Book I (5 of 6)

37. But why do we argue, and why are we eager to frame a clever and victorious reply to our opponent? “Old things have passed away, behold all things have become new.” I will run through the utterances of the Apostles, and as to the instances afforded by Solomon I added short expositions to facilitate their being understood, so now I will go over the passages bearing on Christian purity and continence, and will make of many proofs a connected series. By this method I shall succeed in omitting nothing relating to chastity, and shall avoid being tediously long. Amongst other passages, Paul the Apostle writes to the Romans: “What fruit then had ye at that time in the things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death. But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto sanctification, and the end eternal life.” I suppose too that the end of marriage is death. But the compensating fruit of sanctification, fruit belonging either to virginity or to continence, is eternal life. And afterwards: “Wherefore, my brethren, ye also were made dead to the law through the body of Christ; that ye should be joined to another, even to him who was raised from the dead, that we might bring forth fruit unto God. For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, which were through the law, wrought in our members to bring forth fruit unto death. But now we have been discharged from the law, having died to that wherein we were holden; so that we serve in newness of the Spirit, and not in oldness of the letter.” “When,” he says, “we were in the flesh, and not in the newness of the Spirit but in the oldness of the letter,” we did those things which pertained to the flesh, and bore fruit unto death. But now because we are dead to the law, through the body of Christ, let us bear fruit to God, that we may belong to Him who rose from the dead. And elsewhere, having previously said, “I know that the law is spiritual,” and having discussed at some length the violence of the flesh which frequently drives us to do what we would not, he at last continues: “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me out of the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” And again, “So then I myself with the mind serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.” And, “There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and death.” And more clearly in what follows he teaches that Christians do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit: “For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the spirit the things of the spirit. For the mind of the flesh is death; but the mind of the spirit is life and peace: because the mind of the flesh is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be: and they that are in the flesh cannot please God. But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you,” and so on to where he says, “So then, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh: for if ye live after the flesh, ye must die; but if by the spirit ye mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.” If the wisdom of the flesh is enmity against God, and they who are in the flesh cannot please God, I think that they who perform the functions of marriage love the wisdom of the flesh, and therefore are in the flesh. The Apostle being desirous to withdraw us from the flesh and to join us to the Spirit, says afterwards:“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And be not fashioned according to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God. For I say, through the grace that was given me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think according to chastity” (not soberly as the Latin versions badly render), but “think,” he says, “according to chastity,” for the Greek words are ἐις τὸ σωφρονεὶν. Let us consider what the Apostle says: “Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” What he says is something like this—God indeed permits marriage, He permits second marriages, and if necessary, prefers even third marriages to fornication and adultery. But we who ought to present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is our reasonable service, should consider, not what God permits, but what He wishes: that we may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God. It follows that what He merely permits is neither good, nor acceptable, nor perfect. And he gives his reasons for this advice: “Knowing the season, that now it is high time for you to awake out of sleep: for now is salvation nearer to us than when we first believed. The night is far spent, and the day is at hand.” And lastly: “Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.” God’s will is one thing, His indulgence another. Whence, writing to the Corinthians, he says, “I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able. For ye are yet carnal.” He who is in the merely animal state, and does not receive the things pertaining to the Spirit of God (for he is foolish, and cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned), he is not fed with the food of perfect chastity, but with the coarse milk of marriage. As through man came death, so also through man came the resurrection of the dead. As in Adam we all die, so in Christ we shall all be made alive. Under the law we served the old Adam, under the Gospel let us serve the new Adam. For the first man Adam was made a living soul, the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. “The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is of heaven. As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.” This is so clear that no explanation can make it clearer: “Flesh and blood,” he says, “cannot inherit the Kingdom of God, neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.” If corruption attaches to all intercourse, and incorruption is characteristic of chastity, the rewards of chastity cannot belong to marriage. “For we know that if the earthly house of this tabernacle be dissolved, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal, in the heavens. For verily in this we groan, longing to be clothed upon with our habitation which is from heaven. We are willing to be absent from the body, and to be at home with the Lord. Wherefore also we make it our aim, whether in the body, or out of the body, to be well-pleasing unto God.” And by way of more fully explaining what he did not wish them to be he says elsewhere: “I espoused you to one husband, that I might present you as a pure virgin to Christ.” But if you choose to apply the words to the whole Assembly of believers, and in this betrothal to Christ include both married women, and the twice-married, and widows, and virgins, that also makes for us. For whilst he invites all to chastity and to the reward of virginity, he shows that virginity is more excellent than all these conditions. And again writing to the Galatians he says: “Because by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.” Among the works of the law is marriage, and accordingly under it they are cursed who have no children. And if under the Gospel it is permitted to have children, it is one thing to make a concession to weakness, another to hold out rewards to virtue.

