On the Dress of Virgins

Discipline, the guardian of hope, the anchor of faith, the guide on the way of salvation, the kindling and nourishment of a good disposition, the teacher of virtue, makes us abide always in Christ and live continually for God, and come to the heavenly promises and the divine rewards. To follow it is wholesome; to turn from it and neglect it is deadly. In the Psalms the Holy Spirit speaks: “Keep hold of discipline, lest the Lord be angry and you perish from the right way, when his anger quickly blazes against you.” And again: “But to the sinner God says: Why do you recite my ordinances and take my covenant in your mouth? But you have hated discipline and cast my words behind you.” And once more we read: “He who casts away discipline is wretched.” And from Solomon we have received the commands of Wisdom as she warns: “My son, do not neglect the discipline of God, and do not faint when you are rebuked by him; for whom God loves he rebukes.” Now if God rebukes whom he loves, and rebukes in order to correct, then brothers too, and above all priests, do not hate but love those whom they rebuke in order to correct, since God also foretold through Jeremiah, and signified our own times, saying: “And I will give you shepherds after my heart, and they shall feed you, feeding you with discipline.”

If, then, discipline is commanded often and everywhere in the holy Scriptures, and the whole foundation of religion and faith proceeds from obedience and fear, what should we more eagerly seek, what should we more wish for and hold to, than that, with our roots fixed more firmly and our houses built solidly upon the rock with a strong structure, we should stand unshaken against the storms and whirlwinds of the world, and come to the gifts of God by the divine precepts, considering and knowing alike that our members are temples of God, cleansed from all the filth of the old contagion by the sanctification of the life-giving washing, and that it is not lawful to violate or defile them, since he who violates them is himself violated? We are the worshipers and priests of those temples; let us serve him whose we have now begun to be. Paul says in his letters, by which through divine teaching he has formed us for the course of living: “You are not your own, for you were bought dearly. Glorify and bear God in your body.” Let us glorify and bear God in a pure and clean body and with better obedience; and since we have been redeemed by the blood of Christ, let us obey the command of our Redeemer with every service of servitude, and take care that nothing unclean and profane be brought into the temple of God, lest he be offended and leave the dwelling he inhabits. These are the words of the Lord who heals and teaches, who cures and also warns: “See,” he says, “you have been made well; sin no more, lest something worse befall you.” He gives the fear that governs living, he gives the law of innocence, after he has bestowed health; and he does not allow the man to wander afterwards with free and loose reins, but threatens more severely the very one who was bound over to him by being healed, since, of course, it is a lesser fault to have sinned before, when you did not yet know the discipline of God, but there is no pardon for sinning further after you have begun to know God. And indeed let men as well as women, boys as well as girls, every sex and every age, observe and attend to this, in keeping with the religion and faith they owe to God, so that what is received holy and pure from the Lord's graciousness may not be held with less careful fear.

Now our address is to the virgins, whose care is the greater as their glory is the more sublime. They are the flower of the church's growth, the beauty and adornment of spiritual grace, a joyful nature, a work of praise and honor whole and incorrupt, the image of God answering to the holiness of the Lord, the more illustrious portion of Christ's flock. Through them and in them the glorious fruitfulness of mother church rejoices and flowers abundantly; and the more plentiful virginity adds to its number, the more the mother's joy increases. To these we speak, these we exhort, with affection rather than with authority; not that we, the last and least and fully aware of our lowliness, claim anything for ourselves in order to censure their freedom, but because, the more careful we are in our concern, the more we fear the assaults of the devil.

Nor is this caution empty, or the fear vain, which looks to the way of salvation and guards the life-giving precepts of the Lord, that those who have dedicated themselves to Christ, and, withdrawing from fleshly desire, have vowed themselves to God in flesh as well as in mind, may complete their work destined for a great reward, and may not seek to be adorned or to please anyone except their Lord, from whom they also expect the reward of virginity, as he himself says: “Not all receive the word, but those to whom it has been given; for there are eunuchs who were born so from their mother's womb, and there are eunuchs who were made so by men, and there are eunuchs who have castrated themselves for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.” Again, by this voice of the angel the gift of continence is shown and virginity proclaimed: “These are they who have not defiled themselves with women, for they have remained virgins. These are they who follow the Lamb wherever he goes.” Nor does the Lord promise the grace of continence to males only and pass over women; but since woman is a portion of man, and was taken and formed from him, in nearly all the Scriptures God speaks to the first-formed man, because the two are in one flesh, and in the male the woman is signified as well.

