138. THE CHASTE AND THE NON-CHASTE
Since I am still at the threshold of the treatment of conjugial love in detail; and since conjugial love in detail can be known only indistinctly and thus obscurely unless in some measure its opposite also be seen, which is the unchaste, and this is seen in a measure or in shade when the chaste is described together with the non-chaste, for chastity* is only the removal of the unchaste from the chaste; [therefore, the chaste and the non-chaste shall now be treated of]. The unchaste, which is entirely opposite to the chaste, is treated of in the latter part of this work, under the title THE PLEASURES OF INSANITY FROM SCORTATORY LOVE, where it is described in its full extent and with its varieties. What the chaste is and the non-chaste, and with whom they are, will be made clear in the following order:
I. That the chaste and the non-chaste are predicated only of marriages and of such things as belong to marriages.
II. That the chaste is predicated only of monogamous marriages, or those of one man with one wife.
III. That the Christian conjugial alone is chaste.
IV. That love truly conjugial is chastity itself.
V. That all the delights of love truly conjugial, even the ultimate, are chaste.
VI. That with those who are made spiritual by the Lord, conjugial love is more and more purified and made chaste.
VII. That the chastity of marriage comes into existence by the total renunciation of whoredoms from religion.
VIII. That chastity cannot be predicated of infants; nor of boys and girls; nor of youths and virgins before they feel the love of the sex in themselves.
IX. That chastity cannot be predicated of eunuchs born such, nor of eunuchs made such.
X. That chastity cannot be predicated of those who do not believe adulteries to be evils of religion, and still less of those who do not believe adulteries to be hurtful to society.
XI. That chastity cannot be predicated of those who abstain from adulteries solely on account of various external reasons.
XII. That chastity cannot be predicated of those who believe marriages to be unchaste.
XIII. That chastity cannot be predicated of those who have renounced marriages by vowing perpetual celibacy, unless there be and remain in them the love of a life truly conjugial.
XIV. That the state of marriage is to be preferred to the state of celibacy.
The explanation of the above now follows.
* The Latin is non castitas (non-chastity), but the context shows that this is a misprint for nam castitas, as in the translation; see no. 147, 452.]