On Virginity
Chapter I. The holy look of virginity is precious indeed in the judgment of all who make purity the test of beauty; but it belongs to those alone whose struggles to gain this object of a noble love are favoured and…
Ch. I–II — Chapter I. (¶1)
Chapter III. Would indeed that some profit might come to myself from this effort! I should have undertaken this labour with the greater readiness, if I could have hope of sharing, according to the Scripture, in the…
Ch. III–IV — Chapter III. (¶2)
Chapter V. Now we declare that Virginity is man’s “fellow-worker” and helper in achieving the aim of this lofty passion. In other sciences men have devised certain practical methods for cultivating the particular…
Ch. V–VI — Chapter V. (¶3)
Chapter VII. An illustration will make our teaching on this subject clearer. Imagine a stream flowing from a spring and dividing itself off into a number of accidental channels.
Ch. VII–VIII — Chapter VII. (¶4)
Chapter IX. Custom is indeed in everything hard to resist. It possesses an enormous power of attracting and seducing the soul. In the cases where a man has got into a fixed state of sentiment, a certain imagination of…
Ch. IX–X — Chapter IX. (¶5)
Chapter XI. Now those who take a superficial and unreflecting view of things observe the outward appearance of anything they meet, e.g. of a man, and then trouble themselves no more about him.
Ch. XI–XII — Chapter XI. (¶6)
Chapter XIII. But seeing that Paradise is the home of living spirits, and will not admit those who are dead in sin, and that we on the other hand are fleshly, subject to death, and sold under sin1430, how is it possible…
Ch. XIII–XIV — Chapter XIII. (¶7)
Chapter XV. But the ways in our life which turn aside towards sin are innumerable; and their number is told by Scripture in divers manners.
Ch. XV–XVI — Chapter XV. (¶8)
Chapter XVII. Let that which was then said by our Lord be the general maxim for every life; especially let it be the maxim for those who are coming nearer God through the gateway of virginity, that they should never in…
Ch. XVII–XVIII — Chapter XVII. (¶9)
Chapter XIX. But besides other things the action of Miriam the prophetess also gives rise to these surmisings of ours. Directly the sea was crossed she took in her hand a dry and sounding timbrel and conducted the…
Ch. XIX–XX — Chapter XIX. (¶10)
Chapter XXI. See Eph. iv. 22, 23. See S. Matt. viii. 11; S. Luke xiii. 29. The same expression (εὐγενὴς τῶν ἀφ᾽ ἡλίου ἀνατολῶν) is used of Meletius, in Gregory’s funeral oration on him. τὰ ἕδνα τοῦ γάμου, i.e.
Ch. XXI–XXII — Chapter XXI. (¶11)
Chapter XXIII. Now the details of the life of him who has chosen to live in such a philosophy as this, the things to be avoided, the exercises to be engaged in, the rules of temperance, the whole method of the training,…
Ch. XXIII–XXIV — Chapter XXIII. (¶12)