Clement of Alexandria · a new plain-English translation from the original language
The proper time for intercourse is a matter left only for the married to consider, and for the married the aim is child-bearing, and the end is good offspring, just as for the farmer the reason for casting his seed is provision for nourishment, and the end of his farming for him is the ingathering of the fruits. But far better is the farmer who sows a living field; for the one tills seeking timely nourishment, the other providing for the continuance of the whole; and the one plants for himself, the other for God's sake. For He has said, "Be fruitful and multiply," and this must be obeyed; and it is in this respect that man becomes an image of God, in that man cooperates in the begetting of man. Not every soil, then, is suited for receiving seed, and even if it is, not by the same farmer; nor indeed should one sow upon rocks, nor outrage the seed, which is the founding substance of generation and has the reasoning principles of nature sown together within it; and to disgrace, unreasoningly, the reasonings that accord with nature into channels contrary to nature is utterly godless. Observe, then, how the all-wise Moses somehow symbolically rejects unfruitful sowing, saying, "You shall not eat the hare nor the hyena." He does not wish man to partake of their quality, nor indeed to taste of a like wantonness; for these animals are excessively frenzied about mating. And they say the hare gains an anus-opening each year, having as many holes as years it has lived; hence the prohibition of eating the hare signifies an aversion to pederasty. And the hyena, they say, alternates in turn from male to female every other year, hinting that one who abstains from the hyena ought not rush into adultery. Now that Moses the all-wise, by this prohibition set forth, hints that we ought not liken ourselves to these animals, I too agree in common consent; I do not, however, assent to this particular exegesis of the symbolically-spoken matters. For nature could never be compelled into a change, and what has once been shaped is not lawful to be reshaped by passion in opposition to itself; for passion is not nature; passion is accustomed to counterfeit the form, not to remake it. For even if many of the birds are said to change both color and voice according to the seasons (as the blackbird turns tawny from black, and becomes noisy instead of songful; likewise too the nightingale changes both color and song with the turning seasons), yet they do not at all change their nature itself, so that female should become out of male by transformation; rather, the fresh growth of feathers blooms forth, like a new garment, with a certain dye of plumage, but a little later it fades away under the threat of winter, like a flower whose color withers; and the voice too in the same way, worn by the cold, fades; for as the surface is condensed by the surrounding air, the arteries about the neck, being compressed and condensed, press further upon the breath, and this, being excessively straitened, gives forth a strangled sound. Then again, being made like the surrounding air and relaxed with the spring, the breath is freed from its constriction, borne through the now-widened passages that had been narrowed; and the song, no longer faint, blooms forth now clear and pours out more broadly in utterance, and the birds' song already becomes the springtime of their voice.
One should never believe, then, that the hyena changes its nature; nor indeed does this same animal possess both genitalia at once, of male and female, as some have supposed, telling fables of hermaphrodites and inventing this androgynous nature as a third kind between female and male. They are quite deceived, not having understood the ingenious skill of nature, the mother and begetter of all. For since this animal, the hyena, is most lustful, there grows on it beneath the tail, before the passage of excretion, a certain fleshy protrusion resembling in shape a female pudendum; but this fleshy shape has no passage at all leading to anything useful, either to a womb or, I mean, to a rectum; rather it has only a large hollow, by which it receives its empty lust, whenever the passages turn away, being occupied with birth-giving during gestation. This same feature grows on both male and female hyena on account of their excessive passivity; for the male too submits to the other, whence it is exceedingly rare to obtain a female hyena; for continuous conceptions do not occur for this animal, since the unnatural mating multiplies freely and without restraint among them. In this way it seems to me that Plato too, in the Phaedrus, rejecting pederasty, calls it a wild beast, because "having champed the bit," those given over to pleasures, being lustful, "proceed after the manner of four-footed beasts and attempt to sow their seed in boys." And God "gave over" the godless, as the apostle says, "to dishonorable passions; for their females exchanged the natural use for that which is against nature, and likewise also the males, having abandoned the natural use of the female, burned in their desire toward one another, males working shameless deeds with males, and receiving in themselves the due penalty of their error." And yet nature has not granted even to the most lustful of animals to leap upon the passage of excretion; for urine is separated off into the bladder, and moistened food into the belly, and tears to the eye, blood to the veins, filth is carried down to the ears, mucus to the nostrils; and the seat is continuous with the end of the rectum, through which the residues are expelled. Only in the case of hyenas, then, has variegated nature devised this extraneous part for their extraneous couplings. Therefore it is hollow only to a certain point, for the service of the itching parts, but the hollow is blind beyond that; for it was not fashioned for generation. From this it is plainly agreed we must reject unions between males, and unfruitful sowings, and unions from behind, and the unnatural fellowship of androgynes, following nature herself, who forbids these through the very construction of the parts, having fashioned the male not for the reception of seed but for its emission. And Jeremiah, whenever he says — that is, through him the Spirit says — "My house has become a den of the hyena," abhorring the food taken from dead bodies, has in a wise allegory censured idolatry; for the house of the living God must in truth be pure of idols.
