1. 1. We recently published the book The Excellence of Marriage, in which we also admonished, and do admonish, the virgins of Christ not to despise, in comparison with themselves, the fathers and mothers of the people of God on account of the excellence of the greater gift they have received from God; nor those men whom the Apostle commends as an olive tree, lest the grafted wild olive boast (See Rom 11:17-18),

men who, by the propagation of children, were also serving the Christ who was to come; nor let them think that those men are of lesser merit because by divine law continence is preferred to wedlock and devout virginity to marriage.

For in those men the things to come were being prepared and brought to birth, the things we now see wondrously and effectively fulfilled, men whose married life too was prophetic;

and so it was not by the custom of human vows and joys, but by the very deep counsel of God, that in some of them fruitfulness deserved to be honored, and in some even barrenness deserved to be made fruitful.

But in this present time, to those of whom it is said, if they cannot exercise self-control, let them marry (1 Cor 7:9), exhortation is not to be applied, but consolation.

But those to whom it is said, let the one who is able to receive this receive it (Matt 19:12), are to be exhorted, lest they be frightened, and to be frightened, lest they be exalted.

Therefore virginity is not only to be preached, that it may be loved, but also to be admonished, that it may not be puffed up.

2. 2. This is what we have undertaken in this discourse; may Christ help us, the Son of the Virgin and the Bridegroom of virgins, born bodily of a virginal womb, joined spiritually in a virginal marriage. Since, then, the whole Church herself is a virgin betrothed to one husband, Christ (2 Cor 11:2), as the Apostle says, of how great honor are those members of hers worthy who guard even in the flesh itself what she guards wholly in faith, who imitate the mother of her husband and her Lord!

For the Church too is both mother and virgin. For whose integrity do we take counsel, if she is not a virgin? Whose offspring do we address, if she is not a mother? Mary bodily gave birth to the head of this body; the Church spiritually gives birth to the members of that head. In each, virginity does not hinder fruitfulness; in each, fruitfulness does not take away virginity. Therefore, since the whole Church is holy both in body and in spirit, and yet is not wholly a virgin in body, but in spirit, how much holier is she in those members where she is a virgin both in body and in spirit?

3. 3. It is written in the Gospel that, when the mother and brothers of Christ—that is, his kinsmen according to the flesh—had been announced to him and were waiting outside, because they could not reach him on account of the crowd, he answered: who is my mother, or who are my brothers? And stretching out his hand over his disciples he said: 'these are my brothers'; and: 'whoever does the will of my Father, he is my brother and mother and sister (Matt 12:48-50).'

What else does he teach us but to set our spiritual kindred above kinship of the flesh, and that men are not blessed because they are joined to the just and holy by nearness of flesh, but if they cleave to them by obeying and imitating their teaching and their conduct? Mary, therefore, was more blessed in receiving the faith of Christ than in conceiving the flesh of Christ.

For to a certain woman who said, blessed is the womb that bore you, he himself replied, rather, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it (Luke 11:27-28). Finally, what did that kinship profit his brothers, that is, his kinsmen according to the flesh, who did not believe in him?

So too the kinship of motherhood would have profited Mary nothing, had she not borne Christ more happily in her heart than in her flesh.

4. 4. Her virginity too was for this reason the more pleasing and acceptable: that Christ, when conceived, did not snatch it away from a husband who would have violated what he himself was to preserve, but rather, before he was conceived, chose her, already dedicated to God, as the one from whom he would be born.

This is shown by the words which Mary gave back to the angel announcing the child to her. How, she said, shall this be, since I know not a man? (Luke 1:34) This assuredly she would not have said, had she not previously vowed herself a virgin to God.

But because the customs of the Israelites still refused this, she was betrothed to a just man, who would not take it away by violence, but rather would guard against the violent what she had already vowed.

And yet, even if she had said only this, how shall this be? and had not added, since I know not a man, she certainly would not have asked how, as a woman, she was to bear the son promised to her, if she had married to lie with a man.

The Virgin could also have been commanded to remain such, she in whom the Son of God would take the form of a servant by a fitting miracle;

but, as an example to holy virgins to come—lest she be thought to have had to be the only virgin who had deserved to conceive offspring even without intercourse—she dedicated her virginity to God while she still did not know what she was to conceive, so that in an earthly and mortal body the imitation of the heavenly life might come about by a vow, not by a precept; by the love of choosing, not by the necessity of serving.

Thus Christ, in being born of the Virgin who, before she knew who was to be born of her, had resolved to remain a virgin, chose rather to approve holy virginity than to command it. And so, even in the woman herself in whom he took the form of a servant, he willed virginity to be free.

5. 5. There is, therefore, no reason for the virgins of God to be saddened that they too, though their virginity be preserved, cannot be mothers of the flesh. For virginity could fittingly give birth only to him who in his nativity could have no equal. Yet that childbearing of the one holy Virgin is the glory of all holy virgins. And they too, together with Mary, are mothers of Christ, if they do the will of his Father. For from this Mary too is more praiseworthily and more blessedly the mother of Christ, according to his saying recalled above: whoever does the will of my Father who is in heaven, he is my brother and sister and mother (Matt 12:50).

All these kinships he exhibits to himself spiritually in the people whom he redeemed: he has as brothers and sisters holy men and holy women, since they are coheirs with him in the heavenly inheritance. His mother is the whole Church, because by the grace of God she gives birth to his members, that is, to his faithful. Likewise his mother is every devout soul, doing the will of his Father with most fruitful love, in those whom she brings to birth, until he himself be formed in them (See Gal 4:19). Mary, therefore, doing the will of God, is bodily only the mother of Christ, but spiritually both his sister and his mother.

6. 6. And on this account that one woman is both mother and Virgin, not only in spirit but also in body. And mother indeed in spirit, not of our head, who is the Savior himself—from whom rather she herself was spiritually born, since all who have believed in him, among whom she too is, are rightly called sons of the bridegroom (See ibid);

but plainly the mother of his members, which we are, because she cooperated by love, that the faithful might be born in the Church, who are the members of that head; while in body she is the mother of the head himself.

For it was fitting that our head, by a remarkable miracle, should be born according to the flesh of a virgin, by which he might signify that his members were to be born according to the spirit of the virgin Church.

Mary alone, therefore, is both in spirit and in body a mother and a Virgin, both the mother of Christ and the Virgin of Christ; but the Church, in the saints who are to possess the kingdom of God, is in spirit indeed wholly the mother of Christ, wholly the Virgin of Christ, but in body not wholly,

but in some she is the Virgin of Christ, in some a mother, yet not of Christ. For both the faithful married women and the women dedicated to God as virgins are, by their holy conduct and by love from a pure heart and a good conscience and unfeigned faith (1 Tim 1:5), the spiritual mothers of Christ, because they do the will of the Father.

But those who in married life give birth bodily do not give birth to Christ, but to Adam, and therefore they hasten that their offspring, imbued with the sacraments, may become members of Christ, since they know what they have brought forth.

7. 7. I have said this lest perhaps married fruitfulness should dare to contend with virginal integrity and set Mary herself before it, and say to the virgins of God: "she had in her body two things to be honored, virginity and fruitfulness, because she both remained intact and gave birth; since we two could not have this whole happiness, we have divided it, so that you may be virgins, we may be mothers; for you, may the virginity you have preserved console you for what you lack in offspring; for us, may the integrity we have lost be compensated by the gain of offspring."

This utterance of the faithful married women toward the holy virgins would somehow have to be borne, if they gave birth bodily to Christians, so that in this alone the fruitfulness of Mary—virginity apart—would be more excellent: that she brought forth the very head of these members, while they brought forth the members of that head;

but as it is, even if such women contend with this utterance—women who are joined and united with husbands only that they may have children, and think nothing else about their children but to gain them for Christ, and do so as soon as they are able—nevertheless Christians are not born of their flesh, but become so afterward, the Church giving birth through this, that she is spiritually the mother of the members of Christ, of whom she is also spiritually the Virgin.

With this holy childbearing the mothers too cooperate, who have not given birth bodily to Christians, so that their offspring may become what they have known they themselves could not bodily bring forth; yet through this they cooperate, wherein they too are virgins and mothers of Christ, namely, in the faith which works through love (Gal 5:6).

8. 8. No fruitfulness of the flesh, therefore, can be compared to holy virginity, even of the flesh. For it too is honored not because it is virginity, but because it is dedicated to God; and although it is preserved in the flesh, it is nevertheless preserved by the religion and devotion of the spirit.

And on this account even the virginity of the body is spiritual, which the continence of devotion vows and preserves. For just as no one uses the body unchastely unless wickedness has first been conceived in the spirit, so no one preserves chastity in the body unless purity has first been implanted in the spirit.

Moreover, if conjugal chastity, although it is guarded in the flesh, is nevertheless attributed to the mind, not to the flesh—under whose presidency and rule the flesh itself is united with none but its own spouse—how much more, and how much more honorably, is that continence to be numbered among the goods of the mind, by which the integrity of the flesh is vowed, consecrated, and preserved to the very Creator of the mind and the flesh!

9. 9. Therefore the fruitfulness of the flesh of those women who in this time seek nothing else in marriage than offspring whom they may dedicate to Christ is not to be believed capable of being compensation for the virginity they have lost.

For in former times, when Christ was to come according to the flesh, the very lineage of the flesh was necessary in a certain great and prophetic nation; but now, since the members of Christ can be gathered from every kind of human being and from all nations into the people of God and the city of the kingdom of heaven, let the one who is able to receive sacred virginity receive it (Matt 19:12); and only she who cannot exercise self-control, let her marry (1 Cor 7:9).

For what then? If some rich woman were to spend much money on this good work, in order to buy from various nations slaves whom she might make Christians, would she not see to it that the members of Christ were begotten more abundantly and more numerously than by any fertility of the womb? And yet she would not on that account dare to set her money on a par with the gift of sacred virginity.