38. Something else I will say to my friends who marry and after long chastity and continence begin to burn and are as wanton as the brutes: “Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now perfected in the flesh? Did ye suffer so many things in vain?” If the Apostle in the case of some persons loosens the cords of continence, and lets them have a slack rein, he does so on account of the infirmity of the flesh. This is the enemy he has in view when he once more says: “Walk by the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh.” It is unnecessary now to speak of the works of the flesh: it would be tedious, and he who chooses can easily gather them from the letter of the Apostle. I will only speak of the Spirit and its fruits, love, joy, peace, long suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness,continence. All the virtues of the Spirit are supported and protected by continence, which is as it were their solid foundation and crowning point. Against such there is no law.“And they that are of Christ have crucified their flesh with the passions and the lusts thereof. If we live by the Spirit, by the Spirit let us also walk.” Why do we who with Christ have crucified our flesh and its passions and desires again desire to do the things of the flesh? “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth unto his own flesh, shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth unto the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap eternal life.” I think that he who has a wife, so long as he reverts to the practice in question, that Satan may not tempt him, is sowing to the flesh and not to the Spirit. And he who sows to the flesh (the words are not mine, but the Apostle’s) reaps corruption. God the Father chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world, that we might be holy and without spot before Him.We walked in the lusts of the flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the thoughts, and were children of wrath, even as the rest. But now He has raised us up with Him, and made us to sit with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that we may put away according to our former manner of life the old man, which is corrupt according to the lusts of deceit, and that blessing may be applied to us which so finely concludes the mystical Epistle to the Ephesians:“Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in uncorruptness.”“For our citizenship is in heaven; from whence also we wait for a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: who shall fashion anew the body of our humiliation, that it may be conformed to the body of his glory.Whatsoever things then are true, whatsoever are chaste, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things pertain to purity, let us join ourselves to these, let us follow these. Christ hath reconciled us in his body to God the Father through his death, and has presented us holy and without spot, and without blame before himself: in whom we have been also circumcised, not with the circumcision made with hands, to the spoiling of the body of the flesh, but with the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, wherein also we rose with him. If then we have risen with Christ, let us seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God; let us set our affections on things above, not upon the things that are upon the earth. For we are dead, and our life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ our life shall appear, then we also shall appear with him in glory.No soldier on service entangleth himself in the affairs of this life; that he may please him who enrolled him as a soldier.For the grace of God hath appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us, to the intent that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live purely and righteously and godly in this present world.”

39. The day would not be long enough were I to attempt to relate all that the Apostle enjoins concerning purity. These things are those concerning which our Lord said to the Apostles: “I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit, when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he shall guide you into all the truth.” After the crucifixion of Christ, we find in the Acts of the Apostles that one house, that of Philip the Evangelist, produced four virgin daughters, to the end that Cæsarea, where the Gentile Church had been consecrated in the person of Cornelius the centurion, might afford an illustration of virginity. And whereas our Lord said in the Gospel: “The law and the prophets were until John,” they because they were virgins are related to have prophesied even after John. For they could not be bound by the law of the Old Testament, who had shone with the brightness of virginity. Let us pass on to James, who was called the brother of the Lord, a man of such sanctity and righteousness, and distinguished by so rigid and perpetual a virginity, that evenJosephus, the Jewish historian, relates that the overthrow of Jerusalem was due to his death. He, the first bishop of the Church at Jerusalem, which was composed of Jewish believers, to whom Paul went, accompanied by Titus and Barnabas, says in his Epistle: “Be not deceived, my beloved brethren. Every good gift and every perfect boon is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no difference, neither shadow that is cast by turning. Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first-fruits of his creatures.” Himself a virgin, he teaches virginity in a mystery. Every perfect gift cometh down from above, where marriage is unknown; and it cometh down, not from any one you please, but from the Father of lights, Who says to the apostles, “Ye are the light of the world;” with Whom there is no difference of Jew, or Gentile, nor does that shadow which was the companion of the law, trouble those who have believed from among the nations; but with His word He begat us, and with the word of truth, because some shadow, image, and likeness of truth went before in the law, that we might be the first-fruits of His creatures. And as He who was Himself thefirst begotten from the dead has raised all that have died in Him: so He who was a virgin, consecrated the first-fruits of His virgins in His own virgin self. Let us also consider what Peter thinks of the calling of the Gentiles:“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his great mercy begat us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, unto an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, who by the power of God are guarded through faith unto a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” Where we read of an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, prepared in heaven and reserved for the last time, and of the hope of eternal life when they will neither marry, nor be given in marriage, there, in other words, the privileges of virginity are described. For he shows as much in what follows: “Wherefore girding up the loins of your mind, be sober and set your hope perfectly on the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ; as children of obedience, not fashioning yourselves according to your former lusts in the time of your ignorance; but like as he which called you is holy, be ye yourselves also holy in all manner of living; because it is written, ye shall be holy; for I am holy. For we were not redeemed with contemptible things, with silver or gold; but with the precious blood of a lamb without spot, Jesus Christ, that we might purify our souls in obedience to the truth, having been begotten again not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, through the word of God, who liveth and abideth. And as living stones let us be built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood offering up spiritual sacrifices through Christ our Lord.For we are an elect race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession.Christ died for us in the flesh. Let us arm ourselves with the same conversation as did Christ; for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin; that we should no longer live the rest of our time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God. For the time past is sufficient for us when we walked in lasciviousness, lusts, and other vices. Great and precious are the promises attaching to virginity which He has given us,that through it we may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world through lust.The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptation, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment unto the day of judgement, but chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of defilement, and despise dominion, daring, self-willed. For they, as beasts of burden, without reason, think only of their belly and their lusts, railers who shall in their corruption be destroyed, and shall receive the reward of iniquity: men that count unrighteousness delight, spots and blemishes, thinking of nothing but their pleasures; having eyes full of adultery and insatiable lust, deceiving souls not yet strengthened by the love of Christ. For they utter swelling words and easily snare the unlearned with the seduction of the flesh; promising them liberty while they themselves are the slaves of vice, luxury, and corruption. For of what a man is overcome, of the same is he also brought into bondage. But if, after they had escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again overcome by that which they before overcame, the last state is become worse with them than the first. And it were better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after knowing it, to turn back and forsake the holy commandment delivered unto them. And it has happened unto them according to the true proverb, the dog hath turned to his own vomit again, and the sow that had washed to wallowing in the mire.” I have hesitated, for fear of being tedious, to quote the whole passage of the second Epistle of Peter, and have merely shown that the Holy Spirit in prophecy foretold the teachers of this time and their heresy. Lastly, he more clearly denotes them, saying, “In the last days seducing mockers shall come, walking after their own lusts.”

40. The Apostle has described Jovinianus speaking with swelling cheeks and nicely balancing his inflated utterances, promising heavenly liberty, when he himself is the slave of vice and self-indulgence, a dog returning to his vomit. For although he boasts of being a monk, he has exchanged his dirty tunic, bare feet, common bread, and drink of water, for a snowy dress, sleek skin, honey-wine and dainty dishes, for the sauces ofApicius andPaxamus, for baths and rubbings, and for the cook-shops. Is it not clear that he prefers his belly to Christ, and thinks his ruddy complexion worth the kingdom of heaven? And yet that handsome monk so fat and sleek, and of bright appearance, who always walks with the air of a bridegroom, must either marry a wife if he is to show that virginity and marriage are equal: or if he does not marry one, it is useless for him to bandy words with us when his acts are on our side. And John agrees with this almost to the letter: “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world is the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of this life, which is not of the Father, but is of the world.” And, “The world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever. A new commandment have I written unto you, which thing is true both in Christ and in you; because the darkness is passing away, and the true light already shineth.” And again,“Beloved, now are we the children of God, and it is not yet made manifest what we shall be. But we know that, if he shall be manifested, we shall be like him: for we shall see him even as he is. And every one that hath this hope purifieth himself, even as he is pure.Herein is our love made perfect, if we have boldness in the day of judgement: that as he is, even so may we be in this world.” The Epistle of Jude also expresses nearly the same: “Hating even the garment spotted by the flesh.” Let us read the Apocalypse of John, and we shall there find the Lamb upon Mount Sion, and with Him “a hundred and forty-four thousand of them that were sealed, having His name