Commentaria in Isaiam
Fifth: “The marks of ornaments and garments, and the allurements of beauty, suit none but harlots and unchaste women; and the dress of almost none is costlier than that of those whose modesty is cheap. In the Apocalypse, chapter 17, that lost harlot is described, with whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, clothed in a purple and scarlet mantle, adorned with gold and precious stones, holding a golden cup in her hand.”
Sixth: “Did the Lord will wounds to be inflicted on the ears, which innocent infancy, ignorant as yet of worldly evil, is made to suffer, that afterwards from the scars and hollows of the ears costly pearls may hang, heavy, if not by their own weight, by the amount of their price?”
Seventh: “The apostate angels taught how to blacken the eyes with a line drawn round them, to stain the cheeks with the lie of a blush, to change the hair with adulterate colours, and to overthrow all truth of face and head, by assault upon their own corruption.”
Eighth: “Women lay hands on God when they strive to refashion and transform what he has formed, not knowing that all that is born is the work of God, and whatever is altered, the devil’s.”
Ninth: “Thy Lord says: Thou canst not make one hair white or black; and thou, to conquer the word of thy Lord, wilt be more powerful? With bold attempt and sacrilegious contempt thou dyest thy hair,” and so on.
Tenth: “Dost thou not fear, I pray, being such, that when the day of resurrection comes, thy Maker will not recognize thee, and will remove and shut out thee who comest to his rewards and promises? Rebuking thee with the severity of a censor and judge, he will say: This work is not mine, nor is this our image; thou hast defiled the skin with false drugs, hast changed the hair with an adulterate colour; the face is overthrown with a lie; the figure is corrupted; the countenance is another’s; thou canst not see God; since thine eyes are not those which God made, but those which the devil stained.”
Eleventh: “Outdo dress, thou who art a virgin, who servest God: outdo gold, thou who conquerest the flesh and the world: and seek not the ornaments of necklaces or garments, but of morals.”
Rightly, therefore, the holy Bishop Nonnus, seeing Pelagia drawing and enticing to herself the eyes of the whole city by so great a luxury and pomp of dress, wept abundantly; asked the reason, he said: “Two things move me: one, the ruin of this woman; the other, that I, who profess the Christian name, do not study so much to please God by innocence of life, as this woman desires to please base men.” But praying for her and preaching, he so pierced her heart that he made of her a second Magdalen, namely Pelagia the penitent, whose life and wonderful deeds James the Deacon, of the same Nonnus, an eyewitness, wrote with great fidelity: it is extant in Surius, 8 October.
And St. Bernard would not see his sister when she came to him more splendidly adorned: whereupon she, stung to the heart, by his direction laid aside all play of dress, and indeed, with her husband’s consent, entered a monastery, as the author of the Life of St. Bernard has it, book 1, chap. 6.
But hear the horrible example of Praetextata, which St. Jerome relates in his letter to Laeta: “Praetextata, once a most noble woman, at the command of her husband Hymetius, who was the paternal uncle of the virgin Eustochium, changed her dress and ornament, and combed her neglected hair in the worldly fashion, desiring to overcome both the purpose of the virgin and the desire of the mother. And behold, that same night she sees in a dream an angel come to her, threatening punishment with a terrible voice, and breaking out in these words: Hast thou dared to prefer a husband’s command to Christ? Hast thou dared to handle with thy sacrilegious hands the head of a virgin of God? They shall wither at once, that thou mayest feel in torment what thou hast done: and when the fifth month is ended thou shalt be led down to hell: but if thou shalt persevere in the crime, thou shalt be bereft both of husband and of children. All was fulfilled in order, and her death showed a late and wretched repentance.”
