De Disciplina et bono pudicitiae

II. ON THE GOOD OF CHASTITY. ...I have passed over some parts of my duties, while I always strive, especially in daily treatments of the Gospels, to provide you from time to time with increases of faith and knowledge through the Lord. For what else can be more usefully carried on in the Church of the Lord, what can be found more suited to the offices of a bishop, than that through the teaching of the Lord’s words, insinuated and conferred by him, believers may be able to reach the promised kingdom of heaven? This certainly, the daily votive business of my work and office, I strive to obtain, though absent, and I try to render my presence to you through letters. While I, in my usual manner, address you with speeches sent in faith, I come together with you for this reason, that, strengthened by the firmness of the evangelical root, you may always stand armed against all the battles of the devil. I will not believe myself absent, if I am secure. Yet all things that are usefully set forth and either define or promise the state of eternal life through treatises are then fruitful, if they are aided by the powers of divine indulgence for the benefit of the work. We not only set forth words that come from the sacred fountains of the scriptures, but with those words we also join prayers and vows to the Lord, that he may open the treasures of his sacraments both to us and to you, and grant the strength to fulfill whatever we come to know. For the danger is greater to have known the will of the Lord and to have ceased in the work of God’s will.

Although, therefore, I always exhort you to many duties and to the precepts of divine admonition, as you know—for what else could be more desirable or greater for me than that you should stand perfect in the Lord in all things—yet I especially admonish you to keep the barriers of chastity, which you also do: knowing that you are a temple of the Lord, members of Christ, a dwelling place of the Holy Spirit, chosen for hope, consecrated to faith, destined for salvation, sons of God, brothers of Christ, sharers of the Holy Spirit, owing nothing now to the flesh, through which, reborn from water and chastity, we ought to will only that it be ours: it is also to be granted for the sake of redemption, so that what has been consecrated by Christ cannot be corrupted. For if the apostle proclaims the Church the bride of Christ, I ask you, how great a chastity is required, where the Church is presented as a virgin bride among marriages? And I indeed, except that I have proposed to admonish you briefly, could have set forth the very broad and rich praises of chastity; but I considered it superfluous to praise it at length among its cultivators. For you adorn it while you practice it, and you bring forth more of its praises by exercising it. You become its ornament, while it is yours, a mutual beauty to be lent in turn. It suggests to you the discipline of good morals, you provide it with the ministry of holy works.

things? For through you it was shown both how much and what that [discipline] could achieve, and it demonstrated and became fitting what you yourselves wish, when the two goods of commandments and deeds are joined together, so that nothing would appear mutilated, if either precepts were lacking to the ministries or ministries to the precepts. Chastity is the honor of bodies, the ornament of morals, the sanctity of the sexes, the bond of marriages, the fidelity of lineage, the bulwark of modesty, the fountain of purity, the peace of the home, the head of concord. Chastity is anxious not to please anyone except itself; chastity is always modest, while it is the mother of innocence; chastity is always adorned by modesty alone, well aware of its own beauty, if it displeases the wicked. Chastity seeks no ornaments; its own decency is itself. This commends us to the Lord, connects us to Christ; this conquers all illicit battles of desires from the members, brings peace to our bodies, is itself blessed and makes blessed those among whom it deigns to dwell, whom even those who do not have it can never accuse; it is venerable even to its enemies, while those who cannot assault it admire it all the more. But just as this virtue is always proven in men and is to be sought by women, so its enemy, unchastity, is always to be detested: an obscene mockery rendering its servants, sparing neither bodies nor minds.