and the name of His Father written in their foreheads, who sing a new song, and no one can sing that song save they who have been redeemed out of the earth. These are they who have not defiled themselves with women, for they continued virgins. These follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth: for they were redeemed from among men, first-fruits to God and to the Lamb, and in their mouth was found no guile, and they are without spot.”Out of each tribe, the tribe of Dan excepted, the place of which is taken by the tribe of Levi, twelve thousand virgins who have been sealed are spoken of as future believers, who have not defiled themselves with women. And that we may not suppose the reference to be to those who know not harlots, he immediately added: “For they continued virgins.” Whereby he shows that all who have not preserved their virginity, in comparison of pure and angelic chastity and of our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, are defiled.“These are they who sing a new song which no man can sing except him that is a virgin. These are first-fruits unto God and unto the Lamb, and are without blemish.” If virgins are first-fruits, it follows that widows and the continent in marriage, come after the first-fruits, that is, are in the second and third rank: nor can a lost people be saved unless it offer such sacrifices of chastity to God, and with pure victims reconcile the spotless Lamb. It would be endless work to explain the Gospel mystery of the ten virgins, five of whom were wise and five foolish. All I say now is, that as mere virginity without other works does not save, so all works without virginity, purity, continence, chastity, are imperfect. And we shall not be hindered in the least from taking this view by the objection of our opponent that our Lord was at Cana of Galilee, and joined in the marriage festivities when He turned water into wine. I shall very briefly reply, that He Who was circumcised on the eighth day, and for Whom a pair of turtle-doves and two young pigeons were offered on the day of purification, like others before He suffered, shewed His approval of Jewish custom, that He might not seem to give His enemies just cause for putting Him to death on the pretext that He destroyed the law and condemned nature. And even this was done for our sakes. For by going once to a marriage, He taught that men should marry only once. Moreover, at that time it was possible to injure virginity if marriage were not placed next to it, and the purity of widowhood in the third rank. But now when heretics are condemning wedlock, and despise the ordinance of God, we gladly hear anything he may say in praise of marriage. For the Church does not condemn marriage, but makes it subordinate; nor does she reject it, but regulates it; for she knows, as was said before, that in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and earthenware; and that some are to honour, some to dishonour; and that whoever cleanses himself will be a vessel of honour, necessary, prepared for every good work.

41. I have given enough and more than enough illustrations from the divine writings of Christian chastity and angelic virginity. But as I understand that our opponent in his commentaries summons us to the tribunal of worldly wisdom, and we are told that views of this kind are never accepted in the world, and that our religion has invented a dogma against nature, I will quickly run through Greek and Roman and Foreign History, and will show that virginity ever took the lead of chastity. Fable relates that Atalanta, the virgin of Calydonian fame, lived for the chase and dwelt always in the woods; in other words that she did not set her heart on marriage with its troubles of pregnancy and of sickness, but upon the nobler life of freedom and chastity.Harpalyce too, a Thracian virgin, is described by the famous poet; and so isCamilia, queen of the Volsci, on whom, when she came to his assistance, Turnus had no higher praise which he could bestow than to call her a virgin. “O Virgin, Glory of Italy!” And that famous daughter ofLeos, the lady of the brazen house, ever a virgin, is related to have freed her country from pestilence by her voluntary death: and the blood of the virginIphigenia is said to have calmed the stormy winds. What need to tell of the Sibyls of Erythræ and Cumæ, and the eight others? for Varro asserts there were ten whose ornament was virginity, and divination the reward of their virginity. But if in the Æolian dialect “Sibyl” is represented by Θεοβούλη, we must understand that a knowledge of the Counsel of God is rightly attributed to virginity alone. We read, too, that Cassandra and Chryseis, prophetesses of Apollo and Juno, were virgins. And there were innumerable priestesses of the Taurian Diana, and of Vesta. One of these, Munitia, being suspected of unchastily was buried alive, which would be in my opinion an unjust punishment, unless the violation of virginity were considered a serious crime. At all events how highly the Romans always esteemed virgins is clear from the fact that consuls and generals even in their triumphal chariots and bringing home the spoils of conquered nations, were wont to make way for them to pass. And so did men of all ranks. WhenClaudia, a Vestal Virgin, was suspected of unchastily, and a vessel containing the image of Cybele was aground in the Tiber, it is related that she, to prove her chastity, with her girdle drew the ship which a thousand men could not move. Yet, asthe uncle of Lucan the poet says, it would have been better if this circumstance had decorated a chastity tried and proved, and had not pleaded in defence of a chastity equivocal. No wonder that we read such things of human beings, when heathen error also invented the virgin goddesses Minerva and Diana, and placed the Virgin among the twelve signs of the Zodiac, by means of which, as they suppose, the world revolves. It is a proof of the little esteem in which they held marriage that they did not even among the scorpions, centaurs, crabs, fishes, and capricorn, thrust in a husband and wife. When the thirty tyrants of Athens had slain Phidon