On the Veiling of Virgins 11–17

But what we left aside above from part of the discussion that followed, so as not to break up its coherence, we will now settle with a reply. When we took our stand on the apostle's absolute definition, that every woman, of every age too, is to be understood, it could be answered from the other side that in that case a virgin ought to be covered from birth and from the first naming of her age. But it is not so; rather from the time when she has begun to understand herself, to enter into the sense of her nature, to go out from the state of a virgin, and to experience that new thing which belongs to another age. For the first parents of the race, Adam and Eve, as long as they lacked understanding, went about naked. But when they had tasted of the tree of knowledge, the first thing they felt was that they must blush. So each marked the understanding of their own sex with a covering. And if she must be veiled because of the angels, without doubt the law of the veil will take effect from the age at which the daughters of men could draw desire toward themselves and undergo marriage. For a virgin ceases to be one from the time she can cease to be one. And therefore in Israel it is unlawful to give her to a husband except after her maturity has been attested by blood; so before this sign the thing is unripe. So if she is a virgin as long as she is unripe, she ceases to be a virgin when she is recognized as ripe, and as no longer a virgin she becomes subject to the law, as she does to marriage. And betrothed girls indeed have the example of Rebecca, who, when she was being brought, still unknown, to a bridegroom still unknown, as soon as she recognized that he was the one she had seen from afar, did not wait for the clasp of the right hand, nor the meeting of a kiss, nor the exchange of greetings, but, confessing what she had perceived, that is, that she was married in spirit, denied that she was a virgin by veiling herself on the spot. O woman already of Christ's discipline! For she showed that marriage too, like unchastity, takes place by the look and the mind; except that some people still veil Rebecca too. As for the rest, that is, those who are not betrothed, let the delay of parents, arising from poverty or scrupulousness, see to it; let the vow of continence itself see to it. None of that concerns age, which runs its own course and pays its own debts to maturity. Another mother, nature, in secret, and another father, time, out of sight, have married their daughter by their own laws. Look at that virgin of yours, already married, in her soul by expectation and in her flesh by transformation, for whom you are preparing a second husband. Already her voice has changed, her limbs are complete, modesty clothes itself everywhere, the months pay their tributes; and do you deny that she is a woman, when you say she suffers womanly things? If union with a man makes a woman, let them not be covered until after the very experience of marriage. And yet even among the heathen brides are led veiled to their husbands. But if they are veiled at their betrothal, because in body and spirit they have been joined with a male by the kiss and the right hands, by which they first unsealed their modesty in spirit, by the common pledge of conscience by which they consented to the whole of their confusion, how much more will time veil them, without which they cannot be betrothed, and under whose pressure they cease to be virgins even without betrothal? Even the heathen observe time, so as to render to the ages their rights according to the law of nature. For they send females into public affairs from twelve years, but the male from two years later, determining puberty by years, not by betrothals or marriages. A woman is called mother of a family, though a virgin, and a man father of a family, though beardless. We do not observe even the things of nature, as though the God of nature were other than ours.

Recognize her as a woman, recognize her as married, from the testimonies of body and spirit alike, which she experiences both in her conscience and in her flesh. These are the first tablets of a natural betrothal and marriage. Put a veil on the outside of one who has a covering on the inside. Let the upper parts be covered of one whose lower parts are not bare. Do you want to know what authority age has? Set two girls side by side: one [immature] who has been violated, in the dress of a woman, and one advanced in maturity who remains in virginity, in its dress: the former will more easily be denied to be a woman than the latter be believed a virgin. So great is the testimony of age that not even dress can obstruct it. What of the fact that these girls of ours also confess the change of age by their dress, and, as soon as they have understood themselves to be women, withdraw from among the virgins, putting away from their very head what they were? They alter their hair, and fasten their locks with a more wanton pin, professing open womanhood with the hair parted from the forehead. They seek their looks from the mirror, and soften a face grown too fastidious by washing, perhaps even touch it up with some cosmetic; they throw a mantle about them outside, pack their feet into shoes of many shapes, carry more equipment to the baths. Why should I pursue the details? Their evident preparations alone carry about the whole of womanhood; yet they want to play the virgin by the bareness of the head alone, denying by one item of dress what they profess by their whole apparel.

