On Virginity preface–3

The aim of the discourse is to create in its readers a desire for the life of virtue. And since there are many distractions in the more common life, as the divine Apostle called it, the discourse necessarily proposes the life of virginity as a kind of door and entrance to the more holy way of life; for it is not easy for those entangled in the common life to devote themselves in quiet to the more divine life, while for those who have wholly renounced the turbulent life there is great ease in attending to the higher occupations without distraction. And since advice by itself is somewhat slow to persuade, and one would not easily win anyone over to something beneficial by a bare word of command unless he had first shown the dignity of that to which he urges his hearer, for this reason the discourse begins with the praises of virginity and so ends in advice. Or rather, since the good in each thing is made manifest also by setting its opposite beside it, some mention has necessarily been made of the troubles of the more common life. Then, in due method, a sketch of the life according to philosophy has been introduced, and it has been established that one who is engaged in worldly cares cannot attain it. And since bodily desire is idle in those who have renounced it, it was asked in due sequence what is truly desirable, for whose sake we received the power of desire from the Creator of our nature. When this had been uncovered as far as possible, it seemed to follow that some method should be devised for attaining this good. True virginity, then, which is pure of all the defilement of sins, was found to be fitted for such a design; so that the whole discourse in between, even if it seems to look to other things, tends toward the praise of virginity. The particular precepts of such a life, which have been practised by those who pursue this holiness exactly, the discourse has passed over to avoid excess; but by bringing its exhortation in general terms through the more general instructions, it has in a way included the particulars, so as neither to overlook anything necessary nor to fall into excess. And since it is the habit of all to take up any pursuit more eagerly if they see that some have already won good repute in it, we have necessarily also made mention of the saints who have shone in the unmarried life. And since the examples in narratives cannot do as much for the achievement of virtue as the living voice and good examples in action, we have necessarily, at the end of the discourse, made mention of our most God-fearing bishop and father, as the only one able to teach such things. The mention has not been made by name, but the discourse has hinted by certain marks that he is the one indicated, so that the advice may not seem useless to those who meet the discourse afterward, bidding the young resort to one who has passed from life; but that, looking only to what kind of person the guide of such a life ought to be, they may choose as their guides those who from time to time are shown forth by the grace of God to lead the life of virtue. For either they will find the one they seek, or they will not be ignorant of what kind of person he should be.

That virginity is above praise. The holy form of virginity, which is precious to all who judge beauty by purity, but comes only to those whom the grace of God graciously helps in the struggle for this good desire, has at once its fitting praise in the very name given to it. For “incorrupt,” which is commonly said of virginity, signifies the purity in it; so that from this equivalent name one can recognize the excellence of such a gift, since, though many things are accomplished according to virtue, this alone has been honoured with the name of “incorruptible.” And if this gift of the great God must also be extolled by praises, the divine Apostle suffices for its praise, who in a few words has hidden every extravagance of praise when he called the woman adorned by this grace “holy and blameless.” For if the achievement of this holy virginity is that one becomes blameless and holy, and these names are properly and primarily used for the glory of the incorruptible God, what greater praise of virginity is there than that it is shown by these names to make divine, in a way, those who have shared in its pure mysteries, so that they become sharers in the glory of the only truly holy and blameless God, being made his kin through purity and incorruption? Those who stretch out long praises in lengthy discourses, as though they would add something to the wonder of virginity, have not noticed, in my judgment at least, that they are working against their own aim; by the very means through which they exalt it into greatness, they make its praise suspect through their encomiums. For things that have greatness in their nature bring their wonder from within, needing no advocacy from words, like the heaven or the sun or any other of the wonders of the world. But for lowlier pursuits speech becomes a prop, adding a semblance of greatness by the ingenuity of its praises; hence the wonder produced by encomiums is often suspected by people as a piece of sophistry. The only sufficient praise of virginity is to declare that this virtue is above praise, and to admire purity by one’s life rather than by one’s words. But one who out of ambition makes it a subject for encomiums is like a man who thinks that a drop of his own sweat will make a notable addition to the boundless sea, if indeed he believes that so great a grace can be extolled by human speech. For either he does not know his own power, or he does not understand what he praises.