If, then, continence follows Christ, and virginity is destined for the kingdom of God, what have such women to do with earthly finery and ornaments, by which, while they are eager to please men, they offend God, not considering that it has been foretold: “Those who please men are put to shame, because God has despised them”; and Paul too proclaims gloriously and sublimely: “If I were pleasing men, I would not be a servant of Christ”? But continence and chastity do not consist in the integrity of the flesh alone, but also in the honor and modesty of dress and adornment, so that, according to the apostle, she who is unmarried may be holy both in body and in spirit. Paul instructs us and says: “The unmarried man thinks of the things of the Lord, how he may please God; but he who has contracted marriage thinks of the things of this world, how he may please his wife. So also the woman and the unmarried virgin thinks of the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit.” A virgin ought not only to be one, but also to be perceived and believed to be one: let no one who sees a virgin doubt whether she is a virgin. Let integrity show itself equal in all things, and let the dress not discredit the good of the body. Why does she go out adorned, why with her hair dressed, as if she either had a husband or were seeking one? Let her rather fear to please, if she is a virgin, and not court danger to herself, when she is keeping herself for better and divine things. She who has no husband whom she may pretend to please should persevere whole and pure, not only in body but also in spirit. For it is not right for a virgin to have her hair dressed to show off her beauty, or to glory in her flesh and its loveliness, since she has no struggle greater than against the flesh, and no more stubborn contest than to conquer and tame the body.

Paul proclaims with a strong and sublime voice: “But far be it from me to glory, except in the cross of my Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified to me and I to the world”: and a virgin in the church glories in the appearance of her flesh and the beauty of her body! Paul adds and says: “For those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its vices and desires.” And she who professes to have renounced the desires and vices of the flesh is found in the very things she had renounced. You are caught, virgin, you are exposed: you boast that you are one thing and you aim at another. You spatter yourself with the stains of fleshly desire, though you are a candidate for integrity and modesty. “Cry out,” says God to Isaiah, “all flesh is grass, and all its glory as the flower of grass. The grass has withered and the flower has fallen; but the word of the Lord remains forever.” It befits no Christian, and it especially does not befit a virgin, to reckon any glory and honor of the flesh, but only to seek the word of God and to embrace the goods that will remain forever. Or if one must glory in the flesh, it is surely when it is tortured in confessing the name, when a woman is found stronger than the men who torture her, when she suffers fire or crosses or the sword or beasts in order to be crowned. Those are the precious jewels of the flesh; those are the better ornaments of the body.

But there are some who are rich and wealthy in abundant means, who make a show of their riches and contend that they ought to use their own goods. Let them know, first, that she is rich who is rich toward God, she is wealthy who is wealthy in Christ, and those things are goods which are spiritual, divine, heavenly, which lead us to God, which remain with us in God's presence as a lasting possession. But whatever is earthly, received in this world and destined to stay here with the world, ought to be despised as much as the world itself is despised, whose pomps and delights we renounced even then, when by a better passage we came to God. John rouses and exhorts us, testifying with a spiritual and heavenly voice: “Do not love the world,” he says, “nor the things that are in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him; for all that is in the world is the desire of the flesh and the desire of the eyes and the ambition of the world, which are not from the Father but from the desire of the world. And the world will pass away, and its desire; but he who does the will of God will remain forever, as God also will remain forever.” Therefore we must pursue what is eternal and divine, and do everything according to the will of God, so that we may follow the footsteps and teachings of our Lord, who warned and said: “I have not come down from heaven to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.” Now if the servant is not greater than his master, and the one who has been set free owes obedience to his liberator, we who desire to be Christians ought to imitate what Christ said. It is written, and it is read and heard, and is proclaimed by the church's mouth for our example: “He who says he abides in Christ ought himself also to walk as he walked.” We must walk with equal steps; we must strive with a step that imitates his. Then the pursuit of truth will answer to faith in the name, and the reward is given to the believer if what is believed is also done.