Again Moses forbids eating the hare also. The hare mates at every season, and the male mounts the female as she crouches, coming upon her from behind; for it is a rear-mounting animal. It conceives monthly and superfetates; it is mated, and it gives birth, and having given birth, it is immediately mated again by whichever hare happens along; for it is not content with one union. And it conceives again while still nursing; for it has a two-chambered womb. And it is not only the emptying of the womb that becomes for it a sufficient occasion for intercourse; for everything that is empty desires filling; and it happens that, when they are pregnant, one part of the womb is held in check by desire and is in heat. For this reason superfetations occur among them. To abstain, then, from violent cravings and from repeated intercourse and from intimacy with pregnant women and from mounting one another and from corruption of children and from adultery and from lust — this is the counsel that the prohibition of this riddle has urged upon us.
So too, openly now and no longer through riddles, this same Moses forbade, with bared face, saying, "You shall not fornicate, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not corrupt children." This ordinance of the Word must be kept with all one's strength, and nothing whatsoever must be transgressed, nor must the commandments be annulled; for the name for evil desire is outrage (hybris), and Plato called the horse of desire "outrageous," having read, "You have become for me female-maddened horses." And the angels who came to Sodom will make known to you the penalty for outrage. These burned up, together with the city itself, those who wished to force their way to them, offering this as a clear proof, that fire is the fruit that lust reaps; for the misfortunes of the ancients, as we said before, have been recorded for our admonition, that we might not be caught in the same snares, but might guard against falling into like disasters. We must regard boys as sons, and look upon the wives of others as our own daughters, and master the pleasures of the belly, and, still more, ruling what is below the belly is most fitting for one who would rule himself. For if reason does not permit the wise man to move even his finger carelessly, as the Stoics agree, how much more must those who pursue wisdom master the organ of intercourse? For this reason, it seems to me, it has also been named aidoion (the modest part), because it is above all else with this part of the body that one must act with modesty (aidos); for nature, just as with foods, so too with lawful marriages, has permitted us as much as is proper and useful and becoming, and has permitted us to desire the begetting of children. But those who pursue excess stumble against what is natural, doing themselves harm through lawless intercourse. It stands rightly, more than anything, never to have intercourse with boys as one would with women for the mingling of Aphrodite. Wherefore also, "do not sow upon rocks and stones," says the philosopher who drew from Moses, "since what is rooted there will never take on generative nature." Very plainly indeed, through Moses, the Word has commanded: "And with a male you shall not lie the lying of a woman, for it is an abomination." And further, "to abstain from every female field" that is not one's own — this the noble Plato, gathering from the divine scriptures, counseled, taking the ordinance from that source: "and to the wife of your neighbor you shall not give your bed of seed, to be defiled with her." "Unhallowed and bastard are the seeds of concubines." Do not sow where you would not wish what is sown to grow up for you; nor indeed "touch anyone at all except your own wedded wife," from whom alone it is just to reap the pleasures of the flesh, for legitimate succession. For these alone are lawful in the eyes of the Word. Having received a share of the divine, creative portion, one must not cast the seed away nor outrage it, nor sow it upon barren ground. This same Moses forbids approaching even one's own wedded wives, should they happen to be caught up in their monthly purifications. For it is not yet reasonable to defile, with the body's discharge, the most generative part of the seed — soon to become a human being — nor indeed to wash away, with the impure flow and discharge of matter, the seed of well-formed generation, depriving it of the furrows of the womb. Nor did he permit any of the ancient Hebrews to come together with his own wife while she was pregnant; for mere pleasure, even if taken within marriage, is lawless and unjust and unreasonable. On the