The Dress of Virgins

Discipline, the guardian of hope, the bond of faith, the guide of the path of salvation, the kindling and nourishment of good character, the teacher of virtue, causes us to abide always in Christ and to live continually for God, and to arrive at the heavenly promises and divine rewards. To follow it is wholesome, and to turn away from and neglect it is deadly. The Holy Spirit speaks in the Psalms: Hold fast to discipline, lest perchance the Lord be angry, and ye perish from the right way, when his anger is quickly kindled against you. And again: But to the sinner God said. Why dost thou expound my justifications, and take my covenant in thy mouth? But thou hast hated discipline and hast cast my words behind thee. And again we read: He who rejects discipline is unhappy. And from Solomon we have received the commands of Wisdom admonishing: Son, do not neglect the discipline of the Lord, nor faint when thou art corrected by him; for God chastises him whom he loves.

But if God chastises him whom he loves, and chastises him for this purpose, that he may amend, so too brethren, and especially priests, do not hate but love those whom they chastise in order that they may amend, since God also foretold this through Jeremiah and signified our own times, saying: And I will give you pastors according to my heart, and they shall feed you, feeding with discipline.

But if in the holy Scriptures discipline is frequently and everywhere enjoined, and the entire foundation of religion and faith proceeds from observance and fear, what should we eagerly seek, what should we more desire and hold fast, than that, with our roots more firmly fixed and our dwellings solidly built upon the rock with a strong mass, we may stand unshaken against the storms and tempests of the world, so that we may come to the gifts of God through the divine precepts, considering and knowing alike that our members are the temple of God, purged from all the filth of the old contagion by the sanctification of the life-giving washing, and that it is not lawful for them to be violated or defiled, since he who violates them is himself also violated. We are the worshippers and ministers of those temples. Let us serve him whose we have now begun to be. Paul says in his Epistles, by which he formed us for the course of living through divine teachings: Ye are not your own.

For ye are bought with a great price. Glorify and carry God in your body. Let us glorify and carry God in a pure and clean body and by better observance; and we who have been redeemed by the blood of Christ, let us in all the duties of service obey the command of our Redeemer, and let us take care that nothing unclean and profane be brought into the temple of God, lest, being offended, he forsake the dwelling which he inhabits. These are the words of the Lord saving and teaching, healing and admonishing alike: Behold, he says, thou art made whole, now sin no more, lest something worse befall thee.

He gives a rule of living, he gives a law of innocence, after he has bestowed health; nor does he afterwards suffer one to wander with loose and unbridled reins, but rather threatens more gravely him who had been healed by those very means, namely that it is a lesser fault to have sinned before, when thou didst not yet know the discipline of God, but there is no pardon for sinning further after thou hast begun to know God. And indeed let both men and women, both boys and girls, every sex and every age, observe and take care of this, for the sake of the religion and faith which they owe to God, lest what is received holy and pure by the condescension of the Lord be held with less than anxious fear.

Now our discourse is addressed to virgins; whose glory is the more sublime, and whose care is the greater. That is the flower of the Church's growth, the grace and ornament of spiritual grace, a joyful nature, the work of praise and honour, whole and uncorrupted, the image of God corresponding to the holiness of the Lord, the more illustrious portion of the flock of Christ. The glorious fruitfulness of the mother Church rejoices through them and in them and blooms abundantly; and the more copious virginity adds to its number, the more the joy of the mother increases. To these we speak, these we exhort with affection rather than with authority; not because, being the least and lowest and very conscious of our own humility, we claim anything by way of censure and authority, but because, being more cautious in our solicitude rather, we fear the more on account of the assaults of the devil.

For this caution is not empty and this fear not vain which counsels the way of salvation, which keeps the precepts of the Lord and of life, so that those who have dedicated themselves to Christ, and withdrawing from carnal concupiscence have vowed themselves to God both in flesh and in mind, may complete their work destined for a great reward, and may study to adorn themselves and to please no one henceforth but their Lord, from whom they also await the reward of virginity, he himself saying: Not all receive this word, but those to whom it is given. For there are eunuchs who were born so from their mother's womb, and there are eunuchs who were made so by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven. Again also through this voice of the Angel the gift of continence is shown, virginity is proclaimed: These are they who have not defiled themselves with women. For they remained virgins. These are they who follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth.

