On the Dress of Virgins

Contents

Reading pages: 1–22 · 23–24

1. 1Discipline keeps us in Christ and leads to God's rewards; Scripture commands it, and those who correct others do so out of love, as God does.
2. 2Our bodies, cleansed in baptism, are God's temples; having been healed, we must sin no more, and this applies to everyone of every age and sex.
3. 3Cyprian turns to the consecrated virgins, the flower of the church, and addresses them out of affection and concern rather than authority.
4. 4Virgins vowed to Christ should seek to please him alone; Christ and the Apocalypse praise continence, and what is said to men applies to women too.
5. 5A virgin should be chaste not only in body but also in dress, so that no one could doubt she is a virgin; she has no husband to please.
6. 6A virgin who has renounced the flesh should not glory in her beauty; the only glory of the flesh is to suffer for Christ in martyrdom.
7. 7True riches are spiritual; Christians renounced the world's pomps in baptism and must imitate Christ, doing God's will rather than loving the world.
8. 8Paul and Peter restrict women's adornment; if married women may not excuse finery by their husbands, a virgin has still less excuse.
9. 9Not everything lawful is expedient; a virgin who adorns herself and walks conspicuously stirs desire in others and cannot excuse herself by claiming a chaste mind.
10. 10A virgin should not boast of wealth; Scripture says riches pass like a shadow, and Peter, though he had no gold, was rich in Christ's grace.
11. 11Riches should be used for the poor and for heavenly treasure; wealth, like any gift of God, may be misused, and a great fortune is a temptation unless it redeems sins.
12. 12Costly finery suits prostitutes, as the Apocalypse's harlot shows; chaste virgins should flee such adornment.
13. 13Isaiah condemns the adorned daughters of Zion; what has destroyed others should be shunned like poison, not sought.
14. 14God did not create dyed wool, jewelry, or pierced ears; the fallen angels taught women these arts and cosmetics.
15. 15All women should avoid cosmetics, for altering what God made in his image is an insult to the divine artist.
16. 16Painting and dyeing the hair contradict the sincerity and truth Paul commands and defy Christ's word; white hair is like the Lord's own.
17. 17At the resurrection God may not recognize a face he did not make; virgins who use cosmetics should be kept apart from the others lest they corrupt them.
18. 18Virgins should not attend wedding feasts, where indecent talk and drunkenness diminish their purity even if body and mind stay intact.
19. 19Virgins should not bathe in mixed baths, for being seen naked by men corrupts both them and others, whatever their intentions.
20. 20Through finery and freedom the devil corrupts virgins, who become adulteresses against Christ and face punishment as great as the reward they lose.
21. 21Cyprian urges virgins to stay as God made them, avoid jewelry, cosmetics, mixed baths, and wedding feasts, and take the narrow way to their sixtyfold reward.
22. 22Virgins escape the curse on Eve and already share the angelic life of the resurrection that Christ promised; they should persevere and seek the adornment of character.
23. 23God first commanded increase, then counseled continence; virgins, freely choosing it, live out the new birth of baptism more fully and bear the image of the heavenly man.
24. 24Cyprian closes by urging virgins to encourage one another and asks them to remember him when their virginity is rewarded.