Symposium (The Banquet of the Ten Virgins) 2.1–2.7

Theophila, then, she said, spoke: “It seems to me necessary, since Marcella set out well on her speech but did not complete it sufficiently, that I should try to bring the argument to its end. That humanity advanced by stages to virginity, God urging it on at each season, she seems to me to have set out well; but that from then on one must no longer beget children, she did not say well. For I think I have clearly seen from the Scriptures that, when virginity came, the Word did not entirely abolish the begetting of children. For it is not the case that because the moon is greater than the stars, the light of the other stars is therefore abolished. Let us begin from Genesis, so as to give Scripture the precedence. For God's declaration and ordinance concerning the procreation of children is admittedly being fulfilled even now, since the Creator is still forming human beings. This is plain to everyone: God is still at work painting the world, as the Lord also taught, saying, ‘My Father is working until now.’ But when the rivers at last cease flowing into the basin of the sea, and the light is completely separated from the darkness (for it is still being separated now), and the dry land at last stops yielding its fruits together with creeping things and four-footed beasts, and the predetermined number of human beings is filled up, then indeed the begetting of children must cease. But now, while the world still stands and is being fashioned, [we must work with God in forming] the human being after the image of God; for it was said, ‘Increase and multiply.’ And we must not loathe the ordinance of the Creator, from which we ourselves have come into being. For the beginning of the generation of human beings is the depositing of the seed in the furrows of the womb, so that bone from bones and flesh from flesh, taken by an invisible power, may be fashioned again by the craftsman into another human being. In this way we must think that the saying is fulfilled, ‘This now is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.’

“For perhaps this was also hinted at by the trance cast on the first-formed man, foreshadowing the enchantment of the man in love, when, thirsting for children, he falls into a trance, relaxed as in sleep by the pleasures of begetting, so that again something drawn from his bones and flesh may be completed, as I said, as another human being. For when the harmony of the body is greatly disturbed in the thrusts of intercourse, as those initiated in the rite of marriage teach us, all the marrow-like and most fertile part of the blood, which is liquid bone, gathered from all the members, frothing and curdled, rushes out through the generative organs into the living soil of the woman. Rightly, then, for this reason a man is said to leave ‘his father and his mother’ …, being then all at once forgetful of everything, when, united with his wife in loving embraces, he is possessed by the desire to beget, offering his side to be taken by the divine Creator, so that the father himself may appear again in the son. Since, then, God is still forming the human being even now, is it not rash to loathe the begetting of children, which he himself, who works with undefiled hands, is not ashamed of? For ‘Before I formed you in your mother's womb, I knew you,’ he says to Jeremiah; and to Job he said, ‘Did you take clay and form a living creature and set it speaking upon the earth?’ And Job is recorded as saying to him in prayer, ‘Your hands made me and formed me.’ And is it not absurd to forbid the unions of marriage, when we still expect that there will be, even after us, those who will stand against the evil one, for whose sake the Word promised that the [days] would be shortened? For if, as you said, the begetting of children has from that time on been thought bad by God, for what reason will those born contrary to his decree and the divine will be able to stand acceptable before God? For what is born must be counterfeit and not dear to God if it is formed, like a forged coin, against the intention and ordinance of his power, unless we grant that human beings too can form human beings.

And Marcella, taking her up, said: “Theophila, a great error, and one contrary to what you said, appears; and do you think you have escaped notice after pushing aside so great a cloud? For that argument arrives which someone perhaps will put to you, most wise, demanding: ‘What do you say about those born unlawfully of adultery?’ For you granted that it is impossible and unattainable to enter the world without being led by the hand by the will of the Majesty, the tent of the body being fashioned by God. And lest you flee, as behind a wall, to the Scripture that says with assurance, ‘The children of adulterers will not come to maturity,’ he will gently repel you, saying: ‘And yet we see those conceived from unlawful unions here growing through labours that often come to term into ripe fruit.’ And if again you argued cleverly, ‘My good man, I think “will not come to maturity” is said of those not perfected in the righteousness taught by Christ,’ it will be said: ‘And yet, blessed one, very many born of unrighteous seed are nonetheless not only counted worthy of the flock of the brothers, but often are even appointed to preside over them.’ Since, then, it is plain, and all report, that those born of adultery also come to maturity, we must not think that the Spirit prophesied about conceptions and births, but perhaps about those who commit adultery against the truth, who, adulterating the Scriptures with doctrines that steal wisdom, beget a wisdom that never matures, mixing error with piety. So, since this pretext of yours has been taken away, come, answer whether those born of adultery too are born with God's good pleasure. For you said that the birth of a human being is impossible unless the Lord forms it and gives it a soul.”

And Theophila, as though caught round the waist by a noble opponent, grew dizzy, and recovering her breath with great difficulty said: “You ask a question, blessed one, that needs to be shown by an example, so that you may see still more that the creative power, governing through all things, is itself chiefly at work in the generation of human beings, making grow what is planted in fertile soil. For what is sown is not to blame, but the one who, in beds of stolen wedlock, shamelessly sells his own seed into another's field, like a hireling of a little pleasure. Compare our birth into life to something like this: a house with its entrance lying against high mountains; and suppose it extends far down, a long way from the entrance, with many openings at the back, and rounded at that part.” “I am picturing it,” said Marcella. “Then suppose a modeller sitting inside at work on statues; and imagine the material of clay being supplied to him abundantly from outside through the openings by many people, none of whom sees the craftsman. Grant that the house is covered with mist and clouds and that nothing is visible to them from outside but the openings.” “Let this too be granted,” she said. “And that each of those who work together in bringing the clay has one opening assigned to him, into which alone he brings and deposits his own material, not touching another. And if he should meddlesomely try to open the one allotted to another, he is to be threatened with fire and scourges. … Then consider what follows: the modeller inside goes round the openings, takes the clay found in each and models it separately, and after a period of months, having finished modelling it, gives it back to those outside through the same opening. He has this command: to work without distinction all clay that can be fashioned, even if it is wrongly channelled by someone into another's opening (for the material has done no wrong, so it must be modelled and formed as blameless), but to punish as a villain and transgressor the one who, against the decree and command, deposited it in another's opening. For the clay is not to blame, but the one who did this against what is holy; for through incontinence he carried it to another's opening and deposited it secretly or by force.” “What you say is most true.”

