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not completely corrected. EWTN has corrected all mistakes found.)

CYPRIAN OF CARTHAGE

ON THE DRESS OF VIRGINS.
Translated by the Rev. Ernest Wallis, Ph.D.

ARGUMENT.--CYPRIAN CELEBRATES THE PRAISES OF DISCIPLINE, AND PROVES ITS
USEFULNESS FROM SCRIPTURE. THEN, DESCRIBING THE GLORY, HONOUR, AND MERITS
OF VIRGINITY, AND OF THOSE WHO HAD VOWED AND DEDICATED THEIR VIRGINITY TO
CHRIST, HE TEACHES THAT CONTINENCE NOT ONLY CONSISTS IN FLESHLY PURITY, BUT
ALSO IN SEEMLINESS OF DRESS AND ORNAMENT, AND THAT EVEN WEALTH DID NOT
EXCUSE SUPERFLUOUS CARE FOR DRESS ON THE PART OF THOSE WHO HAD ALREADY
RENOUNCED THE WORLD. RATHER, SINCE THE APOSTLE PRESCRIBES  EVEN  TO MARRIED
WOMEN A DRESS TO BE REGULATED BY FITTING LIMITS, MODERATION OUGHT EVEN MORE
TO BE OBSERVED BY A VIRGIN. THEREFORE, EVEN IF SHE BE WEALTHY, SHE SHOULD
CONSIDER CERTAINLY HOW TO USE WEALTH, BUT FOR GOOD PURPOSES, FOR THOSE
THINGS WHICH GOD HAS COMMANDED, TO WIT, FOR BEING SPENT ON THE POOR.(2)
MOREOVER, ALSO, HE FORBIDS TO VIRGINS THOSE THINGS WHICH HAD NEGLIGENTLY
COME  INTO USE, AS BEING PRESENT AT WEDDINGS, AS WELL AS GOING TO
PROMISCUOUS BATHING-PLACES. FINALLY, IN A BRIEF EPILOGUE,(3) DECLARING WHAT
BENEFIT  THE VIRTUE OF CONTINENCY AFFORDS, AND WHAT EVIL IT IS WITHOUT, HE
CONCLUDES THE BOOK.

   1. Discipline, the safeguard of hope, the bond of faith, the guide of
the way of salvation, the stimulus and nourishment of good dispositions,
the teacher of virtue, causes us to abide always in Christ, and to live
continually for God, and to  attain to the heavenly promises and to the
divine  rewards. To follow her is wholesome, and to turn away from her and
neglect her is deadly. The Holy Spirit says in the Psalms, "Keep
discipline, lest perchance the Lord be angry, and  ye perish from the right
way, when His wrath is quickly kindled against you."(4) And again: "But
unto the ungodly saith God, "Why dost thou preach my laws, and takest my
covenant  into thy mouth? Whereas thou hatest discipline, and hast cast my
words behind thee."(5) And again we read: "He that casteth away discipline
is miserable."(6) And from Solomon we have received the mandates of wisdom,
warning us: "My son, despise not thou the discipline of the Lord, nor faint
when thou art rebuked of Him: for whom the Lord loveth He correcteth."(7)
But if God rebukes whom He loves, and rebukes him for the very purpose of
amending him, brethren also, and especially priests, do not hate, but love
those whom they rebuke, that they may mend them; since God also before
predicted by Jeremiah, and pointed to our times, when he said, "And I will
give you shepherds according to my heart: and they shall feed you with the
food of discipline.?"(8)