contrary, Moses keeps husbands away from their pregnant wives until they have given birth; for indeed the womb, lying beneath the bladder and resting upon the intestine called the rectum, extends its neck between the hips within the bladder, and the mouth of the neck, by which it receives the seed, closes once filled, and again is emptied, being cleansed by gestation, and having laid down its fruit, then receives the sowing again. It is not shameful for us, for the benefit of our hearers, to name the organs of gestation, whose creation God was not ashamed of. The womb, then, thirsting for child-bearing, receives the sowing, and refuses the blame attached to intercourse, closing off entirely, after the sowing, all further wantonness with its mouth shut. And its cravings, which had until then been stirred up around affectionate embraces, turn away, and being occupied within with child-bearing, cooperate with the Creator. It is not right, then, to trouble nature further while she is already at her work, going to excess into outrage; and outrage — many-named and many-formed — when it turns aside in this direction, the part concerned with Aphrodite out of due order, is called lust, the vulgar, common, and impure kind. The tendency toward matings, as the name itself shows, is that from whose increase the great multitude of diseases arises: love of dainties, love of wine, love of women, and indeed profligacy and every love of pleasure, over which desire holds tyranny. Countless kindred sufferings grow along with these, from which the unrestrained character comes to its height; and Scripture says, "Scourges are prepared for the unrestrained, and punishments for the shoulders of fools," calling the strength of unrestraint and its stubborn endurance "the shoulders of fools." For this reason indeed: "Remove far from your servants vain hopes, and unseemly desires," it says, "turn away from me; let neither craving of the belly nor of intercourse overtake me." We must, then, keep far off the great mischief of those who lie in wait for us; for not into the wallet of Crates alone, but not even into our city, does there sail "a foolish parasite, nor a greedy prostitute glorying in the buttocks, nor a deceitful harlot," nor any other such beast of pleasure. Let much right conduct, then, be sown throughout our whole life.
On the whole question, then, whether one ought to marry, or whether one ought to keep wholly clear of marriage (for this too belongs to the inquiry), we have made clear in our treatise On Continence. But as to this very point, granted that one ought to marry, it required consideration how one might be permitted, without restraint, to make use of intercourse on every occasion, as though it were like food, and as though a necessity. Indeed, one may observe from intercourse itself how, like warp-threads, the sinews are worn away and torn apart in the strain of the act; and indeed it also spreads a mist over the senses, and it also cuts short one's vigor. This is clear both in irrational animals and in bodies under training, of whom those who abstain prevail over their opponents in the contests, while others are dragged down, worn out by mating, all but dragged along, utterly emptied of all strength and impetus. "A little epilepsy," the sophist of Abdera called intercourse, considering it an incurable disease. For indeed do not fainting spells follow, attributed to the magnitude of the loss? "For man is begotten out of man, and torn away from him." See the magnitude of the harm. A whole man is torn away in the loss attending intercourse; for it is said, "This now is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh." So great, then, is the measure by which man is emptied in his seed, as great as is seen in his body; for that which departs is the origin of generation. And moreover the seething of matter throws the body's harmony into confusion and disorder. Very witty, then, was that man who, when asked how he stood with respect to the pleasures of Aphrodite, said, "Hush, man; most gladly indeed have I fled from them, as from a raging and savage master." But let marriage be approved and given its due place; for the Lord wills mankind to "be fruitful and multiply," but he does not say "be wanton," nor did he wish that men, as though born for mating, should give themselves over to pleasures. Let the Instructor make us ashamed, crying out through Ezekiel, "Circumcise your fornication." Even the irrational animals have a fitting season for sowing. But not to come together for the begetting of children is to do outrage to nature, whom we must take as our teacher, observing the wise