For having conquered one’s own habits, one submits one’s entire person to the triumph of lust: it is seductive at first, so that it may harm more while it pleases, draining away property along with modesty, an enemy of continence, often reaching to blood, a raging madness of desires, a fire of good conscience, a mother of impenitence, a ruin of better age, an insult to one’s kind, assaulting the loyalty of blood and family, inserting its own children into others’ affections, introducing offspring of unknown and corrupt lineage into others’ wills. It burns often beyond one’s own sex, and since it does not contain itself within what is permitted, it thinks too little has been done for it unless it seeks not a new pleasure in the bodies of men as well, but seeks out extraordinary and portentous monstrosities against nature itself, from men through men. But chastity holds the first place in virgins, the second in the continent, the third in marriages: yet in all it is glorious with its degrees. For to keep faith in marriages is praiseworthy amid so many bodily struggles, and to have set a limit of continence within marriage is of greater virtue, when even what is lawful is rejected. Certainly, to have guarded holiness from the womb and to have kept oneself as an infant all the way into old age throughout one’s entire life is of admirable power: except that not to know the seductive laws of the body is more a matter of happiness, while to have conquered them once known is a matter of virtue, yet so that this virtue too comes from the house of God, even if it shows itself in human members.

The precepts of chastity, brothers, are ancient. Why do I call them ancient? Because they were established along with human beings themselves. For woman was made from man so that, apart from the same man, she would know no other; and woman was given back to man so that, once what had been taken from him was restored, she would seek nothing foreign. Thus it is said, "And the two will be in one flesh," so that what had been one might return into one, lest a separation without return provide an opportunity for another. Hence the apostle also declared the man to be the head of the woman, so that the union of the two might prove chastity. For just as the head of another cannot be fitted to its own members, so too members are not suited to a foreign head: for the head fits its own members, and the members their own head, both cohering by a natural bond in mutual harmony, lest any discord arising from the division of members should break the pact of the divine covenant. He adds, however, and says: "For he who loves his wife loves himself." For no one hates his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the Church. From this comes a great prescription of love with chastity: if wives are to be loved by their husbands as Christ loved the Church, and so wives ought to love their husbands as the Church loves Christ.

Christ gave this ruling when, asked whether a wife might be dismissed only for adultery, he granted such honor to chastity. From this arose that ruling: you will not allow adulteresses to live. From this the apostle says: this is the will of God, that you abstain from fornication. From this he also says this: the members of Christ are not to be joined to the members of a prostitute. From this, he who tramples upon the law of chastity and practices the vices of the flesh is handed over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh. From this, adulterers justly do not hold the kingdom of heaven; from this it is that he says every other sin is outside the body, that only the adulterer sins against his own body. From this come the other authorities of the precepts, which it is not necessary now to recall all of, especially among you who know them frequently and practice them; and even if they are not written down, you cannot complain about them. For an adulterer has no excuse, nor could he have had any, because it was permitted to marry a wife.

But just as laws have been prescribed for matrons, which are so bound that they cannot be torn away from them, virginity and continence are beyond all law: nothing pertaining to the laws of marriage applies to virginity; by its own height it transcends all, if any depraved human laws dare to overstep it. Virginity equals itself to angels: if indeed we examine it, it even exceeds them, while struggling in the flesh it brings back a victory even against nature, which angels do not have. What else is virginity but a glorious meditation on the future life? Virginity is of neither sex; virginity is persevering infancy; virginity is a triumph over pleasures; virginity has no children, but what is more, it has contempt for children; it has no fecundity, but it has no bereavement; it is happy because it is beyond the pain of childbirth, but it is happier because it is beyond the calamity of children’s funerals. What else is virginity but unbound freedom? It has no husband as master. Virginity is freed from all affections; it is not devoted to marriages, nor to the world, nor to children. It cannot fear persecution, since it can provoke it from a position of security.

