S. Ephraim's Prose Refutations of Mani, Marcion and Bardaisan. Transcribed from the Palimpsest B.M. Add. 14623 by the late C. W. MITCHELL, M.A., C.F., volume 2 (1921). On Virginity
ON VIRGINITY.
A DISCOURSE OF S. EPHRAIM ON VIRGINITY.
[p. 170.]
I. PUT off, O Body, that Old Man which is altogether hateful, that it may not wear out the newness that thou inhabitest and hast put on ; for the recompense of its interest is contrary with its clothes, in that if thou hast been renewed it will return and wear thee out : O Body, hear my counsels ! Put it off by (good) conduct, that it may not clothe thee in (bad) habits.
II. For, lo, our Lord has made thee, O Body, new in water, and the Architect of Life has built thy oldness, in that He formed with His Blood and built for it a shrine for His habitation ; do [P. 171.] not let dwell instead of Him that Old Man in the shrine He has renewed : O Body, if thou dost make God to stay in thy shrine, thou also wilt be a temple of His kingdom and a priest of His sacrifice.
III. For this Old Man is reproved by Nature that teaches and the Book that proclaims, for its wickedness is between two just things, that if it sins in respect of what is without law, its Nature will reprove it, and if it sins in respect of law, the Book will reprove it. Lo, it wounds and they heal; on the track of wickedness they bring in regret, whereby he that sins is healed. |lxxxi
IV. Him that rebels they treat with contempt, and him that returns they bind up his wounds; they justify the Judge, they reprove the rebels, they care for and heal those who return : for they know that they will be measured with one Evil one, who hurts everything, who is fresh in every generation, and is a companion to every one, and hurts every hour ; they also are companions to every one, and are fresh in every generation, and are found at every hour.
V. Hearken to Nature and Law declaring his evil corruptions ! For the People (of Israel) who committed adultery under the Law, [P. 172.] and the Peoples who fornicated without Law, changed their Nature and behaved contrary to their Nature ; Nature and Law have appealed against him, whose dispositions the Disturber has corrupted.
VI. The humble ones have stolen away from marriage under pretext of discipleship, and when they are halfway he (the 'Old Man') has set behind them the shame of stumbling and in front of them hateful desire ; being ashamed to revert to marriage, they fall and are taken in the snares.
VII. How light are thy wings, O Virginity, that soar and go up to where thy Bridegroom sits at the right hand of the Lord of the Heights ! Flee from the counsel of the deceiver, for he who apportions debt to the inexperienced is wont to cast his whole property for nothing to the loss of the merchants (?).
VIII. He impoverished the treasures of great Adam, who with his money acquired a weight of debt. O Body, do not borrow from him that does not ask back what he has lent, that if thou pay him his silver the debt impoverishes.
IX. For accompanying its desires are apprehension and [P. 173.] doubt and contempt with disgrace, and they reject and give pain to the doers of them, and the faces only are open and pure of the chaste ones who have put it (? the 'old man') off ; do not be joined, O Body, with hateful love, of which however much the deed is dead, the anxiety of it lives secretly.
X. Subtle and cunning is his (the 'Old Man's') discipleship, in that by all sorts (of means) he will be bestowing his gifts upon the good. The mouth of the poor he stops with his bread ; with |lxxxii his free meals he sells free-men into slavery. The belly he has bribed and it has been corrupted ; (he has bribed) the eye to overlook, and the mouth to keep silence, and the ear to make his hateful reports. His silent wine is talkative in those that drink it; it babbles in their voices instead of its master.
XI. For he is cunning, in that first he puts on the mouth of his. snare food as a bait; his love goes in front of his corruption, like Judas, who kissed and killed. The Pure One kissed the unclean, to teach that his kisses are a poison and death is moulded by them secretly ; this is one who if thou raise him up will recompense thee with a fall, who when he rises lulls to sleep, the desire of whom is deadly. And thy own flesh makes it live and resurrects it (this desire), and when it is alive therein it turns and kills it. O Body, if thou give life to deadness, there will be death also for thy life.
XII. Let Fire be a demonstration for thee, that is buried and dead in secret, and the rubbing of wood with wood brings it to life for the destruction of both of them ; but when it ( i.e. Fire) has come to life it turns to burn the substance that brought it to life by its companionship. Oh, the evident illustration !— that Wood is made a grave for Fire, and when the one has been resurrected from it, it is destroyed by that one !
XIII. For Freedom is as life and as soul to the desires, and by it they live ; and if from it thou cut and cast them off they become dead. It is given authority that by its will faults stand and by its will sins fall; it is the likeness of the Most High whose Power upholdeth everything, and if He should withdraw it everything would fall.
XIV. The Judge is just, in that He does not immediately [P. 175.] a man has sinned requite him. Wherefore regret comes because of two things : that if he repents it will have wiped out his wickedness, and if he rebels it will have taken away from him all excuse ; wherefore in all faults regret is on the watch to carry witness to the court of Justice.
XV. Learn, O Body, Repentance and not every-day regret; for Repentance is as a Healer to our wounds, but this regret is a stalk of straw, and it brings a relapse of pains every day. |lxxxiii
XVI. The signature is on every tax-collector's bond for him who owes money ; so by the same illustration regret is a tax-collector in its silence for him that is in debt for sins. O Body, if thou hast accustomed thyself to repent and again thou sin, thy regret is the signature of thy bond.
XVII. It is written that if a man have wronged his wife, her parents shall go forth and declare her virginity, because the judges could not see the secret things ; the tokens of virginity on the veil were declaring the truth before the judges. But because thy own Bridegroom is one that seeth secret things, [P. 176.] to thy secret Lord in virginity show the secret things in the flesh ; not in thy veil but in thy body shew injuries, and do not in veils thy own virginity shew to thy Bridegroom.
XVIII. In the guise of a lamb the cunning Amnon approached the ewe, and when he had deceived her about what was hers he did what was his ; in that he saw that virginity was rebellious in her nest, the healthy wolf that made himself ill deceitfully made her enter his den and so trapped her ; the invalid that was torpid got up to the contest and snatched away the crown that was for her shame.
XIX. That Athlete who saw that as long as he was standing he did not throw, and he hasted and fell, and so threw off and broke the yoke with cohabitation, and dared even to adultery, and the wicked one who sowed in the chamber his harvest, in his field the sword ruined him, who had ruined virginity, and he who had spotted it with its blood washed in his own blood. They made him drunk and rose up and dragged him away ; and for that he had ill-treated the sheep, vengeance was demanded in the time of sheep-shearing. [P. 177.]
XX. If a virgin be ill-treated in the field Moses the Stammerer, the advocate of truth, he is persuaded about her that "the girl cried out and there is no help." For thine own self, O virginity, |lxxxiv who is there to persuade, that in the midst of peace art taken captive and art silent ? Do not give thyself to captivity in the midst of peace, that peace may not bind thee in the court of Justice.
XXI. As for the married women and virgins that were in Midian, he killed those which had played the harlot and kept alive those on whom was set the seal of virginity. But if virginity kept alive heathen women, how much more will it keep alive pure ones ?