instructions given by the seasons of life — I mean old age and childhood — which she brings forward as a bar (for to the one she has not yet granted it, and the other she no longer wishes to marry), except that one need not always be marrying. Marriage is the desire for begetting children, not the disordered, unlawful, and unreasoning discharge of seed. Life would proceed for us according to nature, in every respect, if we mastered our desires from the outset and did not, by wicked contrivances, destroy the human race that springs up by divine providence; for such contrivances, under the cloak of fornication, using drugs that drag down to utter destruction, along with the embryo abort also their love for mankind. But for those to whom marriage is permitted, an instructor was needed, so that they should not, in broad daylight, perform the mystic rites of nature, nor, coming home in the early morning from church, say, or from the marketplace, mate after the manner of a rooster, at the very hour set for prayer and reading and the good works done by day; but in the evening it is fitting to rest, after the evening meal and after the thanksgiving offered for one's enjoyments. Nor does nature always afford a fitting occasion for the completion of the marriage act; indeed, the embrace longer delayed is the more longed-for. Nor indeed should one behave licentiously as though in darkness by night, but rather one must shut up within the soul, as it were, the modest light of reason; for we should differ in nothing from Penelope at her weaving, who by day weaves out the doctrines of self-control, but at night unravels them again, whenever we go to bed. For if reverence must be practiced — as indeed it must — far more must reverence be shown toward one's own wife, refraining from unseemly embraces, and let the assured trust one shows toward one's neighbors come from within the home as well. For it is not, it is not possible to be considered reverent by her, in whose eyes reverence shows no witness in those very sharpest of pleasures. And affection that confesses itself given over slippingly to intercourse blooms but briefly, and grows old together with the body, and sometimes grows old even before its time, once desire has withered, whenever meretricious pleasures outrage the self-control proper to marriage; for winged are the hearts of lovers, and the charms are quenched by repentance, and love is often turned to hatred, whenever satiety perceives the grounds for condemnation.
Of licentious words and shameless postures and courtesans' kisses [names of harlotry], and of such lecheries as these, we must not even make mention, obeying the blessed apostle who says outright: "But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not even be named among you, as becomes saints." Well indeed does someone seem to have said: "Intercourse has profited no one; it is enough if it has not harmed." For intercourse according to law is precarious except so far as it serves procreation, but concerning the unlawful kind Scripture says: "A hired woman shall be reckoned as spittle, but a married woman is a tower of death to those who resort to her." He likened the harlot's passion to a boar or a sow, and he called adultery, when sought after a guarded harlot, a death being pursued. As for the house and the city in which men behave licentiously, even your own poetry writes reproachfully in some such way: "Adulteries are among you, and lawless mingling of men, unnatural, female-born and unjust, wicked city, altogether unclean." But conversely it admires the temperate, who neither harbor shameful desire for another's bed nor rush toward the hateful and abominable outrage against a male, because it is against nature. The many consider these things luxuries — their own sins — but those more decent than these recognize that they are sins, yet are overcome by the pleasures. And darkness is for them a covering for their passions; for the man who plays the harlot with his own marriage commits adultery against it, and he does not listen to the Instructor crying out: "The man who climbs onto his couch, who asks within himself: who sees me? Gloom surrounds me, and these walls are my hiding place, and no one beholds my wrongdoing; why then should I take care? The Most High will forget." Most wretched is this man, fearing only the eyes of men, but supposing he will escape the notice of God. "For he does not know," says Scripture, "that the eyes of the Lord Most High are ten thousand times brighter than the sun, which look upon all the ways of men and observe even hidden places." And again in this way the Instructor threatens them