Cyprian & Lactantius · a new plain-English translation from the original language
Discipline is the guardian of hope, the rein of faith, the guide on the road to salvation, the spark and nourishment of a good nature, the teacher of virtue; it makes a person abide always and continually in Christ and live for God, and arrive at the heavenly promises and divine rewards. To pursue it is wholesome, to turn from it and neglect it is deadly. In the Psalms the Holy Spirit speaks: cling to discipline, so the Lord does not grow angry, and you wander off the true path once his fury flares up swiftly toward you. And again: but to the sinner God says, why do you recite my statutes and take my covenant on your lips? You have hated discipline and cast my words behind you. And again we read: whoever casts off discipline is wretched. And from Solomon we have received the commands of wisdom's warning: my son, do not neglect the discipline of God, nor faint when corrected by him, for whom the Lord loves he corrects. But if God corrects the one he loves, and corrects in order to amend, then brothers too, and priests above all, correct in love rather than hatred those they discipline, meaning to amend them—just as God himself declared long before through Jeremiah, pointing ahead to our present age: shepherds suited to my own heart is what I shall grant you, and they shall pasture you, feeding you with discipline.
But if in the sacred writings discipline is urged frequently and everywhere, and the whole foundation of religion and faith proceeds from observance and fear, what should we more eagerly seek, what more should we wish to hold fast, than that, with our roots driven in more firmly and our dwellings set fast upon the rock with solid mass, we may stand unshaken against the storms and whirlwinds of the age, and come to God's gifts through his divine precepts, considering and knowing at once that our members are temples of God, cleansed from every stain of ancient contagion by the sanctification of the life-giving washing, and that it is not right for them to be violated or defiled, since whoever defiles them will himself be violated? We are the worshippers and priests of these temples: let us be slaves to him whose own we have already started becoming. Paul says in his letters, by which he has shaped us for the course of living through divine teaching: you are not your own, for you were bought at a great price. Glorify God and carry him in your body. Let us glorify and carry God with a pure and clean body and with better observance, and since we have been redeemed through the blood of Christ, let us obey the command of our redeemer in every service of that bondage, and make sure that our redeemer's temple is never given anything unclean or profane, so that he does not, feeling wronged, abandon the seat he inhabits. These are the words of the Lord who saves and teaches, who heals and warns at once: behold, he says, you have been made well; sin no more, lest something worse happen to you. He gives the fear proper to living, he gives the law of innocence, after he has bestowed health, nor does he allow one to wander afterward with loose and slackened reins, but rather threatens more gravely the very one he had healed, since sinning before was, of course, the lesser fault, back when the discipline of God was still unknown to you—once you have come to know God, sinning further finds no pardon at all. And indeed this both men and women, both boys and girls, every sex and every age, should observe and take care of, for the sake of the religion and faith they owe to God, lest what is received as holy and pure from the Lord's regard be held with too little anxious fear.
Now our word is to virgins, whose glory, the more exalted it is, the greater is our concern for it. She is the flower of the church's growth, the beauty and ornament of spiritual grace, a joyful nature, a whole and uncorrupted work of praise and honor, an image of God answering to the Lord's holiness, the brighter share of Christ's own flock. Through them and in them the glorious fruitfulness of mother church rejoices and abundantly flourishes, and the more that plentiful virginity adds to its number, the more the mother's joy increases. It is to these we speak, these we exhort, rather by affection than by authority, not that we, the least and lowest, quite conscious of our own lowliness, should claim any right of censure, but rather because, out of greater caution and concern, we fear more the assaults of the devil.