That virginity is an achievement proper to the divine and incorporeal nature. For we need much understanding to recognize the excellence of this grace, which is conceived together with the incorruptible Father (and this is indeed a paradox, that virginity is found in a Father who has a Son and begot him without passion); it is apprehended together with the only-begotten God, the giver of incorruption, shining forth together with the purity and passionlessness of his begetting (again an equal paradox, a Son conceived through virginity); and it is seen likewise in the natural and incorruptible purity of the Holy Spirit. For when you name the pure and incorruptible, you have signified virginity by another name. It shares the life of the whole supramundane nature, being present with the higher powers through freedom from passion, never separated from anything divine and never touching anything opposed to it. For all things that by nature or by choice have inclined to virtue are certainly adorned with the purity of incorruption; and all that have been separated into the opposite rank are such, and are so named, by their falling away from purity. What power of words, then, will suffice to equal so great a grace? Or how should we not fear lest by eagerness for praise one spoil the greatness of its dignity, producing in the hearers an opinion of it less than the one they already held? It is well, then, to leave encomiums of it aside, since it is impossible for the discourse to rise to the heights of the subject; but it is possible always to remember the divine gift and to have on our tongue the good thing which is proper to and peculiar to the incorporeal nature, but by the love of God for mankind has been granted also to those who have received life through flesh and blood, so that, holding out to human nature, cast down by its passionate disposition, the participation in purity like a hand, it may raise it up again and lead it to look to the things above. For this reason, I think, the very source of incorruption, our Lord Jesus Christ himself, did not enter the world through marriage, so as to show by the manner of his becoming man this great mystery: that purity alone is sufficient to receive the presence and entrance of God; and this cannot be achieved with full exactness unless one wholly estranges oneself from the passions of the flesh. For what happened bodily in the undefiled Mary, when the fullness of the Godhead shone forth in Christ through the Virgin, this happens also in every soul that lives in virginity according to reason, the Lord no longer making his presence bodily (for “we no longer know Christ according to the flesh,” he says), but dwelling in it spiritually and bringing his Father in with him, as the Gospel says somewhere. Since, then, the power of virginity is so great that it remains in heaven with the Father of spirits, dances with the supramundane powers, and lays hold of human salvation, bringing God down through itself to share in human life and giving man wings in itself for the desire of heavenly things, and becoming as it were a bond of man’s kinship with God, bringing into harmony by its mediation things so far apart in nature, what power of words could be found to rise to this wonder? But since it is altogether absurd to seem like the dumb or the insensible, and to appear either not to have recognized the goods of virginity or to be unstruck and unmoved by the perception of good things, we have been eager to say a few things about it, because in everything we must obey the authority of him who laid this task on us. Let no one look to us for more boastful words; perhaps we could not produce such even if we wished, being untrained in that kind of style. And even if we had the power to boast, we would not prefer winning repute among a few to what profits all in common. For I think that one who has understanding should seek in everything not what will make him admired above others, but what will benefit both himself and others.