But if, for the sake of making those who are born Christians, fruitfulness of the flesh will deservedly be compensation for the virginity that is lost, this business will be more fruitful if virginity is lost for a great sum of money, by which many more children to be made Christians may be bought than would be born from the womb of one woman, however fertile.

10. 9. But if this is said most foolishly, let the faithful married women have their own good,

of which we have treated in another volume, as far as seemed good, and let them honor more highly, as they have most rightly been accustomed to do, the better good of the sacred virgins, of which we are treating in this discourse.

10. 10. For marriages ought not to compare themselves with the merits of the continent even on this ground, that virgins are begotten from them;

for this is not a good of marriage, but of nature, which was so divinely instituted that from any human intercourse of either sex, whether ordered and honorable or base and unlawful, no woman is born except a virgin, yet no sacred virgin is born; thus it comes about that a virgin is born even of fornication, but a sacred virgin not even of marriage.

11. 11. Nor do we praise this in virgins, that they are virgins, but that they are virgins dedicated to God by devout continence. For—and I would not say this rashly—a married woman seems to me happier than a virgin about to marry;

for the former already has what the latter still desires, especially if the latter is not yet even betrothed to anyone. The former is eager to please one man, to whom she has been given; the latter, many, being uncertain to whom she is to be given;

and she defends the chastity of her thought from the crowd by this one thing, that she seeks in the crowd not an adulterer but a husband.

That virgin, therefore, is deservedly set before the married woman who neither offers herself to be loved by the multitude, while she seeks the love of one out of the multitude, nor composes herself for one man already found, thinking about the things of the world, how she may please her husband (1 Cor 7:34),

but has so loved him who is beautiful in form beyond the sons of men (Ps 45:2 (44:3)) that, because she could not like Mary conceive him in the flesh, she has, having conceived him in her heart, also kept her flesh intact.

12. 11. No bodily fruitfulness has produced this kind of virgins; this is not the offspring of flesh and blood. If a mother of these is sought, it is the Church. None but the sacred Virgin gives birth to sacred virgins, she who is betrothed to one husband to be presented chaste to Christ (See 2 Cor 11:2).

Of her, not wholly a virgin in body but wholly a virgin in spirit, are born holy virgins both in body and in spirit.

12. 12. Let marriages have their own good, not because they procreate children, but because they procreate honorably, lawfully, chastely, and in fellowship,

and bring up those they have procreated together, wholesomely, and earnestly, because they keep faith with each other in the marriage bed, because they do not violate the sacrament of wedlock.

13. 12. Yet all these are gifts of human duty; but virginal integrity, and freedom from all intercourse through devout continence, is an angelic portion, and in corruptible flesh a meditation upon perpetual incorruption.

Let all fruitfulness of the flesh yield to this, all conjugal chastity: the one is not in our power, the one is not in eternity; free choice does not have fleshly fruitfulness, heaven does not have conjugal chastity. Assuredly they will have something great beyond the rest in that common immortality, who have in the flesh something already not of the flesh.

13. 13. Hence those are wondrously foolish who think the good of this continence is necessary not for the sake of the kingdom of heaven, but for the sake of the present age—namely, because marriages are distended with more and tighter earthly cares, a trouble which virgins and the continent are free of—as though for this reason only it were better not to marry, that the straits of this present time might be relaxed, and not because it profits anything for the age to come.

Lest they seem to have put forth this empty opinion out of the emptiness of their own heart, they bring forward a testimony from the Apostle, where he says: concerning virgins I have no command of the Lord, but I give my opinion as one who by the mercy of the Lord is trustworthy. I think, therefore, that this is good because of the present necessity, for it is good for a man to remain as he is (1 Cor 7:25-26).

"See," they say, "where the Apostle makes plain that this is good because of the present necessity, not because of the eternity to come." As though the Apostle would take account of the present necessity except by providing and taking counsel for the future, since his whole dispensation calls to nothing but eternal life.

14. 14. The present necessity, then, is to be avoided, but it is one that nevertheless hinders something of the goods to come: by this necessity married life is compelled to think about the things of the world, how the husband may please the wife, or the wife the husband.

Not that these things separate one from the kingdom of God, as do sins, which are therefore restrained by precept, not by counsel, because not to obey the commanding Lord is damnable;

but that good which might be possessed more abundantly in the very kingdom of God, if one were to think more abundantly how God is to be pleased, will assuredly be less, since this very thing is thought of less by the necessity of marriage.

For this reason he says, concerning virgins I have no command of the Lord (1 Cor 7:25). For whoever does not comply with a command is guilty and liable to punishment.

Accordingly, because to take a wife or to marry is not a sin—and if it were a sin it would be forbidden by a command—therefore there is no command of the Lord concerning virgins.

But since, sins being avoided or remitted, eternal life is to be approached, in which there is a certain extraordinary glory, to be granted not to all who will live forever, but to some there; and to attain it, it is too little to have been freed from sins, unless something be vowed to the liberator himself which is no crime not to have vowed, but to have vowed and rendered is praiseworthy: I give, he says, my opinion as one who by the mercy of the Lord is trustworthy (1 Cor 7:26).

For I ought not to begrudge faithful counsel, I who am faithful not by my own merits but by the mercy of God. I think, therefore, that this is good because of the present necessity. "This," he says, "concerning which I have no command of the Lord, but give my opinion, that is, concerning virgins, I think it good because of the present necessity."

For I know what the necessity of the present time, which marriages serve, compels: that the things of God are thought of less than suffices for attaining that glory which will not belong to all, though they remain in eternal life and salvation. For star differs from star in brightness; so also is the resurrection of the dead (1 Cor 15:41-42). It is good, therefore, for a man to remain as he is (1 Cor 7:26).

15. 15. Then the same Apostle adds and says: are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be loosed. Are you loosed from a wife? Do not seek a wife (1 Cor 7:27). Of these two, the one he put first pertains to a command, against which it is not lawful to act. For it is not lawful to dismiss a wife except for the cause of fornication, as the Lord himself says in the Gospel (See Matt 19:9).

But what he added, are you loosed from a wife? Do not seek a wife, is a sentence of counsel, not of command; it is therefore lawful to do it, but better not to do it. Finally, he immediately subjoined: and if you take a wife, you have not sinned; and if a virgin marries, she does not sin (1 Cor 7:28).

But when he had said that first thing, are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be loosed, did he add, "and if you are loosed, you have not sinned"? For he had already said above: but to those who are in marriage I give command, not I but the Lord, that the wife not depart from her husband; but if she does depart, that she remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband; for it can happen that she departs not through her own fault, but her husband's.

Then he says: and let the husband not dismiss his wife (1 Cor 7:10-11, 18-24, 27-28), which likewise he set down from the command of the Lord, nor did he add there, "and if he dismisses her, he does not sin." For this is a command, to disobey which is a sin, not a counsel, which if you are unwilling to use, you attain less good, but commit nothing evil.

For this reason, when he had said, are you loosed from a wife? Do not seek a wife, because he was not commanding lest an evil be done, but counseling that a better thing be done, he immediately subjoined: and if you take a wife, you have not sinned; and if a virgin marries, she does not sin.

16. 16. Yet he added: but such will have tribulation of the flesh, and I would spare you, exhorting in this way to virginity and perpetual continence, so as also to deter somewhat from marriage—modestly indeed, not as from a thing evil and unlawful, but as from a thing burdensome and troublesome.

For it is one thing to admit the baseness of the flesh, another to have tribulation of the flesh: the one is to commit a crime, the other is to suffer a labor, which men for the most part do not refuse even for the most honorable duties.

But to undertake, for the sake of having a marriage in this present time—when service is no longer rendered to the coming Christ by the propagation of his lineage through fleshly descent—that tribulation of the flesh which the Apostle foretells to those about to marry, would be most foolish, were it not feared that the incontinent might, at Satan's tempting, fall into damnable sins.

But as to his saying that he spares those whom he says will have tribulation of the flesh, nothing sounder occurs to me for the present than that he was unwilling to open up and unfold in words that very tribulation of the flesh which he foretold to those who choose marriage—the suspicions of conjugal jealousy, the begetting and rearing of children, the fears and griefs of bereavement. For how few there are who, when they have bound themselves with the bonds of wedlock, are not dragged and agitated by these affections? Which we too ought not to exaggerate, lest we fail to spare those whom the Apostle judged should be spared.

17. 17. Only this much, which I have briefly set down, was needed to put the reader on guard against those who, in what is written—but such will have tribulation of the flesh, and I would spare you (1 Cor 7:28)—slander marriage, alleging that this sentence indirectly condemned it, as though he was unwilling to speak the condemnation itself when he says, and I would spare you: so that, while he spares those people, he did not spare his own soul, if by lying he said, and if you take a wife, you have not sinned; and if a virgin marries, she does not sin (ibid).

Those who believe this of holy Scripture, or wish it to be believed, are as it were paving a way for themselves to license in lying, or to the defense of their perverse opinion, wherever they think otherwise than sound doctrine requires.

For if anything plain be brought forth from the divine Books by which their errors are refuted, they have this at hand as a shield with which, while seeming to protect themselves against the truth, they lay themselves bare to be wounded by the devil; for they say that the author of the book did not speak the truth in this, at one time that he might spare the weak, at another that he might frighten the contemptuous, as the occasion arose by which their perverse opinion might be defended. And thus, while they prefer to defend rather than correct what they suppose, they attempt to break the authority of the Holy Scriptures, by which alone all proud and hard necks are broken.

18. 18. Hence I admonish the followers, both men and women, of perpetual continence and sacred virginity, so to prefer their own good to marriage that they do not judge marriage an evil, and know that the Apostle spoke not deceitfully but plainly and truly: he who gives in marriage does well, and he who does not give in marriage does better (1 Cor 7:38).

And if you take a wife, you have not sinned; and if a virgin marries, she does not sin (1 Cor 7:28).

And a little later: but she will be more blessed if she so remains, according to my judgment (1 Cor 7:40). And lest it be thought a human judgment, he adds: and I think that I too have the Spirit of God.

