Pseudo-Athanasius On Virginity

Description

≠ much shorter Epistola ad virgines, sermo de virginitate, sive de ascesi(Περι παρθενιασ πρὸς τὴν παρθένον)

cf.:

• David Brakke, “The Authenticity of the Ascetic Athanasiana,” Orientalia 63, no. 2 (1994): 17–56.
• Teresa M. Shaw, “5. Pseudo-Athanasius: Discourse on Salvation to a Virgin,” in Religions of Late Antiquity in Practice , ed. Richard Valantasis (Princeton University Press, 2000), 82–99.

This late ancient Christian treatise, preserved in Syriac and falsely attributed to Athanasius of Alexandria (d. 373), exhorts female virgins to be "holy in body and spirit" (1 Cor. 7:34) and to abstain from "all that is in the world - the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, the pride in riches" (1 John 1:16). Drawing on themes developed in the de virginitate literature of the fourth and fifth centuries, the author instructs virgins on their proper physical deportment and use of the five senses, but he incorporates into his work exhortations to purity and repentance originally addressed to a wider audience of male and female ascetics and perhaps even laity. Most likely a translation of a Greek original composed between the fifth and ninth centuries, the treatise is of interest also for its frequent and inventive use of the Bible in support of the ascetic ideal.