Hear the Gentiles too. Lycurgus banished the art of painting the face from Sparta, and this first because by evil arts it corrupted the city: hence the chastity of the women of Sparta was then so great that adultery was held incredible. Second, that anyone, looking at a girl’s character, might follow virtue in his choice when he sought a wife, and not be allured by paint. For the same cause he willed that they be taken without dowry; likewise that they be exercised in running, wrestling, and the throwing of the discus and javelin, that they might become strong and bear strong offspring. Hence Gorgo, wife of Leonidas, when someone objected: “You Spartan women alone rule your husbands,” answered: “For we alone bear men.” Plutarch is witness in the Life of Lycurgus.
Diogenes said to a young man who adorned himself too much: “If it is for men, you are unhappy; if for women, unjust.”
Theophrastus: “A woman,” he says, “ought neither to see others nor to be seen herself, especially if she be elegantly adorned: for both are an incitement to dishonourable things.”
Hyperides: “At home,” he says, “before her husband let a wife adorn herself as she pleases; but the ornaments she will take when she goes out of the house, let her put on not for her husband but …”
Crates: “What adorns a woman,” he says, “is what makes her more honourable; and such not gold, nor emerald, nor scarlet makes her, but whatever has the mark of gravity, moderation and modesty.”
Democritus: “Sparing speech,” he says, “adorns a woman, and sparingness in her very ornament is becoming to her.” Stobaeus is witness, sermon 32.
You know the ways of women; while they primp, while they dress their hair, a year goes by.
Ovid: We are carried off by the neck, gems and gold cover everything; the girl herself is the least part of herself. Propertius:
What good is it to go forth with hair dressed, and to sell thyself for foreign gifts, and to lose the grace of nature by a bought countenance? Naked love does not love the artificer of beauty.
Plautus: She is by no means well adorned if she is ill-mannered, and so on;
Modesty befits a harlot more than gold; base manners smear a fair adornment worse than mud.
Hear kings and emperors. The Emperor Aurelian, when his wife asked to be allowed a single silken mantle, answered: “Far be it that threads be weighed against gold”; for a pound of gold was then a pound of silk. Finally Caesar Augustus said truly: “The luxury of banquets and dress is the sign and forerunner of a sick and wasting commonwealth.”
Alfonso, king of Aragon, dressed as the people did; being advised to go in royal ornament, he answered: “I prefer to excel my own by morals and authority rather than by diadem and purple.” Let Belgium be witness, which paid for this luxury by war and continual disasters for almost fifty years; and what was before an earthly paradise of delights is now a valley of miseries.
Aristotle, in his preface to Alexander the Great, teaches him thus: “It is far more beautiful and more kingly to bear a cultivated and composed mind than a garment of the body.” On the other hand, ancient simplicity and modesty of dress shine in the Germans, which keeps their commonwealths in peace and flower. Alexander Severus said: “The imperial majesty consists in virtue, not in the adornment of the body.” The same judged that the matrons of kings ought to be content with a single mantle sprinkled with gold, and a cloak that had not more than six ounces of gold, as Lampridius testifies. This dress hardly suffices today for the wives of merchants. Augustus Caesar, as Suetonius testifies, said: “Conspicuous and soft dress is the banner of pride and the nurse of luxury.” The same, seeing many men in cloaks at an assembly, in indignation said: “Behold the Romans, lords of the world and the people of the toga.” So he strove to renew the ancient manners and dress. I saw at Nuremberg: noble and very wealthy matrons, clad in a simple mantle and gaiters, going about like viragos and mannish women, like the wives of their ancient leaders. I saw at Wurzburg that all matrons, even the most noble, have hoods, not of silk or wool, but of wood. For all wear instead of a hood a hod (such as colliers carry at Liege), more or less handsome according to the condition of the person; so that she who does not wear one is not thought respectable. Entering a church, they lay down the hods before it, and on going out take them up and fit them to the back. I believe that in a wine-bearing region formerly all carried the grapes in hods, as they still do.
Dionysius, tyrant of Sicily, sent splendid garments as a gift to the daughters of Archidamus. Archidamus refused them, saying: “I fear that in this dress my girls will seem ugly to me.”