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Banquet of the Ten Virgins

Methodius of Olympus

Chapter 2

About this work

A literary symposium in which ten women offer speeches on virginity, creation, Scripture, virtue, and Christian perfection, consciously adapting the form of a classical philosophical banquet.

Author: Methodius of Olympus
Date: Late 3rd century
Origin: Eastern Mediterranean
Genre: Dialogue

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

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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

.

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.

Notes

1
Than of the most ordinary things of life.