Nor is this caution empty, nor this fear vain, which takes counsel for the path of salvation, which keeps the Lord's own life-giving precepts, so that those who have dedicated themselves to Christ and, withdrawing from carnal desire, have vowed themselves to God both in flesh and in mind, may complete their work destined for a great reward, and be eager to be adorned and to please no one but their own Lord—the very one from whom the crown reserved for virginity is awaited, as he himself puts it: not everyone can take in this saying, only those granted it; he then names three classes of eunuchs�men born that way straight from the womb, men reduced to it by another's compulsion, and men who cut themselves off by their own will for heaven's kingdom. Again, too, through this voice of an angel the gift of continence is shown, virginity is proclaimed: these are the ones untouched by contact with women, remaining virgins still. These follow the Lamb, wherever his path leads. For the Lord does not promise the grace of continence to males alone and pass over women, but since woman is a portion of man and was taken and formed from him, in almost all the scriptures God speaks to the first-formed human as to both, since the two are one flesh, and in the male at once both male and female are signified.
But if continence follows Christ and the kingdom of God is where virginity is bound, what have these women to do with earthly finery and with jewelry, by wearing which, eager as they are to please men, they give offense to God instead, forgetting it was foretold: those who please men stand ashamed, because God has counted them as nothing; and Paul too declares, with grandeur and loftiness: were I still trying to please men, I would be no servant of Christ. Continence and chastity, in truth, rest not on soundness of flesh alone, but equally on the honor and modesty kept in dress and adornment, so that—following the apostle—the unmarried woman may be holy in both body and spirit. Paul teaches, saying: the unmarried person thinks of the Lord's affairs, of how to please God; but whoever has taken a spouse thinks of this world's affairs, of how to please a wife. In the same way the woman and the unmarried virgin thinks of the Lord's affairs, so that she may be holy in body and in spirit alike. A woman ought not merely to be a virgin, but must be recognized and trusted as one; let no one, upon seeing a virgin, wonder whether she really is one. Let her wholeness show itself the same in every respect, and let the fine reputation of her bearing go undisgraced. Why does she step out adorned, why arrayed, as if she had a husband or were hunting for one? Rather let her dread the thought of pleasing, if she truly is a virgin, and not court her own peril, keeping herself instead for things better and divine. Having no husband, whom would she be pretending to please? Let her hold fast, entire and pure, not merely in the body but in the spirit too. For it is not fitting that a virgin groom herself to display the shape of her beauty, or take pride in her flesh and its comeliness, since for such women no struggle is greater than the fight waged against the flesh, and the stubborn contest of subduing and mastering the body.
Paul cries out in a strong and lofty voice: far be it from me to glory, except in the cross of my Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world has been crucified to me and I to the world; and shall a virgin in the church glory in the beauty of the flesh and the comeliness of the body? Paul adds and says: those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its vices and desires. Yet the woman who claims to have given up the flesh's cravings and its faults is caught still holding what she claimed to have given up. You are caught, virgin, you are exposed: you boast of being one thing and you strive after another. You spatter yourself with the stains of carnal desire, when you should be a candidate for wholeness and modesty. Cry out, says God through Isaiah, all flesh is grass, and all its glory like the flower of the grass. The grass has withered and the flower has fallen. But the word of the Lord endures forever. It befits no Christian, and least of all a virgin, to reckon on any glory or honor of the flesh, but to seek only the word of God, and to embrace the good things that will remain forever. Or if one must glory in the flesh, let it be plainly then, when in the confession of the Name she is tormented, when a woman is found stronger than her male torturers, 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 finer adornments of the body.