For the Lord does not promise the grace of continence less to males and pass over females, but, since woman is a portion of man and was taken and formed from him, in nearly all the Scriptures God speaks to the first-formed, because the two are one flesh and in the male the female is signified at the same time.

But if continence follows Christ, and virginity is destined for the kingdom of God, what have they to do with earthly adornment and with ornaments, by which, while they are eager to please men, they offend God, not considering that it has been foretold: They who please men are confounded, because God has made them as nothing, and that Paul also proclaimed gloriously and sublimely: If I were still pleasing men, I should not be the servant of Christ. But continence and chastity consist not in the integrity of the flesh alone, but also equally in the honour and modesty of dress and adornment, so that, according to the Apostle, she who is unmarried may be holy both in body and in spirit. Paul instructs and teaches us, saying: The unmarried woman thinks on the things of the Lord, how she may please God: but she who has contracted marriage thinks on the things of this world, how she may please her husband.

So also the virgin and the unmarried woman thinks on the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit. A virgin ought not only to be so, but also to be seen and believed to be so. Let no one, on seeing a virgin, doubt whether she is a virgin. Let integrity present thee as equal in all things, and let not the adornment of the body bring shame upon the good of the mind. Why does she go forth adorned, why decked out, as though she either has a husband or seeks one? Let her rather fear to please, if she is a virgin, nor let her who preserves herself for better and divine things seek her own peril. Those who have no husband, for whom they pretend to make themselves pleasing, let them persevere whole and pure not only in body but also in spirit.

For it is not lawful for a virgin to adorn herself for the appearance of her beauty or to glory in her flesh and its comeliness, since she has no greater struggle than against the flesh, and an obstinate contest of subduing and taming the body.

Paul proclaims with a strong and lofty voice: But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world: and shall a virgin in the Church glory in the appearance of her flesh and in the beauty of her body! Paul adds and says: For they that are Christ's have crucified their flesh with its vices and concupiscences: and she who professes to have renounced the concupiscences of the flesh and its vices, is found in the very things she had renounced! Thou art caught as a virgin, thou art exposed. Thou boastest thyself to be one thing, and desirest another. Thou dost sprinkle thyself with the stains of carnal concupiscence, when thou art a candidate for integrity and modesty. God says through Isaiah, Cry: All flesh is grass, and all the glory thereof as the flower of grass. The grass is withered, and the flower is fallen: but the word of the Lord endureth for ever.

It becomes no Christian, and least of all does it become a virgin, to reckon any glory and honour of the flesh, but to seek the word of God alone, to embrace the goods that shall abide for ever. Or if there is to be glorying in the flesh, then plainly when it is tormented in the confession of the Name, when a woman is found stronger than the men who torture her, when she endures fires or crosses or the sword or beasts in order to be crowned. Those are the precious jewels of the flesh, those the better ornaments of the body.

But there are some who are rich and wealthy in abundance of means, who put forward their riches and contend that they ought to make use of their goods. Let them know first that she is rich who is rich in God, that she is wealthy who is wealthy in Christ, that those goods are good which are spiritual, divine, heavenly, which lead us to God, which abide with us in perpetual possession before God. But whatever things are earthly, received in the world and destined to remain here with the world, ought to be despised as much as the world itself is despised, whose pomps and pleasures we then renounced when we came to God by a better crossing over. John rouses and exhorts us, bearing witness with a spiritual and heavenly voice: Love not, he says, the world, nor the things that are in the world.

If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him: because all that is in the world is the concupiscence of the flesh, and the concupiscence of the eyes, and the ambition of the world, which is not of the Father, but of the concupiscence of the world. And the world passeth away and the concupiscence thereof. But he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever, even as God also abideth for ever. Therefore eternal and divine things are to be pursued, and all things are to be done according to the will of God, so that we may follow the footsteps of our Lord and his divine teachings, who admonished and said: I came down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me. But if the servant is not greater than his lord, and the freed man owes obedience to his liberator, we who desire to be Christians ought to imitate what Christ said and did.

It is written, and is read and heard and celebrated on the lips of the Church as an example for us: He who saith he abideth in Christ ought himself also to walk even as he walked. We must therefore walk with equal steps, we must strive with emulous tread. Then the following of truth corresponds to the faith of the name, and the reward is given to the believer if what is believed is also practised.