   2. But if in Holy Scripture discipline is frequently and everywhere
prescribed, and the whole foundation of religion and of faith proceeds from
obedience and fear; what is more fitting for us urgently to desire, what
more to wish for and to hold fast, than to stand with roots strongly fixed,
and with our houses based with solid mass upon the rock unshaken by the
storms and whirlwinds of the world, so that we may come by the divine
precepts to the rewards of God? considering as well as knowing that our
members, when purged from all the filth of the old contagion by the
sanctification of the layer of life, are God's temples, and must not be
violated nor polluted, since he who does violence to them is himself
injured. We are the worshippers and priests of those temples; let us obey
Him whose we have already begun to be. Paul tells us in his epistles, in
which he has formed us to a course of living by divine teaching, "Ye are
not your own, for ye are bought with a great price; glorify and bear God in
your body."(9) Let us glorify and bear  God in a pure and chaste body, and
with a more  complete obedience; and since we have been redeemed by the
blood of Christ, let us obey and give furtherance to the empire of our
Redeemer  by all the obedience of service, that nothing impure or profane
may be brought into the temple  of God, lost He should be offended, and
forsake the temple which He inhabits. The words of the Lord giving health
and teaching, as well curing as warning, are: "Behold, thou art made whole:
sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee."(10) He gives the course of
life, He gives the law of innocency after He has conferred health, nor
suffers the man afterwards to wander with free and unchecked reins, but
more severely threatens him who is again enslaved by those same things of
which he had been healed, because it is doubtless a smaller fault to have
sinned before, while as yet you had not known God's discipline; but there
is no further pardon for sinning after you have begun to know God. And,
indeed, let as well men as women, as well boys as girls; let each sex and
every age observe this, and take care in this respect, according to the
religion and faith which they owe to God, that what is received holy and
pure from the condescension of the Lord be preserved with a no less anxious
fear.(1)

   3. My address is now to virgins, whose glory, as it is more eminent,
excites the greater interest. This is the flower of the ecclesiastical
seed,(2) the grace and ornament of spiritual endowment, a joyous
disposition, the wholesome and uncorrupted work of praise and honour, God's
image answering to the holiness of the Lord, the more illustrious portion
of Christ's flock. The glorious fruitfulness of Mother Church rejoices by
their means, and in them abundantly flourishes; and in proportion as a
copious virginity is added to her number, so much the more it increases the
joy of the Mother. To these I speak, these I exhort with affection rather
than with power; not that I would claim--last and least, and very conscious
of my lowliness as I am--any right to censure, but because, being
unceasingly careful even to solicitude, I fear more from the onset of
Satan.

   4. For that is not an empty carefulness nor a vain fear, which takes
counsel for the way of salvation, which guards the commandments of the Lord
and of life; so that they who have dedicated themselves to Christ, and who
depart from carnal concupiscence, and have vowed themselves to God as well
in the flesh as in the spirit, may consummate their work, destined as it is
to a great reward, and may not study any longer to be adorned or to please
anybody but their Lord, from whom also they expect the reward of virginity;
as He Himself says: "All men cannot receive this word, but they to whom it
is given. For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their
mother's womb; and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men;
and there are eunuchs which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of
heaven's sake."(3) Again, also by this word of the angel the gift of
continency is set forth, and virginity is preached: "These are they which
have not defiled themselves with women, for they have remained virgins;
these are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth."(4) For not
only thus does the Lord promise the grace of continency to men, and pass
over women; but since the woman is a portion of the man, and is taken and
formed from him, God in Scripture almost always speaks to the Protoplast,
the first formed, because they are two in one flesh, and in the male is at
the same time signified the woman also.

