Text for the Times: Chastity

Extract

The Symposium of Methodius of Olympus is a treatise on Chastity. It is one of the chief virtues and not concerned simply with the moderation of the sexual appetite. Thus it is the concern of the married and unmarried alike in the process of renewal, of return to men's primitive state of grace when there was no knowledge of evil. By the fall, man in the act of turning away from virtue created the usage of evil. Virginity is seen as the grace of Christ superseding the old law and thus in Gregory of Nyssa as a foretaste of the life of blessedness to come. Only the chaste man, the man whose life is moderated by virtue can come to this life of blessedness.

My fair virgins, nothing can so help a person towards virtue as chastity. For chastity alone causes the soul to be guided in the noblest and best possible way and to be washed clean of the stains and impurities of the world. Indeed, ever since Christ taught us to practise it and revealed to us its unsurpassable beauty, the reign of the evil one has been destroyed, whereas before he had continually been capturing and enslaving mankind ; so that none of the men of old were fully pleasing to the Lord, but all were overwhelmed by error, forthe Lawwas not at all adequatetofree mankind from corruption, until virginity, succeeding the Law, held man in thrall to the commands of Christ. (St Methodius. The Symposium. Logos 10).