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Methodius of Olympus, The Banquet of the Ten Virgins; or Concerning Chastity
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The Banquet of the Ten Virgins or Concerning…
Chapter IV.—Human Generation, and the Work of God Therein Set Forth.
Chapter V.—The Holy Father Follows Up the Same Argument.
Chapter VI.—God Cares Even for Adulterous Births Angels Given to Them as Guardians.
Chapter III.—Comparison Instituted Between the First and Second Adam.
Chapter V.—A Passage of Jeremiah Examined.
Chapter VII.—The Works of Christ, Proper to God and to Man, the Works of Him Who is One.
Chapter IX.—The Dispensation of Grace in Paul the Apostle.
Chapter X.—The Doctrine of the Same Apostle Concerning Purity.
Chapter XI.—The Same Argument.
Chapter XII.—Paul an Example to Widows, and to Those Who Do Not Live with Their Wives.
Chapter XIII.—The Doctrine of Paul Concerning Virginity Explained.
Chapter XIV.—Virginity a Gift of God: the Purpose of Virginity Not Rashly to Be Adopted by Any One.
Chapter IV.—The Author Goes on with the Interpretation of the Same Passage.
Chapter V.—The Gifts of Virgins, Adorned with Which They are Presented to One Husband, Christ.
Chapter VI.—Virginity to Be Cultivated and Commended in Every Place and Time.
Chapter III.—Far Best to Cultivate Virtue from Boyhood.
Chapter IV.—Perfect Consecration and Devotion to God: What It is.
Chapter V.—The Vow of Chastity, and Its Rites in the Law Vines, Christ, and the Devil.
Chapter VII.—The Church Intermediate Between the Shadows of the Law and the Realities of Heaven.
Chapter VIII.—The Double Altar, Widows and Virgins Gold the Symbol of Virginity.
Chapter III.—The Same Endeavour and Effort After Virginity, with a Different Result.
Chapter IV.—What the Oil in the Lamps Means.
Chapter V.—The Reward of Virginity.
Chapter III.—Virgins Being Martyrs First Among the Companions of Christ.
Chapter VIII.—The Human Nature of Christ His One Dove.
Chapter IX.—The Virgins Immediately After the Queen and Spouse.
Chapter III.—The Lot and Inheritance of Virginity.
Chapter VIII.—The Faithful in Baptism Males, Configured to Christ The Saints Themselves Christs.
Chapter IX.—The Son of God, Who Ever Is, is To-Day Begotten in the Minds and Sense of the Faithful.
Chapter XVI.—Several Other Things Turned Against the Same Mathematicians.
Chapter XVII.—The Lust of the Flesh and Spirit: Vice and Virtue.
Chapter III.—How Each One Ought to Prepare Himself for the Future Resurrection.
Chapter V.—The Mystery of the Tabernacles.
Chapter IV.—The Law Useless for Salvation The Last Law of Chastity Under the Figure of the Bramble.
Chapter V.—The Malignity of the Devil as an Imitator in All Things Two Kinds of Fig-Trees and Vines.
Chapter II.—The Lofty Mind and Constancy of the Sacred Virgins; The Introduction of Virgins into the Blessed Abodes Before Others.
Those who take a downward flight, and fall into pleasures, do not desist from grief and labours until, through their passionate desires, they fulfil the want of their intemperance, and, being degraded and shut out from the sanctuary, they are removed from the scene of truth, and, instead of procreating children with modesty and temperance, they rave in the wild pleasures of unlawful amours. But those who, on light wing, ascend into the supramundane life, and see from afar what other men do not see, the very pastures of immortality, bearing in abundance flowers of inconceivable beauty, are ever turning themselves again to the spectacles there; and, for this reason, those things are thought small which are here considered noble—such as wealth, and glory, and birth, and marriage; and they think no more of those things.216 Than of the most ordinary things of life. But yet if any of them should choose to give up their bodies to wild beasts or to fire, and be punished, they are ready to have no care for pains, for the desire of them or the fear of them; so that they seem, while in the world, not to be in the world, but to have already reached, in thought and in the tendency of their desires, the assembly of those who are in heaven.
Now it is not right that the wing of virginity should, by its own nature, be weighed down upon the earth, but that it should soar upwards to heaven, to a pure atmosphere, and to the life which is akin to that of angels. Whence also they, first of all, after their call and departure hence, who have rightly and faithfully contended as virgins for Christ, bear away the prize of victory, being crowned by Him with the flowers of immortality. For, as soon as their souls have left the world, it is said that the angels meet them with much rejoicing, and conduct them to the very pastures already spoken of, to which also they were longing to come, contemplating them in imagination from afar, when, while they were yet dwelling in their bodies, they appeared to them divine.