A recollection of the troubles that come from marriage, and that the one who wrote this discourse is not unmarried. Would that I too could have gained something more from such zeal! Then I would have undertaken the labour on these matters with more eagerness, if, as it is written, I were working at the discourse in hope of sharing in the produce of the plough and the threshing floor. But as it is, my knowledge of the goods of virginity is in a way vain and useless to me, like the grain to the ox that goes round the threshing floor muzzled, or the water flowing down the cliffs to the thirsty man, when it is out of reach. Blessed are those who still have the power to choose the better things, and have not been walled off by being taken up beforehand into the common life, as we are separated by a kind of chasm from the glory of virginity, to which one who has once set his foot in the worldly life can no longer return. For this reason we are only spectators of others’ goods and witnesses of the blessedness of both. And if we think of something fitting about virginity, we are in the same case as cooks and servants who sweeten for others the luxury of the rich man’s table without sharing in any of what they have prepared themselves. How blessed it would have been if it were not so, and we had not come to recognize the good by our failure to choose it! But as it is, those are truly enviable, and live beyond every prayer and desire, for whom the power of enjoying these goods has not been shut off. We, like those who compare their own poverty with the condition of wealth and are the more grieved and discontented with what they have, in the same way pity the other life the more, the more we recognize the wealth of virginity, learning by comparison with the better what it is like and how poor it is. I do not speak only of what is laid up afterward for those who have lived according to virtue, but also of what belongs to the present life. For if anyone wants to examine exactly how this life differs from virginity, he will find the difference almost as great as that of earthly things from heavenly. One may learn the truth of what I say by looking at the facts themselves. Where should one begin to make a fitting tragedy of this heavy life? Or how could one bring before the eyes the common evils of life, which all people know by experience, though I do not know how nature has contrived to hide them in the very people who know them, people being willingly ignorant of the condition they are in? Do you want us to begin with the pleasantest? The chief thing pursued in marriage, then, is to obtain a delightful life together. Let it be so, and let the marriage be described as blessed in every way: good family, sufficient wealth, suitable age, the very flower of youth, much affection, and all that each can imagine for the other, that sweet rivalry of each wishing to win in love. Let glory and power and distinction be added, and anything you like. But see the pain that necessarily accompanies the goods we have counted and smoulders beneath them. I do not mean the envy that grows up against the prosperous, and that what seems to flourish in life is an easy target for human plots, and that everyone who does not have an equal share of good fortune has a natural hatred for the one who surpasses him, so that life for those who seem happy is full of suspicion and provides more pains than pleasures. I pass over these, supposing that envy is idle against them; and yet it is not easy to find anyone in whom the two have come together, to be happier than most and to escape envy. But let us suppose, if you like, that their life is free from all such things, and see whether those living in such prosperity can be happy. What will grieve them, you will say, if not even envy touches the fortunate? I say that this very thing, that their life is sweetened in every way, is the kindling of grief. For as long as they are human, this mortal and perishable thing, and see the tombs of those from whom they were born, they have grief inseparable from and yoked to their life, if they share even a little in reasoning. For the continual expectation of death, recognized by no sure signs but, because of the uncertainty of the future, always frightening as though it were already present, confounds the joy of each moment, disturbing their cheerfulness with fear of what they expect. For if it were possible to learn the experience of those who have tried it before trying it oneself, if it were possible by some other means to come within life and survey the facts, how great would be the rush of deserters from marriage to virginity, how great the watchfulness and foresight never to be caught in the inescapable snares, whose difficulty cannot be learned exactly except by one who has come within the nets! For you would have seen, if it were possible to see without danger, a great confusion of opposites, laughter mixed with tears, grief mingled with joys, death present everywhere in what happens through our hopes and laying hold of each of our pleasures. When the bridegroom sees the beloved face, at once the fear of separation certainly enters too; and if he hears the sweetest voice, he will think also that he will one day not hear it; and when he delights in the sight of her beauty, then most of all he shudders at the expectation of mourning. If he considers what is prized in youth and pursued by the foolish, the eye