You say you are wealthy and rich. But Paul meets your riches, and with his own voice prescribes that your dress and adornment be moderated within a just limit. “Let women,” he says, “adorn themselves with reverence and modesty, not with braided hair nor gold nor pearls or costly clothing, but as befits women who profess chastity, by good conduct.” Peter also agrees with these same precepts and says: “Let there be in a woman not the outward adorning of ornament or gold or clothing, but the adorning of the heart.” Now if he warns that even married women, who are accustomed to excuse their finery by their husbands, are to be restrained and regulated by religious observance according to the church's discipline, how much more is it right for a virgin to observe this, for whom there is no excuse for her adornment, nor can the falsehood of blame be shifted onto another, but she alone remains in the fault.

You say you are wealthy and rich. But not everything that can be done ought to be done, nor should desires that are excessive and born of worldly ambition be stretched beyond the honor and modesty of virginity, since it is written: “All things are lawful, but not all things are expedient; all things are lawful, but not all things build up.” Otherwise, if you dress your hair too extravagantly and walk conspicuously in public, draw the eyes of the young upon you, drag young men's sighs after you, nourish the lust of desire, and kindle the tinder of hope, so that, even if you yourself do not perish, you still destroy others and offer yourself to those who see you as a sword and a poison, you cannot be excused on the ground that you are chaste and modest in mind. Your shameless dress and immodest adornment refute you; nor can you any longer be counted among the maidens and virgins of Christ, you who live in such a way that you may be loved as a lover.

You say you are wealthy and rich. But it does not befit a virgin to boast of her riches, since divine Scripture says: “What has pride profited us, or what has the boasting of riches brought us? All those things have passed away like a shadow”; and the apostle again warns and says: “And let those who buy be as though they did not possess, and those who use this world as though they did not use it; for the form of this world is passing away.” Peter also, to whom the Lord commends his sheep to be fed and guarded, upon whom he placed and founded the church, denies indeed that he has gold and silver, but says that he is rich in the grace of Christ, wealthy in his faith and power, by which he did many mighty works with wonder, by which he abounded in spiritual goods for the grace of glory. These riches, this wealth, she cannot possess who would rather be rich for the world than for Christ.

You say you are wealthy and rich, and you think you should use the things God willed you to possess. Use them, but for saving purposes and good ends; use them for the things God has commanded, which the Lord has shown. Let the poor feel that you are rich; let the needy feel that you are wealthy. Lend your patrimony to God; feed Christ. That you may be allowed to carry through the glory of virginity, that you may succeed in coming to the Lord's rewards, win this by the prayers of many. Commit your treasures there, where no thief digs through, where no lurking robber breaks in. Acquire possessions for yourself, but heavenly ones rather, where your fruits, constant and lasting and immune from every touch of worldly harm, no rust wears away, no hail cuts down, no sun scorches, no rain spoils. For you sin against God in this very thing, if you believe riches were given you by him in order that you might enjoy them in a way that does not save. For God also gave man a voice, and yet love songs and indecent songs are not to be sung; and God willed iron to exist for tilling the ground, yet murders are not therefore to be committed. Or, because the Lord established incense and wine and fire, must one therefore sacrifice to idols? Or, because flocks of cattle abound in your fields, will you have to slaughter victims and offerings? Indeed, a great patrimony is a temptation, unless the wealth works for good uses, so that by his patrimony each one, the richer he is, should redeem his sins rather than increase them.

The distinctions of ornaments and clothing and the allurements of beauty befit none but prostitutes and immodest women, and hardly any women's dress is more costly than that of those whose modesty is cheap. So in the holy Scriptures, by which the Lord willed us to be instructed and warned, a harlot city is described, beautifully dressed and adorned, and destined to perish with her ornaments and rather on account of those very ornaments. “And there came,” he says, “one of the seven angels who had the bowls, and approached me, saying: Come, I will show you the condemnation of the great harlot who sits upon many waters, with whom the kings of the earth have committed sexual immorality. And he carried me away in the spirit, and I saw a woman sitting upon a beast; and that woman was clothed in a cloak of purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls, holding a golden cup in her hand full of curses and uncleanness and of the sexual immorality of the whole earth.” Let chaste and modest virgins flee the finery of the unchaste, the dress of the immodest, the insignia of brothels, the ornaments of harlots.