This is the Lord's, this is the Apostle's, this is the true, this is the sound doctrine: so to choose the greater gifts that the lesser are not condemned. Better in the Scripture of God is the Truth of God than in anyone's mind or flesh is the virginity of a human being.

Let what is chaste be so loved that what is true be not denied. For what evil can they not think even of their own flesh, who believe that the Apostle's tongue, in that very place where it was commending the virginity of the body, was not a virgin free from the corruption of a lie?

First, then, and above all, let those who choose the good of virginity hold most firmly that the Holy Scriptures have lied in nothing, and that on this account that too is true which was said: and if you take a wife, you have not sinned; and if a virgin marries, she does not sin (1 Cor 7:28).

Nor let them think the great good of integrity is diminished if marriage is not an evil. Rather, let her be confident that the palm of greater glory is for this very reason prepared for her, who feared not to be condemned if she married, but desired to be more honorably crowned because she did not marry. Those, then, who have willed to remain without marriage, let them not flee marriage as a pit of sin, but pass over it as a hill of lesser good, that they may rest on the mountain of greater continence. For that hill is inhabited under such a law that one may not depart from it when one wills. For a woman is bound as long as her husband lives (1 Cor 7:39). Yet from this hill, as from a step, one ascends to the continence of widowhood; while for the sake of virginal continence one must either turn aside by not consenting to suitors, or leap over it by forestalling suitors.

19. 19. But lest anyone should think that the rewards of two works, the good and the better, would be equal, it was necessary to argue against those who interpreted what the Apostle says, but I think that this is good because of the present necessity (1 Cor 7:26), in such a way as to say that virginity is useful not for the sake of the kingdom of heaven, but for the sake of the present age—as though in that eternal life those who had chosen this better part were to have nothing beyond the rest.

In this discussion, when we came to that which the same Apostle says, but such will have tribulation of the flesh, and I would spare you (1 Cor 7:28), we ran into other disputants, who would not make marriage equal to perpetual continence, but would condemn it altogether. For since each is an error—either to equate marriage with holy virginity or to condemn it—these two errors, by fleeing one another too far, clash front to front, because they were unwilling to hold the middle of the truth: by which we have found, both by sure reasoning and by the authority of the Holy Scriptures, that marriage is neither a sin nor to be equated with the good either of virginal continence or even of the continence of widowhood.

20. 19. For some, in their appetite for virginity, have thought that marriage is to be detested as adultery; while others, in defending wedlock, have wished that the excellence of perpetual continence should merit nothing more than conjugal chastity—as though either the good of Susanna were the humiliation of Mary, or the greater good of Mary ought to be the condemnation of Susanna.

20. 20. Far be it, then, that the Apostle should have said to the married or to those about to marry, but I would spare you (ibid), as though he was unwilling to say what punishment is due to the married in the age to come.

Far be it that Paul should send into hell her whom Daniel freed from temporal judgment. Far be it that the marriage bed should be a punishment to her before the tribunal of Christ, who, in keeping faith with it, chose under a false accusation of adultery either to be in peril or to die.

What did that utterance accomplish—it is better for me to fall into your hands than to sin in the sight of God (Dan 13:23)—if God was going to free her not because she was keeping conjugal chastity, but to condemn her because she had married?

And now, as often as conjugal chastity is fortified by the truth of Holy Scripture against the slanderers and accusers of marriage, so often is Susanna defended by the Holy Spirit against false witnesses, so often is she freed from a false charge—and with a much greater task.

For then the charge was brought against one married woman, now against all; then concerning a hidden and false adultery, now concerning a true and manifest wedlock. Then one woman was accused on the basis of what the wicked elders said; now all husbands and wives are accused on the basis of what the Apostle was unwilling to say. "He kept silent about your condemnation," they say, "when he said, but I would spare you (1 Cor 7:28)." Who is this? Surely the one who had said above: and if you take a wife, you have not sinned; and if a virgin marries, she does not sin (ibid). Why, then, in what he modestly kept silent do you suspect a charge against marriages, while in what he openly said you do not recognize a defense of marriages? Does he by silence condemn those whom by speaking he absolved? Is not Susanna now more mildly accused—not of marriage, but of adultery itself—than is the Apostle's teaching accused of lying? What would we do in so great a peril, were it not as certain and plain that chaste marriages ought not to be condemned as it is certain and plain that holy Scripture cannot lie?

21. 21. Here someone will say: "What has this to do with sacred virginity, or perpetual continence, whose praise was undertaken in this discourse?" To him I answer first, as I recalled above, that the glory of that greater good is the greater for this reason, that for the sake of attaining it the good of marriage is passed over, not that a sin of marriage is avoided.

Otherwise it would suffice for perpetual continence not chiefly to be praised, but only not to be blamed; if it were held to for this reason, that to marry were a crime.

Next, because it is not by human judgment but by the authority of divine Scripture that human beings are to be exhorted to so excellent a gift, we must not act carelessly or in passing, lest to anyone the divine Scripture itself seem to have lied in anything.

For they dissuade rather than exhort the sacred virgins, who compel them so to remain by the condemnation of marriage. For whence should they be confident that what is written is true—and he who does not give in marriage does better (1 Cor 7:38)—if they think false what is nonetheless written just before: and he who gives his virgin in marriage does well?

But if they undoubtingly believe Scripture speaking of the good of marriage,

then, strengthened by the same most truthful authority of the heavenly word, they will hasten on to their better good with fervent and confident eagerness.

Whence we have now said enough for the task undertaken, and have shown, as far as we could, that neither is that which the Apostle says, but I think that this is good because of the present necessity (1 Cor 7:26), to be taken as though in this age sacred virgins are better than the faithful married, but in the kingdom of heaven and in the age to come they are equal,

nor is that, where he says of those who marry, but such will have tribulation of the flesh, and I would spare you (1 Cor 7:28), to be understood as though he preferred to keep silent about a sin and condemnation of marriage rather than to speak it.

For two errors, contrary to each other, have, by not understanding them, laid hold of one each of these two sentences.

For that one about the present necessity is interpreted in their own favor by those who contend to make those who marry equal to those who do not marry;

while this one, where it is said, but I would spare you, by those who presume to condemn those who marry.

But we, according to the faith of the Holy Scriptures and sound doctrine, both say that marriage is not a sin, and yet set its good not only below virginal but even below widowed continence; and we say that the present necessity of the married, while it does not hinder their merit with respect to eternal life, does hinder it with respect to the excellent glory and honor that is reserved for perpetual continence; and that in this time marriage is expedient only for those who do not exercise self-control; and that the tribulation of the flesh, coming from fleshly affection, without which the marriage of the incontinent cannot be, the Apostle, forewarning of true things, neither willed to keep silent nor, sparing the weakness of human beings, to unfold more fully.

22. 22. Now, then, by the most evident testimonies of the divine Scriptures, such as for the small measure of my memory I have been able to recall, let it appear more clearly that perpetual continence is to be loved not for the sake of the present life of this age, but for the sake of the future life, which is promised in the kingdom of heaven.

And who would not notice this in what the same Apostle says a little later: he who is without a wife is concerned about the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord; but he who is joined in marriage is concerned about the things of the world, how he may please his wife.

And the unmarried woman and the virgin are divided: she who is unmarried is anxious about the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit; but she who is married is anxious about the things of the world, how she may please her husband (1 Cor 7:32-34).

He certainly does not say, "she is concerned about the things that pertain to security in this age, that she may pass her time without graver troubles"; nor does he say that the unmarried woman and the virgin are divided—that is, distinguished and set apart—from her who is married for this end, that the unmarried woman in this life may be secure on account of avoiding the temporal troubles which the married woman does not lack;

but he says, she is concerned about the things of the Lord, how she may please the Lord, and, she is anxious about the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit (ibid).

Unless, perhaps, someone is so foolishly contentious as to try to assert that we wish to please the Lord not for the sake of the kingdom of heaven, but for the sake of the present age, or that women are holy both in body and in spirit for the sake of this life, not the eternal one. To believe this, what is it but to be more wretched than all human beings? For so the Apostle says: if in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all human beings the most wretched (1 Cor 15:19). Or rather, is the man who breaks his bread for the hungry foolish, if he does it only for the sake of this life, while he will be prudent who chastens his body even to a continence by which he is not joined in marriage, if it will profit him nothing in the kingdom of heaven?

23. 23. Finally, let us hear the Lord himself bringing forth a most evident sentence on this matter. For when he was speaking divinely and awesomely about spouses not being separated except for the cause of fornication, the disciples said to him: if such is the case with a wife, it is not expedient to marry.

To them he said: not all receive this word. For there are eunuchs who were so born; but there are others who were made so by human beings; and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let the one who is able to receive it, receive it (Matt 19:10-12).

What could be said more truly, what more clearly? Christ says it, the Truth says it, the Power and Wisdom of God says it, that those who from a devout purpose have refrained from taking a wife make themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven;

and does human vanity, on the contrary, contend with impious rashness that those who do this only avoid the present necessity of conjugal troubles, but in the kingdom of heaven have nothing more than the rest?

24. 24. And of what eunuchs does God speak through the prophet Isaiah, to whom he says he will give in his house and within his wall a place with a name, much better than that of sons and daughters, except of those who make themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven (See Isa 56:5)?

For as for those whose very male member is disabled so that they cannot beget, such as the eunuchs of the rich and of kings, it suffices for them, when they become Christians and keep the precepts of God—though with the purpose that they would have spouses if they could—to be made equal to the rest of the faithful married in the house of God, who rear in the fear of God the offspring they have lawfully and chastely received, teaching their children to set their hope in God,

and not to receive a better place than that of sons and daughters. For they refrain from taking wives not by virtue of the mind but by necessity of the flesh.

