On Virginity

Contents

Reading pages: 0–3 · 4–7 · 8–11 · 12–16 · 17–22 · 23–24

1. 0The preface explains the plan of the treatise: praise of virginity, the troubles of ordinary life, the true object of desire, the method of virtue, examples of the saints, and an unnamed living guide.
2. 1Virginity needs no long praise: its name, “incorrupt,” and Paul’s words “holy and blameless” already show that it makes people sharers in God’s holiness.
3. 2Virginity belongs first to God (the Father who begets without passion, the Son, the Spirit) and the angels; Christ was born of a virgin to show that only purity can receive God, who now dwells spiritually in every virginal soul.
4. 3Gregory, himself married, regrets that he cannot share in virginity, and describes the anxieties of even the happiest marriage: fear of death, dangers of childbirth, widowhood, children’s troubles, and the crimes the law courts reveal.
5. 4Pride, greed, envy and the other passions spring mainly from the ties of marriage and the world; the one who withdraws from that torrent, like the angels who do not marry, is free to pursue virtue, a wealth that is never diminished.
6. 5Bodily virginity serves the soul’s freedom from passion: freed from the claims of the flesh, the soul can turn its power of love wholly to the contemplation of the divine beauty.
7. 6Elijah and John the Baptist, living apart from human life, food, comfort, and marriage, reached the greatness of their gifts; their example shows that one who seeks God must not divide his mind among many things.
8. 7Like water gathered into one channel or forced up a pipe, the mind that self-control keeps from scattering among many desires rises toward the truth; marriage is the root of the pursuit of vain things.
9. 8Marriage is blessed by God and those who condemn it as unclean are heretics; virtue lies in the mean, and one who can use marriage with moderation, like Isaac, should not despise it, but for the weak virginity is the safer course.
10. 9Habit is powerful: many who began chaste were drawn by permitted pleasures into a filthy life, so the weak should take refuge in virginity, which keeps the heart undivided for the love of God; habit can also make the struggle sweet.
11. 10The true Good, the archetypal beauty, cannot be described in words; only a purified heart sees it, as David did in ecstasy, yet we must not despair but be led toward it through things known to the senses.
12. 11To find the true Beauty one must look past material beauties to the formless, unchanging Good; the soul, purified and winged like the dove of the Spirit, becomes light and, like a clean mirror, reflects God, whom true virginity aims to see.
13. 12Passion and death were not part of man’s nature but came by his free choice; restoring the hidden image of God, like the woman’s lost coin, means retracing the steps of the fall, beginning by leaving marriage, the last stage of the exile from paradise.
14. 13Bodily birth leads to death, but spiritual birth through virginity halts death’s advance, as it was shattered against the virginity of Mary; the virgin already shares the angelic life of the resurrection.
15. 14Virginity is not only bodily: the soul wedded to Christ must keep itself from every sin, since, as a stone disturbs a whole pond, one passion upsets the whole soul, and the virtues stand or fall together.
16. 15Every vice is an adulterer that defiles the soul’s spiritual marriage to Christ; as a queen who yields to one seducer is condemned, so the virgin soul must keep itself pure from every passion.
17. 16Virtue is a narrow road between opposite vices; fleeing one passion into its opposite (pleasure into gloom, rashness into cowardice) is no gain, as Christ’s command to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves teaches.
18. 17Virginity is the foundation on which every other virtue must be built; like partial armour or an unfinished tower, it is worthless if the rest of life is disordered.
19. 18The mind must order every power of the soul to its proper use (desire for God, anger against sin, grief for repentance), for true self-control is that harmony; freedom from marriage is not enough without purity in all of life, as Israel passed dry through the sea while Egypt sank.
20. 19Miriam, Aaron’s sister, leading the women with her dry drum, may have been the first virgin and a figure of Mary; true fruitfulness is spiritual, as Isaiah, Paul, and the Virgin’s birth show, and bodily virginity serves the inner spiritual marriage.
21. 20One cannot pursue both bodily pleasure and the spiritual marriage; the soul that seeks union with Christ must, as in an earthly match, make itself young, rich, noble, and strong in spiritual ways, bringing the virtues as its bridal gifts.
22. 21Since only the pure can approach God, one must wall oneself off from all sensual pleasure, especially the pleasures of food and drink, taking need, not pleasure, as the measure of eating.
23. 22Self-control must avoid both excess and excessive severity; like a physician balancing the body’s elements or a charioteer managing his horses, the mind should keep the body fit for the soul’s service.
24. 23The virgin life must be learned from a living, experienced teacher, as languages and medicine are; the young who go alone fall into pride, idleness, false visions, deadly fasting, or sham celibacy that brings scandal.
25. 24The young should learn the virgin life from a living master (the unnamed bishop, old in youth and young in age) and his disciples, not despairing at others’ failures; crucified with Christ, offering themselves as priests and sacrifices, the pure in heart will see God.