   5. But if continency follows Christ, and virginity is destined for the
kingdom of God, what have they to do with earthly dress, and with
ornaments, wherewith while they are striving to please men they offend God?
Not considering that it is declared, "They who please men are put to
confusion, because God hath despised them;"(5) and that Paul also has
gloriously and sublimely uttered, "If I yet pleased men, I should not be
the servant of Christ."(6) But continence and modesty consist not alone in
purity of the flesh, but also in seemliness, as well as in modesty of dress
and adornment; so that, according to the apostle, she who is unmarried may
be holy both in body and in spirit. Paul instructs and teaches us, saying,
"He that is unmarried careth for the things of the Lord, how he may please
God: but he who has contracted marriage careth for the things which are of
this world, how he may please his wife. So both the virgin and the
unmarried woman consider those things which are the Lord's, that they may
be holy both in body and spirit."(7) A virgin ought not only to be so, but
also to be perceived and believed to be so: no one on seeing a virgin
should be in any doubt as to whether she is one. Perfectness should show
itself equal in all things; nor should the dress of the body discredit the
good of the mind. Why should she walk out adorned? Why with dressed hair,
as if she either had or sought for a husband? Rather let her dread to
please if she is a virgin; and let her not invite her own risk, if she is
keeping herself for better and divine things. They who have not a husband
whom they profess that they please, should persevere, sound and pure not
only in body, but also in spirit. For it is not right that a virgin should
have her hair braided for the appearance of her beauty, or boast of her
flesh and of its beauty, when she has no struggle greater than that against
her flesh, and no contest more obstinate than that of conquering and
subduing the body.

   6. Paul proclaims in a loud and lofty voice, "But God forbid that I
should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world
is crucified unto me, and I unto the world."(8) And yet a virgin in the
Church glories concerning her fleshly appearance and the beauty of her
body! Paul adds, and says, "For they that are Christ's have crucified their
flesh, with its faults and lusts."(9) And she who professes to have
renounced the lusts and vices of the flesh, is found in the midst of those
very things which she has renounced! Virgin, thou art taken, thou art
exposed, thou boastest one thing and affectest another. You sprinkle
yourself with the stains of carnal concupiscence, although you are a
candidate of purity and modesty. "Cry," says the Lord to Isaiah, "All flesh
is grass, and all the glory of it as the flower of the grass: the grass
withereth, and the flower fadeth; but the word of the Lord endureth for
ever."(1) It is becoming for no Christian, and especially it is not
becoming for a virgin, to regard any glory and honour of the flesh, but
only to desire the word of God, to embrace benefits which shall endure for
ever. Or, if she must glory in the flesh, then assuredly let her glory when
she is tortured in confession of the name; when a woman is found to be
stronger than the tortures; when she suffers fire, or the cross, or the
sword, or the wild beasts, that she may be crowned. These are the precious
jewels of the flesh, these are the better ornaments of the body.

   7. But there are some rich women, and wealthy in the fertility of
means, who prefer their own wealth, and contend that they ought to use
these blessings. Let them know first of all that she is rich who is rich in
God; that she is wealthy who is wealthy in Christ; that those are blessings
which are spiritual, divine, heavenly, which lead us to God, which abide
with us in perpetual possession with God. But whatever things are earthly,
and have been received in this world, and will remain here with the world,
ought so to be contemned even as the world itself is contemned, whose pomps
and delights we have already renounced when by a blessed passage we came to
God, John stimulates and exhorts us, witnessing with a spiritual and
heavenly voice. "Love not the world," says he, "neither the things that are
in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in
him. For all that is in the world, is lust of the flesh, and the lust of
the eyes, and the pride of life, which is not from the Father, but is of
the lust of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof:
but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever, even as God also
abideth for ever."(2) Therefore eternal and divine things are to be
followed, and all things must be done after the will of God, that we may
follow the divine footsteps and teachings of our Lord, who warned us, and
said, "I came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of Him
that sent me."(3) But if the servant is not greater than his lord, and he
that is freed owes obedience to his deliverer, we who desire to be
Christians ought to imitate what Christ said and did. It is written, and it
is read and heard, and is celebrated for our example by the Church's mouth,
"He that saith he abideth in Christ. ought himself also so to walk even as
He walked."(4) Therefore we must walk with equal steps; we must strive with
emulous walk. Then the following of truth answers to the faith of our name,
and a reward is given to the believer, if what is believed is also done.