Let anyone who will, by all means contend that the Prophet foretold this of those eunuchs who are cut off in body; this error too supports the cause we have undertaken. For God did not prefer those eunuchs to those who have no place in his house, but rather to those who keep the merit of married life in begetting children. For when he says, I will give them a much better place (Isa 56:5), he shows that it is given to the married also, but a much inferior one.

Granting, then, that the eunuchs according to the flesh foretold to be in the house of God are those who were not in the people of Israel—since we see them too, when they do not become Jews, nevertheless becoming Christians—and that the Prophet did not speak of those who, from a purpose of continence not seeking marriage, make themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven:

is anyone of so great a madness an enemy of the truth as to believe that eunuchs made so in the flesh have a better place in the house of God than the married,

and to contend that those who are continent from a devout purpose, chastening the body even to the disdaining of marriage, making themselves eunuchs not in the body but in the very root of desire, meditating the heavenly and angelic life in earthly mortality, are equal to the merits of the married—and, a Christian, to contradict Christ when he praises those who have made themselves eunuchs not for the sake of this age but for the sake of the kingdom of heaven, affirming that this is useful for the present life, not the future?

What else remains for these people but to assert that the kingdom of heaven itself pertains to this temporal life in which we now are? For why should not blind presumption advance even into this insanity? And what is more frenzied than this assertion? For although the kingdom of heaven is sometimes called even the Church which exists at this time, it is certainly so called for this reason, that it is gathered for the future and everlasting life. Although, therefore, it has the promise of the present life and of the future (1 Tim 4:8), yet in all its good works it looks not at the things that are seen, but the things that are not seen. For the things that are seen are temporal; but the things that are not seen are eternal (2 Cor 4:18).

25. 25. Nor indeed did the Holy Spirit keep silent about that which, against these most shameless and most insane stubborn people, would prevail openly and unshaken, and would repel their bestial onset from his sheepfold by an impregnable defense. For when he had said of the eunuchs, I will give them in my house and within my wall a place with a name, much better than that of sons and daughters (Isa 56:5), lest anyone too carnal should suppose that something temporal was to be hoped for in these words, he immediately subjoined: I will give them an eternal name, and it shall never be lacking (ibid);

as though he said: "Why do you shuffle, impious blindness? Why do you shuffle? Why do you spread the mists of your perversity over the serenity of the truth? Why, in so great a light of the Scriptures, do you seek darkness from which to set your ambush? Why do you promise only a temporal usefulness to the holy continent? I will give them an eternal name. Why do you try to refer to earthly advantage those who, free from all intercourse and, by that very thing whereby they abstain from it, thinking about the things of the Lord, how they may please the Lord?

I will give them an eternal name. Why do you contend that the kingdom of heaven, for the sake of which the holy eunuchs made themselves eunuchs, is to be understood only in this life? I will give them an eternal name. And if perhaps you try here to take this eternal for 'long-lasting,' I add, I heap up, I press in: and it shall never be lacking."

What more do you seek? What more do you say? This eternal name, whatever it is, given to the eunuchs of God, which surely signifies a certain proper and excellent glory, will not be shared with the many, although they are set in the same kingdom and in the same house. For perhaps it is called a name for this reason, that it distinguishes those to whom it is given from the rest.

26. 26. "What, then, does that denarius mean," they say, "which, when the work of the vineyard is finished, is paid equally to all, whether to those who worked from the first hour or to those who worked one hour (See Matt 20:9)?"

What indeed? Except that something is signified which all will have in common, such as eternal life itself, the kingdom of heaven itself, where all will be whom God has predestined, called, justified, glorified? For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality (1 Cor 15:53).

This is that denarius, the reward of all. Yet star differs from star in glory; so also is the resurrection of the dead (1 Cor 15:41-42): these are the diverse merits of the saints.

For if heaven were signified by that denarius, is it not common to all the stars to be in heaven? And yet one is the glory of the sun, another the glory of the moon, another of the stars (1 Cor 15:41).

If that denarius were set down for the health of the body, is not health, when we are sound in all our members, common—and, if it remains until death, present in all alike and equally?

And yet God has set the members, each one of them in the body, as he willed (1 Cor 12:18), so that the whole is neither eye nor hearing nor smell; and whatever else there is has its own property, although it has health equally with all. So, because eternal life itself will be equally for all the saints, an equal denarius is assigned to all; but because in that eternal life the lights of merits will shine distinctly, there are many mansions (See John 14:2) with the Father. And on this account, in the denarius, which is not unequal, no one will live longer than another; but in the many mansions one is honored more brightly than another.

27. 27. Go on, then, holy ones of God, boys and girls, males and females, the celibate and the unmarried; go on perseveringly to the end; praise the Lord more sweetly, on whom you ponder more richly; hope more happily, whom you serve more earnestly; love more ardently, whom you please more attentively; with loins girded and lamps burning, await the Lord, when he comes from the wedding (See Luke 12:35-36).

You will bring to the wedding of the Lamb a new song, which you will sing on your harps. Not such, surely, as the whole earth sings, to which it is said, sing to the Lord a new song, sing to the Lord, all the earth (Ps 96:1 (95:1));

but such as no one will be able to utter except you. For so a certain one, loved by the Lamb beyond the rest, saw you in the Apocalypse—he who was wont to recline upon his breast, and who drank in and poured forth the wondrous things, above the heavens, of the Word of God.

He saw you, the twelve times twelve thousand holy harpists, of unblemished virginity in body, of inviolate truth in heart; and because you follow the Lamb wherever he goes, he wrote about you (See Rev 14:1ff). Where do we think this Lamb goes, where no one either dares or is able to follow him except you? Where do we think he goes? Into what glades and meadows? Where, I believe, are the joys of the grasses—not the empty joys of this age and the lying frenzies, nor such joys as in the kingdom of God itself will belong to the others who are not virgins, but joys set apart from the lot of all the other joys. The joy of the virgins of Christ, from Christ, in Christ, with Christ, after Christ, through Christ, for the sake of Christ. The joys proper to the virgins of Christ are not the same as those of the non-virgins, although they too are Christ's. For there are some joys for some, others for others, but for none such as these.

Go into these, follow the Lamb, because the flesh of the Lamb too is surely virgin. For he retained in himself, when grown, what conception and birth did not take away from his mother. Deservedly do you follow him, by the virginity of heart and of flesh, wherever he goes. For what is it to follow but "to imitate"? Because Christ suffered for us, leaving us an example, as the Apostle Peter says, that we might follow his footsteps (1 Pet 2:21). Each one follows him in that in which he imitates him: not insofar as he is the one Son of God, through whom all things were made, but insofar as he is the Son of man, because, as was fitting, he offered in himself things to be imitated; and many things in him are set before all to be imitated; but the virginity of the flesh is not for all, for those have nothing they can do to be virgins in whom it has already been done that they are not virgins.

28. 28. Let the rest of the faithful, then, who have lost the virginity of the body, follow the Lamb, not wherever he goes, but as far as they themselves are able. They are able everywhere, except where he walks in the beauty of virginity.

Blessed are the poor in spirit (Matt 5:3), imitate him who for your sake became poor, though he was rich (2 Cor 8:9). Blessed are the meek (Matt 5:4), imitate him who said, learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart (Matt 11:29).

Blessed are those who mourn (Matt 5:5), imitate him who wept over Jerusalem (See Luke 19:41). Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness (Matt 5:6), imitate him who said, my food is to do the will of him who sent me (John 4:34).

Blessed are the merciful (Matt 5:7), imitate him who came to the aid of the man wounded by robbers and lying half-alive and despaired of in the road (See Luke 10:30-35). Blessed are the pure in heart (Matt 5:8), imitate him who committed no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth (1 Pet 2:22).

Blessed are the peacemakers (Matt 5:9), imitate him who said for his persecutors, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do (Luke 23:34). Blessed are those who suffer persecution for the sake of righteousness (Matt 5:10), imitate him who suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you might follow his footsteps (1 Pet 2:21).

Those who imitate these things follow the Lamb in them. But certainly the married too can go along these footsteps, even if not setting their foot perfectly in the same print, yet walking on the same paths.

29. 29. But behold, that Lamb walks the virginal road. How will those go after him who have lost what they in no way recover? You, then, you go after him, his virgins; you go after him even there, because for the sake of this one thing you follow him wherever he goes. For to any other gift of holiness we can exhort the married to follow him, except this which they have irreparably lost.

You, therefore, follow him, holding perseveringly what you vowed ardently. Do, while you can, lest the good of virginity perish from you, toward whose return you can do nothing.

The rest of the multitude of the faithful, which cannot follow the Lamb thus far, will see you, will see and not envy; and rejoicing together with you, what it does not have in itself it will have in you.

For it will not be able to say that new song proper to you; but it will be able to hear it and to delight in your so excellent good. But you, who will both say it and hear it—because you will hear from yourselves what you also say—will exult more happily and reign more joyfully. Yet over your greater joy there will be no grief for those to whom this is lacking.

For the Lamb, whom you follow wherever he goes, will not desert those who cannot follow him where you do. We speak of the almighty Lamb. He will both go before you and not depart from them, when he will be God all in all (1 Cor 15:28). And those who will have less will not shrink from you. For where there is no envy, difference is in concord. Presume, then, trust, be strengthened, persevere, you who vow and render vows to the Lord your God (Ps 76:11 (75:12)) of perpetual continence, not for the sake of the present age, but for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.

30. 30. You too who have not yet vowed this, who are able to receive it, receive it (See Matt 19:12); run perseveringly, that you may obtain (1 Cor 9:24). Take up each your own offerings and enter into the courts of the Lord (Ps 96:8 (95:8)), having the power of your own will not by necessity.

For it cannot be said, "you shall not marry," as it is said, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not kill (Exod 20:13, 15). Those are exacted, these are offered.

If these are done, they are praised; unless those are done, they are condemned.

In those things the Lord commands you what is due; but in these, whatever more you have spent over and above, he will repay you on his return (See Luke 10:35). Ponder, whatever it is, the place with a name within his wall, much better than that of sons and daughters; ponder there the eternal name (See Isa 56:5). Who can unfold what kind of name it will be? Yet whatever it will be, it will be eternal. By believing and hoping and loving this, you have been able not to avoid marriages as forbidden, but to fly over them as permitted.

