CHAPTER XXVIII. -- A VIRGIN WHO FELL

AGAIN, I knew a virgin in Jerusalem who wore sackcloth for six years and shut herself up in a cell, taking none of the things that bestow pleasure. In the end she fell, abandoned (by God) because of her excessive arrogance. She opened the window and admitted the man who waited on her and sinned with him, because she had practised asceticism not with a religious motive and for the love of God, but with human ostentation,192 which springs from vain-glory and corrupt intention. For, her thoughts being engrossed in condemning others, the guardian 193 of her chastity was absent. |109