378 The Faith of Our Fathers Evangelist, because, as St. Augustine testifies, that Apostle was chosen a virgin and such he always remained. Not only did our Lord thus manifest while on earth a marked predilection for virgins, but He exhibits the same preference for them in heaven; for the hundred and forty-four thousand who are chosen to sing the New Canticle and who follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth are all virgins, as St. John testifies. (Apoc. xiv.) The Apostle of the Gentiles assures us that he led a single life, and he commends that state to others: "I say to the unmarried, and to the widows it is good for them if they so continue, even as I."517 There is no evidence from Scripture that any of the Apostles were married except St. Peter. St. Jerome says that if any were married they certainly separated from their wives after they were called to the Apostolate. Even St. Peter, after his vocation, did not continue with his wife, as may be inferred from his own words: "Behold, we have left all things, and followed Thee."518 Among "all things" must be reckoned the fellowship of his wife, for he could hardly say with truth that he had left all things if he had not left his wife. Our Savior immediately after enumerates the wife among those cherished objects, the renunciation of which, for His sake, will have its reward.519 St. Paul declares that "a Bishop must be sober, just, holy, continent."520 And writing to Timothy, whom he had consecrated Bishop, he says: "Be thou an example to the faithful ... in charity, in faith, in chastity."521 In another place, he enumerates chastity [401] among the virtues that should adorn the Christian minister: "In all things let us exhibit ourselves as the ministers of God in much ' Ibid., xix. 29. 1 Tit. i. 8.