Commentaria in Isaiam
Second, St. Basil, in his sermon against the rich and avaricious, who spend their means not on the poor but on the luxury of their wives, says: First, “while a proud woman burns for trifles and delights, she will increase the allurements of pleasure for her husband; her care about pearls, emeralds, hyacinths and gold occupies her night and day. Second, a thousand flatterers are at hand, bringing fullers, goldsmiths, perfumers, weavers, hairdressers, who by her orders at no time let the husband draw breath. Third, no treasure suffices for a woman’s desire, not if it flowed from rivers: now gems are fitted to adorn one neck, others the throat, others the girdle, others the hands and feet. Fourth, a husband, therefore, who follows his wife’s appetite, when shall he take care of his soul? For as storms scatter weak reeds, so the perverse affections of wives corrupt the weak souls of husbands.”
Third, St. Nazianzen, against women who adorn themselves excessively:
“To noble women,” he says, “neither gold, nor purple, nor paints bring adornment; but their ornament is uprightness and elegance of manners, to remain at home for the most part, to converse with the divine oracles, to give attention to spindle and wool, to assign tasks to the maidservants,” and so on.
Fourth, St. Ambrose, in his Exhortation to Virgins, cites this passage of Isaias, adding: “Hence St. Peter also said: not in plaiting of the hair, nor in twisted tresses, or gold and silver or costly apparel: but rather the ornaments of the inner man are to be sought by women, because that hidden man of the heart who is poor to the world is rich before God”; and in his work on Timothy, chapter 1: “The more splendid a woman seems to men, the more she is despised by God.”
Fifth, St. Jerome, in his letter On Avoiding Suspected Cohabitation, rebukes those who adorn and display themselves too much, comparing them to brothels: “The shoe,” he says, “tight and shining, calls young men to itself with its creak; the breasts are compressed with bands; the bosom is drawn narrowly by a crimped fold; the hair falls on the forehead or ears; the mantle sometimes slips to bare the white shoulders; and as if unwilling to be seen, she hastens to hide what she willingly had uncovered. And when in public, as if from modesty, she covers her face, with a brothel’s art she shows just that which, shown openly, can please more.”
Sixth, St. Augustine, sermon 48, On the Words of the Apostle, says: “The ornaments of the outer man, the more they are sought, the greater the losses of the inner; but the less they are sought, the more is a man adorned with beautiful morals.”
Seventh, St. Chrysostom, on Romans: “Having laid down,” he says, “the burden of vile hay (for such is the expense of garments), receive the ornament, the garment of virtues. This is the ornament of the Church, that of the theatres: this is worthy of heaven, that of horses and mules; that is put around even the bodies of the dead; these shine only in the soul in which Christ dwells.”
… he says, with the avaricious and the others whom Paul enumerates, 1 Corinthians 6, the devil sits at table together? But do you not think he goes in with women adorned for lust? If anyone contradicts, let him strip the soul of the women who conduct themselves so indecorously, and he will clearly see that wicked demon vehemently joined and mingled with them.” The same, in his book On Virgins, chap. 61: “A woman, if beautiful, her excessive adornment obscures her beauty; if ugly, adornment makes her the more shameful; for deformity always shines out and appears, so that spectators laugh at the woman and wonder at the adornment.”
Eighth, St. Peter the hermit said to an adorned woman: “If an excellent painter had painted an image, and another, a common man, with his fellows laid a hand to it, the painter would surely blaze with anger: so God, the maker and painter of our nature, is justly angry, because you accuse his nature and wisdom of ignorance, and condemn the Creator himself of weakness. Do not, then, corrupt the image of God, nor try to add what he wisely did not give; nor devise this adulterate beauty, which brings ruin even to the chaste, or snares for those who look.” So Theodoret reports in the Lives of the Holy Fathers, Life 9.
Ninth, most sharply attacks this luxury of dress Tertullian, in his book On the Dress of Women, from which I will pick a few of the more notable passages: “Thou,” he says, “art the devil’s gateway, thou art the unsealer of that tree, thou art the first deserter of the divine law, thou didst break down man: on account of thy desert, that is death, even the Son of God had to die, and does it please thee to adorn thyself over thy tunics of skin?”