   8. You call yourself wealthy and rich; but Paul meets your riches, and
with his own voice prescribes for the moderating of your dress and ornament
within a just limit. "Let women," said he, "adorn themselves with
shamefacedness and sobriety, not with broidered hair, nor gold, nor pearls,
nor costly array, but as becometh women professing chastity, with a good
conversation."(5) Also Peter consents to these same precepts, and says,
"Let there be in the woman not the outward adorning of array, or gold, or
apparel, but the adorning of the heart."(6) But if these also warn us that
the women who are accustomed to make an excuse for their dress by reference
to their husband, should be restrained and limited by religious observance
to the Church's discipline, how much more is it right that the virgin
should keep that observance, who has no excuse for adorning herself, nor
can the deceitfulness of her fault be laid upon another, but she herself
remains in its guilt!

   9. You say that you are wealthy and rich. But not everything that can
be done ought also to be done; nor ought the broad desires that arise out
of the pride of the world to be extended beyond the honour and modesty of
virginity; since it is written, "All things are lawful, but all things are
not expedient: all things are lawful, but all things edify not."(7) For the
rest, if you dress your hair sumptuously, and walk so as to draw attention
in public, and attract the eyes of youth upon you, and draw the sighs of
young men after you, nourish the lust of concupiscence, and inflame the
fuel of sighs, so that, although you yourself perish not, yet you cause
others to perish, and offer yourself, as it were, a sword or poison to the
spectators; you cannot be excused on the pretence that you are chaste and
modest in mind. Your shameful dress and immodest ornament accuse you; nor
can yon be counted now among Christ's maidens and virgins, since yon live
in such a manner as to make yourselves objects of desire.

   10. You say that you are wealthy and rich; but it becomes not a virgin
to boast of her riches, since Holy Scripture says, "What hath pride
profited us? or what benefit hath the vaunting of riches conferred upon us?
And all these things have passed away like a shadow."(1) And the apostle
again warns us, and says, "And they that buy, as though they bought not;
and they that possess, as though they possessed not; and they that use this
world, as though they used it not. For the fashion of this world passeth
away."(2) Peter also, to whom the Lord commends His sheep to be fed and
guarded, on whom He placed and founded the Church, says indeed that he has
no silver and gold, but says that he is rich in the grace of Christ--that
he is wealthy in his faith and virtue--wherewith he performed many great
works with miracle, wherewith he abounded in spiritual blessings to the
grace of glory. These riches, this wealth, she cannot possess, who had
rather be rich to this world than to Christ.

   11. You say that you are wealthy and rich, and you think that you
should use those things which God has willed you to possess. Use them,
certainly, but for the things of salvation; use them, but for good
purposes; use them, but for those things which God has commanded, and which
the Lord has set forth. Let the poor feel that you are wealthy; let the
needy feel that you are rich. Lend your estate to God; give food to Christ.
Move Him by the prayers of many(3) to grant you to carry out the glory of
virginity, and to succeed in coming to the Lord's rewards. There entrust
your treasures, where no thief digs through, where no insidious plunderer
breaks in. Prepare for yourself possessions; but let them rather be
heavenly ones, where neither rust wears out, nor hail bruises, nor sun
burns, nor rain spoils your fruits constant and perennial, and free from
all contact of worldly injury. For in this very matter you are sinning
against God, if you think that riches were given you by Him for this
purpose, to enjoy them thoroughly, without a view to salvation. For God
gave man also a voice; and yet love-songs and indecent things are not on
that account to be sung. And God willed iron to be for the culture of the
earth, but not on that account must murders be committed. Or because God
ordained incense, and wine, and fire, are we thence to sacrifice to idols?
Or because the flocks of cattle abound in your fields, ought you to
immolate victims and offerings to the gods? Otherwise a large estate is a
temptation, unless the wealth minister to good uses; so that every man, in
proportion to his wealth, ought by his patrimony rather to redeem his
transgressions than to increase them.