through Isaiah, saying: "Woe to those who make counsel in secret, and say, Who sees us?" For a man may perhaps escape the notice of perceptible light, but the intelligible light it is impossible to escape; or as Heraclitus says: "How could anyone stay hidden from that which never goes down?" So let none of us wrap ourselves in gloom, since the light lives within us; "and darkness," it says, "cannot overwhelm it," and sober reasoning brightens the night; and Scripture has called the reflections of upright men lamps that never sleep. And yet to attempt to escape notice in what one does is the confession of one who admits he sins; and everyone who sins immediately does wrong, not so much to his neighbor, if he commits adultery, as to himself, because he has committed adultery; but altogether he shows himself worse and more dishonored. For the one who sins, insofar as he sins, is worse and more dishonored than himself; and altogether by now some measure of licentiousness attends the one overcome by shameful pleasure; wherefore also altogether the fornicator has died to God, and has been abandoned by the Word, as by the Spirit, a dead man. For the Holy dislikes being defiled, as indeed is reasonable. It is always right for the pure to touch the pure; let us not, together with the garment we remove, likewise cast off our sense of shame, since it is never fitting for a righteous person to shed self-mastery. For behold, this corruptible thing shall put on incorruption, whenever the insatiable part of desire, that which flows toward licentiousness, being disciplined by self-control and made unloving of corruption, yields the man over to everlasting temperance; "for in this age they marry and are given in marriage," but having brought to nothing the works of the flesh, clothing the flesh itself, now pure, with incorruption, we pursue the measure that belongs to the angels. In this way too Plato, in the Philebus, the disciple of barbarian philosophy, has mystically called those atheists who corrupt and defile, so far as lies in them, the God who dwells within them — the Word — through their intimacy with the passions. We must never, then, live mortally while being sanctified to God; nor indeed, as Paul says, ought we make the members of Christ members of a harlot, nor make the temple of God a shrine of shameful passions. For remember the twenty-four thousand who were cast out because of fornication, and the sufferings of those who committed fornication are, as I have already said, "types" instructing our desires. To us the Instructor most clearly exhorts: "Go not after your desires, and restrain yourself from your appetites"; "for wine and women will lead the discerning astray, and he who cleaves to harlots will grow more reckless; rot and worm will inherit him, and he shall be taken away for a greater warning example," and again (for he never tires of benefiting us): "But he who looks pleasure in the eye crowns his life." It is not right, then, to be overcome by the pleasures of Aphrodite, nor indeed to gape after desires, nor even to be inflamed over irrational appetites, nor to desire to be defiled. Sowing alone has been permitted to the married man, like a farmer, at that time when the season admits the seed. Against the rest of intemperance the best remedy is reason, but the lack of satiety also helps, through which inflamed desires leap wildly around pleasures. Therefore neither should we lay claim to costly clothing, any more than to varied food. The Lord himself, dividing his instructions among soul and body and, third, external things, advises that we procure external things for the sake of the body, but that the body be managed by the soul, while he instructs the soul, saying, "Do not be anxious for your soul what you shall eat, nor for your body what you shall put on; for the soul is more than food, and the body than clothing." And he brings a clear example of the teaching: "Consider the ravens, that they neither sow nor reap, for whom there is neither storeroom nor barn, and God feeds them. Are you not worth more than the birds?" And this concerns food; likewise he also gives instruction about clothing, which belongs to the third class, external things, saying, "Consider the lilies, how they neither spin nor weave; I tell you that not even Solomon in all his glory was arrayed like one of these." King Solomon prided himself greatly on his wealth. What then is more beautiful and more flowering than flowers? What is more delightful than lilies [or myrrh] or roses? "But if God dresses so finely the grass standing today in the field, and thrown into the furnace come tomorrow, how much