31. 31. Hence the greatness of this gift, to the taking up of which we have exhorted according to our strength, the more excellent and more divine it is, the more it admonishes our solicitude to say something not only of the most glorious chastity, but also of the safest humility. When, therefore, the professors of perpetual continence, comparing themselves with the married, have found according to the Scriptures that the married are below them in work and in reward and in vow and in prize, let there at once come to mind what is written: the greater you are, humble yourself the more in all things, and before God you will find grace (Sir 3:18).

The measure of humility is given to each from the measure of his own greatness: for whom pride is dangerous, which lies in wait the more for the greater. This is followed by envy, as a daughter and attendant; for pride at once gives birth to it, and is never without such offspring and companion. By these two evils, that is, pride and envy, the devil is the devil; and so against pride, the mother of envy, the whole Christian discipline does battle above all. For it teaches humility, by which it both acquires and guards love. When it had been said of love, love does not envy, then, as if we were seeking the cause whence it comes that it does not envy, it immediately added, it is not puffed up (1 Cor 13:4), as though it said: "therefore it does not have envy, because neither does it have pride."

The teacher of humility, therefore, Christ, first emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of human beings and found in appearance as a man; he humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even the death of the cross (Phil 2:7-8). But as for his teaching itself, how attentively it instills humility and how vehemently it insists on commanding it, who could easily unfold and heap together all the testimonies for demonstrating this matter? Let whoever wishes to write separately about humility attempt or accomplish this; but the purpose of this work is another, undertaken about so great a matter that for it pride is above all to be guarded against.

32. 32. Accordingly I recall a few testimonies from the teaching of Christ on humility, which the Lord deigns to bring to mind, which may perhaps suffice for what I intend. The discourse which he first delivered at greater length to his disciples began thus: blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven (Matt 5:3): whom, without any controversy, we understand to be the humble. He praised the faith of that centurion especially, and said he had not found such great faith in Israel, because the man believed so humbly as to say, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof (Matt 8:5-10).

Hence Matthew said he came to Jesus for no other reason—though Luke most plainly intimates that he did not come to him himself, but sent his friends (See Luke 7:6-7)—than that by most faithful humility he himself came more than those whom he sent.

Hence too is that prophetic word: the Lord is exalted and looks upon the lowly; but the lofty he knows from afar (Ps 138:6 (137:6)), surely as not approaching.

Hence too he says to that Canaanite woman, O woman, great is your faith! Be it done to you as you wish (Matt 15:28)—she whom he had earlier called a dog, and to whom he had answered that the children's bread was not to be thrown (See Matt 15:26). Receiving this humbly, she had said, yes, Lord; for even the dogs eat of the crumbs that fall from their masters' table (Matt 15:27). And thus what she did not obtain by persistent crying out, she earned by humble confession (See Matt 15:22-28).

Hence those two are set before us praying in the temple, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector (Luke 18:10), for the sake of those who seem just to themselves and despise the rest; and confession of sins is preferred to the enumeration of merits.

And indeed the Pharisee was giving thanks to God for those things in which he greatly pleased himself. 'I give thanks,' he said, 'to you, because I am not like the rest of men, unjust, robbers, adulterers, like this tax collector too. I fast twice on the sabbath, I give tithes of all that I possess.' But the tax collector stood at a distance and did not dare to lift his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying: 'God, be merciful to me a sinner.'

And the divine sentence follows: amen I say to you, the tax collector went down to his house justified rather than that Pharisee. Then the reason is shown why this is just: for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted (Luke 18:11-14).

It can happen, then, that someone both avoids true evils and considers true goods in himself and gives thanks for these to the Father of lights, from whom comes down every best gift and every perfect gift (Jas 1:17); and yet is reproved for the vice of self-exaltation, if he proudly, even by thought alone (which is before God), insults other sinners, and especially those confessing their sins in prayer—to whom is owed not reproach with arrogance, but compassion without despair.

And what of this: when the disciples were asking among themselves which of them was the greater, he set a little child before their eyes, saying, unless you become like this child, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven (Matt 18:1-3)? Did he not commend humility above all, and set in it the merit of greatness?

Or when, to the sons of Zebedee, who desired his sides in the loftiness of thrones, he answered in such a way that they should rather think of the cup of his passion as to be drunk (See Matt 20:21-22)—in which he humbled himself unto death, even the death of the cross (Phil 2:8)—than that they should demand by proud appetite to be preferred to the rest;

what did he show, except that he would be a bestower of height to those who first followed him as the teacher of humility? And then, that when about to go out to his passion he washed the feet of the disciples and admonished them most plainly to do for their fellow disciples and fellow servants what the Master and Lord had done for them (See John 13:1-17);

how greatly did he commend humility! For commending it he even chose that time when they were beholding him, soon to die, with great longing—they who would surely retain in memory above all what the Master to be imitated had demonstrated last.

But he did this at that time which he could surely also have chosen on other earlier days, when he had lived among them; on which, if it had been done, this same thing would indeed have been handed down, but would surely not have been received in the same way.

33. 33. Since, then, humility is to be guarded by all Christians—seeing that they are called Christians from Christ, whose Gospel no one carefully regards without finding him the teacher of humility—then it is fitting above all that those be followers and preservers of this virtue who excel the rest by some great good, so that they take great care for that which I set down at the start: the greater you are, humble yourself the more in all things, and before God you will find grace (Sir 3:18). Accordingly, because perpetual continence, and especially virginity, is a great good in the holy ones of God, it must be most vigilantly guarded lest it be corrupted by pride.

33. 34. The Apostle Paul marks out the bad unmarried women as curious and talkative, and says this vice comes from idleness. And at the same time, he says, being idle they learn to go about from house to house; and not only idle, but also curious and talkative, saying what they ought not (1 Tim 5:13).

Of these he had said above: but avoid the younger widows; for when they have lived in self-indulgence, they wish to marry in Christ, incurring condemnation, because they have made void their first faith (1 Tim 5:11-12); that is, they did not stand in what they had first vowed.

34. 34. Yet he does not say, "they marry," but, they wish to marry. For many of them are called back from marrying not by love of a noble purpose, but by fear of open disgrace,

which itself also comes from pride, by which it is feared to displease human beings more than God.

These, then, who wish to marry and do not marry for this reason, that they cannot do so without disgrace—who would better marry than burn, that is, than be laid waste by the hidden flame of desire in their very conscience—who repent of their profession and are ashamed of their confession,

unless they set right their corrected heart and again conquer lust by the fear of God, are to be counted among the dead,

whether they live in self-indulgence—whence the Apostle says, but she who lives in self-indulgence is dead while she lives (1 Tim 5:6)—or in labors and fastings that are superfluous, with no correction of the heart, and that serve display rather than amendment.

I do not press a great care of humility upon such persons, in whom pride itself is confounded and is bloodied by the wound of conscience. Nor upon those lying in drunkenness or avarice or any other damnable kind of disease, who, though they have the profession of bodily continence, are dissonant from their name by perverse conduct, do I impose this great solicitude of devout humility—unless perhaps they will dare to make a display even in these evils, for whom it is not enough that their punishments are deferred.

Nor do I deal with those in whom there is a certain appetite for pleasing, either by dress more elegant than the necessity of so great a profession demands, or by a noticeable binding of the head, whether with swelling bosses of hair or with coverings so fine that the little nets placed beneath show through: to these the precepts to be given are not yet about humility, but about chastity itself or the integrity of modesty. Give me one professing perpetual continence and lacking all these and the like vices and stains of conduct: for her I fear pride; for so great a good I dread the swelling of self-exaltation. The more there is in her whereby she may please herself, the more I fear lest, by pleasing herself, she displease him who resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble (Jas 4:6).

35. 35. Certainly the chief instruction and example of virginal integrity is to be beheld in Christ himself. What more, then, should I prescribe to the continent about humility than what he prescribes who says to all, learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart (Matt 11:29)?

When he had recalled his greatness above, and wishing to show this very thing, how small he became for our sake though so great, he said: I confess to you, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and prudent, and have revealed them to little ones. Yes, Father, for so it was pleasing before you. All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father; and no one knows the Father except the Son, and him to whom the Son wills to reveal him. Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart (Matt 11:25-29).

He to whom the Father handed over all things, and whom no one knows except the Father, and who alone knows the Father and him to whom he wills to reveal him, does not say, "learn from me to fashion the world or to raise the dead," but, that I am meek and humble of heart.

O saving teaching! O Master and Lord of mortals, to whom death was offered and poured out in the cup of pride!

He was unwilling to teach what he himself was not; he was unwilling to command what he himself did not do.

I see you, good Jesus, with the eyes of faith which you have opened for me, as it were crying out in the assembly of the human race and saying, come to me and learn from me. What, I beseech you, through whom all things were made, Son of God, and the same who were made among all things, Son of man, what have we come to you to learn from you?

That I am meek, he says, and humble of heart (Matt 11:29). Is it to this that all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden in you (Col 2:3) are reduced, that we should learn this from you as something great, that you are meek and humble of heart? Is it then so great a thing to be small, that unless it were done by you, who are so great, it could not be learned at all? Plainly so. For rest for the soul is not found otherwise than by the restless swelling being purged away, by which it was great to itself when it was not sound to you.

36. 36. Let those hear you and come to you and learn to be meek and humble from you, who seek your mercy and truth, living for you, for you, not for themselves.