   12. The characteristics of ornaments, and of garments, and the
allurements of beauty, are not fitting for any but prostitutes and immodest
women; and the dress of none is more precious than of those whose modesty
is lowly.(4) Thus in the Holy Scriptures, by which the Lord wished us to be
both instructed and admonished, the harlot city is described more
beautifully arrayed and adorned, and with her ornaments; and the rather on
account of those very ornaments about to perish. "And there came," it is
said, "one of the seven angels, which had the seven phials, and talked with
me, saying, Come hither, I will show thee the judgment of the great whore,
that sitteth upon many waters, with whom the kings of the earth have
committed fornication. And he carried me away in spirit; and I saw a woman
sit upon a beast, and that woman was arrayed in a purple and scarlet
mantle, and was adorned with gold, and precious stones, and pearls, having
a golden cup in her hand, full of curses, and filthiness, and fornication
of the whole earth."(5) Let chaste and modest virgins avoid the dress of
the unchaste, the manners of the immodest, the ensigns of brothels, the
ornaments of harlots.

   13. Moreover Isaiah, full of the Holy Spirit, cries out and chides the
daughters of Sion, corrupted with gold, and silver, and raiment, and
rebukes them, affluent as they were in pernicious wealth, and departing
from God for the sake of the world's delights. "The daughters of Sion,"
says he, "are haughty, and walk with stretched-out neck and beckoning of
the eyes, trailing their gowns as they go, and mincing with their feet. And
God will humble the princely daughters of Sion, and the Lord will unveil
their dress; and the Lord will take away the glory of their apparel, and
their ornaments, and their hair, and their curls, and their round tires
like the moon, and their crisping-pins, and their bracelets, and their
clusters of pearls, and their armlets and rings, and earrings, and silks
woven with gold and hyacinth. And instead of a sweet smell there shall be
dust; and thou shall be girt with a rope instead of with a girdle; and for
a golden ornament of thy head thou shalt have baldness."(6) This God
blames, this He marks out: hence He declares that virgins are corrupted;
hence, that they have departed from the true and divine worship. Lifted up,
they have fallen; with their heads adorned, they merited dishonour and
disgrace. Having put on silk and purple, they cannot put on Christ; adorned
with gold, and pearls, and necklaces, they have lost the ornaments of the
heart and spirit. Who would not execrate and avoid that which has been the
destruction of another? Who would desire and take up that which has served
as the sword and weapon for the death of another? If he who had drunk
should die by draining the cup, you would know that what he had drunk was
poison; if, on taking food, he who had taken it were to perish, you would
know that what, when taken could kill, was deadly; nor would you eat or
drink of that whence you had before seen that others had perished. Now what
ignorance of truth is it, what madness of mind, to wish for that which both
has hurt and always will hurt and to think that you yourself will not
perish by those means whereby you know that others have perished!

   14. For God neither made the sheep scarlet or purple, nor taught the
juices of herbs and shell-fish to dye and colour wool, nor arranged
necklaces with stones set in gold, and with pearls distributed in a woven
series or numerous cluster, wherewith you would hide the neck which He
made; that what God formed in man may be covered, and that may be seen upon
it which the devil has invented in addition. Has God willed that wounds
should be made in the ears, wherewith infancy, as yet innocent, and
unconscious of worldly evil, may be put to pain, that subsequently from the
scars and holes of the ears precious beads may hang, heavy, if not by their
weight, still by the amount of their cost? All which things sinning and
apostate angels put forth by their arts, when, lowered to the contagious of
earth, they forsook their heavenly vigour. They taught them also to paint
the eyes with blackness drawn round them in a circle, and to stain the
cheeks with a deceitful red, and to change the hair with false colours, and
to drive out all truth, both of face and head, by the assault of their own
corruption.