Thou sayest thou art wealthy and rich. But Paul meets thy riches, and prescribes with his own voice a just limit to be set upon thy dress and adornment: Let women, he says, with modesty and chastity adorn themselves, not with braided hair, nor gold, nor pearls, or costly garments, but as becometh women professing godliness through good conduct. Likewise Peter agrees with these same precepts and says: Let there be in woman not the outward adornment of dress or gold or clothing, but the adornment of the heart.

But if they admonish that even married women are to be restrained and regulated with religious observance according to ecclesiastical discipline, women who are accustomed to excuse their adornments on account of their husband, how much more is it right for a virgin to observe this, for whom no pardon for her adornment is fitting, nor can the falsehood of the fault be shifted onto another, but she alone remains in the blame.

But not everything that is possible ought also to be done, nor should desires that are excessive and born of worldly ambition be extended beyond the honour and modesty of virginity, since it is written: All things are lawful, but not all things are expedient; all things are lawful, but not all things edify. Moreover, if thou adorn thyself more sumptuously, and walk conspicuously through public places, and draw the eyes of youth upon thee, and drag the sighs of young men after thee, and nourish the lust of desire, and kindle the incentives of sighing, so that, even if thou thyself dost not perish, thou nevertheless destroyest others, and dost offer thyself as a sword and poison to those who behold thee, think not that thou canst be excused on the ground that thou art chaste and modest in mind. Thy shameless dress and immodest adornment convict thee, and thou canst no longer be counted among the girls and virgins of Christ, thou who livest in such a way as to be capable of being desired.

You say that you are wealthy and rich. But it does not befit a virgin to boast of her riches, since the divine Scripture says: What has pride profited us, or what has the boasting of riches conferred upon us? All those things passed away like a shadow; and the Apostle again warns and says: And they that buy, let them be as though they possessed not, and they that use this world, as though they used it not. For the fashion of this world passeth away. Peter also, to whom the Lord commends his sheep to be fed and kept, upon whom he placed and founded the Church, denies indeed that he has gold and silver, but says that he is rich by the grace of Christ, wealthy in his faith and power, by which he wrought many great deeds with wonder, by which he abounded in the good things of spiritual grace and glory. These riches, these treasures, she cannot possess who prefers to be rich in the world rather than in Christ.

You say that you are wealthy and rich, and you think that you should use those things which God willed you to possess. Use them, but for wholesome purposes; use them, but for good ends; use them, but for those things which God commands, which the Lord shows. Let the poor feel that you are rich, let the needy feel that you are wealthy; lend to God from your patrimony: feed Christ. That you may be permitted to bear the glory of virginity, that you may attain to the rewards of the Lord, entreat him with the prayers of many. Lay up your treasures there where no thief digs through, where no lurking robber breaks in. Acquire possessions for yourself, but rather heavenly ones, where your fruits are perpetual and perennial and immune from all contact of worldly harm, where neither rust wears them away, nor hail beats them down, nor sun burns them, nor rain corrupts them.

For you sin against God in this very thing, if you believe that riches were given to you by him so that you might not enjoy them wholesomely. For God gave voice to man, and yet love songs are not therefore to be sung, nor shameful ones; and God willed that iron should serve for the cultivation of the earth, and yet murders are not therefore to be committed; or because God established incense and wine and fire, idols are not therefore to be sacrificed to from them; or because flocks of cattle abound in your fields, you will not therefore be obliged to immolate victims and offerings to the gods. Otherwise a great patrimony is a temptation, unless one's wealth is employed for good uses, so that each person, the richer he is in patrimony, ought rather to redeem than to increase his sins.

The display of ornaments and garments and the enticements of beauty are fitting only for prostitutes and unchaste women, and scarcely any women have more costly adornment than those whose modesty is cheap. Thus in the holy Scriptures, by which the Lord willed us to be instructed and warned, the harlot city is described, adorned more beautifully and decked out, and about to perish with her ornaments and rather on account of those very ornaments. And there came, it says, one of the seven Angels having the seven vials, and spoke with me, saying: Come, I will show thee the damnation of the great harlot who sitteth upon many waters, with whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication. And he carried me away in spirit. And I saw a woman sitting upon a beast; and that woman was clothed with a purple and scarlet mantle, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls, holding a cup in her hand full of abominations and uncleanness and the fornication of all the earth.