at the banquet, they commanded his virgin daughters to come to them, naked like harlots, and there upon the ground, red with their father’s blood, to act the wanton. For a little while they hid their grief, and then when they saw the revellers were intoxicated, going out on the plea of easing nature, they embraced one another and threw themselves into a well, that by death they might save their virginity. The virgin daughter of Demotion, chief of the Areopagites, having heard of the death of her betrothed,Leosthenes, who had originated the Lamian war, slew herself, for she declared that although in body she was a virgin, yet if she were compelled to accept another, she should regard him as her second husband, when she had given her heart to Leosthenes. So close a friendship long existed between Sparta and Messene that for the furtherance of certain religious rites they even exchanged virgins. Well, on one occasion when the men of Messene attempted to outrage fifty Lacedæmonian virgins, out of so many not one consented, but they all most gladly died in defence of their chastity. Whence there arose a long and grievous war, and in the long runMamertina was destroyed. Aristoclides, tyrant of Orchomenos, fell in love with a virgin of Stymphalus, and when after the death of her father she took refuge in the temple of Diana, and embraced the image of the goddess and could not be dragged thence by force, she was slain on the spot. Her death caused such intense grief throughout Arcadia that the people took up arms and avenged the virgin’s death.Aristomenes of Messene, a just man, at a time when the Lacedæmonians, whom he had conquered, were celebrating by night the festival called theHyacinthia, carried off from the sportive bands fifteen virgins, and fleeing all night at full speed got away from the Spartan territory. His companions wished to outrage them, but he admonished them to the best of his power not to do so, and when certain refused to obey, he slew them, and restrained the rest by fear. The maidens were afterwards ransomed by their kinsmen, and on seeing Aristomenes condemned for murder would not return to their country until clasping the knees of the judges they beheld the protector of their chastity acquitted. How shall we sufficiently praise the daughters of Scedasus at Leuctra in Bœotia? It is related that in the absence of their father they hospitably entertained two youths who were passing by, and who having drunk to excess violated the virgins in the course of the night. Being unwilling to survive the loss of their virginity, the maidens inflicted deadly wounds on one another. Nor would it be right to omit mention of the Locrian virgins. They were sent to Ilium according to custom which had lasted for nearly a thousand years, and yet not one gave occasion to any idle tale or filthy rumour of virginity defiled. Could any one pass over in silence the seven virgins of Miletus who, when the Gauls spread desolation far and wide, that they might suffer no indignity at the hands of the enemy, escaped disgrace by death, and left to all virgins the lesson of their example—that noble minds care more for chastity than life? Nicanor having conquered and overthrown Thebes was himself overcome by a passion for one captive virgin, whose voluntary self-surrender he longed for. A captive maid, he thought, must be only too glad. But he found that virginity is dearer to the pure in heart than a kingdom, when with tears and grief he held her in his arms slain by her own hand. Greek writers tell also of another Theban virgin who had been deflowered by a Macedonian foe, and who, hiding her grief for a while, slew the violator of her virginity as he slept, and then killed herself with the sword, so that she would neither live when her chastity was lost, nor die before she had avenged herself.

42. To come to the Gymnosophists of India, the opinion is authoritatively handed down that Budda, the founder of their religion, had his birth through the side of a virgin. And we need not wonder at this in the case of Barbarians when cultured Greece supposed that Minerva at her birth sprang from the head of Jove, and Father Bacchus from his thigh.Speusippus also, Plato’s nephew, andClearchus in his eulogy of Plato, andAnaxelides in the second book of his philosophy, relates that Perictione, the mother of Plato, was violated by an apparition of Apollo, and they agree in thinking that the prince of wisdom was born of a virgin.Timæus writes that thevirgin daughter ofPythagoras was at the head of a band of virgins, and instructed them in chastity.Diodorus, the disciple of Socrates, is said to have had five daughters skilled in dialectics and distinguished for chastity, of whom a full account is given by Philo the master ofCarneades. And mighty Rome cannot taunt us as though we had invented the story of the birth of our Lord and Saviour from a virgin; for the Romans believe that the founders of their city and race were the offspring of the virginIlia and of Mars.

43. Let these allusions to the virgins of the world, brief and hastily gathered from many histories, now suffice. I will proceed to married women who were reluctant to survive the decease or violent death of their husbands for fear they might be forced into a second marriage, and who entertained a marvellous affection for the only husbands they had. This may teach us that second marriage was repudiated among the heathen. Dido, the sister of Pygmalion, having collected a vast amount of gold and silver, sailed to Africa, and there built Carthage. And when her hand was sought in marriage by Iarbas, king of Libya, she deferred the marriage for a while until her country was settled. Not long after, having raised afuneral pyre to the memory of her former husband Sichæus, she preferred to “burn rather than to marry.” Carthage was built by a woman of chastity, and its end was a tribute to the excellence of the virtue. For thewife of Hasdrubal, when the city was captured and set on fire, and she saw that she could not herself escape capture by the Romans, took her little children in either hand and leaped into the burning ruins of her house.