And rightly so. For what is commanded is imposed as an obligation. What is imposed as an obligation must necessarily be fulfilled. What must necessarily be fulfilled brings punishment if it is not fulfilled.
For what is left to the will of the one commanded is commanded in vain."
If the Lord had commanded virginity, He would have seemed to condemn marriage and to destroy the nursery of mankind, from which virginity itself is born.
If He had cut off the root, how would He have required the fruits? If He had not first laid the foundation, how would He have built the structure and placed the roof over the whole building?
With great labor, diggers tunnel through mountains and penetrate almost into the depths of the earth to find gold.
When from the smallest grains a necklace is made, first by smelting in the furnace and then by the craftsman's skilled hand, the happy man is not the one who extracted gold from the mud.
Rather, the happy man is the one who enjoys the beauty of the gold.
Do not be surprised, then, if amid fleshly stirrings and vicious passions an angelic life is not demanded from us, but only commended to us.
When a commandment is given, necessity is laid upon the one who fulfills it. "I have no commandment of the Lord," he says, "but I give counsel, as one who has obtained mercy from the Lord."
If you have no commandment of the Lord, how do you dare give counsel about something for which you have no order?
The Apostle will answer me: How do you wish me to command what the Lord proposed rather than commanded?
He, the Creator and Potter, knowing the frailty of the vessel He had made, left virginity within the power of the hearer.
And I, the teacher of the nations, who became all things to all men, that I might gain all (1 Cor 9:22), how shall I immediately, at the very beginning, lay the burden of lifelong virginity on the necks of believers?
Let them first learn the feast of marriage. Let them live for a time without prayer, so that, having tasted chastity, they may desire always to possess what they enjoyed only in part.
The Lord, when tempted by the Pharisees about whether it was lawful according to Moses to put away wives, absolutely forbade it.
Reflecting on this, His disciples said to Him, "If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry."
But He said to them, "Not all can receive this saying, but only those to whom it has been given. For there are eunuchs who were born so from their mother's womb. There are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men. And there are eunuchs who made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven. He who is able to receive this, let him receive it" (Mt 19:10 ff.).
It is clear why the Apostle said, "Now concerning virgins, I have no commandment of the Lord." Without doubt it is because the Lord had first said, "Not all can receive this saying, but only those to whom it has been given," and, "He who is able to receive it, let him receive it."
The ´Αγωνοζέτης, the giver of the contest, sets forth the prize, urges to the struggle, holds in His hand the reward of virginity, points to the purest spring, and says: "If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink."
"He who is able to receive it, let him receive it."
He does not say, "Whether you wish it or not, you must drink and struggle." Rather, He says that whoever wills and whoever can struggle and drink will conquer and be filled.
For this reason the Lord loves virgins more, because they voluntarily fulfill what was not commanded them.
To fulfill what you are not obliged to do is a merit greater than doing what is required of you.
The Apostles, understanding the burden of marriage, say, "If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry."
Approving their thought, the Lord says: True, it is hard for a man striving for the kingdom of heaven to marry. Yet this is a difficult matter, and not all receive this word, but those to whom it has been given.
Nature made some eunuchs, and human violence made others. Those eunuchs are pleasing to Me whom necessity did not make eunuchs, but free will.
I gladly receive into My bosom those who made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven, and who, for the sake of serving Me, did not wish to be what they were born.
Here one must note the thought: "who made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven."
If those who have made themselves eunuchs receive the kingdom of heaven as recompense, then those who have not done so cannot receive a place with them.
"He who is able," He says, "to receive it, let him receive it."
It is the work of great faith and great struggle to be the purest temple of God, to offer oneself wholly as a whole burnt offering to the Lord, and, according to the same Apostle's word, to be holy in both body and spirit.
Such are the eunuchs who, because of their barrenness, consider themselves a dry tree, yet hear from Isaiah (Isa 56:4-5) that instead of sons and daughters they have a prepared place in heaven.
Their prototype is Ebed-melech, the eunuch in Jeremiah (Jer 38), and that eunuch of Queen Candace in the Acts of the Apostles, who received the name of man because of the strength of his faith.
To them also Clement, the successor of the Apostle Peter, whom the Apostle Paul mentions, writes epistles in which he composed almost his whole discourse on the purity of virginity.
Such also, as is easily seen from their own writings, were many apostolic men and martyrs, men glorious both in holiness and in eloquence.
THEOSIS