Let him hear this who labors and is burdened, who is so pressed by his load that he does not dare to lift his eyes to heaven—that sinner beating his breast and approaching from afar (See Luke 18:13);

let the centurion hear, unworthy that you should enter under his roof (See Matt 8:8); let Zacchaeus hear, the chief of the tax collectors, restoring fourfold the gains of his damnable sins (See Luke 19:2, 8);

let the woman in the city, a sinner, hear, the more tearful at your feet the more she had been a stranger to your footsteps (See Luke 7:37-38); let the harlots and tax collectors hear, who go before the scribes and Pharisees into the kingdom of heaven (See Matt 21:31);

let every kind of the sick hear, with whom feasts were cast at you as a charge—namely, as it were by the healthy, who did not seek a physician—since you came not to call the just, but sinners to repentance (See Matt 9:11-13).

All these, when they turn to you, easily grow meek and are humbled before you, mindful of their most iniquitous life and of your most indulgent mercy, because where sin abounded, grace abounded all the more (Rom 5:20).

36. 37. But look upon the throngs of virgins, of holy boys and girls: in your Church this kind has been instructed; there it sprouted up for you from a mother's breasts, loosed its tongue to speak in your name, sucked in your name, poured in like the milk of its infancy. No one of this number can say, I who was formerly a blasphemer and a persecutor and insolent, but I obtained mercy, because I acted ignorantly in unbelief (1 Tim 1:13):

rather, even what you did not command, but only set before the willing to be seized, saying, let the one who is able to receive it, receive it, they have seized,

they have vowed, and for the sake of the kingdom of heaven they have made themselves eunuchs—not because you threatened, but because you exhorted (Matt 19:12).

37. 37. Cry out to these, let these hear you, for you are meek and humble of heart. The greater these are, let them humble themselves the more in all things, that before you they may find grace.

They are just: but surely not as you, justifying the ungodly? They are chaste: but their mothers nourished them in sins in the womb (See Ps 51:5 (50:7)). They are holy: but you are also the Holy of holies. They are virgins: but they are not also born of virgins. They are intact both in spirit and in flesh: but they are not the Word made flesh.

And yet let them learn, not from those whose sins you forgive, but from you yourself, the Lamb of God, who take away the sins of the world (John 1:14, 29), that you are meek and humble of heart.

37. 38. I do not send you, devout, chaste soul—you who have not relaxed carnal appetite even to permitted marriage, who have not indulged the body, which is to perish, even for propagating a successor, who have suspended your fluctuating earthly members into the custom of heaven—I do not send you, that you may learn humility, to the tax collectors and sinners who nevertheless go before the proud into the kingdom of heaven; I do not send you to these;

for those who have been freed from the abyss of uncleanness are unworthy that unblemished virginity should be sent to imitate them: I send you to the King of heaven, to him through whom human beings were created and who was created among human beings for the sake of human beings;

to the one beautiful in form beyond the sons of men (Ps 45:2 (44:3)), and despised by the sons of men for the sake of the sons of men, to him who, ruling over the immortal angels, did not disdain to serve mortals.

Certainly it was not iniquity but love that made him humble, love, which does not envy, is not puffed up, does not seek its own (1 Cor 13:4-5), because Christ also did not please himself, but, as it is written of him, 'the reproaches of those who reproached you fell upon me (Rom 15:3).'

Go, come to him and learn, for he is meek and humble of heart. You will not go to him who did not dare to lift his eyes to heaven under the burden of iniquity, but to him who came down from heaven under the weight of love (See John 6:38). You will not go to her who watered her Lord's feet with tears, seeking pardon for grave sins, but you will go to him who, while he gave pardon for all sins, washed the feet of his servants (See John 13:5).

I know the dignity of your virginity: I do not set before you for imitation the tax collector humbly accusing his faults, but I fear for you the Pharisee proudly boasting his merits (See Luke 18:10-14). I do not say, "be like her of whom it was said, her many sins are forgiven, because she loved much," but I am afraid lest, while you think little is forgiven you, you love little (See Luke 7:38, 47).

38. 39. I fear, I say, vehemently for you, lest, while you glory that you will follow the Lamb wherever he goes, you be unable, through the swelling of pride, to follow him through the narrow places.

It is good for you, O virginal soul, that, as you are a virgin, so, keeping wholly in your heart that you are reborn, keeping in your flesh that you are born, you may nevertheless conceive from the fear of the Lord and bring to birth the spirit of salvation (See Isa 26:18). Fear indeed is not in love, but perfect, as it is written, love casts out fear (1 John 4:18)—but the fear of men, not of God; the fear of temporal evils, not of the divine judgment at the end. Do not be high-minded, but fear (Rom 11:20).

Love God's goodness, fear his severity: both keep you from being proud. For by loving you fear lest you gravely offend him who is loved and who loves. For what graver offense than that you should by pride displease him who for your sake displeased the proud?

And where ought that chaste fear, remaining forever and ever (Ps 19:9 (18:10)) rather to be than in you, who do not think about the things of the world, how you may please a spouse, but about the things of the Lord, how you may please the Lord (See 1 Cor 7:32-33)? That other fear is not in love; but this chaste one does not withdraw from love.

If you do not love, fear lest you perish; if you love, fear lest you displease. Love casts out that fear; with this one it runs within. The Apostle Paul also says: for we have not received the spirit of slavery again in fear; but we have received the spirit of the adoption of sons, in whom we cry, 'Abba, Father (Rom 8:15).'

I believe he means that fear which had been given in the Old Testament, lest the temporal goods be lost which God had promised to children not yet under grace, but to those still servants under the Law. There is also the fear of eternal fire, on account of which, to avoid it, to serve God is surely not yet of perfect love.

For it is one thing to desire a reward, another to dread a punishment.

There are some utterances: where shall I go from your spirit, and from your face where shall I flee? (Ps 139:7 (138:7)); and there are other utterances: one thing I have asked of the Lord, this will I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, that I may contemplate the delight of the Lord and be protected by his temple; and, turn not your face away from me (Ps 27:4, 9 (26:4, 9)); and, my soul desires and faints for the courts of the Lord (Ps 84:2 (83:3)).

Let him have had those utterances who did not dare to lift his eyes to heaven and who watered his feet with tears to obtain pardon for grave sins;

but you have these, you who are anxious about the things of the Lord, that you may be holy both in body and in spirit.

Those utterances are accompanied by the fear that has torment, which perfect love casts out; but these utterances are accompanied by the chaste fear of the Lord, remaining forever and ever.

And to each kind it must be said, do not be high-minded, but fear (Rom 11:20), so that a person may exalt himself neither in the defense of his sins nor in the presumption of his righteousness.

For Paul himself, who says, for you have not received the spirit of slavery again in fear, nevertheless, with fear as the companion of love, says, I was among you in fear and in much trembling (1 Cor 2:3); and that sentence which I recalled—lest the grafted wild olive should be proud against the broken branches of the olive—he himself used, saying, do not be high-minded, but fear;

he himself, admonishing all the members of Christ in general, says, with fear and trembling work out your own salvation; for it is God who works in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure (Phil 2:12-13), lest that which is written seem to pertain to the Old Testament: serve the Lord in fear, and exult before him with trembling (Ps 2:11).

39. 40. And what members of the holy body, which is the Church, ought more to take care that the Holy Spirit rest upon them than those professing virginal sanctity?

But how does he rest where he does not find his place? What else but a humbled heart, which he may fill, not from which he may recoil; which he may raise up, not which he may press down? Since it is most plainly said: upon whom shall my Spirit rest? Upon the humble and quiet and him who trembles at my words (Isa 66:2).

Already you live justly, already you live devoutly, chastely, holily, in virginal chastity; yet still you live here, and are you not humbled by hearing, is not the life of a human being upon earth a temptation? (Job 7:1)

Does it not beat you back from over-confident self-exaltation, woe to the world because of scandals (Matt 18:7)? Do you not tremble lest you be counted among the many whose love grows cold, because iniquity abounds (Matt 24:12)?

Do you not beat your breast when you hear, therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall (1 Cor 10:12)? Amid these divine admonitions and human perils, do we still labor thus to persuade the holy virgins of humility?

40. 41. Or is it for another reason to be believed that God permits many men and women who will fall to be mingled in the number of your profession, except that, by their falling, your fear may be increased, by which pride may be repressed—

pride which God so hates that against this one thing alone the Most High humbled himself so greatly?

Unless perhaps you will indeed for this reason fear less and be more puffed up, so as to love little him who loved you so greatly as to hand himself over for you (See Gal 2:20), because he forgave you little—you, that is, living from childhood religiously, chastely, in devout purity, in unblemished virginity.

As though you ought not much more ardently to direct your love toward him who, having forgiven the wicked who turned to him whatever they did, did not permit you to fall into those things.

Or was that Pharisee, who for this reason loved little, because he supposed little was forgiven him (See Luke 7:36-47), blinded by this error for any other reason than that, ignorant of the righteousness of God and seeking to establish his own, he was not subject to the righteousness of God (Rom 10:3)?

But you, a chosen race and more chosen among the chosen, virginal choirs following the Lamb, you too have been saved by grace through faith; and this is not from yourselves, but is the gift of God; not from works, lest anyone be exalted. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared, that we should walk in them (Eph 2:8-10).

Will you then love him the less, the more adorned you are with his gifts? May he himself avert so horrendous a madness! Accordingly, since the Truth spoke the truth, that he to whom little is forgiven loves little, you, that you may love most ardently him for whose loving you are free and at leisure from the bonds of marriage, count for yourselves as wholly forgiven whatever evil has not been committed by you under his governance.

For your eyes are ever toward the Lord, because he will pluck your feet out of the snare (Ps 25:15 (24:15)), and, unless the Lord guard the city, in vain has he kept watch who guards it (Ps 127:1 (126:1)). And the Apostle, speaking of continence itself, says: but I wish all men to be as I myself am; but each has his own gift from God, one in this way, another in that (1 Cor 7:7). Who, then, gives these things? Who distributes to each his own as he wills (1 Cor 12:11)?

Surely God, with whom there is no iniquity (See Rom 9:14). And on this account, by what equity he makes some in this way, others in that, it is for a human being either impossible or altogether difficult to know; yet that he does it with equity it is not right to doubt. What, then, do you have that you have not received? (1 Cor 4:7) Or by what perversity do you love less him from whom you have received more?

