22. There was
lately at Antioch a virgin who avoided being seen in public, but the
more she shrank from men’s eyes, the more they longed for
her. For beauty which is heard of but not seen is more desired,
there being two incentives to passion, love and knowledge—so long
as nothing is met with
which
pleases less; and that which pleases is thought to be of more worth,
because the eye is not in this case the judge by investigation, but the
mind inflamed with love is full of longing. And so the holy
virgin, lest their passions should be longer fed by the desire of
gaining her, professed her intention of preserving her chastity, and so
quenched the fires of those wicked men, that she was no longer loved,
but informed against.