62.  A great thing is virginity, and celibacy, and being ranked with the angels, and with the single nature; for I shrink from calling it Christ’s, Who, though He willed to be born for our sakes who are born, by being born of a Virgin, enacted113    Enacted by his religious rule, or as some say by a treatise on Virginity. the law of virginity, to lead us away from this life, and cut short the power of the world, or rather, to transmit one world to another, the present to the future.  Who then paid more honour to virginity, or had more control of the flesh, not only by his personal example, but in those under his care?  Whose are the convents, and the written regulations, by which he subdued every sense, and regulated every member, and won to the real practice of virginity, turning inward the view of beauty, from the visible to the invisible; and by wasting away the external, and withdrawing fuel from the flame, and revealing the secrets of the heart to God, Who is the only bridegroom of pure souls, and takes in with himself the watchful souls, if they go to meet him with lamps burning and a plentiful supply of oil?114    S. Matt. xxv. 2.  Moreover he reconciled most excellently and united the solitary and the community life.  These had been in many respects at variance and dissension, while neither of them was in absolute and unalloyed possession of good or evil:  the one being more calm and settled, tending to union with God, yet not free from pride, inasmuch as its virtue lies beyond the means of testing or comparison; the other, which is of more practical service, being not free from the tendency to turbulence.  He founded cells115    Cells, etc.  This passage strongly favours the view of Clemencet that S. Gregory uses μοναστήρια in the literal sense of “the abodes of solitaries,” and that there is no great distinction between κοινωνικοί and μιγάδες.  Cf. ii. 29. xxi. 10–19. for ascetics and hermits, but at no great distance from his cenobitic communities, and, instead of distinguishing and separating the one from the other, as if by some intervening wall, he brought them together and united them, in order that the contemplative spirit might not be cut off from society, nor the active life be uninfluenced by the contemplative, but that, like sea and land, by an interchange of their several gifts, they might unite in promoting the one object, the glory of God.

Μέγα παρθενία καὶ ἀζυγία καὶ τὸ μετ' ἀγγέλων τετάχθαι καὶ τῆς μοναδικῆς φύσεως: ὀκνῶ γὰρ εἰπεῖν Χριστοῦ, ὃς καὶ γεννηθῆναι θελήσας διὰ τοὺς γεννητοὺς ἡμᾶς ἐκ παρθένου γεννᾶται, παρθενίαν νομοθετῶν ὡς ἐνθένδε μετάγουσαν καὶ κόσμον συντέμνουσαν, μᾶλλον δὲ κόσμον κόσμῳ παραπέμπουσαν, τὸν ἐνεστῶτα τῷ μέλλοντι. Τίς οὖν ἐκείνου μᾶλλον ἢ παρθενίαν ἐτίμησεν, ἢ σαρκὶ ἐνομοθέτησεν, οὐ τῷ καθ' ἑαυτὸν ὑποδείγματι μόνον, ἀλλὰ καὶ οἷς ἐσπούδασε; Τίνος οἱ παρθενῶνες, καὶ τὰ ἔγγραφα διατάγματα, οἷς πᾶσαν μὲν αἴσθησιν ἐσωφρόνιζε, πᾶν δὲ μέλος ἐρύθμιζε, καὶ ὄντως παρθενεύειν ἔπειθεν, εἴσω τὰ κάλλη στρέφων ἀπὸ τῶν ὁρωμένων ἐπὶ τὰ μὴ βλεπόμενα: καὶ τὸ μὲν ἔξωθεν ἀπομαραίνων, καὶ τὴν ὕλην ὑποσπῶν τῆς φλογός, τὸ δὲ κρυπτὸν τῷ Θεῷ δεικνύς, ὃς μόνος τῶν καθαρῶν ψυχῶν ἐστι νυμφίος, καὶ τὰς ἀγρύπνους ἑαυτῷ συνεισάγει ψυχάς, ἐὰν μετὰ λαμπρῶν τῶν λαμπάδων αὐτῷ καὶ δαψιλοῦς τῆς τοῦ ἐλαίου τροφῆς ἀπαντήσωσιν; Τοῦ τοίνυν ἐρημικοῦ βίου καὶ τοῦ μιγάδος μαχομένων πρὸς ἀλλήλους ὡς τὰ πολλὰ καὶ διϊσταμένων, καὶ οὐδετέρου πάντως ἢ τὸ καλὸν ἢ τὸ φαῦλον ἀνεπίμικτον ἔχοντος: ἀλλὰ τοῦ μὲν ἡσυχίου μὲν ὄντος μᾶλλον καὶ καθεστηκότος καὶ Θεῷ συνάγοντος, οὐκ ἀτύφου δὲ διὰ τὸ τῆς ἀρετῆς ἀβασάνιστον καὶ ἀσύγκριτον: τοῦ δὲ πρακτικωτέρου μὲν μᾶλλον καὶ χρησιμωτέρου, τὸ δὲ θορυβῶδες οὐ φεύγοντος, καὶ τούτους ἄριστα κατήλλαξεν ἀλλήλοις καὶ συνεκέρασεν: ἀσκητήρια καὶ μοναστήρια δειμάμενος μέν, οὐ πόρρω δὲ τῶν κοινωνικῶν καὶ μιγάδων, οὐδὲ ὥσπερ τειχίῳ τινὶ μέσῳ ταῦτα διαλαβὼν καὶ ἀπ' ἀλλήλων χωρίσας, ἀλλὰ πλησίον συνάψας καὶ διαζεύξας: ἵνα μήτε τὸ φιλόσοφον ἀκοινώνητον ᾖ μήτε τὸ πρακτικὸν ἀφιλόσοφον: ὥσπερ δὲ γῆ καὶ θάλασσα τὰ παρ' ἑαυτῶν ἀλλήλοις ἀντιδιδόντες, εἰς μίαν δόξαν Θεοῦ συντρέχωσι.