De virginitate recensio altera

Virginity has already been the subject of many display speeches for many, providing countless opportunities for the more ambitious to parade pompously in discourse and to exult in the graces attending this achievement. I myself will not deny that this practice is holy and honorable to all who judge the good in purity, more than all who excel in virtue, and as far as I am able, like those who glorify victors in the stadiums by proclamation, so I too will not cease to proclaim the surpassing wonder. But I affirm that the proper praise of virginity, and the one most fittingly suited to those who practice it, is to be known rather from the very name that is joined to the matter; for human custom knows to call the unwedded "incorrupt." The preeminence of this great gift is shown even by this alone, that while many and great things are accomplished through virtue, this alone of all has been honored with the name of the incorrupt.

But if need is often mixed with pleasure—for want knows how to sweeten everything, making all that is found for need pleasant by the intensity of desire—one must not reject need because of the attendant enjoyment, nor yet pursue pleasure as the primary object, but rather, selecting the useful from all things, it is fitting to overlook what delights the senses.... The body is composed: for heat is blended with cold, and there is a paradoxical mixture of wet with dry, these being united to their opposites through the affinity of the intermediate qualities in the pairs. And with some such subtlety, he who discoursed on nature demonstrated, asserting that each of these, being diametrically opposed to its contrary by nature, is united to its opposites through the kinship of the adjacent qualities. For since cold and heat are equally present in wet and dry, and conversely wet and dry are similarly constituted in hot and cold, the identity of the qualities, appearing equally in the opposites, effects through itself the union of the contraries. But why should I go through each detail precisely, how these are both separated from each other by the opposition of nature and again united, mingling with each other through the kinship of the qualities? However, the reason we mentioned these things is that he who understood the nature of the body by this theory advised us to take care, as far as possible, of the equal balance of the qualities; for health consists in this, in nothing among us being dominated by the other. Therefore, we must attend to such a state for the

If you see a person’s life standing in the midst of death and life, choosing from each side what is useful for philosophy—neither admitting the inactivity of death in zeal for the commandments, nor standing with the whole foot upon life because of estrangement from worldly desires, but remaining more inactive than the dead in those things by which the life of the flesh is tested, while in the works of virtue, through which those “living by the spirit” are recognized, being truly animate, active, and strong—look to this rule of life. Let this be for you the goal of the divine life, just as the ever-visible stars are for helmsmen. Imitate his gray hair and his youth, or rather imitate his old age in youth and his youth in old age. For neither did time dim the vigorous and active quality of his soul when his age had already inclined toward old age, nor was his youth active in those things by which youth is known to be active, but there was a certain marvelous mixture of opposites in

in each age, or rather a transformation of characteristics—in old age, with strength renewed for the good, and in youth, with youth rendered inactive toward evil. And if you also seek out the loves of that age, imitate the intensity and ardor of the divine love for wisdom, which grew with him from infancy and lasted until old age. But if you are unable to look directly at him, as those with weaker eyes cannot look at the sun, then gaze instead at the chorus of saints arrayed under him, those who shine in life through imitation of what has been done according to the ages. This is the goal that God has set for our life.