Since the precepts of chastity have been briefly set forth for us, let us now set forth an example of chastity. For more is accomplished when one comes to the matter at hand, nor is there any doubt about virtue when what is commanded is also confirmed by examples. The example of chastity began with Joseph. A noble Hebrew youth by his father, more noble by his innocence, sold out of envy through revelations by his Ishmaelite brothers, he had come into the house of an Egyptian man. By his obedience, innocence, and entire faithful service, he had provoked in his master a favorable and benevolent disposition toward himself, whose face, free speech, and age were accommodating to all. But this nobility was received by his master's wife otherwise than was fitting: in a secret part of the house and a hiding place without witnesses, suited for crimes, she thought she could overcome the chastity of the youth by the unchastity of an incontinent woman, now with promises, now with threats. And when he was detained by his clothes, because he was attempting flight on account of the audacity of such a crime, leaving behind those very clothes and about to have the sincerity of his naked body as a witness to his innocence, the shameless woman did not hesitate to add a false accusation to the crime of her own unchastity: and to the others and to her husband, hot and burning, having scorned her desire, she complained with feigned grief that the Hebrew youth had attempted to do violence to her, which she herself had tried to inflict. The marital ardor, ignorant of the facts and inflamed by his wife's accusation, was kindled.

The chaste youth, however, because he did not mingle his conscience with wrongdoing, is thrust into the depths of the prison. But chastity is not alone in prison: for Joseph has God with him, and the guilty are placed in his hand, because he himself had been innocent. Moreover, he unravels the obscure meanings of dreams, because his spirit was vigilant in temptation, and he is freed from his bonds through the Lord. He who, as the youngest in the household, had been in peril, became, without peril, the master of the royal house: restored to his nobility, he received the fruit of chastity and innocence from God as judge, from whom he had deserved it. But no less from the opposite side, another example of chastity, similar in respect to the continence of women, arises for us. There was, as we read, Susanna, daughter of Helcias, wife of Joachim, very beautiful in face, more beautiful in character. Her appearance commended her to no adornment: for she was simple. Chastity and, with chastity, nature alone had cultivated her. Two of the elders began to burn with desire for her, mindful neither of divine fear nor of their own already withering age: thus the flame of revived lust recalled them to the fires of their past youth. Thieves of chastity, they confess love, but they hated it. To her resistance they threaten slanders; they call themselves accusers of adultery with the vow of adulterers. Between two rocks of lust, she sought help from the Lord, because she was unable to resist with bodily strength.

and the Lord heard from heaven chastity crying out to him, and when it was oppressed by iniquity and led to punishment, it saw the vengeance of its enemies set free. Twice victorious, even in its own peril, so often hemmed in by such deadly things, it escaped both lust and death. It would be endless if I were to pursue more examples: I am content with these two, especially since chastity has been defended through them with all its strength. They could not be softened by the invidious memory of noble birth, which for some is the handmaiden of the license of wantonness; nor by the beauty of the body and the well-arranged form of the limbs, which often suggests that, like some flower of a swiftly passing age, it may be fed by the opportunity of extended pleasure; nor by the years of early bloom and more mature age, when the still raw, seething blood kindles the flames of nature and the blind fires stirred up in the marrow rush even through the peril of modesty toward a true remedy; nor by any hiding places, safe and without any witness, which some consider an opportunity—the greatest force for admitting crime, when impunity meets deliberations; nor by the imposed necessity from the authority of those commanding and the recklessness of partners and companions, by which means even right counsels are often broken; nor by rewards and kindness themselves, nor by accusations, nor by threats, nor by punishments, nor by deaths: nothing so cruel, so harsh, so sad as having fallen from the high rank of chastity.

worthy of so great a reward from a divine judge, one of whom was to be distinguished by almost a royal throne, the other redeemed by the harmony of her husband, endowed with the deaths of her enemies. These and similar examples are always to be set before our eyes, and parallels to them are to be pondered day and night. Nothing so delights a faithful soul as the consciousness of an intact and spotless chastity. The greatest pleasure is to have conquered pleasure: and no victory is greater than that which is won over desires. He who conquered an enemy was stronger, but only than another: he who repressed lust was stronger than himself: he who laid low an enemy struck an external foe: he who suppressed desire overcame a domestic enemy. Every evil is more easily conquered than pleasure, because whatever that evil is, it is repulsive, while this is alluring. Nothing is so difficult to suppress as that which is armed by itself. He who removes desires also removes fear: for fears arise from desires. He who conquered desires triumphed over sin, he who conquered desires showed that the evil of the human race lies under his feet, he who conquered desires gave himself perpetual peace, he who conquered desires restored to himself freedom, which is most difficult even for the freeborn. Therefore, brothers, as the matters teach, chastity must always be pondered by us: so that it may be easier, it consists of no arts. For what perfects it is the will, which, unless it were hindered, would be far off. It is ours: thus it is not to be acquired, but fostered, since it is ours.