shining under its lids, the brow arching over the eye, the cheek in a sweet and graceful smile, the lip blooming with natural red, the hair gleaming with gold and deep, shining about the head in its varied braiding, and all that passing splendour, then certainly, if he has even a little power of reasoning, he thinks this in his soul too: that this beauty will one day dissolve and pass away, and turn into nothing, becoming loathsome and hideous bones instead of what now appears, bearing no trace, no memorial, no remnant of the present bloom. If he thinks of these and similar things, will he live in joy? Will he trust the good things he has as though they would always remain? Or is it clear from this that he will be perplexed as in the illusions of dreams, and will hold to life without trust, attending to what appears as to things not his own? You surely understand, if you have any insight into reality, that nothing that appears in life is as it appears; rather, life shows us one thing for another, like deceptive fancies, mocking those who gape after it with their hopes, and hiding itself under the error of appearances, until in its changes it is suddenly proved to be something other than the human hope that comes to the foolish through its deceit. Of what pleasure, then, will the pleasant things of life seem worthy to one who reckons these things? When will one who thinks thus truly perceive and rejoice in the goods he seems to have? Is he not always disturbed by fear of change, so that he has no sense of the enjoyment of what is present? I pass over omens and dreams and chance words and such nonsense, all watched for by vain custom and suspected of the worse. But the time of labour overtakes the young wife, and the event is thought to be not the birth of a child but the presence of death, and the death of the mother is expected in the birth. And often they have not been mistaken in this evil foreboding; but before celebrating the birthday feast, before tasting any of the goods they hoped for, they have at once changed their joy into lament. Still burning with affection, still at the height of their longing, not yet having had the sense of the sweetest things of life, they have been suddenly separated from all they held, as in the fancy of a dream. And what follows? The bridal chamber is plundered by the household as if by enemies; death is adorned with the tomb instead of the bridal chamber; there are useless callings on the dead and vain beatings of the hands, remembrances of the former life, curses against those who advised the marriage, reproaches against friends who did not prevent it; the parents are greatly blamed, whether they are alive or not; there is indignation against human life, accusation of the whole of nature, many reproaches and charges against the divine ordering itself, war with oneself, battle with those who give counsel; no hesitation in the most outrageous words or deeds. And often, when the passion prevails over them and reason is more fully swallowed up by grief, the tragedy has ended in a bitterer end, the survivor too being unable to outlive the misfortune. But not this; let us suppose the better: that she has escaped the danger of childbirth, and a child has been born to them, the very image of the bloom of its parents. What then? Is the occasion of grief lessened by this? Or has it not rather received additions? For they have their former fears, and have taken on also the fear for the child, lest something unpleasant should happen in its upbringing, lest some evil chance, lest some unwanted accident bring disease or deformity or some danger. And these are common to both; but who could number those peculiar to the wife? For to pass over these obvious ones known to all, the burden of pregnancy, the danger in childbirth, the toil of upbringing, her heart being torn in two with the one born, and, if she becomes the mother of several, her soul being cut into as many pieces as the number of her children, her feeling in her own inward parts whatever befalls them, and all such things known to all, what need is there to speak of them? But since, according to the divine oracle, she is not her own mistress, but has her turning toward the one who became her master through marriage, if she is left alone by him even for a little, as one separated from her head, she cannot bear the solitude, but takes even her husband’s short absence as an omen and a practice of widowed life. At once fear makes her despair of better hopes. And so her eye is fixed on the entrance, full of disturbance and alarm; her ear busies itself with those who whisper; her heart is struck and beaten by fear even before any news is announced; and a mere noise at the door, imagined or real, like a messenger of evil, suddenly shakes her soul. The things outside are perhaps favourable and worth no fear, but her fainting runs ahead of the message and turns her mind from pleasant thoughts to the opposite. Such is the life of the happy, not altogether worth much; for it cannot be compared with the freedom of virginity. And yet the discourse, running over it, has left out many of the gloomier things. For often she too, still young in body, still shining with bridal splendour, perhaps still blushing at the bridegroom’s coming and glancing at him with modesty, at the time when their longings happen to be warmer though held back by shame from showing themselves, is suddenly called a wretched