“Now, then, since this has been set out, it is time for you, most wise, to apply this whole image to what was said before: likening the house to the invisible nature of our generation; the entrance lying against the mountains to the descent and conveyance of souls from heaven into bodies; the openings to the female sex, that of women; and the modeller to the creative power of God, which, using nature, as I said, as a veil over our generation, invisibly forms us as human beings within, making the garments for the souls. Those who bring the material of clay are to be compared to the male sex, when, thirsting for children, they go to the natural passages of the woman and deposit the seed, just as there the clay into the openings. For the seed, which shares, so to speak, in the divine creative portion, must not itself be thought the cause of the fires of licentiousness. For craft always works on the material that lies before it; no thing in itself is to be thought evil, but it becomes such through the action of those who use it. Done decently and chastely, it turns out decent; done shamefully and indecently, shameful. What wrong did iron, discovered for farming and the crafts, do to those who sharpened it for battles of mutual slaughter? What wrong did gold or silver or bronze, and in short all the workable earth, do to those who sin ungratefully against their own Creator by turning to the images wrought from them? Even if someone supplies wool from stolen goods to the art of weaving, the art works the material before it to this one end, whether it will take the making, rejecting nothing useful to itself, since the stolen thing, being lifeless, is not to blame here. So it must be made beautiful; but the one who took it by unjust theft must be punished. So too those who destroy marriages and break the harmony of life, [playing on] the strings with frenzy and provoking their appetite to adultery, must themselves be tried and punished; for they steal and defile the procreative embraces from other people's gardens. But the seed, like the wool there, must be formed and given life.”

“And why should I lengthen my speech by using so many examples? For nature could not have accomplished so great a work in so short a time without care. Who fixed the frame of the bones when it was not yet fixed? Who bound the limbs with sinews, to be tightened and relaxed as they bend at the joints? Or what god leavened the moisture, wetting it with blood, and made soft flesh from dust, except the only best craftsman, fashioning us, man, the most rational and living image of himself, and moulding us like wax from moist and tiny seeds in the womb? For who is it that takes care that the embryo, flooded within by the fluid and the pressure of the vessels, is not smothered? Or who, after it has come out into the light, changes it to size and beauty and strength from weak and small, if not this very best craftsman, God, as I said, reshaping and repainting its features after Christ by his creative power? That is why we have received in divinely inspired writings that the children born, even if they are from adultery, are handed over to guardian angels. For if they came into being contrary to the intention and ordinance of that blessed nature of God, how would they be handed over to angels to be nourished with much rest? And how would they, with great boldness, summon their own parents to the judgment seat of Christ to accuse them, saying, ‘You, O Lord, did not begrudge us this common light; but these exposed us to death, despising your commandment’? For ‘children born of unlawful beds,’ it says, ‘are witnesses of wickedness against their parents at their examination.’”

“And perhaps someone arguing plausibly among men who are neither critical nor sensible will find room to say that this fleshly tunic of the soul, planted by human beings, is formed of itself, apart from God's decree; but he will not be believed if he teaches that the substance of the soul too is sown along with the mortal body. For the immortal and ageless element the Almighty alone breathes in, since he alone is the maker of things invisible and indestructible. ‘For he breathed into his face the breath of life,’ it says, ‘and the man became a living soul.’ Indeed the Word, blaming those craftsmen who make images in human likeness for the ruin of human beings, not perceiving their own maker, says in the all-virtuous Wisdom: ‘Their heart is ashes, and their hope cheaper than earth, and their life of less worth than clay, because they did not know the one who formed them and inspired in them an active soul and breathed into them a living spirit.’ So God is the maker of all human beings. That is why, according to the apostle, he also ‘wills all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.’ And since this has at last reached its end, what follows must now be said. When someone has thoroughly learned the theory of what happens to human beings by nature, he will know not to loathe the begetting of children, but to praise and prefer chastity. For it is not the case that, because honey is sweeter than other things, all the other fruits, which are blended with a natural sweetness, must therefore be thought bitter. And of this I will offer Paul as a sure witness, who says, ‘So then he who gives his virgin in marriage does well, and he who does not give her in marriage does better.’ For the Word, by setting the better and sweeter beside the other, did not forbid the other, but legislates, assigning to each what is proper and profitable. For to some he has not yet granted to attain virginity; others he no longer wishes to be stained by crimson provocations, but to practise from now on and to picture the angel-like transformation of bodies, where ‘they neither marry nor are given in marriage,’ according to the unerring oracles. For the undefiled eunuchhood that gains the kingdom of heaven is not entrusted to all, but clearly only to those who are able to keep the ever-blooming and undefiled flower of virginity. For the prophetic word likens the church to a most flowery and many-coloured meadow, adorned and crowned not only with the flowers of chastity but also with those of childbearing and of continence. For ‘the queen stands at the right hand’ of the Bridegroom, ‘adorned in gold-fringed garments.’ This, Arete, is my own contribution, as far as I am able, to the speech on behalf of chastity.” When Theophila had said this, Theopatra said, a pleasant murmur arose from all the virgins, praising the speech; and when they were quiet, after a long silence, Thalia rose; for to her it had been assigned to contend third, after Theophila.