41. 42. Therefore let this be the first thought for putting on humility: that the virgin of God should not think it is from herself that she is such, but rather that this best gift comes down from above, from the Father of lights, with whom there is no change nor shadow of a moment (Jas 1:17).

For so she will not think that little has been forgiven her, so that she loves little, and, ignorant of the righteousness of God and wishing to establish her own, is not subject to the righteousness of God (See Rom 10:3). In which vice was that Simon, whom the woman surpassed, to whom many sins were forgiven, because she loved much.

But she will think more cautiously and more truly that all sins are to be reckoned as forgiven from which God guards her that they not be committed. Witnesses are the utterances of devout prayers in the Holy Scriptures, by which it is shown that the very things which are commanded by God are not done except by the giving and helping of him who commanded.

For they are asked for falsely, if we could do them without the help of his grace. What is so generally and chiefly commanded as obedience, by which the commandments of God are kept? And yet we find this prayed for. You, it says, have commanded that your commandments be kept exceedingly. Then it follows: O that my ways may be directed to keep your statutes; then I shall not be confounded, while I look into all your commandments (Ps 119:4-6 (118:4-6)).

What he set down above as God having commanded, this he wished to be fulfilled by himself. This indeed happens, that one may not sin; but if there has been sin, it is commanded that one repent, lest by defense and excuse of the sin he who did it perish by being proud, while by repenting he is unwilling that what he did should perish.

This too is asked of God, that it may be understood not to be done except by the bestowal of him from whom it is asked. Set, it says, O Lord, a guard to my mouth and a door of restraint about my lips: incline not my heart to evil words, to make excuses for sins, with men who work iniquity (Ps 141:3-4 (140:3-4)).

If, then, both obedience, by which we keep his commandments, and repentance, by which we do not excuse but accuse our sins, are prayed for and asked, it is manifest that, when it is done, it is had by his giving, it is completed by his helping.

It is said even more openly concerning obedience: by the Lord the steps of a man are directed, and he will will his way (Ps 37:23 (36:23)); and concerning repentance the Apostle says: lest perhaps God grant them repentance (2 Tim 2:25).

41. 43. Concerning continence itself, too, is it not most plainly said: and when I knew that no one can be continent unless God grant it, this very thing was a part of wisdom, to know whose gift it was (Wis 8:21)?

42. 43. But perhaps continence is the gift of God, yet a human being bestows on himself the wisdom by which he recognizes that gift to be not his own but God's.

On the contrary: the Lord makes the wise blind (Ps 146:8 (145:8)); and, the faithful testimony of God gives wisdom to little ones (Ps 19:7 (18:8)); and, if anyone lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all abundantly and does not reproach, and it will be given him (Jas 1:5).

But it is fitting that virgins be wise, lest their lamps be extinguished (See Matt 25:4). How wise, unless not being high-minded, but consenting to the humble (Rom 12:16)? For Wisdom itself said to man: behold, piety is wisdom (Job 28:28).

If, then, you have nothing that you have not received, do not be high-minded, but fear (Rom 11:20). And do not love little, as though by one from whom little has been forgiven you, but rather love much, by whom much has been bestowed on you.

For if she loves to whom it was granted not to make repayment, how much more ought she to love to whom it was granted that she might have? For whoever from the beginning remains chaste is governed by him; and whoever from being unchaste becomes chaste is corrected by him; and whoever is unchaste even to the end is deserted by him.

But this he can do by a hidden judgment, by an unjust one he cannot. And perhaps for this reason it is hidden, that he may be feared the more and pride be the less.

43. 44. Then, knowing now that he is by the grace of God what he is, let a person not fall into another snare of pride, so as, by exalting himself over the very grace of God, to despise the rest. By this vice that other Pharisee both gave thanks to God for the goods he had and yet exalted himself over the tax collector confessing his sins (See Luke 18:10-14).

What, then, should a virgin do, what should she think, lest she exalt herself over those, men or women, who lack this so great gift? For she ought not to feign humility, but to display it; for the feigning of humility is greater pride. Therefore Scripture, wishing to show that humility ought to be truthful, when it had said, the greater you are, humble yourself the more in all things, soon also subjoined, and before God you will find grace (Sir 3:18)—precisely where one could not humble oneself deceitfully.

44. 45. Accordingly, what shall we say? Is there something that the virgin of God may truthfully think, from which she would not dare to prefer herself to a faithful woman, not only a widow but even a married one?

I do not speak of a reprobate woman; for who would not know that an obedient woman is to be preferred to a disobedient virgin? But when both are obedient to the precepts of God, will she so tremble to prefer holy virginity even to chaste marriage, and continence to wedlock, the hundredfold fruit to the thirtyfold? Rather, let her not doubt to prefer this thing to that. Yet let this or that virgin, obedient and fearing God, not dare to set herself before this or that woman, obedient and fearing God; otherwise she will not be humble, and God resists the proud (Jas 4:6).

What, then, will she think? The hidden gifts of God, namely, which nothing but the questioning of temptation declares to each one even in himself. For, to be silent about the rest, how does a virgin know—however anxious about the things of the Lord, how she may please the Lord (1 Cor 7:32)—whether, on account of some weakness of mind unknown to her, she is not yet ripe for martyrdom, while that woman, to whom she was eager to prefer herself, can already drink the cup of the Lord's humility, which he set before the disciples, lovers of loftiness, to be drunk first (See Matt 20:22)?

How, I say, does she know whether perhaps she herself is not yet a Thecla, while that woman is already a Crispina (See Augustine, Sermon 354.5)?

45. 45. Certainly, unless temptation be present, there is no demonstration of this gift.

45. 46. But this is so great that some understand it to be the hundredfold fruit (See Augustine, Questions on the Gospels 9).

For ecclesiastical authority bears a most illustrious testimony, in which it is known to the faithful at what place the martyrs and at what place the departed consecrated women are recited at the sacraments of the altar (See Augustine, Sermon 159.1).

But what that diversity of fruitfulness signifies, let those see who understand these things better than we;

whether the virginal life be in the hundredfold fruit, the widowed in the sixtyfold, and the married in the thirtyfold;

or whether the hundredfold fertility be imputed rather to martyrdom, the sixtyfold to continence, the thirtyfold to wedlock;

or whether virginity, with martyrdom added, fulfills the hundredfold fruit, but by itself is in the sixtyfold, while the married, bearing the thirtyfold, attain to the sixtyfold if they are martyrs;

or whether—what seems to me more probable—since the gifts of divine grace are many, and one is greater and better than another, whence the Apostle says, but be zealous for the better gifts (1 Cor 12:31), it is to be understood that they are more than can be distributed into three differences.

First, lest we set widowed continence in no fruit, or lower it to the merit of conjugal chastity, or make it equal to virginal glory, or suppose that the crown of martyrdom—whether set in the disposition of the mind, even if the test of temptation be lacking, or in the very experience of suffering—accrues to any one of those three chastities without any increase of fertility.

Then, where do we place this: that many men and women so guard virginal continence that nevertheless they do not do what the Lord says, if you wish to be perfect, go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven, and come, follow me (Matt 19:21); nor dare to be joined to the cohabitation of those among whom no one says anything is his own, but all things are common to them (Acts 4:32; 2:44): do we think nothing of fruitfulness accrues to the virgins of God when they do this? Or that the virgins of God are without any fruit, even if they do not do this?

46. 46. There are, then, many gifts, and some brighter and higher than others, each to each. And sometimes one person is fruitful with fewer but more excellent gifts, another with inferior but more numerous. And in what way they are made equal among themselves or distinguished in receiving eternal honors, who among human beings would dare to judge?—provided it be agreed both that these are many and diverse, and that the better ones profit not for the present time, but for eternity.

But I think the Lord willed to recall three differences of fruitfulness (See Matt 13:8), leaving the rest to those who understand. For another Evangelist recalled only the hundredfold (See Luke 8:8). Is he therefore to be thought either to have disapproved of or to have been ignorant of the other two, and not rather to have left them to be understood?

46. 47. But, as I had begun to say, whether the hundredfold fruit be virginity devoted to God, or whether that difference of fertility is to be understood in some other way—either one we have recalled or one we have not recalled—yet no one, as I think, would have dared to prefer virginity to martyrdom, and no one would have doubted that this gift is hidden, if the temptation that tests it be lacking.

47. 47. The virgin, then, has something to think about which profits her for preserving humility, lest she violate that love which surpasses all gifts, without which surely whatever else she has, whether few or many, whether great or small, is nothing: she has, I say, something to think about, that she may not be puffed up (See 1 Cor 13:4), may not envy,

namely, so to profess the virginal good much more abundant and better than the conjugal good, that nevertheless she does not know whether this or that married woman can already suffer for Christ, while she herself cannot yet, and in this is spared, because her weakness is not questioned by temptation.

For God is faithful, says the Apostle, who will not permit you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but will with the temptation also make a way out, that you may be able to bear it (1 Cor 10:13).

Perhaps, then, this or that man or woman, keeping in married life a measure praiseworthy in its own kind, can already contend against the enemy who compels to iniquity, even by the tearing of the entrails and the shedding of blood; while this or that man or woman, continent from childhood and making themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven, are not yet able to bear such things, whether for righteousness or for chastity itself.

For it is one thing not to consent, for the sake of truth and a holy purpose, to one who persuades and flatters; another not to yield even to one who tortures and strikes.

These things lie hidden in the faculties and powers of minds; by temptation they are laid open, by experience they are made manifest.

So that anyone may not be puffed up, let him, from that which he perceives he can do, humbly think that he perhaps cannot do something more excellent which he does not know, while some who neither have nor profess that wherein he is gloriously known can do this which he himself cannot.

Thus it will be preserved by a not deceitful but truthful humility: going before one another in mutual honor (Rom 12:10), and, each esteeming the other superior to himself (Phil 2:3).

