... that I have passed over certain parts of my duties, while I always strive, above all through the daily expositions of the Gospels, to bestow upon you at times, through the Lord, increases of faith and knowledge. For what else can be done in the Lord's Church more profitably, what can be found better suited to the office of a bishop, than that, by the teaching of the Lord's precepts instilled and imparted through him, believers may be able to attain to the promised kingdom of heaven? This surely is the daily, votive business of both my work and my office, which, though absent, I strive to fulfill, and I try to render my presence to you by letters.
While I address you in my accustomed manner by the exhortations I send, I approach you for this reason: that, made solid by the firmness of the evangelical root, you may stand always armed against all the battles of the devil. I shall not believe myself absent, if I am free from care. Yet all things that are profitably set forth, and that in these treatises either define or promise the estate of eternal life, are truly fruitful only if they are aided to the profit of the work by the strength of divine grace. We do not merely utter words that come from the sacred springs of the Scriptures, but together with these very words we join prayers and vows to the Lord, that he may open to us as to you the treasures of his sacraments, and grant strength to fulfill whatever we come to know.
For the greater danger is to have known the will of the Lord and to have grown slack in the work of God's will. Although, therefore, I exhort you always, as you know, to many tasks and to the precepts of the divine admonition—for what else can be to me more desirable or greater than that you should stand perfect in the Lord in all things—nevertheless I especially admonish you to hold fast the enclosures of chastity, which indeed you do: knowing that you are the temple of the Lord, members of Christ, the dwelling of the Holy Spirit, chosen for hope, consecrated to faith, destined for salvation, sons of God, brothers of Christ, sharers of the Holy Spirit, owing nothing now to the flesh, from which you were reborn of water and of chastity, apart from that will which we ought to will to be our own:
let it be rendered also on account of the redemption, so that she who has been consecrated by Christ cannot be corrupted. For if the Apostle declares the Church to be the bride of Christ, I ask you, how great a chastity is demanded, where the Church is set forth amid marriages as a virgin bride? And I, indeed, but for the fact that I resolved to admonish you briefly, think I could have set forth ample and rich enough praises of chastity: but I judged it superfluous to praise her at greater length among those who cultivate her. For you adorn her while you bear her, and by exercising her you set forth her many praises. You have become her ornament, while she also is yours, a mutual grace to be lent to each other in turn. She suggests to you the discipline of good morals; you render to her the ministry of holy works.
For both she showed, through you, how much and what she could do, and you herself demonstrated what you willed and what was fitting, when the two goods of commandments and of deeds were coupled into one, lest anything seem maimed, if either the precepts had lacked their ministries, or the ministries their precepts. Chastity is the honor of bodies, the ornament of morals, the sanctity of the sexes, the bond of marriages, the fidelity of lineage, the bulwark of modesty, the fount of purity, the peace of the household, the head of concord. Chastity is anxious to please none but herself: chastity is ever modest, since she is the mother of innocence: chastity is ever adorned by the sun of modesty, rightly conscious of her own beauty, if she displeases the wicked. Chastity seeks none of the ornaments; she is her own glory.
This it is that commends us to the Lord, that joins us to Christ: this drives from our members all the unlawful battles of desires, brings peace to our bodies, being itself blessed and making blessed those with whomsoever she deigns to dwell; whom none can ever accuse, not even those who do not possess her: venerable even to her own enemies, since those who cannot conquer her admire her all the more. But just as this virtue is ever approved in men and to be sought after by women, so its enemy, unchastity, is ever to be detested: making its servants an obscene mockery, sparing neither bodies nor souls. For when their own morals have been vanquished, it sends the whole man of theirs under the triumph of lust:
flattering at first, that it may harm the more while it pleases, draining one's substance along with one's honor, the foe of continence, a maddening fury that often reaches even to the shedding of blood in its lusts, the fire of a good conscience, the mother of impenitence, the ruin of a better age, the disgrace of one's lineage, storming the fidelity of blood and of family, grafting its own children into the affections of others, introducing offspring of an unknown and corrupt stock into the wills of others. Very often, burning beyond its own sex, when it does not contain itself within what is permitted, it thinks too little satisfaction has been done to it, unless in the very bodies of men it seek not merely a new pleasure, but hunt out monstrous and portentous things against nature itself, from men through men.