more will he clothe you, you of little trust! So do not go searching after what you will eat or what you will drink." Here the little word "what" has cast out the variety of food, for this is signified from Scripture: do not be anxious about what kind of things you shall eat or what kind you shall drink; for it is covetousness and luxury to be anxious about these things; but eating understood simply and plainly is proof of necessity, the filling, as we said, of a lack; but the "what" comes from excess, and Scripture has revealed that excess comes from the devil. The following text makes the meaning clear. Having said, "Do not seek what you shall eat or what you shall drink," he added: "and be not anxious in suspense"; and it is boastfulness and luxury that make men anxiously suspended away from the truth, and the self-indulgence that occupies itself with superfluous things leads away from truth; wherefore he also says most beautifully: "For it is after all such things that the pagans of this world run." By pagans he means the unruly and the thoughtless. And what does he mean by "these things"? Luxury, self-indulgence, seasoning, gourmandizing, gluttony; these are the "what." But concerning plain food, both dry and moist, as being necessary things, he says, "your Father knows that you need them." And if we have become altogether given to seeking, let us not waste our capacity for seeking upon luxury, but let us kindle it afresh toward the discovery of truth. "For seek," he says, "the kingdom of God, and what you need for food will be supplied besides." Since, then, he removes worry over clothing and food and superfluous things generally, as not being necessary, what must we suppose he would say concerning love of adornment — the dyeing of wool and the variety of colors and the elaborate working of stones and the fashioning of gold, and further, artificially constructed braids and curling ringlets, and besides the painting of eyes and the plucking of brows and the applying of rouge and the whitening with lead and the dyeing of hair and all the base arts connected with these deceptions? Should we not very much suspect that what was said a little before about the grass has been said also about these unadorned lovers of adornment? For the world is the field, and we are the grass moistened by the grace of God, and having been mown down we rise again, a point to be treated more fully elsewhere, in the discourse On the Resurrection; and the common grass is allegorically the crowd, familiar with the pleasure of a single day, blossoming for a short while, fond of adornment and fond of glory and anything rather than fond of truth, fit for nothing but fuel for fire.
"There was a man," the Lord says in the parable, "a wealthy one, dressed in purple garments and fine linen, dining lavishly day after day" — this man was the grass; "and a beggar named Lazarus lay at his gate, his body covered in sores, longing to eat the scraps that dropped from the rich man's dinner table" — this represents the herb. But the one, the rich man, was punished in Hades, sharing in the fire, while the other flourished in the bosoms of the father. I admire the ancient city of the Lacedaemonians: it permitted only courtesans to wear flowered garments and golden ornament, taking away from women of good repute the love of adornment by allowing only those who play the harlot to beautify themselves. But among the Athenians, on the contrary, the archons who emulated the city constitution, forgetting the manly quarter, wore gold and put on ankle-length tunics, and bound up their hair in the crobylus, a kind of braid, adorning themselves with the insertion of golden cicadas, truly displaying, in poor taste, the earth-born character through effeminacy. And the emulation of these archons reached also to the other Ionians, whom Homer, effeminizing them, calls "trailing-robed." We must therefore migrate far from those who pursue an image of the beautiful and not the beautiful itself, who through a fair-sounding name again practice idolatry, dreaming of the nature of the beautiful by opinion, not by knowledge. And for them life here is a deep sleep of ignorance, from which we must rouse ourselves and hasten toward that which is truly beautiful and orderly, and cling to and long for this alone, leaving behind the ornaments of this world, bidding the world itself farewell, before we fall entirely asleep. I say, then, that man had need of woven garments for no other reason than the covering of the body, as a defense against the excess of cold and the intensity of heat, lest the immoderation of the surrounding air trouble us at all.
