[6] In the only places in the New Testament where celibacy is recommended, Matt. xix. 12, and 1 Cor. vii. 32, the reason is of this substantial and intelligible kind, namely, that in the case of individuals, placed in peculiar circumstances, a single life would be advantageous, inasmuch as it would give them better opportunity of serving the Lord without distraction. Precisely the same advice might sometimes with propriety be given to a soldier, or to a statesman: a high motive justifies a sacrifice of personal happiness. Nowhere in the discourses of our Lord, or in the writings of the apostles, is there to be discovered a trace of the monkish motives of celibacy—namely, the supposed superior sanctity of that state. [7] "Grande est et immortale, pœne ultra naturam corpoream, superare luxuriam, et concupiscentiæ spasmeam adolescentiæ facibus accensam animi virtute restinguere, et spiritali conatu vim genuinæ oblectationis excludere, _viveréque contra humani generis legem_, despicere solatia conjugii, dulcedinem contemnere liberorum, quæcumque esse præsentis vitæ commoda possint, pro nihilo spe futurorum beatitudinis computare." The Epistle of Sulpitius _de Virginitate_, in which this passage occurs, contains, it should be confessed, much more good sense and good morality, in the latter part of it, than one would expect to find in conjunction with absurdities such as that above quoted. The annotator on the passage well says, that the Ascetics avoided the pleasures of domestic life, not because they were sweets, but because conjoined with great cares, which those escaped who lived in celibacy. Nor is it to be denied, says he, that married life is obnoxious to great and heavy inconveniences: nevertheless, if under those difficulties we live holily and religiously, our future recompense will surely not be less than as if, to be free from them we had embraced a single life. [8] "Habitant plerique in eremo sine ullis tabernaculis quos Anachoretas vocant. Vivunt herbarum radicibus: nullo unquam certo loco consistunt, ne ab hominibus frequententur: quas nox coëgerit sedes habent.... Inter hujus (Sina) recessus Anachoreta esse aliquis ferebatur quem diu multumque quæsitum videre non potui, qui ferè jam ante quinquaginta annos à conversatione humanâ remotus, nullo vestis usu, setis corporis sui tectus, nuditatem suam divino munere vestiebat. Hic quoties eum religiosi viri adire voluerunt, cursu avia petens, congressus vitabat humanos. Uni tantummodo ferebatur se ante quinquennium præbuisse, qui credo potenti fide id obtinere promeruit: cui inter multa conloquia percunctanti, cur homines tantopere vitaret, respondisse perhibetur, Eum qui ab hominibus frequentaretur non posse ab angelis frequentari."—_Sulp. Sev. Dialog._ I.