Let chaste and modest virgins flee the adornment of the unchaste, the attire of the immodest, the insignia of brothels, the ornaments of harlots.

Isaiah also, full of the Holy Spirit, cries out, and rebukes and chides the daughters of Sion corrupted by gold and silver and garments, abounding in ruinous wealth and withdrawing from God through the delights of the world: The daughters of Sion, he says, are haughty, and have walked with stretched-out neck and wanton glances of eyes, walking and mincing as they go, and making a tinkling with their feet. And God shall humble the chief daughters of Sion, and the Lord shall discover their attire, and the Lord shall take away the glory of their raiment and their ornaments, and their hair and their curls and their little moons and their head-bands and their bracelets and their network and their armlets and their rings and their earrings and their silken garments interwoven with gold and hyacinth. And instead of sweet smell there shall be dust, and instead of a girdle thou shalt be girded with a rope, and instead of a golden ornament of the head thou shalt have baldness. This God blames, this he marks out.

He declares that virgins have been corrupted by these things, that they have departed from true and divine worship. Those who were haughty have fallen; those who were adorned have merited shame and disgrace. Those clothed in silk and purple cannot put on Christ. Those adorned with gold and pearls and necklaces have lost the ornaments of heart and breast. Who would not execrate and flee what has been the ruin of another? Who would seek and take up what has served as sword and weapon for the destruction of another? If he who had drunk from a cup were to die, you would know that what he drank was poison. If he who had received food were to perish after receiving it, you would know that what was received and could kill was deadly, and you would neither eat nor drink from that from which you had seen others perish before.

Now how great is the ignorance of truth, how great the madness of mind, to wish for that which has always harmed and does harm, and to think that you yourself will not perish from that from which you know others have perished!

For God did not make scarlet or purple mouths, nor did he teach how to dye and color wools with the juices of herbs and shellfish, nor did he institute necklaces fashioned with gold set with gems and pearls arranged in alternating series and numerous composition, with which you might hide the neck he made, so that what God formed in man might be covered, and what the devil devised might be seen upon it. Did God will that wounds be inflicted on ears, so that innocent infancy, still ignorant of worldly evil, might be tormented, so that afterwards precious grains might hang from the scars and cavities of the ears, heavy not by their own weight but by the quantity of the merchandise? All these things sinners and apostate angels revealed by their arts when, having fallen to earthly defilements, they withdrew from heavenly strength.

They taught how to paint the eyes with encircling blackness and to taint the cheeks with the lie of redness and to change the hair with adulterous colors and to assail all the truth of face and head with the assault of their corruption.

And indeed in this place, out of the fear which faith suggests to us, out of the love which brotherhood requires, I think that not only virgins or widows, but also married women and absolutely all women should be admonished that the work and handiwork and fashioning of God ought in no way to be adulterated by the application of yellow color, or black powder, or rouge, or any medicament whatsoever that corrupts the natural features.

God says: Let us make man in our image and likeness. And does anyone dare to alter and change what God has made? They lay hands upon God when they strive to reform and transfigure what he has formed, not knowing that everything which is born is the work of God, and whatever is changed is the work of the devil. If a painter had portrayed the face and appearance and bodily quality of some person with a rival color, and after the likeness had been completed and finished, another were to lay hands upon it to reform what was already formed and already painted, as though he were more skilled, it would seem a grave injury to the first artist and a just cause for indignation. Do you think you will escape unpunished for the audacity of such wicked presumption, the offense against God the artist? For even if you are not unchaste and immodest toward men through the enticements of cosmetics, by corrupting and violating the things of God you are held as a worse adulteress.

What you think adorns you, what you think beautifies you, is an assault upon the divine work, a transgression of truth.

The voice of the admonishing Apostle says: Purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, as you are unleavened. For Christ our passover is sacrificed. Therefore let us keep the feast, not with the old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. Does sincerity endure and truth remain when things that are sincere are polluted by the adulteries of colors, and true things are changed into falsehood by the adulterous dyes of medicaments? Your Lord says: Thou canst not make one hair white or black: and do you wish to be more powerful than the voice of your Lord? With bold attempt and sacrilegious contempt you dye your hair, with an evil omen of things to come you already augur for yourself hair that is flame-colored, and you sin, O wickedness! In your head, that is, in the nobler part of the body.