For what else is chastity but an honorable mind given for the protection of the body, so that modesty, returned to the sexes and marked by severity, might preserve the fidelity of the race through uncorrupted offspring? But the elements of chastity, brothers, are fitting and recognized: first of all, divine modesty and holy meditation on the precepts, a mind inclined toward faith, and a spirit astonished at sacred religion; then, to see that there is nothing in oneself beyond measure in ornament, nothing produced beyond decency, nothing prodigal, nothing artificially colored, nothing contrived to provoke or detain the eyes. She is not chaste who aims to move another’s mind, even while preserving bodily chastity. Let those be far away for whom beauty is not adorned but prostituted. For concern about beauty is an indication of a bad mind and of deformity. Let the nature of bodies be free, and let no force be applied to divine works. She is always wretched who does not please herself as she is. Why is the color of hair changed? Why are the edges of the eyes darkened? Why is the face transformed into a different shape by arts? Why, finally, is the mirror consulted, except that she fears not to be herself? Let even the adornment of a chaste woman be chaste: let a faithful woman know adultery not even in colors. To interweave gold into garments is, as it were, to corrupt garments by price. What do rigid metals do among the delicate threads of the warp? Except to burden flowing shoulders and to display the unhappy luxury of a vaunting mind.

What of it when necks are weighed down and hidden by foreign stones, whose prices exceed even the calendar of any art? A woman is not adorned, but the vices of the woman are displayed. What of it when fingers, burdened with gold of the ankle, can neither enter nor exit? Does use demand this, or is the empty pomp of patrimonies displayed? A strange business: women, delicate in all things, are stronger than men for the burdens of vices. But to return to what I had begun, chastity must always be cultivated by both men and women, and must be guarded with every care within its own limits. The body quickly endangers the nature of the body, while the flesh, which is always in a state of falling, snatches it along with itself. Under the pretext, indeed, of nature, which always urges men toward the affections by which the ruins of a fallen race are repaired, the seduction of pleasure, deceiving, does not lead to the continence of legitimate union for offspring, but hurls into sin. Therefore, against these snares of the flesh, in which the devil inserts himself both as an ally and a leader, one must struggle with every kind of virtue. Let the works of Christ be taken up, according to the apostle, and let the mind be gathered away from the fellowship of the flesh as much as possible; let every sense be separated from the body; let vices always be chastised so that they may be hated; let the shameful and abject shame of sin be set before the eyes, along with repentance itself and its lamentations, which is the dishonorable confession of committed crimes. Let nothing be considered curiously in the faces of others.

Let speech be brief and laughter restrained, for it is a sign of a frivolous and undisciplined mind. Even seemly contact should be avoided. Nothing is to be permitted to the body where a bodily vice must be shunned. Let it be considered how honorable it is to have conquered disgrace, how dishonorable to have been conquered by disgrace. It must also be said that adultery is not pleasure, but mutual insult; nor can it delight that which both destroys the soul and shames modesty. Let the mind restrain the goads of the flesh, let it curb the impulse of the body. For it has received this power, that the limbs serve at its command, and like a legitimate and perfect charioteer, let it turn back with the reins of heavenly precepts the impulses of the flesh that raise themselves beyond the permitted bounds of the body, lest that chariot of the body, snatched beyond its limits, drag the charioteer himself along with it into his own peril. But amid these things, indeed even before them, aid must be sought from the divine camp against all the crowds and vices: for God alone is powerful, who deigned to make men and to provide full assistance to men. I have dictated a few things, since it is not my purpose to write volumes, but to send an address. Look to the Scriptures, seek out for yourselves greater examples of this matter from those very precepts. Dearest brothers, fare well.