Alex’s Reviews > Concerning Virgins > Status Update

"That which is said that the king was sorry, is not repentance on the part of the king, but a confession of guilt, which is, according to the wont of the divine rule, that they who have done evil condemn themselves by their own confession. "

"We ought, also, specially to repeat the Creed, as a seal upon our hearts, daily, before light, and to recur to it in thought whenever we are in fear of anything. For when is the soldier in his tent or the warrior in battle without his military oath?"

"There is a common saying, What you wish to perform abundantly, sometimes do not do at all. There ought to be something to add to the days of Lent, but so that nothing be done for the sake of ostentation, but of religion."

"Those men, though wicked, have one point at any rate, wherein they are approved even by the wise persons, that in speaking against marriage they declare that they ought not to have been born."
Did I misread this or has St. Ambrose just burned antinatalists?

"You could see the executioner tremble, as though he himself had been condemned, and his right hand shake, his face grow pale, as he feared the peril of another, while the maiden feared not for her own."
On St. Agnes' martyrdom.

From the introduction:
"These virgins lived at home with their parents, while the times of persecution endured, making it practically impossible for them to live elsewhere. Common life among them would seem to have commenced in the East, and St. Athanasius, when, seeking refuge from the Arians, he came to Rome, introduced the custom to the Western Church."