But there are some women wealthy and enriched by an abundance of means, who put their riches on display and insist they have every right to enjoy their own goods. Let them understand first that true riches belong to the woman rich in God, that true wealth belongs to the woman wealthy in Christ, that the only goods deserving the name are those spiritual, divine, heavenly ones that lead us toward God and remain with us as a lasting possession before him. Whatever, by contrast, is earthly, gained in this present age and bound to stay behind with this age, deserves the same contempt as the world itself, whose pomps and pleasures we already renounced the moment we crossed over, by a better road, to God. John rouses us and exhorts us, testifying with a spiritual and heavenly voice: he tells us plainly: set no love on the world, nor on whatever belongs to it. Whoever loves the world, the Father's love has no home in him: because everything the world contains is the flesh's desire and the eyes' desire and worldly ambition, none of which come from the Father but from the world's own craving. And the world will pass away, and its desire along with it, but whoever carries out God's will remains forever, just as God himself remains forever. What is eternal and divine, then, is what we must pursue, doing everything according to God's will, so that we might follow in the footsteps and teaching of our Lord, who gave this warning: I did not come down from heaven to carry out a will of my own, but the will of the one who sent me. And if no servant outranks his master, and a freed man owes his liberator obedience, then those of us wanting to be called Christian ought to copy what Christ himself said. It stands written, is read aloud, is heard, and is proclaimed by the church's own voice as our pattern: whoever claims to remain in Christ owes it to walk as Christ walked. We must tread in matching steps, straining to keep pace in rival advance. Only then will the pursuit of truth answer to the faith our name implies, and the reward comes to the believer only once belief has also become deed.
You call yourself wealthy and rich, yet your riches meet their match in Paul, who fixes by his own words a proper limit for your dress and finery. Let women, he says, array themselves with modesty and chastity, not with braided hair, nor gold, nor pearls, nor costly clothing, but as befits women who profess purity, through good conduct. Peter too agrees with these same precepts and says: let the adornment of a woman not be the outward one of ornament or gold or clothing, but the adornment of the heart. But if he warns even women—who might excuse their finery through a husband—to be held in check and shaped by the church's own religious discipline, how much more is a virgin bound to keep this rule, since for her there is no excuse at all for adornment, no way to shift the falsehood of the fault onto anyone else—the guilt rests on her alone.
You call yourself wealthy and rich. But not everything within one's power ought therefore to be done, nor should extravagant wishes, bred out of worldly ambition, be stretched past the honor and modesty that virginity demands, for scripture puts it thus: everything is permitted, yet not everything does good; everything is permitted, yet not everything builds up. Moreover, if you groom yourself too lavishly and go about the public streets in a way that draws attention, if you entice the eyes of the young toward yourself, draw the sighs of youths after you, nourish the lust of desire, kindle the fuel of hope, so that, even if you yourself do not perish, you destroy others, and offer yourself like a sword and a poison to those who see you, you cannot excuse yourself as though you were chaste and modest in mind. Your shameless dress and immodest adornment convict you, and you can no longer be counted among the girls and virgins of Christ, if you live in such a way that you can be desired.
You call yourself wealthy and rich. But boasting of her riches does not suit a virgin, since divine scripture asks: what has our pride gained us, or what has boasting of wealth brought us? All those things passed by like a shadow; and the apostle likewise warns and says: let those who buy be as though they possessed not, and those who use this world as though they did not use it, for the form of this world is passing away. Peter too, entrusted by the Lord to feed and guard his sheep, the one on whom he built and founded the church, denies owning gold or silver for himself, yet calls himself rich through Christ's own grace, wealthy through faith in him and through his power, by which he wrought many great wonders and miracles, by which he overflowed with the spiritual goods leading toward glory's reward. Such wealth, such riches cannot belong to a woman who would rather be rich toward the world than toward Christ.
You call yourself wealthy and rich, and think you are meant to use what God has willed you to own. Use it, but toward wholesome ends and worthy pursuits; use it for what God has commanded, for what the Lord has shown. Let the poor feel you to be rich, let the needy feel you to be wealthy; lend your patrimony to God, feed Christ with it; so that you may be permitted to bear the glory of virginity, so that you may come to reach the Lord's rewards, win it by the prayers of many. Store your treasures there, where no thief digs them up, where no lurking robber breaks in; acquire possessions for yourself, but rather heavenly ones, where your gains are continual and everlasting, immune from every touch of worldly harm, where no rust consumes, no hail beats down, no sun scorches, no rain spoils. In this very matter you sin against God, if you believe he handed you riches so that you would fail to put them to healthy use. God gave man a voice too, and yet love-songs and shameful ones are not to be sung; God willed that iron exist for the tilling of the earth, yet murders are not therefore to be committed; or because the Lord established incense and wine and fire, must sacrifice therefore be offered to idols; or because flocks of cattle abound on your land, must you offer up victims and sacrifices? Indeed a great patrimony is itself a temptation, unless one's wealth is put to good uses, so that each person, by means of their own patrimony, ought rather to buy back their sins than to increase them.