   15. And indeed in that very matter, for the sake of the fear which
faith suggests to me, for the sake of the love which brotherhood requires,
I think that not virgins only and widows, but married women also, and all
of the sex alike, should be admonished, that the work of God and His
fashioning and formation ought in no manner to be adulterated, either with
the application of yellow colour, or with black dust or rouge, or with any
kind of medicament which can corrupt the native lineaments. God says, "Let
us make man in our image and likeness; and does any one dare to alter and
to change what God has made? They are laying hands on God when they try to
re-form that which He formed, and to transfigure it, not knowing that
everything which comes into being is God's work, everything that is changed
is the devil's If any artist, in painting, were to delineate in envious
colouring the countenance and likeness and bodily appearance of any one;
and the likeness being now painted and completed, another person were to
lay hands on it, as if, when it was already formed and already painted, he,
being more skilled, could amend it, a serious wrong and a just cause of
indignation would seem natural to the former artist. And do you think
yourself likely with impunity to commit a boldness of such wicked temerity,
an offence to God the artificer? For although you may not be immodest among
men, and are not unchaste with your seducing dyes, yet when those things
which belong to God are corrupted and violated, you are engaged in a worse
adultery. That you think yourself to be adorned, that you think your hair
to be dressed, is an assault upon the divine work, is a prevarication of
the truth.

   16. The voice of the warning apostle is, "Purge out the old leaven,
that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened; for even Christ our
passover is sacrificed. Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old
leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the
unleavened bread of sincerity and truth."(2) But are sincerity and truth
preserved, when what is sincere is polluted by adulterous colours, and what
is true is changed into a lie by the deceitful dyes of medicaments? Your
Lord says, "Thou canst not make one hair white or black;"(3) and you, in
order to overcome the word of your Lord, will be more mighty than He, and
stain your hair with a daring endeavour and with profane contempt. With
evil presage of the future, you make a beginning to yourself already of
flame-coloured hair; and sin (oh, wickedness!) with your head--that is,
with the nobler part of your body! And although it is written of the Lord,
"His head and His hair were white like wool or snow,"(4) you curse that
whiteness and hate that hoariness which is like to the Lord's head.

   17. Are you not afraid, I entreat you, being such as you are, that when
the day of resurrection comes, your Maker may not recognise you again, and
may turn you away when you come to His rewards and promises, and may
exclude you, rebuking you with the vigour of a Censor and Judge, and say:
"This is not my work, nor is this our image. You have polluted your skin
with a false medicament, you have changed your hair with an adulterous
colour, your face is violently taken possession of by a lie, your figure is
corrupted, your countenance is another's. You cannot see God, since your
eyes are not those which God made, but those which the devil has spoiled.
You have followed him, you have imitated the red and painted eyes of the
serpent. As you are adorned in the fashion of your enemy, with him also you
shall burn by and by." Are not these, I beg, matters to be reflected on by
God's servants? Are they not always to be dreaded day and night? Let
married women see to it, in what respect they are flattering themselves
concerning the solace of their husbands with the desire of pleasing them,
and while they put them forward indeed as their excuse, they make them
partners in the association of guilty, consent. Virgins, assuredly, to whom
this address is intended to appeal, who have adorned themselves with arts
of this kind, I should think ought not to be counted among virgins, but,
like infected sheep and diseased cattle, to be driven from the holy and
pure flock of virginity, lest by living together they should pollute the
rest with their contagion; lest they ruin others even as they have perished
themselves.

   18. And since we are seeking the advantage of continency, let us also
avoid everything that is pernicious and hostile to it. And I will not pass
over those things, which while by negligence they come into use, have made
for themselves a usurped licence, contrary to modest and sober manners.
Some are not ashamed to be present at marriage parties, and in that freedom
of lascivious discourse to mingle in unchaste conversation, to hear what is
not becoming, to say what is not lawful, to expose themselves, to be
present in the midst of disgraceful words and drunken banquets, by which
the ardour of lust is kindled, and the bride is animated to bear, and the
bridegroom to dare lewdness.(1) What place is there at weddings for her
whose mind is not towards marriage? Or what can there be pleasant or joyous
in those engagements for her, where both desires and wishes are different
from her own? What is learnt there--what is seen? How greatly a virgin
falls short of her resolution, when she who had come there modest goes away
immodest! Although she may remain a virgin in body and mind, yet in eyes,
in ears, in tongue, she has diminished the virtues that she possessed.

