Nicene and Post-Nicene Church Fathers Series 2 - The Still Small ...

honourable treasure, worth fighting for at all costs, for short-lived indulgence which does
for the moment gratify the appetite; one day you will find it more bitter than gall.
3. Who would not grieve over such things and say, “How is the faithful city become an
harlot?” 2122 How would not the Lord Himself say to some of those who are now walking
in the spirit of Jeremiah, “Hast thou seen what the virgin of Israel has done to me?” 2123 I
betrothed her to me in trust, in purity, in righteousness, in judgment, in pity, and in
mercy; 2124 as I promised her through Hosea the prophet. But she loved strangers, and while
I, her husband, was yet alive, she is called adulteress, and is not afraid to belong to another
husband. What then says the conductor of the bride, 2125 the divine and blessed Paul, both
that one of old, and the later one of to-day under whose mediation and instruction you left
your father’s house and were united to the Lord? Might not either, in sorrow for such a
trouble, say, “The thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid
of is come unto me.” 2126 “I have espoused you to one husband that I may present you as a
chaste virgin to Christ.” 2127 I was indeed ever afraid “lest by any means as the serpent beguiled
Eve through his subtilty, so your mind should be corrupted;” 2128 wherefore by
countless counter-charms I strove to control the agitation of your senses, and by countless
safeguards to preserve the bride of the Lord. So I continually set forth the life of the unmarried
maid, and described how “the unmarried” alone “careth for the things of the Lord, that
she may be holy both in body and spirit.” 2129 I used to describe the high dignity of virginity,
and, addressing you as a temple of God, used as it were to give wings to your zeal as I strove
to lift you to Jesus. Yet through fear of evil I helped you not to fall by the words “if any man
defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy.” 2130 So by my prayers I tried to make you
more secure, if by any means “your body, soul, and spirit might be preserved blameless
unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” 2131 Yet all my toil on your behalf has been in
vain. Bitter to me has been the end of those sweet labours. Now I needs must groan again
at that over which I ought to have rejoiced. You have been deceived by the serpent more
2122 Is. i. 21.
2123 cf. Jer. xviii. 13.
2124 cf. Hosea ii. 19.
2125 The νυμφαγωγός was the friend who conducted the bride from her parents’ or her own house to the
bridegroom’s. cf. Luc., Dial Deor. 20, 16.
2126 Job iii. 25.
2127 2 Cor. xi. 2.
2128 2 Cor. xi. 3.
2129 1 Cor. vii. 34.
2130 1 Cor. iii. 17.
2131 1 Thess. v. 23.
To a fallen virgin.
451