The marks and enticements of ornaments and garments, the seductions of beauty, suit none but shameless and prostituted women, and there is hardly any adornment more costly than that of women whose modesty is cheap. So too in the sacred scriptures, meant by the Lord to instruct and warn us, a harlot city gets described, decked out and made beautiful, doomed to perish together with—indeed on account of—those very ornaments. One of the seven angels holding the bowls came, it says, and approaching me said: come, I will point you to the sentence awaiting the great harlot enthroned above many waters, she with whom the earth's kings have played the harlot. He bore me off in spirit, and I beheld a woman seated on a beast; she was wrapped in a purple and scarlet garment, decked in gold and costly stones and pearls, gripping in her hand a golden cup brimming with abominations and the filth and fornication of the whole earth. Let chaste and modest virgins flee the adornment of the unchaste, the dress of the shameless, the marks of brothels, the ornaments of harlots.
Filled with the Holy Spirit, Isaiah too cries out and rebukes and reproaches the daughters of Zion, corrupted by gold and clothing, overflowing with ruinous wealth and falling away from God through the pleasures of the age. The daughters of Zion, he says, have been exalted, and have walked with outstretched neck and a glance of the eyes, and with a mincing gait of the feet, trailing their tunics and playing with their feet as they go. And God will bring low the chief daughters of Zion, and their finery the Lord will strip bare, stripping away too the splendor of their garments, their ornaments, their hair, their curls, their crescents, their headbands, their bracelets, their bangles, their armlets, their rings, their earrings, their silks woven through with gold and purple. And instead of a sweet perfume there will be dust, and instead of a girdle you will be girded with a rope, and instead of a golden ornament for the head you will have baldness. This God finds fault with, this he singles out; by this he declares that they have been corrupted, that by this they have fallen away from true and divine worship. Exalted, they have fallen; adorned, they have earned shame and disgrace. Clothed in silk and purple, they cannot clothe themselves with Christ; adorned with gold and pearls and jewels, they have lost the ornaments of heart and breast. Who would not curse and flee what has been another's ruin? Who would seek out and take up what has served, in place of the sword or the spear, for another's death? If a man drinking from a cup were to die from it, you would know that what he drank was poison; if one who ate a certain food perished after eating it, you would know that what could kill upon being taken was deadly, and you would neither eat nor drink of it, once you had seen others die from it. How great, then, is the ignorance of the truth, how great the madness of mind, to want the very thing that has always harmed and still harms, and to suppose that you yourself will not perish from that by which you know others have perished!
For God did not make scarlet or purple sheep, nor did he teach the dyeing and coloring of wool with the juices of plants and with shellfish, nor did he devise necklaces strung together with gold set with gems or pearls, arranged in numerous and elaborate links, with which to hide the neck he himself made, so that what God formed in a human being might be covered over, and what the devil invented might be displayed on top of it instead. Did God will that wounds be inflicted on ears, by which still-innocent infancy, ignorant of the world's evil, is made to suffer, so that afterward precious stones might hang from the scars and holes in the ears, heavy, if not in their own weight, then certainly in the sum of their price? All these things sinful and apostate angels revealed by their own arts, when, cast down to earthly corruption, they fell away from their heavenly vigor. They taught women to paint the eyes by circling them with black, to stain the cheeks with a false blush, to change the hair with counterfeit colors, and to assault every truth of face and head by the violence of their own corrupting art.