Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VIII/Two Epistles Concerning Virginity/First Pseudo-Clement/Chapter 8

Chapter VIII.&#8212;Virgins, by the Laying Aside of All Carnal Affection, are Imitators of God.

For, if a man be only in name called holy, he is not holy; but he must be holy in everything:&#160; in his body and in his spirit.&#160; And those who are virgins rejoice at all times in becoming like God and His Christ, and are imitators of them.&#160; For in those that are such there is not &#8220;the mind of the flesh.&#8221;&#160; In those who are truly believers, and &#8220;in whom the Spirit of Christ dwells&#8221; &#8212;in them &#8220;the mind of the flesh&#8221; cannot be:&#160; which is fornication, uncleanness, wantonness; idolatry, sorcery; enmity, jealousy, rivalry, wrath, disputes, dissensions, ill-will; drunkenness, revelry; buffoonery, foolish talking, boisterous laughter; backbiting, insinuations; bitterness, rage; clamour, abuse, insolence of speech; malice, inventing of evil, falsehood; talkativeness, babbling; threatenings, gnashing of teeth, readiness to accuse, jarring, disdainings, blows; perversions of the right, laxness in judgment; haughtiness, arrogance, ostentation, pompousness, boasting of family, of beauty, of position, of wealth, of an arm of flesh; quarrelsomeness, injustice, eagerness for victory; hatred, anger, envy, perfidy, retaliation; debauchery, gluttony, &#8220;overreaching (which is idolatry),&#8221; &#8220;the love of money (which is the root of all evils);&#8221; love of display, vainglory, love of rule, assumption, pride (which is called death, and which &#8220;God fights against&#8221;). &#160; Every man with whom are these and such like things&#8212;every such man is of the flesh.&#160; For, &#8220;he that is born of the flesh is flesh; and he that is of the earth speaketh of the earth,&#8221; and his thoughts are of the earth.&#160; And &#8220;the mind of the flesh is enmity towards God.&#160; For it does not submit itself to the law of God; for it cannot do so,&#8221; because it is in the flesh, &#8220;in which dwells no good,&#8221; because the Spirit of God is not in it.&#160; For this cause justly does the Scripture say regarding such a generation as this:&#160; &#8220;My Spirit shall not dwell in men for ever, because they are flesh.&#8221; &#160; &#8220;Whosoever, therefore, has not the Spirit of God in him, is none of His:&#8221; &#160; as it is written, &#8220;The Spirit of God departed from Saul, and an evil spirit troubled him, which was sent upon him from God.&#8221;