And since it is written of the Lord: But his head and his hairs were white as wool or as snow, you execrate grey hair, you detest the whiteness that is like unto the head of the Lord.

Do you not fear, I ask, being such as you are, lest when the day of resurrection comes, your Maker may not recognize you as you come to his rewards and promises, and may remove and exclude you, rebuking you with the force of a censor and judge, and say: This work is not mine, nor is this our image. You polluted your skin with false cosmetic, you changed your hair with adulterous color, your face has been assailed with falsehood, your form has been corrupted, your countenance is alien. You will not be able to see God, since your eyes are not those which God made, but those which the devil has stained. You followed him, you imitated the glowing and painted eyes of the serpent, adorned by your enemy, destined to burn together with him. Are these things, I ask, not to be pondered by the servants of God? Are they not to be feared always, day and night?

Let married women see what comfort from their husbands they flatter themselves with through the desire of pleasing; when they bring them forward in their own excuse, they admit them into partnership in criminal consent. Virgins certainly, for whom this discourse now takes counsel, who have adorned themselves with arts of this kind, I think ought not to be numbered among virgins, but should be kept away, as tainted sheep and diseased cattle, from the holy and pure flock of virginity, lest by their contagion they pollute the others while living together with them, lest those who have perished destroy others as well.

And since we seek the good of continence, let us avoid all things that are pernicious and harmful. Nor do I pass over those things which, coming into use through negligence, have made license for themselves by custom against modest and sober morals. Some are not ashamed to attend weddings, and amid that wanton freedom of lascivious talk to mingle in unchaste conversation, to hear what is not fitting, to say what is not permitted, to be observed and to be present amid shameful words and drunken banquets by which the fuel of lusts is kindled, the bride emboldened to endure defilement, the bridegroom emboldened to audacity. What place is there at a wedding for one whose mind is not set on marriage, or how can she be joyful and glad there where both pursuits and desires are different? What is learned there, what is seen there? How far does a virgin fall from her purpose, when she who came modest departs immodest?

Though she remain a virgin in body and mind, she diminishes by her eyes, ears, and tongue what she had.

But what of those who resort to promiscuous baths, who prostitute bodies consecrated to modesty and chastity before eyes curious for lust? Who, when they see men naked and are seen naked by men in shameful fashion, do they not themselves offer enticement to vices? Do they not solicit and invite the desires of those present to their own corruption and injury? You say: Let him see to it with what mind he comes thither; my only concern is to refresh my poor body and to wash. That defence does not cleanse you, nor does it excuse the charge of wantonness and licentiousness. That washing defiles, it does not wash away, nor does it cleanse the limbs, but stains them. You look upon no one immodestly; but you yourself are looked upon immodestly. You do not pollute your eyes with foul delight; but while you delight others, you yourself are polluted. You make a spectacle of the bath. The place where you assemble is more foul than a theatre.

There all modesty is stripped off; at the same time as the garment is removed, the honour and shame of the body is laid aside, virginity is revealed to be marked out and handled. Consider now whether, when you are clothed, you are modest among men—you who by the boldness of nakedness gain in shamelessness.

Thus therefore does the Church frequently mourn over her virgins; thus does she groan at their infamous and detestable stories; thus is the flower of virgins extinguished, the honour and shame of continence is cut down, all glory and dignity is profaned. Thus the hostile assailant inserts himself through his arts; thus the devil creeps in by snares that deceive through hidden ways. Thus, while virgins wish to adorn themselves more elaborately, while they wish to wander more freely, they cease to be virgins, corrupted by stolen disgrace, widows before they are brides; not adulterers of a husband but of Christ; as great rewards had been destined for them as virgins, so great punishments shall they feel for lost virginity.

Hear me therefore, virgins, as a parent; hear, I beseech you, one who equally fears and admonishes you; hear one who faithfully consults your interests and advantages. Be such as God your maker made you: be such as the hand of the Father fashioned you: let the face remain uncorrupted in you, the neck pure, the form sincere. Let no wounds be inflicted on the ears, nor let a precious chain of bracelets and necklaces enclose the arms or neck; let the feet be free from golden fetters, the hair dyed with no colour, the eyes worthy to behold God. Let baths be frequented with women, among whom the washing is modest. Let the wanton festivities of weddings and lascivious banquets be avoided, whose contagion is dangerous. Overcome dress, you who are a virgin: overcome gold, you who overcome the flesh and the world. It is not fitting for the same person to be unable to be overcome by greater things and to be found unequal to lesser ones.

