The Lord spake these words: All men cannot receive this saying, save they to whom it is given. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it. Virginity is the object of these words, and they bear up the idea of preserving it undefiled.
The world of the Old Testament was zealous about the bearing of children, and therefore about marriage, aspiring to the birth of the Redeemer of the world. It so little understood and honored virginity, that virginity, forever bereft of marriage, was to it an object of lamentation. The daughter of Jephthah, who was about to die, having “known no man”, and not she alone, but her companions also bewailed her virginity upon the mountains, and even after her death, it was a custom in Israel, that the daughters of Israel went yearly to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite four days in a year. The life of John the Baptist, and still earlier, the life of the Prophets Elijah and Elisha, are the earliest indications of the dignity of virginity; but even these indications were not in their time understood, for the Jews had oftener seen their prophets not avoiding married life, as for instance, Moses, Samuel, and others.
The New Covenant of God with man is of the highest moral character. And to such, who give up their service and their very life for the preservation and spreading of the Grace of the New Testament among the sons of men, these words of the Great Apostle may be alluded: I say therefore to the unmarried and widows, it is good for them if they abide even as I: but if they can not contain let them marry ... He that is unmarried careth for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please the Lord; but he that is married careth for the things that are of the world, how he may please his wife ... He that giveth his virgin in marriage doeth well; but he that giveth her not in marriage doeth better (1 Cor., vii. 8, 9, 32, 33, 38). Above all, the Most Blessed Mary, is the Virgin of God. She has shown to us to what height, a more than heavenly one, that the dignity of virginity has been elevated. Her Divine Son taught: that in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven, and as another Evangelist expresses the same thing, they are equal unto the angels. The great Philaret of Moscow explained: “If the Most Holy Mother of God became through virginity more pure than the Cherubim, and more glorious than the seraphim, her followers (in truth and in purity) may be rendered equal to angels—by the Grace of God, at the same time being thus honored also by Divine Justice.”
The true state of the virgin is truly holy. St. John in his book of revelation writes thus: I looked, and lo, “a Lamb stood on the Mount Sion, and with Him a hundred forty and four thousand having His Father’s Name written in their foreheads.” And he heard them sing as it were a new song before the throne; and no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand. But who are they, will you ask? These are they which were not defiled with women; for they are virgins, and follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. These were redeemed from among men, being the first fruits unto God and to the Lamb. (Rev., xiv. 1-4).
Everyone knows virginity, by one’s own experience, as the natural state preceding marriage. But this is merely the imperfect beginning of that of which we are now speaking. It is but the stem and not the flower; it is but the blossom and not the fragrant fruit itself. The virginity of childhood, from the very reason that it is merely a natural state, is neither a free act, nor the fruit of victory, and consequently it is not a virtue. It is fittingly called innocence,—but that is all; but therein is not yet the superior excellence which belongs to perfect virginity.
Virginity as an act of piety, as a virtue, as the flower of purity, as the fruit of chastity, as the way to perfection, manifests itself in man at an age, when, according to the common course of nature, more or less disposed to marriage, he neither yields to nature’s inclination, nor suffers himself to be swayed by custom, by the examples, by the pleasures, and by the needs of social life, but resolves to renounce marriage, and to keep his virginity forever.
We make mention of virginity in a place where all may read or hear of it, because among all there are those that are able to receive it; and the Word is seeking out from amongst all those whom God calls to hear and to fulfill it, and who are often unknown unto men.
We speak of true virginity unto all men, that, knowing it, they may guard themselves from the mistaken ways of the foolish virgins, who with the unlit lamps of their minds, wanting the oil of love, are roaming far from the heavenly abode, and, instead of love for the Bridegroom they are but breeding hate against the holy state of marriage. For already, since the time of the Apostles, the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their conscience seared with a hot iron; forbidding to marry (1 Tim., iv. 1-3).
This is a digital edition of Beacon from the Bay: The Collected Works of Saint Sebastian Dabovich of Jackson and San Francisco, a several-month-long project to catalogue the out-of-prints works of Saint Sebastian Dabovich, the first American-born Orthodox priest.
If you would like to purchase print copies of Beacon from the Bay for a personal or church library or bookstore, you may do so from Amazon. All support is greatly appreciated for this labor of love.