virgins to which they were subjected in captivity, and to which
their own will gave no consent; and whether this contaminated
their souls._
But they fancy they bring a conclusive charge against Christianity,
when they aggravate the horror of captivity by adding that not only
wives and unmarried maidens, but even consecrated virgins, were
violated. But truly, with respect to this, it is not Christian faith,
nor piety, nor even the virtue of chastity, which is hemmed into any
difficulty: the only difficulty is so to treat the subject as to
satisfy at once modesty and reason. And in discussing it we shall not
be so careful to reply to our accusers as to comfort our friends. Let
this, therefore, in the first place, be laid down as an unassailable
position, that the virtue which makes the life good has its throne
in the soul, and thence rules the members of the body, which becomes
holy in virtue of the holiness of the will; and that while the will
remains firm and unshaken, nothing that another person does with the
body, or upon the body, is any fault of the person who suffers it,
so long as he cannot escape it without sin. But as not only pain may
be inflicted, but lust gratified on the body of another, whenever
anything of this latter kind takes place, shame invades even a
thoroughly pure spirit from which modesty has not departed,--shame,
lest that act which could not be suffered without some sensual
pleasure, should be believed to have been committed also with some
assent of the will.