NPNF2-08. Basil: Letters and Select Works - Holy Bible Institute

To a fallen virgin.honourable treasure, worth fighting for at all costs, for short-lived indulgence which doesfor 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 anharlot?” 2122 How would not the Lord Himself say to some of those who are now walkingin the spirit of Jeremiah, “Hast thou seen what the virgin of Israel has done to me?” 2123 Ibetrothed her to me in trust, in purity, in righteousness, in judgment, in pity, and inmercy; 2124 as I promised her through Hosea the prophet. But she loved strangers, and whileI, her husband, was yet alive, she is called adulteress, and is not afraid to belong to anotherhusband. What then says the conductor of the bride, 2125 the divine and blessed Paul, boththat one of old, and the later one of to-day under whose mediation and instruction you leftyour father’s house and were united to the Lord? Might not either, in sorrow for such atrouble, say, “The thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraidof is come unto me.” 2126 “I have espoused you to one husband that I may present you as achaste virgin to Christ.” 2127 I was indeed ever afraid “lest by any means as the serpent beguiledEve through his subtilty, so your mind should be corrupted;” 2128 wherefore bycountless counter-charms I strove to control the agitation of your senses, and by countlesssafeguards to preserve the bride of the Lord. So I continually set forth the life of the unmarriedmaid, and described how “the unmarried” alone “careth for the things of the Lord, thatshe 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 stroveto lift you to Jesus. Yet through fear of evil I helped you not to fall by the words “if any mandefile the temple of God, him shall God destroy.” 2130 So by my prayers I tried to make youmore secure, if by any means “your body, soul, and spirit might be preserved blamelessunto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” 2131 Yet all my toil on your behalf has been invain. Bitter to me has been the end of those sweet labours. Now I needs must groan againat that over which I ought to have rejoiced. You have been deceived by the serpent more2122 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 thebridegroom’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. 23.451