48. 48. What now shall I say of the very caution and vigilance against sinning? Who will boast that he has a chaste heart? Or who will boast that he is clean from sin? (Prov 20:9)

Holy virginity is indeed intact from the mother's womb; but, it says, no one is clean in your sight, not even the infant whose life is of one day upon the earth (Job 25:4). There is preserved also in faith a certain inviolate virginal chastity, by which the Church is joined as a chaste virgin to one husband; but that one husband taught to pray not only the faithful who are virgins in mind and body, but absolutely all Christians, from the spiritual to the carnal, from the Apostles to the last of the penitents, as it were from the heights of the heavens to their ends (Matt 24:31), and admonished them in that very prayer to say, forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors (Matt 6:12),

where, by what we ask, he shows what we too should remember that we are. For he did not command us to pray for those debts which we trust have been forgiven us in baptism, through his peace, for the whole of our past life, saying, forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors; otherwise the catechumens rather ought to pray this prayer up until baptism. But when the baptized pray it—prelates and peoples, shepherds and flocks—it is sufficiently shown that in this life, which is wholly a temptation (See Job 7:1), no one ought to boast of himself as though immune from all sins.

49. 49. Accordingly even the virgins of God, blameless indeed, follow the Lamb wherever he goes, both with the purification of sins made perfect and with virginity preserved, which once lost would not return; but because the same Apocalypse, where such persons were revealed to such a one, also praises them on this ground, that in their mouth no lie was found (See Rev 14:4-5), let them remember that they are truthful in this too, lest they dare to say that they have no sin.

For the same John, who saw that, said this: if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. But if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all iniquity. But if we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word will not be in us (1 John 1:8-10). This certainly is said not to these or those, but to all Christians, where the virgins too ought to recognize themselves. For so they will be without a lie, such as they appeared in the Apocalypse. And on this account, as long as perfection is not yet in heavenly loftiness, confession makes them blameless in humility.

49. 50. But again, lest by occasion of this sentence anyone should sin with deadly security and let himself be dragged along, as though his sins would soon be wiped away by easy confession, he immediately subjoined: my little children, I have written these things to you, that you may not sin; and if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the just; and he is the propitiation for our sins (1 John 2:1-2). Let no one, therefore, depart from sin as though intending to return, nor bind himself to iniquity by a kind of pact of fellowship, so as to take delight in confessing it rather than in avoiding it.

50. 50. But since, even for those who busy themselves and keep watch lest they sin, sins creep in somehow from human frailty—though small, though few, yet not none—these same sins become great and grave if pride has added to them increase and weight; but if they are put to death by devout humility, they are purged with complete ease by the priest whom we have in heaven.

50. 51. But I do not contend with those who assert that a human being can in this life live without any sin; I do not contend, I do not contradict. For perhaps, out of our wretchedness, we measure the great, and, comparing ourselves with ourselves (See 2 Cor 10:12), we do not understand.

One thing I know: that those great ones, such as we are not, such as we have not yet experienced, the greater they are, the more they humble themselves in all things, that before God they may find grace. For however great they are, the servant is not greater than his lord, nor the disciple than his master (John 13:16). And surely he is the Lord who says, all things have been handed over to me by my Father, and he is the Master who says, come to me, all you who labor, and learn from me. And yet what do we learn? That I am meek, he says, and humble of heart (Matt 11:27-29).

51. 52. Here someone will say: "This is now to write not about virginity, but about humility." As though it were just any virginity, and not that which is according to God, that we have undertaken to praise.

The greater I see this good to be, the more I fear for it, lest it perish, against pride the thief. Therefore none but God himself, who gave it, guards the virginal good, and God is love (1 John 4:8).

The guardian of virginity, then, is love; but the dwelling place of this guardian is humility. For there dwells he who said that his Spirit rests upon the humble and quiet and him who trembles at his words (See Isa 66:2).

What, then, have I done that is foreign to my subject, if, wishing the good which I have praised to be more safely guarded, I took care also to prepare a dwelling place for its guardian?

For I say confidently, nor do I fear lest those be angry at me whom, solicitous, I admonish to fear with me for themselves: more easily do humble married people follow the Lamb—even if not wherever he goes, certainly as far as they are able—than proud virgins. For how does one follow him to whom one is unwilling to draw near? Or how does one draw near to him to whom one does not come to learn that he is meek and humble of heart (Matt 11:29)?

Accordingly the Lamb, wherever he goes, leads those following in whom he himself has first found where to lay his head. For a certain proud and crafty man had said this to him: Lord, I will follow you wherever you go. To whom he answered: the foxes have dens and the birds of the air nests; but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head (Matt 8:19-20). Under the name of foxes he reproved cunning craftiness, and under the name of birds windy self-exaltation, in which he did not find the devout humility where he might rest. And on this account he in no way at all followed the Lord, who had promised himself a follower not up to a certain point, but altogether wherever he should go.

52. 53. Therefore do this, virgins of God, do this: follow the Lamb wherever he goes. But first come to him whom you would follow, and learn that he is meek and humble of heart (Matt 11:29).

Humbly come to the humble one, if you love, and do not depart from him, lest you fall. For he who fears to depart from him prays and says, let not the foot of pride come to me (Ps 36:11 (35:12)).

Travel the road of loftiness with the foot of humility. He himself exalts those who humbly follow, he whom it did not weary to descend to those lying low. Commit his gifts to him to be guarded, keep your strength toward him (See Ps 59:9 (58:10)).

Whatever evil you do not commit while he guards you, count as remitted by him, lest, thinking little has been forgiven you, you love little, and despise with ruinous boasting the tax collectors beating their breasts (See Luke 7:47).

Of your tested strengths beware, lest, because you have been able to bear something, you be puffed up;

but of those untested, pray that you not be tempted beyond what you are able to bear.

Esteem some, over whom you are openly better, as in secret your superiors.

When the goods of others, perhaps unknown to you, are kindly believed by you, your own goods, known to you, are not diminished by comparison, but strengthened by love; and those which perhaps are still lacking are given the more easily, the more humbly they are desired.

Let those who persevere in your number offer you an example; but let those who fall increase your fear. Love the former, that you may imitate them; mourn the latter, lest you be puffed up.

Do not establish your own righteousness; submit yourselves to God who justifies you. Grant pardon to the sins of others, pray for your own; avoid future sins by watching, blot out past ones by confessing.

53. 54. Behold, you are now such that to your professed and preserved virginity you correspond also in your other conduct. Behold, you now abstain not only from murders, diabolical sacrifices and abominations, thefts, robberies, frauds, perjuries, drunkennesses, and all extravagance and avarice, pretenses, rivalries, impieties, and cruelties (See Gal 5:19ff; 1 Cor 5:9ff), but even those things which are, or are thought to be, lighter are not found nor arise in you:

no shameless face, no wandering eyes, no unbridled tongue, no wanton laughter, no scurrilous jest, no unbecoming dress, no swollen or loose gait; you now render not evil for evil nor curse for curse (1 Pet 3:9); you now, finally, fulfill that measure of love, that you lay down your lives for your brothers (See 1 John 3:16).

Behold, you are now such, because you ought to be such. These things, added to virginity, exhibit to human beings the angelic life and to the earth the manners of heaven.

But the greater you are, whoever you are who are so great, the more humble yourselves in all things, that before God you may find grace, lest he resist the proud (Sir 3:18), lest he humble those who exalt themselves, lest he not let the puffed up through the narrow gate:

although the solicitude be superfluous, lest where love is fervent humility be lacking.

54. 55. If, then, you have despised the marriages of the sons of men, from which you would beget sons of men, love with your whole heart him who is beautiful in form beyond the sons of men (Ps 45:2 (44:3)): you are free, your heart is free from conjugal bonds. Behold the beauty of your lover, ponder him equal to the Father (See Phil 2:6), subject also to a mother, ruling even in the heavens and serving on earth, creating all things, created among all things. That very thing which the proud deride in him, behold how beautiful it is; with inner eyes behold the wounds of him hanging, the scars of him rising, the blood of him dying, the price paid by him believing, the exchange made by him redeeming.

55. 55. Ponder how much these things are worth, weigh them in the balance of love, and whatever of love you had to spend on your marriages, pay back to him.

55. 56. It is well that he seeks your inner beauty, where he gave you the power to become daughters of God (See John 1:12); he seeks from you not beautiful flesh, but beautiful conduct, by which you also bridle the flesh. There is no one to lie about you and make a jealous one rage. See with how great security you love him, whom you do not fear to displease by false suspicions.

Husband and wife love each other because they see each other, and what they do not see they fear in each other; nor, being certain, do they rejoice over what is manifest, while in secret they often suspect what is not.

You, in this one whom you do not see with the eyes and behold by faith, neither have anything true to reproach, nor fear him, lest perhaps you give offense over something false.

If, then, you would owe a great love to spouses, how much ought you to love him for whose sake you were unwilling to have spouses?

Let him be fixed in your whole heart, who for your sake was fixed on the cross; let him hold in your mind all that you were unwilling to have occupied by wedlock. It is not permitted you to love little him for whose sake you did not love even what would have been permitted. For those who so love the one meek and humble of heart (See Matt 11:29), I fear no pride.

56. 57. According to our small measure, then, we have spoken enough both about the sanctity from which you are properly called "consecrated women," and about the humility by which is preserved whatever great thing you are called.

But more worthily may those three boys, to whom he was furnishing refreshment in the fire (See Dan 3:1ff), whom they loved with a most fervent heart, admonish you—in the hymn by which God is honored by them—far briefer indeed in number of words than this little work of ours, but in weight of authority much grander. For, joining humility to sanctity in the praisers of God, they taught most plainly that each one should beware the more lest he be deceived by pride, the holier the thing he professes.

Accordingly you too, praise him who grants you that, in the burning midst of this age, although you are not coupled in marriage, you nevertheless do not burn, and, praying also for us, bless the Lord, you holy and humble of heart, sing a hymn and exalt him above all forever (Dan 3:87).