mortal shall put on immortality; when the insatiableness of desire, which rushes into licentiousness, being trained to selfrestraint, and made free from the love of corruption, shall consign the man to everlasting chastity. "For in this world they marry and are given in marriage."[1] But having done with the works of the flesh, and having been clothed with immortality, the flesh itself being pure, we pursue after that which is according to the measure of the angels.
Thus in the Philebus, Plato, who had been the disciple of the barbarian[2] philosophy, mystically called those Atheists who destroy and pollute, as far as in them lies, the Deity dwelling in them—that is, the Logos—by association with their vices. Those, therefore, who are consecrated to God must never live mortally (θνητῶς). "Nor," as Paul says, "is it meet to make the members of Christ the members of an harlot; nor must the temple of God be made the temple of base affections."[3] Remember the four and twenty thousand that were rejected for fornication. But the experiences of those who have committed fornication, as I have already said, are types which correct our lusts. Moreover, the Pædagogue warns us most distinctly: "Go not after thy lusts, and abstain from thine appetites;[4] for wine and women will remove the wise; and he that cleaves to harlots will become more daring. Corruption and the worm shall inherit him, and he shall be held up as public example to greater shame."[5] And again—for he wearies not of doing good—"He who averts his eyes from pleasure crowns his life."
Non est ergo justum vinci a rebus venereis, nec libidinibus stolide inhiare, nec a ratione alienis appetitionibus moveri, nec desiderare pollui. Ei autem soli, qui uxorem duxit, ut qui tunc sit agricola, serere permissum est; quando tempus sementem admittit. Adversus aliam autem intemperantiam, optimum quidem est medicamentum, ratio. Fert etiam auxilium penuria satietatis, per quam accensæ libidines prosiliunt ad voluptates.
