Chapter XVI.—Peter’s Speech Continued.

“The chaste woman is adorned with the Son of God as with a bridegroom.  She is clothed with holy light.  Her beauty lies in a well-regulated soul; and she is fragrant with ointment, even with a good reputation.  She is arrayed in beautiful vesture, even in modesty.  She wears about her precious pearls, even chaste words.  And she is radiant, for 1179 her mind has been brilliantly lighted up.  Onto a beautiful mirror does she look, for she looks into God.  Beautiful cosmetics 1180 does she use, namely, the fear of God, with which she admonishes her soul.  Beautiful is the woman not because she has chains of gold on her, 1181 but because she has been set free from transient lusts.  The chaste woman is greatly desired by the great King; 1182 she has been wooed, watched, and loved by Him.  The chaste woman does not furnish occasions for being desired, except by her own husband.  The chaste woman is grieved when she is desired by another.  The chaste woman loves her husband from the heart, embraces, soothes, and pleases him, acts the slave to him, and is obedient to him in all things, except when she would be disobedient to God.  For she who obeys God is without the aid of watchmen chaste in soul and pure in body.

Footnotes

Lit., “when.”

κόσμῳ—properly ornaments; but here a peculiar meaning is evidently required.

Lit., “as being chained with gold.”

Ps. xlv. 11.