   19. But what of those who frequent promiscuous baths; who prostitute to
eyes that are curious to lust, bodies that are dedicated to chastity and
modesty? They who disgracefully behold naked men, and are seen naked by
men, do they not themselves afford enticement to vice, do they not solicit
and invite the desires of those present to their own corruption and wrong?
"Let every one," say you, "look to the disposition with which he comes
thither: my care is only that of refreshing and washing my poor body." That
kind of defence does not clear you, nor does it excuse the crime of
lasciviousness and wantonness. Such a washing defiles; it does not purify
nor cleanse the limbs, but stains them. You behold no one immodestly, but
you yourself are gazed upon immodestly. You do not pollute your eyes with
disgraceful delight, but in delighting others you yourself are polluted.
You make a show of the bathing-place; the places where you assemble are
fouler than a theatre. There all modesty is put; off together with the
clothing of garments, the honour and modesty of the body is laid aside;
virginity is exposed, to be pointed at and to be handled. And now, then,
consider whether when you are clothed you are modest among men, when the
boldness of nakedness has conduced to immodesty.

   20. For this reason, therefore, the Church frequently mourns over her
virgins; hence she groans at their scandalous and detestable stories; hence
the flower of her virgins is extinguished, the honour and modesty of
continency are injured, and all its glory and dignity are profaned. Thus
the hostile besieger insinuates himself by his arts; thus by snares that
deceive, by secret ways, the devil creeps in. Thus, while virgins wish to
be more carefully adorned, and to wander with more liberty, they cease to
be virgins, corrupted by a furtive dishonour; widows before they are
married, adulterous, not to their husband, but to Christ. In proportion as
they had been as virgins destined to great rewards, so will they experience
great punishments for the loss of their virginity.

   21. Therefore hear me, O virgins, as a parent; hear, I beseech you, one
who fears while he warns; hear one who is faithfully consulting for your
advantage and your profit. Be such as God the Creator made you; be such as
the hand of your Father ordained you. Let your countenance remain in you
incorrupt, your neck unadorned, your figure simple; let not wounds be made
in your ears, nor let the precious chain of bracelets and necklaces circle
your arms or your neck; let your feet be free from golden bands, your hair
stained with no dye, your eyes worthy of beholding God. Let your baths be
performed with women, among whom your bathing is modest.(2) Let the
shameless feasts and lascivious banquets of marriages be avoided, the
contagion of which is perilous. Overcome dress, since you are a virgin;
overcome gold, since you overcome the flesh and the world. It is not
consistent to be unable to be conquered by the greater, and to be found no
match for the less. Strait and narrow is the way which leadeth to life;
hard and difficult is the track which tends to glory. By this pathway the
martyrs progress, the virgins pass, the just of all kinds advance. Avoid
the broad and roomy ways. There are deadly snares and death-bringing
pleasures; there the devil flatters, that he may deceive; smiles, that he
may do mischief; entices, that he may slay. The first fruit for the martyrs
is a hundred-fold; the second is yours, sixty-fold. As with the martyrs
there is no thought of the flesh and of the world, no small, and trifling,
and delicate encounter; so also in you, whose reward is second in grace,
let there be the strength in endurance next to theirs. The ascent to great
things is not easy. What toil we suffer, what labour, when we endeavour to
ascend the hills and the tops of mountains! What, then, that we may ascend
to heaven? If you look to the reward of the promise, your labour is less.
Immortality is given to the persevering, eternal life is set before them;
the Lord promises a kingdom.