If then this is the purpose of clothing, see that we not set aside one style of dress for males and a different one for females; for being covered belongs equally to each sex, just as does eating and drinking. Since then the need is common, we approve of similar provision for it. For as the need for covering is common to both, so the coverings ought to be similar as well; and if indeed similar, then this covering too must be adopted, according to which... it is fitting to hide the eyes of women. For even if the female sex has the advantage on account of its weakness, we must blame the habit of bad upbringing, on account of which men, often reared on wretched regimens, have become softer than women; we ought not, then, to relax our discipline. But if some accommodation must be made, a little concession may be granted them to use somewhat softer fabrics only, keeping away from foolish fine handiwork and elaborate weavings in the fabric, letting alone thread of gold and Indian silkworms and the elaborate silk-moths. A worm is born first, then from it a shaggy caterpillar appears, after which it is transformed a third time into a chrysalis (some call it a corpse-grub), out of which a long thread is spun, just as the spider's thread comes from the spider; for these superfluous and transparent garments are proof of a mind not strong, exposing the shame of the body through a thin veil. For such a delicately woven garment is no longer a covering, since it cannot hide the shape of nakedness; for such a garment, falling upon the body, molds itself more moistly to it and is plastered on in a fleshly way, clinging to the shape, and takes the impression of the woman's form, so that to one who looks it makes the whole disposition of the body evident.
We must also reject dyes for clothing; for these are far removed both from usefulness and from truth, and besides tend toward slander of character; for neither is their use beneficial (for it is not suited against the cold), nor does it offer any advantage for covering beyond ordinary clothing except blame, and the delightfulness of the color vexes the greedy-eyed, provoking foolish ogling, while for those who are white within, and not counterfeit, it is most fitting to wear white and unadorned clothing. Clearly and plainly, then, the prophet Daniel says: "thrones were set, and one sat on them as it were the Ancient of Days, and his garment was white as snow." He beholds the Lord in a vision wearing such a robe; and the Apocalypse says: "I saw the souls of those who had borne witness beneath the altar; and to each was given a white robe." But if some other color must indeed be sought, the natural dye of truth suffices; garments resembling flowers must be left to Bacchic revels and mystery-cult foolishness, and moreover "purple and silver plate," as the comic poet says, "are useful for tragic actors, not for life," and our manner of living should resemble anything sooner than a stage procession. Sardian dye, then, and another unripe-grape dye, and yet another pale-green, and rose-blended and scarlet-dyed, and countless other dyes have been devised with great effort for these ruinous indulgences.
This garment is for show, not for covering. Things embroidered with gold, and sea-purple-dyed and animal-figured garments (a somewhat wind-caught luxury, this), and that myrrh-dyed saffron robe, and the costly and varied garments of fine transparent fabrics conspicuous to all, having little figures woven into the purple — all these must be left to their own craft, to enjoy themselves. "For what wise or splendid thing could women accomplish," says the comedy, "who sit here decked out in flowers, wearing saffron robes and beautified?" The Instructor exhorts outright: "Do not boast in the wearing of a garment, nor exalt yourself in glory that is not lasting." Mocking those clad in soft garments, he says in the gospel: "Behold, those who are in splendid clothing and live in luxury are in the houses of kings" — he means the earthly kingdoms, the corruptible ones, where there is vainglory and ambition and flattery and error; but those who serve the heavenly court, around the King of all, sanctify the pure garment of the soul, the flesh, and with this they put on incorruption. Just as, then, the unmarried woman devotes herself to God alone, her attention undivided, whereas the wife who is chaste splits her existence between God and her husband, while the woman swept along otherwise gives herself wholly to marriage — meaning, to desire — so too, I judge, does the chaste wife, devoted to her husband, worship God sincerely, but if she loves adornment she has fallen away both from God and from chaste marriage, exchanging her husband for finery, in the same way as the Argive courtesan — I mean Eriphyle, who received precious gold in exchange for her husband.