Strait and narrow is the way that leads to life; hard and steep is the path that tends to glory. Along this path of the way martyrs proceed, virgins go, all the just walk. Avoid the broad and spacious roads. There are deadly enticements and death-bearing pleasures. There the devil flatters in order to deceive, smiles in order to harm, allures in order to kill. The first fruit, that of martyrs, is a hundredfold; the second, which is yours, is sixtyfold.

As among martyrs there is no thought of flesh and world, nor a small and light and delicate struggle, so also in you, whose reward of grace is second, let the virtue for endurance be likewise close. The ascent to great things is not easy. What sweat do we endure, what labour, when we strive to climb hills and the summits of mountains? What then, that we may ascend to heaven? If you attend to the reward of the promise, what you labour is less. Immortality is given to one who perseveres, perpetual life is promised, the Lord pledges a kingdom.

Keep, virgins, keep what you have begun to be, keep what you shall be. A great reward awaits you, a great prize of virtue, the greatest gift of chastity. Do you wish to know from what evil the virtue of continence is free, and what good it holds? I will multiply, God said to the woman, your sorrows and your groanings, and in sorrow you shall bring forth children, and your turning shall be to your husband, and he shall have dominion over you. You are free from this sentence, you do not fear the sorrows and groanings of women. You have no fear from childbirth concerning children, nor is a husband lord over you, but your lord and head is Christ in the likeness and stead of a male. The lot and condition is common to you. It is the voice of the Lord saying in that place: The children of this age beget and are begotten.

But they who shall have been accounted worthy of that age and of the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor contract matrimony. For neither shall they begin to die: for they are equal to the Angels of God, since they are children of the resurrection. What we are to be, you have already begun to be. You already hold in this age the glory of the resurrection, you pass through the age without the contagion of the age. While you persevere chaste and virgin, you are equal to the Angels of God. Let only solid and uninjured virginity remain and endure, and as it has begun strongly, let it persevere continually; and let it seek not the ornaments of necklaces or garments, but of character. Let it look upon God and heaven, and not cast down eyes stretched upward to the sublime toward the lust of flesh and world, nor lower them to earthly things.

The first commandment bade to increase and to beget, the second counselled continence. When the world was still raw and empty, those who beget are propagated by fruitfulness in abundance, and we increase for the augmentation of the human race: but when the world is now full and the earth replenished, those who are able to receive continence, living after the manner of eunuchs, are made eunuchs for the kingdom. Nor does the Lord command this, but exhorts; nor does he impose the yoke of necessity, since the free choice of the will remains. But when he says that there are many mansions with his Father, he points out the lodgings of a better dwelling. You seek these better dwellings, castrating the desires of the flesh, and obtain in the heavenly places the reward of greater grace.

All indeed who attain through the sanctification of holy Baptism to the divine washing, there put off the old man by the grace of the saving washing, and renewed in the Holy Spirit, are cleansed from the filths of the ancient contagion by a second birth. But a greater holiness and truth of the second birth befits you, in whom there are now no desires of flesh and body. In you there remain only those things which belong to virtue and the spirit for glory. It is the voice of the Apostle, whom the Lord called the vessel of his election, whom God sent to set forth the heavenly commandments: The first man, he says, from the clay of the earth, the second man from heaven. As he who is of clay, such also are they who are of clay; and as the heavenly, such also are the heavenly. As we have borne the image of him who is of clay, let us bear also the image of him who is of heaven.

This image virginity bears, integrity bears it, holiness and truth bear it; those bear it who are mindful of the disciplines of God, retaining justice together with religion, steadfast in faith, humble in fear, strong for all endurance, gentle in sustaining injury, ready to show mercy, unanimous and concordant in brotherly peace.

Each of these things, O good virgins, you ought to observe, to love, to fulfil; you who, being free for God and Christ, go before to the Lord to whom you have dedicated yourselves, in the greater and better part. Those advanced in years, provide instruction for the younger; those younger in age, offer encouragement to your equals. Kindle one another with mutual exhortations, provoke one another to glory with emulous examples of virtue. Endure bravely, proceed spiritually, arrive happily. Only remember us then, when virginity shall begin to be honoured in you.