Miscellanies 3.15.98

To both, at any rate, the same Lord gives suitable promises through the prophet Isaiah, speaking thus: “Let not the eunuch say, ‘I am a dry tree.’ Thus says the Lord to the eunuchs: If you keep my Sabbaths and do all that I command, I will give you a place better than sons and daughters.” For celibacy alone does not justify, nor indeed the eunuch's Sabbath, unless he does the commandments. And to the married he adds, saying: “My chosen ones will not toil in vain, nor bear children for a curse, because they are a seed blessed by the Lord.” For there is a reward laid up for the one who has begotten children according to reason, reared them, and educated them in the Lord, as for the one who has begotten through true instruction, as also for the chosen seed. But others take the begetting of children as a curse and do not understand that Scripture speaks against those very people. For those truly chosen by the Lord neither teach nor beget things that lead to a curse, as the heresies do.