Note 880 — Chapter IV

The Fathers are enthusiastic in the praise of perpetual virginity. “It has the higher dignity, as vessels of gold and silver compared to earthenware,” says Jerome.—Adv. Jovin. “The thirty-fold increase of Scripture,” he asserts, “refers to marriage, the sixty-fold to widowhood, but the hundred-fold to virginity.”—Ad Ageruchiam. “Marriage replenishes earth,” he adds; “but virginity, heaven”—Nuptiæ terram replent, virginitas paradisum. “These sacred virgins are the necklace of the church,” says Prudentius, “and with these gems she is adorned”—Hoc est monile ecclesiæ! His illa gemmis comitur!—Peristeph., H., 3. They became in a mystical sense the spouses of Christ, and Jerome blasphemously addresses the mother of Eustochium as the mother-in-law of God—Socrus Dei esse cœpisti—Ad Eustoch. Both Jerome and Chrysostom, however, acknowledged, and unsparingly lashed, the evils to which the celibate system in their time had led. “She is the true virgin,” says the latter, “who careth for the things that belong to the Lord.”