If they misuse their dress for men's sake, let them carry it through in this respect too: as they veil the head among the heathen, let them certainly hide in church the virginity which they conceal outside the church. They fear strangers; let them also revere the brothers; or else let them have the constancy to dare to be seen as virgins in the streets too, as they dare in the churches. I will praise their vigour if they also put some of their virginity on the market among the heathen. Nature is the same outside as inside; the same institution stands by the same freedom before men and before the Lord. Why, then, do they hide their good outside but publish it in church? I demand a reason. Is it to please their brothers, or God himself? If God himself, he is as able to see whatever is done in secret as he is just to reward what is done for him alone. Indeed he commands us to trumpet abroad nothing of what will earn a reward with him, and not to be repaid for it by men. And if we are forbidden to do the work of a single small coin, or of any alms, with the left hand aware of it, how much darkness ought we to throw around us when we offer to God so great an oblation, of our very body and our very spirit, when we consecrate to him nature itself? Therefore what cannot be seen to be done for God's sake, because God does not want it done so, is done, it follows, for the sake of men, and so is first of all unlawful, as lusting after glory. For glory is unlawful for those whose proof consists in every humiliation. And if the virtue of continence is conferred by God, why do you boast as if you had not received it? But if you have not received it, what have you that has not been given to you? And by this very fact it is clear that it has not been given to you by God, that you do not render it to God alone. Let us see, then, whether what is human is firm and true.

They report that someone once said, when this question was first raised, “And how shall we attract other girls to this kind of work?” Of course they will make us happy if they are more numerous, and not the grace of God or each one's merits! Do virgins adorn the church, or does the church adorn virgins, or commend them to God? He confessed, then, that glory is at the root of it. Now where there is glory, there is enticement; where enticement, compulsion; where compulsion, necessity; where necessity, weakness. Rightly, then, while they do not cover their heads, so as to be enticed for the sake of glory, they are forced to cover their bellies through the ruin of their weakness. For rivalry, not religion, brings them forward. Sometimes their very belly is their god as well, because the brotherhood readily supports virgins. And they do not only fall, but drag behind them a long rope of sins. For, brought forward into public view, elated by the publication of their good, loaded by the brothers with every honour and work of charity, as long as they do not fall, then, when something has been committed, they think of as much disgrace as they had honour. If an uncovered head is ascribed to virginity, then if any virgin has fallen from the grace of virginity, she remains bareheaded lest she be betrayed, and then she walks in a dress not her own. Conscious of a womanhood no longer in doubt, they dare to approach God with bare head. But the jealous God and Lord, who said, “Nothing is hidden that will not be revealed,” brings many of them into view as well. For they will not confess unless betrayed by the wailing of their own infants. And the more of them there are, will you not also suspect them of more crimes? I will say it, though I would rather not: one who fears to become a woman hardly becomes one only once, and one who has become one can lie that she is a virgin before God. How much, too, will she dare concerning her womb, lest she be discovered to be a mother as well? God knows how many infants he has helped to be perfected and brought whole to birth, after being fought against for some time by their mothers. Such virgins always conceive most easily and give birth most happily, and to children very like their fathers! These are the outrages that a forced and unwilling virginity commits. The very desire not to be hidden is not modest. It experiences something that is not a virgin's: the eagerness to please, and to please men at that. However much she may try with good intention, she must be endangered by the public display of herself, while she is struck by many and uncertain eyes, while she is tickled by the fingers of those who point her out, while she is loved too much, while she grows warm among constant embraces and kisses. So the forehead is hardened, so modesty is worn down, so it is loosened, so she learns to desire to please in another way.

But true, whole, and pure virginity fears nothing so much as itself. It does not want to bear even the eyes of women. It has other eyes of its own. It takes refuge in the veil of the head as in a helmet, as in a shield, to protect its good against the blows of temptations, against the darts of stumbling blocks, against suspicions and whispers and rivalry, and envy itself too. For there is something that even the heathen fear, which they call fascinum, the unhappy outcome of praise and glory beyond measure. We sometimes attribute this to the devil, for hatred of the good is his; sometimes we ascribe it to God, for the judgment of pride is his, who exalts the humble and brings down the lofty. So the holier virgin will fear, even under the name of fascinum, the adversary on the one side and God on the other: the envious nature of the one, the censor's eye of the other; and she will rejoice to be known to herself alone and to God. But even if she becomes known to someone, she is wise if she has blocked the path of temptations. For who will dare to press with his eyes upon a face that is closed, a face that does not respond, a face, if I may say so, that is stern? Any evil thought will be broken by that very severity. She who hides the virgin already denies that she is even a woman.