Isaiah too, full of the Holy Spirit, cries out, and rebukes and reproaches the daughters of Zion, corrupted by gold and clothing, flowing with ruinous wealth and departing from God through the delights of the world. “The daughters of Zion,” he says, “have been exalted, and have walked with necks held high and with nods of the eyes, and with the step of their feet trailing their tunics and playing with their feet as well. And God will humble the chief daughters of Zion, and the Lord will uncover their dress; and the Lord will take away the glory of their clothing and their ornaments, and their hair and curls and crescents and hair partings and bracelets and clusters and armlets and rings and earrings, and silks woven with gold and hyacinth. And instead of a sweet fragrance there will be dust; and instead of a girdle you will be girded with a rope; and instead of a golden ornament of the head you will have baldness.” This God blames, this he brands; from this he declares them corrupted, from this fallen away from true and divine adornment. Exalted, they fell; adorned, they earned disgrace and foulness. Clothed in silk and purple, they cannot put on Christ; adorned with gold and pearls and necklaces, they have lost the ornaments of heart and breast. Who would not curse and flee what has been ruin to another? Who would seek and take up what has served as a sword and a weapon for another's death? If the one who drank died after draining the cup, you would know that what he drank was poison; if the one who took food perished after taking it, you would know that what could kill when taken was deadly, and you would neither eat nor drink from what you had seen others perish by before. Now how great is the ignorance of the truth, how great the madness of mind, to want what has always harmed and still harms, and to think that you yourself will not perish by what you know others have perished by!

For God did not make sheep scarlet or purple, nor did he teach us to dye and color wool with the juices of plants and with shellfish, nor did he establish necklaces with stones set in gold, or pearls arranged in a woven row with a numerous joining, with which to hide the neck he made, so that what God formed in man might be covered and what the devil invented might be seen on top of it. Or did God will wounds to be inflicted on the ears, by which infancy, still innocent and ignorant of worldly evil, is tortured, so that afterwards precious beads might hang from the scars and holes of the ears, heavy if not by their own weight, then by their great price? All these things the sinful and apostate angels brought forth by their arts, when, sunk down to earthly contagion, they fell away from heavenly strength. They also taught women to paint the eyes by drawing black around them, to stain the cheeks with a lying blush, to change the hair with adulterous colors, and to storm all the truth of face and head by the assault of their corruption.

And indeed at this point, out of the fear which faith suggests to us and the love which brotherhood requires, I think that not only virgins and widows but also married women, and all women altogether, should be warned that the work of God, his making and his fashioning, ought in no way to be adulterated by applying yellow color or black powder or rouge, or, in short, any cosmetic that corrupts the natural features. God says: “Let us make man in our image and likeness”; and does anyone dare to change and alter what God has made! They lay hands on God when they strive to re-form and transfigure what he has formed, not knowing that everything that is born is the work of God, and whatever is altered is the devil's. If some master painter had captured someone's face and appearance and bodily form in colors that rivaled life, and when the likeness was already drawn and finished another man laid hands on it and, as if more skilled, re-formed what was already formed and painted, the insult to the first artist would seem grave and his indignation just. Do you think you will go unpunished for the audacity of such wicked rashness, an offense against God the artist? Though you may not be immodest toward men and unchaste through seductive paints, by corrupting and violating the things that are God's you are held guilty as a worse adulteress. That you think you are adorned, that you think your hair is dressed, is an assault on the divine work, a betrayal of the truth.

It is the voice of the apostle warning: “Purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, as you are unleavened; for Christ our Passover has been sacrificed. Therefore let us celebrate the feast, not with the old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” Do sincerity and truth persist when what is sincere is polluted by adulterous colors, and what is true is changed into a lie by the paints of cosmetics? Your Lord says: “You cannot make one hair white or black”; and you, to overcome your Lord's word, want to be more powerful: with bold effort and sacrilegious contempt you dye your hair, with an evil omen of things to come you already begin your hair's flame-color, and, oh the wickedness, you sin with your head, that is, with the better part of the body! And though it is written of the Lord, “But his head and hair were white as wool or snow,” you curse gray hair, you loathe whiteness, which is like the Lord's head!

