On Holy Virginity

³⁷ But regard the troops of virgins, holy boys and girls: this kind has been trained up in Your Church: there for You it has been budding from its mother's breasts; for Your Name it has loosed its tongue to speak, Your Name, as through the milk of its infancy, it has had poured in and has sucked, no one of this number can say, “I, who before was a blasphemer, and persecutor, and injurious, but I obtained mercy, in that I did in being ignorant, in unbelief.” Yea more, that, which You did not command, but only set forth, for such as would, to seize, saying, “Whoso can receive, let him receive;” they have seized, they have vowed, and, for the sake of the kingdom of heaven, not for that You threatened, but for that You exhorted, they have made themselves eunuchs. To these cry out, let these hear You, in that You are “meek and lowly of heart.”

Let these, by how much they are great, by so much humble themselves in all things, that they may find grace before You. They are just: but they are not, are they, such as You, justifying the ungodly? They are chaste: but them in sins their mothers nurtured in their wombs. They are holy, but You are also Holy of Holies. They are virgins, but they are not also born of virgins. They are wholly chaste both in spirit and in flesh: but they are not the Word made flesh. And yet let them learn, not from those unto whom You forgive sins, but from You Yourself, The Lamb of God Who takest away the sins of the world, in that You are “meek and lowly of heart.”