But indeed chastity holds the first place in virgins, the second in the continent, the third in marriages: yet in all it is glorious, together with its degrees. For to keep the fidelity of marriages amid so many wars of the body is praiseworthy, and to have set a limit of continence upon marriage is of greater virtue, since even lawful things are then rejected. Surely to have guarded sanctity from the womb, and to have kept oneself an infant right up into old age throughout one's whole life, is a thing certainly of admirable power: except that not to have known the alluring laws of the body is rather a matter of good fortune, while to have already conquered laws one knows is a matter of virtue—yet so that this virtue too comes from the house of God, even though it shows itself in the members of men. The precepts of chastity, brethren, are ancient.
Why do I say ancient? Because they were instituted together with men themselves. For the woman is therefore made from her own man that she may know no other besides the same; and the woman was therefore rendered back to the man that, once what had been taken from him was restored, she might seek nothing that is another's. So, it says, the two shall be in one flesh, that what had been one might return into one, lest a separation without return should furnish an occasion for another. Hence too the Apostle declared the husband to be the head of the wife, that by the joining of the two he might prove chastity. For as the head of one cannot be fitted to the members of another, so neither can members that are not their own be fitted to a head not their own:
for the head suits its own members, and the members their own head; both cohere by a natural clasp in mutual concord, lest, if any discord should arise from a division of the members, the covenant of the divine compact should be broken. Yet he adds and says: since he who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, even as Christ does the Church. From this there is a great prescription of love together with chastity: if wives are to be loved by their husbands as Christ loved the Church, then wives too ought to love their husbands as the Church loves Christ. This sentence Christ, when asked, gave so great an honor to chastity, when he said a wife is not to be dismissed except for adultery. Hence was born that saying:
you shall not suffer adulteresses to live. Hence the Apostle says: this is the will of God, that you abstain from fornication. Hence too he says that: the members of Christ are not to be joined to the members of a harlot. Hence he who, having trodden underfoot the law of chastity, practices the vices of the flesh, is delivered to Satan for the destruction of the flesh. Hence, rightly, adulterers do not hold the kingdom of heaven; hence it is that he says every sin is outside the body, but the adulterer alone sins against his own body: hence the other authorities of the precepts, which it is not now necessary to recount in full, especially among you who know them and often perform them—which, though they be not written down, you nevertheless cannot complain about.
For the adulterer has no excuse, nor could he have had one, since it was lawful to take a wife. But just as laws are prescribed for matrons, who are so bound that they cannot be torn away, virginity indeed and continence are beyond all law: nothing pertains to virginity from the laws of marriages; by its own loftiness it transcends them all, ... if ever the depraved laws of men dare to attempt to overstep it. Virginity makes itself equal to the angels: nay, if we examine it, it even surpasses them, since, having struggled in the flesh, it carries off a victory even against nature, which the angels do not possess. What else is virginity than the glorious meditation of the life to come?
Virginity belongs to neither sex; virginity is a persevering infancy; virginity is the triumph over pleasures; virginity has no children, but, what is more, has contempt of children; it has no fruitfulness, but it has no bereavement either—happy in that it is beyond the pain of childbearing, and happier still in that it is beyond the calamity of the funerals of children. What else is virginity than a liberty set free? It has no husband as its master. Virginity is loosed from all affections; it is dedicated neither to marriages, nor to the world, nor to children. It cannot fear persecution, since it can provoke it out of its own security. But since the precepts of chastity have been briefly set forth to us, let us now set down an example of chastity.
