Bishop
John Chrysostom’s fourth-century treatise “On
Virginity,” translated here from its original Greek,
is a promotion of celibacy as a superior way of life
to marriage. To be a virgin on earth, he argues, is
tantamount to the status of an angel in heaven. Chrysostom’s
commentary is based on Paul’s writings in I Corinthians
7, but unlike Paul, he claims that marriage is a sin
associated with the fall of humankind in Eden. While
marriage is evidence of human weakness, virginity is
evidence of bravery and fortitude: Because the virgin
is able to control her sexual desire, she will be able
to reap rewards in the afterlife.
John Chrysostom, “On Virginity; Against Remarriage,”
trans. Sally Rieger Shore; Introduction by Elizabeth
A. Clark (New York: E. Mellon Press, 1983).
XI
Virginity Makes Angels Out of Men Who Sincerely Pursue
It
1. But mankind, inferior in its nature to be blessed
spirits, strains beyond its capacity and, in so far
as it can, vies eagerly to equal the angels. How does
it do that? Angels neither marry nor are given in marriage;
this is true of the virgin. The angels have stood continuously
by God and serve him; so does the virgin. Accordingly,
Paul has removed all cares from virgins “to promote
what is good, what will help you to devote yourselves
entirely (to God).” If they are unable for a time
to ascend to heaven as the angels can because their
flesh holds them back, even in this world they have much
consolation since they receive the Master of the heavens,
if they are holy in body and spirit.
2. Do you grasp
the value of virginity? That it makes those who spend
time on earth live like the angels dwelling in heaven?
It does not allow those endowed with bodies to be inferior
to the incorporeal powers and spurs all men to rival
the angels. But this applies in no way to you, who dishonor
so great a virtue, who slander the Lord and call him
wicked. The punishment of painful slavery will await
you; but the virgins of the Church will meet with many
magnificent blessings that will surpass the comprehension
of the human eye, ear and thought. Therefore, dismissing
the heretics—for enough has been said about them—let
us now speak to the children of the Church. . . .
XXXIII
To Repeat, to Practice Virginity Is to Imitate Christ
1. Thus Paul continually returns to this point in order
to lead the Corinthians to this reasoning: “Every
man should have his own wife; the husband should fulfill
his conjugal obligations toward his wife; a wife does
not belong to herself; do not deprive one another; return
to one another.” For the blessed apostles did not
grasp at once Christ’s meaning from his first words
on the subject, but when they heard it repeated, then
they were aware of the imperative nature of his remarks.
When Christ was sitting on the mountain, he discussed
continence and returned to it again after treating many
other subjects. In this way he led them to the love
of it. Thus do statements that are constantly repeated
have greater force. Here, then, the apostle Paul, imitating
the Master, discusses his topic continuously. Nowhere
does he simply set forth his consent for marriage, but
rather he always adds the reason: “Because of fornication,
the temptations of Satan and incontinence.” And
so, he subtly praises virginity when he speaks about
marriage.
XXXIV
Virginity Is Admirable and Worthy of Many Crowns
1. If Paul has feared separating for a long period those
who live in the state of marriage out of his concern
that the devil may discover a way to their souls, how
many crowns would those women deserve who needed no
such encouragement to begin with and who preserve to
the end unconquered? Yet the cunning work of the devil
is not applied in the same way to each case. I think
he does not harass the former group because he knows
that they have a place of refuge close by. If they experience
too violent an attack, it is possible to flee directly
to that haven. Saint Paul does not allow them to sail
out too far but advises them to turn round whenever
they tire and to renew the communal life. The virgin,
on the other hand, is of necessity entirely at sea and
sails a harborless ocean. If a very severe storm arises,
it is not her right to anchor ship and rest.
2. Therefore it is like pirates on the sea; they do
not attack ships where there is a city, seaport or harbor,
for this involves a useless risk. But if they intercept
a ship on the high sea, since they have solitude for
their work with no chance of someone coming to the rescue,
this situation feeds their recklessness. They ransack
and overturn everything, and do not stop until they
have drown the crew or suffered this fate themselves.
This is how that dread pirate assaults the virgin: with
a great storm accompanied by a distressful surging of
the sea and towering waves. Tossing her this way and
that he so confounds everything that he overturns her
ship with brute force. He has heard that the virgin
has no recourse to the married state of intimacy but
must wrestle entirely by herself and battle against
the spirits of evil until she puts into a truly calm
harbor.
