CHASTITY

+ "If anyone is able to preserve in chastity to the honor of the flesh of the Lord, let him do so in all humility."

─St. Ignatius of Antioch: "Letter to St. Polycarp," 5. (2nd cent.)

+ "We Christians regard a stain upon our chastity as more dreadful than any punishment, or even than death itself."

─Tertullian: "Apologeticus" (2nd. cent.)

"We are taught that chastity has three forms─one that of married life, a second that of widowhood, and a third that of virginity. We do not so extol one form as to exclude the others. In this, indeed the Church is rich, in that it has those whom it can rank before others, but none whom it rejects."

─St. Ambrose: "Concerning Widows," 23. (4th cent.)

+ "Let each one study his own powers, whether he can fulfil the precepts of virginal modesty. For of itself chastity is charming and attractive to all. But one's forces must be considered, that he who can may take it. The Lord's word is as it were an exhortation, stirring on His soldiers to the prize of purity. 'He that can take it, let him take it': let him who can, fight, conquer and receive his reward."

─St. Jerome: "Commentary on St. Matthew," 19:12. (5th cent.)

+ "The chastity of widows of widows and virgins is above the chastity of marriage."

─St. Augustine: "On the Good of Marriage." (5th cent.)

+ "Do not say that you have chaste minds if you have unchaste eyes, because an unchaste eye is the messenger of an unchaste heart."

─St. Augustine: "Letters 211." (His Rule.) (5th cent.)

+ "To love chastity."

─St. Benedict: "Rule," 4. (One of his "tools of good works") (6th cent.)

+ "Now, though the era of persecution is gone, yet our peace has its martyrdom, because though we bend not the neck to the sword, yet with a spiritual weapon we slay fleshly desires in our hearts."

─Pope St. Gregory the Great: "Hom. in Evang.", 1, 3, 4. (6th cent.)

Artwork: Allegory of Chastity (detail), by GIOTTO di Bondone. Fresco, c. 1320.
Lower Church, San Francesco, Assisi.

Ephrem: Prayer to the Most Holy Mother of God

"But, O Virgin lady, immaculate Mother of God, my lady most glorious, most gracious, higher than heaven, much purer than the sun’s splendor, rays or light . . . budding staff of Aaron, you appeared as a true staff, and the flower is your Son our Christ, my God and my Maker. You bore God and the word according to the flesh, preserving your virginity before childbirth, a virgin after childbirth, and we have been reconciled with Christ God your Son.”

~St. Ephrem the Syrian (ca. 306–373 AD): from Prayer to the Most Holy Mother of God.

Augustine on Heretics

"FOR WHILE the hot restlessness of heretics stirs questions about many articles of the Catholic faith, the necessity of defending them forces us both to investigate them more accurately, to understand them more clearly, and to proclaim them more earnestly."

~St. Augustine: The City of God, Bk. 16, Chap. 2. (5th cent.)

Isidore of Seville on Heresy

"THEREFORE, heresy is so called from the Greek word meaning 'choice', by which each chooses according to his own will what he pleases to teach or believe. But we are not permitted to believe whatever we choose, nor to choose whatever someone else has believed. We have the apostles of God as authorities, who did not themselves of their own will choose what they would believe, but faithfully transmitted to the nations the teaching received from Christ. So, even if an angel from heaven should preach otherwise, he shall be called anathema."

~St. Isidore of Seville: Etymologies, 8, 3. (7th cent.)

Cyprian on Heresy

"WHOEVER has been separated from the Church is yoked with an adulteress, is separated from the promises made to the Church. Nor shall he who leaves Christ's arrive at Christ's rewards. He is a stranger, he is sacrilegious, he is an enemy. Who has not the Church for mother can no longer have God for father."

–On the Unity of the Catholic Church, 6.

"NEVERTHELESS, the Lord allows and suffers these things to be, while each man's will free, so that while our hearts and minds are tested in the crucible of truth, the sound faith of those that are approved may shine forth clear and undimmed."

–On the Unity of the Catholic Church, 10.

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Augustine: Happiness

“NO one is really happy merely because he has what he wants, but only if he wants things he ought to want.”

~St. Augustine: In Ps. 26, Enarr., 2, 7.

Jerome: "To be a Christian"

“TO be a Christian is the great thing, not merely to seem one. And somehow or other those please the world most who please Christ least.”

~St. Jerome: Letters, 58, 7.