widow, desolate, and all the rest … the brilliant and admired one is suddenly darkened by the misfortune falling upon her, which strips off her bridal adornment and wraps her in mourning. Then gloom instead of the brightness of the bridal chamber, wailing women raising their laments, hatred of those who try to soothe her grief, loathing of food, wasting of body, dejection of soul, a desire for death that often prevails even to death itself. And if the misfortune somehow ceases with time, again there is another misfortune, whether there are children or not. For if there are, they are certainly orphans and therefore pitiable, and through them the grief is renewed; if there are none, the memorial of the departed is gone root and all, and the evil is beyond consolation. I pass over the other things peculiar to widowhood. For who could count them all exactly? The enemies, the relatives: some trampling on her misfortune, others rejoicing in her desolation and watching with pleasure and an evil eye the house falling to ruin; the servants despising her; and all the other things that can be seen in abundance in such misfortunes. Because of these, many women have been driven by necessity to a second trial of similar evils, unable to bear the bitterness of those who mock them, as though avenging themselves on those who grieved them by their own misfortunes; while many, remembering what had happened, endured anything rather than fall a second time into like misfortunes. And if you want to learn the troubles of the more common life, listen to what women who have come to know life by experience say: how they call blessed the life of those who chose the life of virginity from the beginning and did not learn the better way through misfortune; for virginity is incapable of receiving all such evils. It does not lament orphanhood, it does not bewail widowhood; it is always with the incorruptible Bridegroom, always exults in the offspring of godliness, and sees the house that is truly its own continually flourishing with all the finest things, because the Master of the house is always present and dwelling in it. For it, death brings not separation but union with the one it longs for; for when it departs, then it is with Christ, as the Apostle says. But it would be time, since the life of the prosperous has been examined in part, to survey in the discourse the other lives too, to which poverty and misfortunes and the other calamities of human suffering are fixed, such as deformities and diseases and all such things that are allotted to human life. In all of these one who lives by himself either escapes the experience or bears the misfortune more easily, keeping his mind collected and not dragged about by cares for anything else; but one divided between wife and children often has no leisure even to groan over his own evils, since care for those dearest to him occupies his heart. Or perhaps it is superfluous to dwell on what is admitted. For if so much toil and misery is yoked to what seems good, what may one guess about the opposite? Surely any description in words falls short of the truth when it tries to bring their life before the eyes. But perhaps it is possible to show briefly the great unpleasantness of their life, in that, having been allotted a life opposite to those who seem to prosper, they also have griefs from the opposite causes. For the prosperous are troubled in life by death expected or present; but for these the misfortune is the postponement of death. Their life is opposite, but the dejection of both comes to the same end. So manifold and varied is the supply of evils from marriage. For children grieve alike both when they are born and when they are not hoped for, and again when they live and when they die. One man abounds in children but does not have enough to feed them; another has no heir to his lot after all his toils, and counts the misfortune of others among goods; each wishes to be what he sees the other grieving over. One’s beloved son has died; another’s profligate son has survived; both are pitiable, the one lamenting his son’s death, the other his life. I pass over jealousies and quarrels, arising from real facts or from suspicions, and the passions and misfortunes in which they end. For who could count them all exactly? But if you want to learn how full human life is of such evils, do not take up for me the ancient tales which gave the poets the plots of their dramas; for those are thought to be myths because of their extreme absurdity: the killings of children and eating of children, murders of husbands and slayings of mothers, slaughters of brothers and unlawful unions, and every kind of confusion of nature, which the tellers of ancient stories begin from marriages and end in such misfortunes. But leave all those, and look at the tragedies on the present stage of life, of which marriage is the producer for human beings. Go to the law courts, read the laws on these matters; there you will see the secrets of marriages. For as, when you hear physicians going through the various diseases, you learn the wretchedness of the human body, being taught of what and how many evils it is capable, so when you read the laws and learn the manifold lawless acts of marriages, against which they fix penalties, you are taught exactly what is proper to marriage. For neither does a physician treat diseases that do not exist, nor does a law cure evils that do not happen.