In these things the defense of our opinion consists: according to Scripture, according to nature, according to discipline. Scripture establishes the law, nature bears witness, discipline demands. To which of these does the custom of the opposite opinion appeal, or what is the pretext of the contrary view? Scripture is God's, nature is God's, discipline is God's. Whatever is contrary to these is not God's. If Scripture is uncertain, nature is plain, and with its testimony Scripture cannot be uncertain. If there is doubt about nature, discipline shows what is more approved by God. Nothing is dearer to him than humility, nothing more acceptable than modesty, nothing more hateful than glory and the eagerness to please men. So let that be for you Scripture and nature and discipline which you have found approved by God, as you are commanded to examine all things and to follow whatever is better. It remains for us also to turn to the virgins themselves, so that they may receive these things more willingly. I beg you, whether mother, or sister, or virgin daughter (let me speak by the names that go with the years), veil your head: if a mother, for your sons' sake; if a sister, for your brothers' sake; if a daughter, for your fathers' sake. All ages are endangered in you. Put on the armor of modesty, throw around you the rampart of shame, build a wall for your sex, which will neither let your eyes out nor let others' eyes in. Complete the dress of a woman, so as to keep the state of a virgin. Give a false show of something of what is within, so as to display the truth to God alone. And yet you do not falsely present yourself as married. For you have married Christ; to him you have handed over your flesh; to him you have betrothed your maturity. Walk according to the will of your bridegroom. It is Christ who commands that the brides and wives of others be veiled; all the more, surely, his own.

But we also warn you women of the other chastity, who have entered upon marriage, not to fall so far away from the discipline of the veil, not even for a moment of an hour, that, because you cannot throw it off, you destroy it another way, walking about neither covered nor bare. For some do not veil the head with turbans and woollen bands, but tie it up: protected in front, but bare where the head properly is. Others are covered only as far as the brain with small linen cloths, not even let down to the ears, I suppose so as not to press on the head. I pity them, if their hearing is so weak that they cannot hear through a covering. Let them know that the whole head is the woman. Its limits and boundaries reach as far as the point where the garment begins. As far as the unbound hair can reach, so far is the region of the veil, so that the neck too is enclosed. For it is the neck that must be subject, on account of which “authority ought to be had over the head.” The veil is their yoke. The heathen women of Arabia will judge you, who cover not only the head but the whole face, so that with one eye left free they are content to enjoy half the light rather than prostitute the whole face. A woman would rather see than be seen. For this reason a certain Roman queen said they were most unhappy, because they could fall in love more than be loved; although they are in fact happy in being free of another unhappiness, and a more frequent one, since women can more easily be loved than love. And the modesty of heathen discipline is purer and, if I may say so, more barbarous. For us the Lord has even measured out the extent of the veil by revelations. For to a certain sister of ours an angel in her sleep, striking her neck as if applauding it, said: “Elegant neck, and rightly bare! It is good that you are uncovered from the head down to the loins, lest this freedom of the neck be of no profit to you either.” And surely what you have said to one, you have said to all. But what great punishment will those women deserve who stay uncovered even during the psalms or at any mention of God, who, even when they are about to spend time in prayer itself, very readily put a fringe or a tuft or any thread on top of the head and think themselves covered? So small do they falsely make their head out to be! Others, whose palm is plainly larger than any fringe or thread, abuse their head no less, like a certain beast, more beast than bird, though feathered, small-headed, long-necked, and for the rest high-stepping. They say that when it has to hide, it thrusts its head alone, quite wholly, into a thicket and leaves the rest of itself in the open. So while it is safe in its head, it is caught whole, head and all, where it is bare and larger. Such will these women be too, covered less than is useful. Therefore at all times and in every place they ought to walk mindful of the law, ready and prepared for every mention of God; if he is in their heart, he will be recognized also on women's heads. To those who read these things in good peace, putting usefulness before custom, may peace and grace from our Lord Jesus overflow, together with Septimius Tertullian, whose little work this is.