Against Julian 1.5.17

“If chastity is a virtue, but the body were evil in its very substance, it would be impossible to find a chaste body. A body belonging to shameful conduct could not become a body belonging to virtue. But when it is made holy, it becomes a body of virtue. Thus virtue shares in the body, and the body in virtue; through virtue it also becomes God’s temple (1 Corinthians 6:19). If every body belonged to sexual immorality, it would certainly be impossible to find chastity in bodies. Only then could we count evil as belonging to the very nature of bodies. But if the body has attained such worth, has been adorned with so much honor, and has put on such a garment of purity that it deserves to be its Maker’s house and becomes the bridal chamber of God’s Son—so that the Father and the Son are pleased to come and choose bodies as their dwelling (John 14:23)—how can the Manichaean claim fail to be exposed as detestable and absurd?”