For more profit is gained when one comes to the actual case, and there is no doubt about the virtue, when what is enjoined is also confirmed by examples. The example of chastity began with Joseph. A young Hebrew, noble by his father, nobler by his innocence, on account of envy over his revelations he was sold away by his brothers to the Ishmaelites, and had come into the house of an Egyptian man. By his obedience and innocence and by all the fidelity of his service he had drawn to himself the easy and kindly disposition of his master, whose favor his very appearance won, and his generous speech, and his age suited to all things. But this nobility was received otherwise than was fitting by the wife of the master:
in a secret part of the house, a hiding-place without witnesses, suited to crimes, the incontinent woman in her unchastity thought she could overcome the young man's chastity, now by promises, now by threats. And when he was held back by his garments—because he was contriving flight on account of the audacity of so great a crime—leaving the very garments behind and about to have the sincerity of his naked body as the witness of his innocence, the shameless woman did not hesitate to add slander to the charge of her own unchastity: hot and fervent, her desire being spurned, she complained to the rest and to her husband with feigned grief, that the young Hebrew had attempted to inflict upon her the violence that she herself had tried to impose. The husband's ardor, ignorant of the facts and gravely inflamed by his wife's accusation, is kindled.
But the chaste youth, because he did not mingle his conscience with the offense, is thrust into the depth of the prison. Yet chastity is not alone in the prison: for God is with Joseph, and the guilty are given into his hand, because he himself had been innocent. Moreover he unravels the obscurities of dreams, because his spirit kept watch in temptation, and through the Lord he is freed from his chains. He who in the house had been an inferior, with peril, is made lord of the royal house without peril: restored to his own nobility, he received the fruit of his chastity and innocence, with God as judge, from whom he had merited it. But no less, from the opposite side, another example, like unto chastity, arises for us from the continence of women.
There was, as we read, Susanna, daughter of Helcias, wife of Joachim, most beautiful in face, more beautiful in morals. No mere show commended her to comeliness: for she was unadorned. Chastity, and with chastity nature alone, had made her lovely. Two of the elders had begun to be consumed with passion for her, mindful neither of the fear of God, nor even of their own age already withering with years: thus the flame of a lust returned kept calling them back into the burnings of a youth now long spent. These robbers of chastity confessed their love, but they hated it. When she resisted, they threatened her with slanders; they declared themselves accusers of adultery, out of a desire for adultery. Between the two rocks of lust she begged help from the Lord, because she was not strong enough to fight back with the strength of her body.
And the Lord heard from heaven the chastity that cried out to him, and when she, oppressed by iniquity, was being led to punishment, she saw, once delivered, the vengeance upon her enemies. Twice a victor, and in her peril so many times hemmed in as if to death, she escaped both lust and death. It would be endless if I were to pursue more examples: I am content with these two, especially since by these chastity has been defended with all its might.
The unwelcome memory of noble blood—which in some is a handmaid to the license of wantonness—could not soften them; nor could the beauty of the body and the shapely arrangement of well-placed members, which very often prompts one to feed, as it were, upon some flower of an age hastening swiftly to pass away, given the occasion of a proffered pleasure; nor the years of a first blooming and riper age, when the raw blood, still seething, kindles the flames of nature and, stirring in the marrow, blind fires bent on going even through the peril of modesty to their true remedy; nor any safety of hiding-places without any witness, which is thought by some to be an opportunity—which is the greatest force for committing crime, when impunity meets one's deliberations:
nor the necessity imposed by the authority of those who commanded, and by the rashness of accomplices and confederates, a kind of thing by which even right counsels are often broken; nor the rewards themselves and kindness, nor accusations, nor threats, nor punishments, nor deaths: nothing was so savage, so hard, so grievous as to have fallen from the high degree of chastity. Worthy of so great a reward from the divine judge were they, of whom the one was made illustrious by an almost royal throne, the other, dowered with concord of husband, was ransomed by the deaths of her enemies. These, and things like these, are the examples ever to be set before our eyes, to be meditated upon by day and by night as things to be matched by us. Nothing so delights a faithful soul as the whole conscience of an unstained modesty. To have conquered pleasure is the greatest pleasure:
nor is any victory greater than that which is carried off over lusts. He who conquered an enemy was the stronger, but stronger than another: he who repressed lust was stronger than himself: he who laid low a foe struck an external enemy: he who beat down lust overcame a domestic enemy. Every evil is more easily conquered than pleasure, because the former, whatever it is, is repellent, while this is alluring. Nothing is so hard to suppress as that by which one is armed against oneself. He who removes lusts has removed fears also: for fears come from lusts.
