3. But if it be good to abstain from the unlawful excitements of the senses, and on that
account every Christian soul has gotten the name of virgin; why are five admitted and five
rejected? They are both virgins, and yet are rejected. It is not enough that they are virgins;
and that they have lamps. They are virgins, by reason of abstinence from unlawful indulgence
of the senses; they have lamps, by reason of good works. Of which good works the Lord
saith, “Let your works shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify
your Father which is in heaven.”3091 Again He saith to His disciples, “Let your loins be
girded and your lamps burning.”3092 In the “girded loins” is virginity; in the “burning lamps”
good works.
4. The title of virginity is not usually applied to married persons: yet even in them there
is a virginity of faith, which produces wedded chastity. For that you may know, Holy
Brethren, that every one, every soul, as touching the soul, and that uncorruptness of faith
by which abstinence from things unlawful is practised, and by which good works are done,
is not unsuitably called “a virgin;” the whole Church which consists of virgins, and boys,
and married men and married women, is by one name called a Virgin. Whence prove we
this? Hear the Apostle saying, not to the religious women only but to the whole Church to-
gether; “I have espoused you to One Husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to
Christ.”3093 And because the devil, the corrupter of this virginity, is to be guarded against,
after the Apostle had said, “I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as
a chaste virgin to Christ;” he subjoined, “But I fear, lest as the serpent beguiled Eve through
his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.”3094
Few have virginity in the body; in the heart all ought to have it. If then abstinence from what
is unlawful be good, whereby it has received the name of virginity, and good works are
praiseworthy, which are signified by the lamps; why are five admitted and five rejected? If
there be a virgin, and one who carries lamps, who yet is not admitted; where shall he see
himself, who neither preserveth a virginity from things unlawful, and who not wishing to
have good works walketh in darkness?
5. Of these then, my Brethren, yea, of these let us the rather treat. He who will not see
what is evil, he who will not hear what is evil, he that turneth away his smell from the unlawful
fumes, and his taste from the unlawful food of the sacrifices, he who refuseth the embrace
of another man’s wife, breaketh his bread to the hungry, bringeth the stranger into his house,
clotheth the naked, reconcileth the litigious, visiteth the sick, burieth the dead; he surely is
a virgin, surely he hath lamps. What seek we more? Something yet I seek. What seekest thou
3091 Matt. v. 16.
3092 Luke xii. 35.
3093 2 Cor. xi. 2.
3094 2 Cor. xi. 3.
839
On the words of the Gospel, Matt. xxv. 1, ‘then shall the kingdom of heaven…