Second: “The care of woman’s person is twofold, namely woman’s finery in gold, gems and garments; and adornment, which it is fitting to call woman’s uncleanness: in the care of the hair, the skin, and those parts of the body which draw the eyes, to the former we impute the crime of ambition, to the latter that of prostitution.”
Third: “Stones and gems are the small things of the earth, which know how to build not houses, not roofs, but only this stupor of women.”
Fourth: “They say gems are plucked from the foreheads of dragons. This also will be wanting to the Christian woman, that she be made more elegant from a serpent: thus she will trample the devil’s head while from his head she builds ornaments for her neck.”
Fifth: “Abundance is always insolent in itself.”
Sixth: “What is the just honour of garments from the adultery of unjust colours? What God did not himself produce does not please him, unless he could not command purple and hyacinth-coloured sheep to be born.”
The same Tertullian, in his book On the Dress of Women.
First, he says this adornment belongs to the heathen.
Second: “The eagerness to please by comeliness does not come from a clear conscience; we know comeliness to be by nature the instigator of lust.”
Third: “The man perishes together in thy beauty, O woman!”
Fourth: “You ought to please only your own husbands; and you will please them only so far as you have not cared to please others.”
Fifth: “It is unworthy of a Christian to wear a painted face, who is bidden to simplicity; to counterfeit a likeness, who is not permitted to lie with the tongue; to covet what has not been given, who has the pursuit of chastity: how will you keep the precepts of God, if you do not keep the features of God?”
Sixth: “Would that I, most wretched, on that day of Christian exultation, lifting my head, might see you among my heels; whether with white lead and rouge and saffron, and in that arrangement of the head, you will rise again: whether the Angels will lift you, so painted, into the clouds to meet Christ?”
Seventh: “Where God is, there is chastity, there gravity, her helper and companion: how, then, shall we treat of chastity without its instrument, that is, without gravity and severity …”
Eighth: “This time is short, says the Apostle; why then give it to vanity?”
Ninth: “The Apostle bids that God be magnified in our body; but he is magnified through chastity, and through the dress that befits chastity.”
Tenth: “Let it be allowed to seem chaste; certainly it is not allowed to seem unchaste.”
Eleventh: “It is not enough for Christian chastity to be, but it must also be seen; that it may flow from the mind into the dress, and break forth from the conscience to the surface.”
Twelfth: “Let us cast away earthly ornaments, the anchors of our hope, if we desire heavenly things.”
Thirteenth: “The times of Christians are always, and now most of all, passed not in gold but in iron; the stoles of the Martyrs are being prepared, the Angels, their bearers, are awaited. Come forth now, you women, furnished with the ornaments of the Apostles, taking from simplicity your whiteness, from chastity your blush, painting your eyes with modesty and the silence of the spirit, putting into your ears the word of God, fastening to your necks the yoke of Christ: submit your head to your husbands, and you will be adorned enough: busy your hands with wool, keep your feet at home, and you will please more than in gold: clothe yourselves with the silk of uprightness, the fine linen of holiness, the purple of chastity; so painted you will have God for your lover.”
Tenth, Tertullian is followed by St. Cyprian, who forcefully and elegantly treats the same matter, in his book On the Discipline and Dress of Virgins.
First: “Continence,” he says, “and chastity do not consist in the integrity of the flesh alone, but also in the honour and modesty of dress and ornament.”
Second: “It is wrong for a virgin to be adorned for the show of her form, or to glory in the flesh and its beauty, since for them there is no struggle greater than that against the flesh, and the obstinate contest to conquer and tame the body.”
Third: “Paul has declared: They that are Christ’s have crucified their flesh; and she who professes to have renounced the lusts and vices of the flesh, how is she found in the very things which she had renounced?”
Fourth: “It becomes no Christian, and least of all a virgin, to reckon any brightness and honour of the flesh, but only to desire the word of God and to embrace the good things that will remain for ever. Or if there is to be glorying in the flesh, then plainly when it glories in the confession of the name, when a woman is found stronger than the men who torture her, when she suffers fire, or crosses, or the sword or wild beasts, that she may be crowned: those are the precious necklaces of the flesh, those the better ornaments of the body.”