31. From this obedience that
Father, who was not without a wife, was prepared to be without an
only son, and that
slain by himself. For I shall not without due cause call him an
only son, concerning whom he heard the Lord say, “In Isaac shall
there be called for thee a seed. Therefore how much
sooner would he hear it, that he should be even without a wife, if
this he were bidden? Wherefore it is not without reason that we
often consider, that some of both sexes, containing from all sexual
intercourse, are negligent in obeying precepts, after having with
so great warmth caught at the not making use of things that are
allowed. Whence who doubts that we do not rightly compare unto the
excellence of those holy fathers and mothers begetting sons, the
men and women of our time, although free from all intercourse, yet
in virtue of obedience inferior: even if there had been wanting to
those men in habit of mind also, what is plain in the deed of the
latter. Therefore let these follow the Lamb, boys singing the new
song, as it is written in the Apocalypse, “who have not defiled
themselves with women:” for no other reason than that they
have continued virgins. Nor let them on this account think
themselves better than the first holy fathers, who used marriage, so to speak, after the fashion of marriage. Forsooth the use of it is such, as that, if in it there hath taken place through carnal intercourse aught which exceeds necessity of begetting, although in a way that deserves pardon, there is pollution. For what doth pardon expiate, if that advance cause no pollution whatever? From which pollution it were strange if boys following the Lamb were free, unless they continued virgins.