Virginity then, being a thing in itself so great and so much esteemed among many, lest any man having attained unto it, and kept it undefiled, should think that he hath done all, and so leave the rest undone, the Lord putteth forth this parable, in order to show that if virginity, though it have all else, lack mercy, its owner will but have his portion without among the fornicators, among whom Christ doth justly place the heartless and pitiless celibate. The fornicator is entangled in lust after bodies, the other in lust after money. The lust for bodies and the lust for money are two very different things, whereof the fleshly is by far the keener and the stubborner appetite.
They that strive with the weaker enemy are therefore much less excusable if they fall. Wherefore the Lord hath called such virgins foolish, for having first won the stern battle, and then been destroyed in the light one.
- S John Chrysostom
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