the reason for purity of body, speech, and mind, is that 'god' likes innocent virgins
meant this in the most spiritual sense. ------------ While the above is true ONLY in a spiritual sense the thread seems to reflect the Buddhist view in a physical sense. Before the Christian era, Buddhism required its priests and monks to be celibate. (History of Sacerdotal Celibacy in the Christian Church, London, 1932, fourth ed., revised, Henry C. Lea, p. 6) Even earlier, the higher orders of the Babylonian priesthood were required to practice celibacy, according to The Two Babylons by A. Hislop.—(New York, 1943), p. 219. That Christendom followed babylonish ideas should not surprise. Pope Paul VI, in his encyclical Sacerdotalis Caelibatus (Priestly Celibacy, 1967), endorsed celibacy as a requirement for the clergy, but he admitted that “the New Testament which preserves the teaching of Christ and the Apostles . . . does not openly demand celibacy of sacred ministers . . . Jesus Himself did not make it a prerequisite in His choice of the Twelve, nor did the Apostles for those who presided over the first Christian communities.”—The Papal Encyclicals 1958-1981 (Falls Church, Va.; 1981), p. 204.
