not to be held by the yoke of slavery, nor, like a runaway or a criminal, to be shackled by the bond of marriage—

let him not suppose that so great a matter is accomplished by a slight observance of the flesh—but since everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin, the turning aside toward vice in any matter or pursuit whatsoever in some way enslaves a person, and brands him, working bruises and burn-marks upon him through the blows of sin, so that it is fitting for the one who has laid hold of the great aim of virginity to be like himself in everything and to manifest purity throughout the whole of his life.

So too the art of fishing does, according to the Lord's parable, separating the good and edible fish from the bad and poisonous ones, lest, if some of the opposite kind fall in together with the vessels, the enjoyment of the useful ones also be rendered worthless along with them.

This too is the work of true temperance: out of all pursuits, choosing what is pure and beneficial, to reject in everything what is useless and let it go into the common and worldly life—called, in the figurative language of the parable, the sea;

as the psalmist too names it, teaching us a lesson of confession in one of the psalms, calling this unstable, passion-ridden, and turbulent life "waters that reach the soul" and "the depths of the sea" and "the storm"; in which every apostate mind, after the likeness of the Egyptians, sinks like a stone into the deep, but whatever is dear to God and has insight into the truth—which the history calls "Israel"—this alone passes through it as though it were dry land, nowhere touching the bitterness and brine of the waves of worldly life.

So too, in a typological sense, under the law as guide—and Moses was a type of the law—Israel also crossed the sea without getting wet, while the Egyptian, crossing along with him, was submerged, each according to the disposition present within him, the one passing through lightly, the other being dragged down into the deep.

For virtue is a certain light and upward-tending thing;

for all who live according to it fly like clouds, according to Isaiah, and like doves with their young;

but sin is heavy, as one of the prophets says, sitting like a talent of lead.

But if to anyone this interpretation of the narrative appears forced and ill-fitting, and he does not accept that the wonder-working through the sea was recorded for our benefit, let him hear the apostle, that "these things happened to them typologically, but were written for our admonition." Chapter 19. Remembrance of Miriam, the sister of Aaron, as having been the first to begin this achievement.

And the prophetess Miriam also gives us occasion to suspect such things, when, immediately after the sea, she takes up the dry and resounding timbrel and leads the chorus of women;

for perhaps through the timbrel the discourse hints at virginity, first accomplished by Miriam, through whom, I think, Mary the Theotokos was also prefigured.

For just as the timbrel gives forth much sound because it has been separated from all moisture and become utterly dry, so too virginity becomes bright and renowned, admitting within itself nothing of the vital moisture in this present life.

If then the timbrel which Miriam handled is a dead body, and virginity is the deadening of the body, perhaps it is not far from likely that the prophetess is set apart as a virgin.

we have surmised, from the fact that the prophetess Miriam led the chorus of virgins, even though many who have examined the matter have clearly declared her unmarried, on the ground that nowhere in the narrative is marriage or childbearing mentioned of her.

For otherwise she would have been named and known not from her brother Aaron, but from her husband, had she had one, since the head of a woman is called not the brother, but the husband.

And yet, among those for whom childbearing was pursued as part of blessing and was lawful, if the grace of virginity should appear precious even there, all the more should we—who hear the divine oracles not according to the flesh, but spiritually—embrace this zeal with abundant readiness.

For it has been revealed through the divine oracles what good thing conceiving and bearing children is, and what kind of abundant childbearing was pursued among the saints of God.

For both the prophet Isaiah and the divine apostle signified these things clearly and plainly, the one saying:

"From fear of you, O Lord, we conceived in the womb," while the other boasts of having become the most prolific of all, so as to have given birth to whole cities and nations—not only bringing forth into light and forming in the Lord the Corinthians and the Galatians through his own birth-pangs, but also filling the inhabited world, from Jerusalem round about as far as Illyricum, with his own children, whom he begot in Christ through the gospel.

Thus too in the gospel the womb of the holy virgin is blessed, which ministered to the undefiled birth, since neither did the birth destroy her virginity, nor did her virginity stand in the way of such a conception;

for where the spirit of salvation is born, as Isaiah says, the desires of the flesh are altogether useless. Chapter 20. That it is impossible at the same time to serve bodily pleasures and to reap joy according to God.

There is also such a saying in the apostle, that each of us as a human being is, in fact, twofold: the one seen outwardly, to which it belongs by nature to be corrupted, and the one perceived according to what is hidden of the heart, which admits of being renewed.

If then the statement is true—and it is altogether true, because of the truth speaking in it—it is not unreasonable also to conceive of a twofold marriage, fitting and appropriate to each of the two persons within us;

and perhaps he who ventures to say that bodily virginity becomes a helper and matchmaker of the inner, spiritual marriage will not, in his boldness, venture far from what is fitting.

For just as it is not possible to serve two arts at the same time through the activity of the hands—for instance, farming and seafaring, or working bronze and carpentry—but if one is to lay hold rightly of the one, he must abstain from the other;

so also, since two marriages lie before us, the one accomplished through the flesh, the other through the spirit, zeal for the one makes separation from the other necessary.

For neither is the eye capable of seeing two things at the same time, unless it turns in succession and applies itself separately to each of the visible objects; nor will the tongue serve different sounds, uttering the words of the Hebrews and of the Greeks in the same instant; nor will the hearing attend at the same time to the narration of events and to didactic discourses;

for the difference of sound, if heard in succession, will signify its meaning to the hearer; but if it resounds mixed together at the same time in the hearing, a kind of indiscriminate confusion will seize the understanding, as the meanings signified become confounded with one another.

By the same reasoning, our faculty of desire also does not have it in its nature to serve bodily pleasures at the same time as it pursues the spiritual marriage.

For it is not possible to lay hold of each of the two aims through similar pursuits;

for self-control, the deadening of the body, and contempt for all things according to the flesh are conducive to the one, while all the opposite things are conducive to bodily union.

Therefore, just as when two masters are set before us for choice, since it is not possible to be obedient to both at the same time—for "no one can serve two masters"—the one who thinks rightly will choose the more advantageous.