Do you not fear, I beg you, you who are such, that when the day of resurrection comes your Maker may not recognize you, may remove and shut you out as you come to his rewards and promises, and, rebuking you with the vigor of a censor and judge, may say: “This is not my work, nor is this our image. You have polluted your skin with false cosmetics, you have changed your hair with adulterous color, your face has been overcome by a lie, your form has been corrupted, your countenance is another's. You will not be able to see God, since your eyes are not those which God made but those which the devil stained.” You have followed him; you have imitated the reddened and painted eyes of the serpent; adorned by your enemy, you will burn along with him. Should not these things, I beg you, be pondered by the servants of God, and feared always, day and night? Let married women see to what they flatter themselves with, when they plead their husbands' comfort in their eagerness to please; by putting them forward as an excuse, they enlist them as partners in a guilty consent. Virgins, certainly, for whom this address makes no allowance, if they have adorned themselves with arts of this kind, I would not think ought to be counted among virgins, but, like infected sheep and diseased cattle, should be kept away from the holy and pure flock of virginity, lest by their contagion they pollute the others while they live together, and lest those who have perished destroy others.

And since we seek the good of continence, let us avoid everything harmful and hostile. Nor do I pass over those things which, coming into use through negligence, have made for themselves a license by usurpation against modest and sober morals. Some women are not ashamed to be present at weddings and, in that freedom of wanton talk, to mix in unchaste conversations, to hear what is not fitting, what it is not lawful to say, to watch and be present amid shameful words and drunken banquets, by which the tinder of lust is kindled, the bride is encouraged to endure debauchery and the bridegroom to be bold in it. What place is there at a wedding for one whose mind is not set on marriage? Or what can be pleasurable and joyful there, where both pursuits and wishes are different? What is learned there, what is seen? How far a virgin falls from her purpose! How much less modest she leaves who had come modest! Though she remain a virgin in body and mind, by her eyes, ears, and tongue she has lessened what she had.

And what of those who go to the mixed baths, who prostitute to eyes curious for lust bodies dedicated to modesty and chastity? When they shamefully see naked men and are seen naked by men, do they not themselves offer an enticement to vice? Do they not stir up and invite the desires of those present to their own corruption and injury? “Let each one see,” you say, “with what mind he comes there; my only concern is to refresh and wash my poor body.” That defense does not clear you, nor does it excuse the charge of wantonness and impudence. That washing soils, it does not cleanse; it does not purify the limbs but stains them. You look at no one immodestly, but you yourself are looked at immodestly; you do not pollute your eyes with shameful delight, but while you delight others, you yourself are polluted. You make a spectacle of the bath; the places where you gather are fouler than the theater. All reverence is stripped off there; together with the covering of clothes the honor and modesty of the body are laid aside; virginity is uncovered to be pointed at and handled. Now consider whether a woman who has advanced to the boldness of nakedness is modest among men when she is clothed.

Thus, then, the church often mourns her virgins; thus she groans at their infamous and detestable stories; thus the flower of virgins is extinguished, the honor and modesty of continence is cut down, all glory and dignity is profaned. Thus the enemy, the stormer of walls, insinuates himself by his arts; thus by snares that deceive in secret the devil creeps up; thus, while virgins wish to be more elaborately adorned and to roam more freely, they cease to be virgins, corrupted by a secret disgrace, widows before they are married, adulteresses not against a husband but against Christ, destined to suffer punishments as great for their lost virginity as the rewards for which they had been destined as virgins.