3. Paul shuts the virgin outside the walls like a brave
soldier and he does not permit opening the gates to
her, even if the enemy rages against her, even if the
enemy becomes more violent precisely because his adversary
has no means of ending the action. The devil is not
alone in harassing the unmarried. The sting of desire
does this, too, with greater urgency. This is clear
to all, for we are not quickly overcome by the desire
for things that we enjoy, since the license to enjoy
them allows the souls to be indifferent to them. A proverb,
popular and quite true, attests to this: What is within
our grasp does not excite strong desire. However, once
forbidden what we were formerly masters of, the opposite
results, and what was scorned by us when we had authority
over it arouses in us a more violent desire whenever
we lose this power.
4. This is the first reason why there is more serenity
among married people. The second is that even if at
times the flame of passion struggles in them to reach
a climax, sexual intercourse follows and swiftly represses
it. But the virgin on the other hand has no remedy to
extinguish the fire. She sees it rising to a crescendo
and coming to a peak, but she lacks the power to put
it out. Her only chance is to fight the fire so that
she is not burnt. Is there, then, anything more extraordinary
than carrying within one all of this fire and not being
burnt? To collect in the inner chambers of the soul
this fire but to keep one's thoughts untouched by it?
No one concedes to the virgin the right of emptying
these coals of passion outside herself, yet what the
author of Proverbs says is impossible for our bodies,
she is compelled to endure in her soul. What does she
say? “Will someone walk upon burning coal and not
burn his feet?” But behold, she walks upon it and
bears the torture! “Will someone wrap fire in the
fold of his garments without his clothes burning?”
The virgin has the provocative fire roaring not within
her clothes, but within herself, yet she sustains and
endures the flame.
5. Tell me, will someone still dare to compare marriage
with virginity? Or look marriage in the face at all?
Saint Paul does not permit it. He puts much distance
between each of these states. “The virgin is concerned
with things of the Lord,” he says, but “the
married woman has the cares of this world to absorb
her.” Moreover, after gathering married people
together and having done this favor for them, hear how
he reproaches them again for he says: “Return to
one another, that Satan may not tempt you.” And
since he wishes to indicate that not all sins stem from
the devil’s temptations but from our own idleness,
he has added the more valid reason: because of “your
lack of self-control.”
6. Who would not blush hearing this? Who would not earnestly
try to escape blame for incontinence? For this exhortation
is not for everyone but for those extremely prone to
vice. If you are enslaved by pleasures, he says, if
you are so weak as to have always given way to coitus
and to gape in eager expectation at it, he joined to
a woman. The consent therefore comes not from one approving
or praising this action but from one scoffing at it
with derision. If it had not been his desire to assail
the souls of pleasure-seekers, he would not have set
down this term, “incontinence,” which quite
emphatically conveys the idea of censure. Why did he
not say “because of your weakness”? Because
that phrase is one of indulgence but to say incontinence
denotes excessive moral laxity. Thus, the inability
to refrain from fornication unless you always have a
wife and enjoy sexual relations is an indication of
incontinence.
7. What would those people who consider virginity superfluous
say at this point? For the more virginity is practiced
the more praise it receives, whereas marriage is deprived
of all praise especially when someone has used it immoderately.
“I say this,” Paul declares, “by way
of concession, not as a command.” But where there
is a concession there is no place for praise. He also
said, however, in his discussion of virgins: “I
have not received any commandment from the Lord, but
I give my opinion.” Has he not undercut his own
position? Not at all. In the case of virginity he has
given his opinion but in the case of marriage he makes
a concession. He orders neither the one nor the other
but not for the same reason: in the one case, so that
anyone who desires to rise above incontinence not be
restrained, as he would be if bound by injunction; but
in the other case, so that someone incapable of ascending
to virginity not be condemned for having disobeyed a
commandment. I do not order you to live as virgins,
he says; for I fear the difficulty of the task. I do
not order you to continually have relations with your
wife; for I do not wish to be the legislator of incontinence.
I have said “return to one another” with the
intention of keeping you from sinking lower, not to
check your willingness to advance higher.
8. You see, it is not his intention to lead you to continually
resorting to your wife, but the incontinence of those
weaker morally requires this rule. If you wish to learn
the will of Paul, hear what it is: “I should like
you to be as I am,” that is, continent.—So,
if you want all men to be continent, you want no one
to marry.—No, not at all. I do not prevent those
who want to marry, nor do I reproach them, but I pray
and long for all men to be as I myself am. However,
I give my consent to marriage because of fornication.
Therefore, I said at the beginning: “A man is better
off having no relations with a woman.” . . .
Contributing author: Michelle Ephraim,
Worcester Polytechnic Institute
1). Why might Chrysostom select metaphors such as a ship and a soldier to describe a virgin in this excerpt?
2). Why does he condemn the “serenity” that he associates with marriage?
3). Based on Chrysostom’s privileging of virginity and celibacy over marriage, what values would you say he ascribes to the ideal Christian?