He who has conquered lusts has triumphed over sin; he who has conquered lusts has shown the evil of the human race lying beneath his feet; he who has conquered lusts has given himself perpetual peace; he who has conquered lusts has restored to himself liberty, which is a thing most difficult even for the freeborn. Chastity, therefore, brethren, is ever to be meditated upon by us, as the case teaches: that it may be the easier, it depends on no arts. For the will is what perfects it—the will which, were it not hindered, would be far off. It is ours: thus it is not to be acquired, but cherished, since it is ours. For what else is chastity than an honorable mind given for the guardianship of the body, that the modesty rendered to the sexes, marked by severity, might preserve the fidelity of lineage by an incorrupt offspring?
But to chastity, brethren, there belong and are recognized above all: divine reverence, and a holy meditation of the precepts, and a mind inclined to faith, and a soul intent upon sacred religion; and next, to see that there be nothing in oneself carved beyond measure, nothing drawn out beyond decency, nothing prodigal, nothing artificially dyed, nothing made seductive to provoke or hold the eyes. She is not chaste who studies to move the mind of another, even with her bodily chastity intact. Far off be those by whom beauty is not adorned but prostituted. For anxiety about beauty is a mark both of an evil mind and of deformity. Let the nature of bodies be free, and let no violence be done to the works of God. She is ever wretched who is not pleased with herself as she is.
Why is the color of the hair changed? Why are the edges of the eyes darkened? Why is the face by artifices converted into a different form? Why, in short, is the mirror consulted, unless because it is feared that she may be what she is? Let the adornment of a chaste woman also be chaste: let a faithful woman not know adultery even in her colors. To weave gold into garments is, as it were, to corrupt garments at a price. What do rigid metals do among the delicate threads of the warp? Unless to press down the flowing shoulders and to display the luxury of a mind that unhappily vaunts itself. What of it, when necks are burdened and buried with foreign stones, whose prices, even without the workmanship, exceed anyone's account-book? The woman is not adorned, but the vices of the woman are displayed.
What of it, when fingers so laden with gold can neither go in nor come out? Does use require it, or is the empty pomp of estates being paraded? A wondrous business: women, delicate for all things, are stronger than men for the burdens of vices. But, to take up again what I had begun, chastity is ever to be cultivated both by men and by women, and to be kept with all guardianship within its own bounds. It is quickly imperiled in the body by the nature of the body, since the flesh, which is ever in a falling state, carries it away with itself. For under the pretext, indeed, of nature—which ever urges men on to those affections by which the ruins of a fallen race are repaired—it, deceiving by the enticement of pleasure, does not lead the offspring to the continence of a lawful union, but flings it into crime.
Therefore against these snares of the flesh, into which the devil inserts himself both as ally and as leader, one must struggle with every kind of virtue. Let the works of Christ be assumed, according to the Apostle, and let the mind be withdrawn as far as it can from the fellowship of the flesh; let every sense be separated from the body; let the vices be ever chastised so as to be hated; let there be kept before the eyes that deformed and abject shame of sin, penitence itself with its mournings, which is the unseemly testimony of the crimes committed. Let nothing be curiously considered in the faces of others. Let speech be both brief and sober; laughter is the sign of an easy and relaxed mind: for even honorable touch, let it withdraw. Let nothing be permitted to the body, where any vice of the body must be shunned.
Let it be considered how honorable it is to have conquered disgrace, how dishonorable to have been conquered by disgrace. It must also be said that adultery is not pleasure, but a mutual outrage: nor can that delight which both kills the soul and slays modesty. Let the mind curb the goads of the flesh, let it rein in the impulse of the body. For it received this power, that the members should serve at its command, and, like a lawful and perfect charioteer, let it turn back with the reins of the heavenly precepts the impulses of the flesh that raise themselves beyond the permitted limits of the body, lest, snatched beyond its own bounds, that chariot of the body should sweep into its own peril, and drag the charioteer himself away with it. But amid these things—nay, even before these things—help must be sought from the divine camps against all the throngs and vices:
for God alone is powerful, who has deigned to make men and to bestow upon men full helps. I have dictated but a few things, since it is not my purpose to write volumes, but to convey an address. Look you to the Scriptures; seek out for yourselves from the very precepts greater examples of this matter. Dearest brethren, fare you well.