   22. Hold fast, O virgins! hold fast what you have begun to be; hold
fast what you shall be. A great reward awaits you, a great recompense of
virtue, the immense advantage of chastity. Do you wish to know what ill the
virtue of continence avoids, what good it possesses? "I will multiply,"
says God to the woman, "thy sorrows and thy groanings; and in sorrow shalt
thou bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he
shall rule over thee."(1) You are free from this sentence. You do not fear,
the sorrows and the groans of women. You have no fear of child-bearing; nor
is your husband lord over you; but your Lord and Head is Christ, after the
likeness and in the place of the man; with that of men your lot and your
condition is equal. It is the word of the Lord which says, "The children of
this world beget and are begotten; but they who are counted worthy of that
world, and of the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given
in marriage: neither shall they die any more: for they are equal to the
angels of God, being the children of the resurrection."(2) That which we
shall be, you have already begun to be. You possess already in this world
the glory of the resurrection. You pass through the world without the
contagion of the world; in that you continue chaste and virgins, you are
equal to the angels of God. Only let your virginity remain and endure
substantial and uninjured; and as it began bravely, let it persevere
continuously, and not seek the ornaments of necklaces nor garments, but of
conduct. Let it look towards God and heaven, and not lower to the lust of
the flesh and of the world, the eyes uplifted to things above, or set them
upon earthly things.

   23. The first decree commanded to increase and to multiply; the second
enjoined continency. While the world is still rough and void, we are
propagated by the fruitful begetting of numbers, and we increase to the
enlargement of the human race. Now, when the world is filled and the earth
supplied, they who can receive continency, living after the manner of
eunuchs, are made eunuchs unto the kingdom. Nor does the Lord command this,
but He exhorts it; nor does He impose the yoke of necessity, since the free
choice of the will is left. But when He says that in His Father's house are
many mansions, He points out the dwellings of the better habitation. Those
better habitations you are seeking; cutting away the desires of the flesh,
you obtain the reward of a greater grace in the heavenly home. All indeed
who attain to the divine gift and inheritance by the sanctification of
baptism, therein put off the old man by the grace of the saving layer, and,
renewed by the Holy Spirit from the filth of the old contagion, are purged
by a second nativity. But the greater holiness and truth of that repeated
birth belongs to you, who have no longer any desires of the flesh and of
the body. Only the things which belong to virtue and the Spirit have
remained in you to glory. It is the apostle's word whom the Lord called His
chosen vessel, whom God sent to proclaim the heavenly command: "The first
man," says he, "is from the earth, of earth; the second man is from heaven.
Such as is the earthy, such are they also who are earthy; and such as is
the heavenly, such also are the heavenly. As we have borne the image of him
who is earthy, let us also bear the image of Him who is heavenly."(3)
Virginity bears this image, integrity bears it, holiness bears it, and
truth. Disciplines which are mindful of God bear it, retaining
righteousness with religion, stedfast in faith, humble in fear, brave to
all suffering, meek to sustain wrong, easy to show mercy, of one mind and
one heart in fraternal peace.

   24. Every one of which things, O good virgins, you ought to observe, to
love, to fulfil, who, giving yourselves to God and Christ, are advancing in
both the higher and better part to the Lord, to whom you have dedicated
yourselves. You that are advanced in years, suggest a teaching to the
younger. You that are younger, give a stimulus to your coevals. Stir one
another up with mutual exhortations; provoke to glory by rival proofs of
virtue. Endure bravely, go on spiritually, attain happily. Only remember us
at that time, when virginity shall begin to be rewarded in you.


Taken from "The Early Church Fathers and Other Works" originally published
by Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co. in English in Edinburgh, Scotland beginning in
1867. (ANF 5, Roberts and Donaldson). The digital version is by The
Electronic Bible Society, P.O. Box 701356, Dallas, TX 75370, 214-407-WORD.

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