Hear, therefore, virgins, as you would a parent; hear, I pray, one who fears for you and warns you alike; hear one who faithfully looks to your benefit and advantage. Be such as God the Maker made you; be such as the hand of the Father formed you. Let your face remain uncorrupted, your neck pure, your form unaltered; let no wounds be inflicted on your ears, nor a costly chain of bracelets and necklaces enclose your arms or neck; let your feet be free of golden fetters, your hair painted with no color, your eyes worthy of seeing God. Let baths be taken with women, among whom your bathing is modest. Let shameless wedding feasts and wanton banquets be avoided, whose contagion is dangerous. Overcome clothing, you who are a virgin; overcome gold, you who overcome the flesh and the world. It does not belong to the same person to be unable to be overcome by greater things and to be found unequal to lesser ones. Narrow and strait is the way that leads to life; hard and steep is the path that leads to glory. By this path the martyrs go, the virgins walk, all the righteous advance. Avoid the broad and spacious roads: there are deadly enticements there and death-bringing pleasures; there the devil flatters in order to deceive, smiles in order to harm, entices in order to kill. The first fruit, the hundredfold, is that of the martyrs; the second, the sixtyfold, is yours. As with the martyrs there is no thought of the flesh and the world, and no small, light, or soft contest, so in you also, whose reward is second in grace, let your strength in endurance be next to theirs. The ascent to great things is not easy. What sweat, what labor we endure when we try to climb hills and mountain peaks! What, then, in order to climb to heaven? If you consider the reward of the promise, what you labor at is less. Immortality is given to the one who perseveres, everlasting life is promised, the Lord promises a kingdom.

Keep, virgins, keep what you have begun to be; keep what you will be. A great recompense awaits you, a great prize for virtue, the greatest reward for chastity. Do you wish to know what evil the virtue of continence escapes and what good it possesses? “I will multiply,” God says to the woman, “your sorrows and your groanings, and in sorrow you will bear children, and your turning will be to your husband, and he will rule over you.” You are free from this sentence; you do not fear the sorrows and groanings of women; you have no fear in childbirth concerning children; nor is a husband your lord, but your Lord and head is Christ, in the likeness and place of the man; your lot and condition are the same as men's. It is the voice of the Lord saying: “The children of this world beget and are begotten; but those who have been counted worthy of that world and of the resurrection from the dead do not marry nor contract marriage; for they do not begin to die. For they are equal to the angels of God, since they are children of the resurrection.” What we shall be, you have already begun to be. You already hold the glory of the resurrection in this world; you pass through the world without the world's contagion. While you persevere chaste and virgins, you are equal to the angels of God. Only let virginity remain and endure solid and unharmed, and as it began bravely, let it persevere continually, and seek the ornaments not of necklaces or clothing but of character. Let it look to God and heaven, and not lower to the desire of the flesh and the world, nor set down on earthly things, the eyes lifted up on high.

The first sentence commanded us to increase and multiply; the second counseled continence as well. While the world was still rough and empty, we propagated ourselves by fruitfulness, producing abundance, and increased for the growth of the human race; now that the earth is full and the world entices, those who can receive continence, living in the manner of eunuchs, are castrated for the kingdom. The Lord does not command this but encourages it; he does not impose the yoke of necessity, since the choice of the will remains free. But when he says there are many dwellings with his Father, he shows lodgings of a better dwelling. You seek those better dwellings; castrating the desires of the flesh, you obtain the reward of a greater grace in the heavenly places. All, indeed, who come to the divine and paternal gift by the sanctification of baptism put off the old man there by the grace of the saving washing, and, renewed by the Holy Spirit, are cleansed from the filth of the old contagion by a second birth. But to you belongs a greater holiness and truth of the second birth, since you no longer have any desires of the flesh and body. Only the things of virtue and of the spirit remain in you for glory. It is the voice of the apostle, whom the Lord called his vessel of election, whom God sent to proclaim the heavenly commands: “The first man,” he says, “is from the clay of the earth, the second from heaven. As was the one from clay, such also are those from clay; and as is the heavenly, such also are the heavenly. As we have borne the image of him who is from clay, let us also bear the image of him who is from heaven.” This image virginity bears, integrity bears, holiness and truth bear; those bear it who are mindful of God's discipline, holding to righteousness with religion, steadfast in faith, humble in fear, strong for all endurance, gentle in bearing injury, ready in showing mercy, of one mind and harmonious in brotherly peace.

All these things, good virgins, you ought to observe, love, and fulfill, you who, devoted to God and Christ, go before us to the Lord, to whom you have dedicated yourselves, as the greater and better part. You who are advanced in years, be teachers to the younger; you who are younger, give encouragement to your equals. Rouse one another with mutual exhortations; call one another to glory by rival examples of virtue. Endure bravely, go forward spiritually, arrive happily. Only remember us then, when virginity begins to be honored in you.