Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VIII/Pseudo-Clementine Literature/The Clementine Homilies/Homily XIII/Chapter 15

by Anonymous

Chapter XV.—Peter’s Speech Continued.

“The chaste wife doing the will of God, is a good reminiscence of His first creation; for God, being one, created one woman for one man.  She is also still more chaste if she does not forget her own creation, and has future punishment before her eyes, and is not ignorant of the loss of eternal blessings.  The chaste woman takes pleasure in those who wish to be saved, and is a pious example to the pious, for she is the model of a good life.  She who wishes to be chaste, cuts off all occasions for slander; but if she be slandered as by an enemy, though affording him no pretext, she is blessed and avenged by God.  The chaste woman longs for God, loves God, pleases God, glorifies God; and to men she affords no occasion for slander.  The chaste woman perfumes the Church with her good reputation, and glorifies it by her piety.  She is, moreover, the praise of her teachers, and a helper to them in their chastity.^[1]

Footnotes

1. The Greek is αὐτοῖς σωφρονοῦσι.  The Latin translator and Lehmann (Die Clementinischen Schriften, Gotha, 1869) render, “to those who are chaste, i.e., love or practice chastity,” as if the reading were τοῖς σωφρονοῦσι.