Consecrated Virginity
Forgoing marriage not from scorn of love but to give the whole self to the Kingdom
Consecrated virginity is the deliberate renunciation of marriage for the sake of the Kingdom. Paul commends the unmarried state in 1 Corinthians 7, and the Fathers elaborated it into a celebrated form of Christian life: Methodius praised it in his Symposium, and Gregory of Nyssa devoted a treatise, On Virginity, to it. It was understood as freeing a person for undivided devotion to God rather than as a rejection of marriage's goodness.
Key passages(8)
The Letters of St. Jerome · Jerome
Dialogues of Sulpitius Severus · Sulpicius Severus
Ephraim Syrus: Fifteen Hymns For the Feast of the Epiphany · Ephrem the Syrian
On the Decease of His Brother Satyrus · Ambrose of Milan
The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom on Philippians, Colossians, and Thessalonians · John Chrysostom
Letters of Athanasius with Two Ancient Chronicles of His Life · Athanasius of Alexandria