For this reason I also admire the Cean sophist who sketched the fitting and corresponding images of virtue and vice: the one of them he made stand simply, in white and clean robes, adorned only with modesty -- such ought faith to be, virtuous together with modesty -- but the other, on the contrary, he introduces as vice, clothed in superfluous garments and gleaming with an alien color; and her movement and her bearing, cultivated toward what is delightful, are set forth as a sketch fit for wanton women. But the one who follows reason will make no shameful pleasure his own at all; therefore the useful character of clothing is to be preferred. And even if reason, through David, sings this concerning the Lord, saying, 'The daughters of kings have made you glad in your honor; the queen stood at your right hand in gold-worked clothing, wrapped about with golden fringes,' it has not indicated luxurious clothing, but has made plain the pure adornment of the church's pitied ones, woven together out of faith, in which guileless Jesus 'shines forth as gold,' and the fringes are the elect, the golden ones. And if it is necessary to relax the standard for the sake of women, the garment should be woven smooth and pleasant to the touch, but it should not be flowered for the delight of the eye, as paintings are; for a painting fades with time, while the scourings and astringents that, with the drug-like juices of the dye, melt away the wool of the garments, make the weaving weak, and this is not even fit for household economy. It is the greatest lack of taste to be so agitated about robes and dress-mantles and cloaks and tunics -- garments which 'cover the parts of shame,' as Homer says. For I am truly ashamed, seeing so much wealth poured out on the covering of the private parts. For the ancient man in paradise measured out the covering of his shame with branches and leaves; but now, since sheep have been fashioned for us, let us not play the fool as the sheep do, but, being instructed by reason, let us reprove the extravagance of clothing, saying: you are hairs of sheep, even if Miletus boasts of you, even if Italy glories in you, even if the hairs are kept safe under leather wraps -- things over which the many rave madly, but we at least need not be zealous for it.
But the blessed John, disdaining even the hairs of sheep that reek of luxury, chose the hairs of camels and wore these, sketching out the frugality and guilelessness of his life. And indeed he ate honey and locusts, sweet and spiritual food, preparing the ways of the Lord in a manner free of vanity and sound of mind. For surely he who had turned away from civic ostentation would never have put on a purple robe, but went into the wilderness ... having lived, in the calm of that solitude, as a citizen for God, apart from all empty ambition, inexperience of good things, and pettiness. And Elijah used a sheepskin as a garment and bound the sheepskin fast with a belt made of hair. And Isaiah, that other prophet, was 'naked and unshod,' and often also wore sackcloth, a garment of humility. And if you name Jeremiah too, he had only a linen loincloth. Just as well-nourished bodies, when stripped bare, display their vigor more plainly, so too the beauty of character, when not wrapped up in tasteless trifles, displays its magnificence.
To trail one's garments, letting them down to the very tips of the feet, is utterly ostentatious, and becomes an obstacle to the activity of walking. When the garment is dragged along like a broom, sweeping up the chaff scattered on the surface of the earth -- not even those broken creatures, the mute catamites who ply their trade as dancers on the stage, let their garment flow into such an extreme of insolence; and for them the elaborate arrangements of dress, the danglings of the fringes, and the fussy rhythms of their postures display only the trailing hem of a petty foolishness. And if someone brings forward the Lord's ankle-length robe, that tunic woven with many blossoms displays wisdom's blooms, the diverse and never-withering writings, oracles belonging to the Lord and gleaming with truth's rays; the spirit clothed the Lord in just such another garment through David, singing something like this: 'You put on confession and comeliness, wrapping yourself in light as in a garment.'
Just as in the making of garments one must keep clear of every impropriety, so too one must guard against excess in their use. For it is not becoming to be dressed above the knee, as they say the Laconian maidens are; for it is not fitting that any part whatsoever of a woman be laid bare. And yet it would be possible, quite decorously, to utter that witty reply to the man who said, 'a beautiful forearm' -- 'but not a public one'; and 'beautiful legs' -- 'but only for my husband,' one might say; and 'a comely face' -- 'but only for the one who took me as his wife.' I, for my part, do not wish to give modest women occasion for such praises, praises by which those who hunt after blameworthy things pursue them through flattery -- and is it only the baring of the ankle that has been forbidden? The head, too, has been commanded to be veiled, and the face to be kept in shadow. For it is not holy that the beauty of the body be a snare for the hunting of men, nor is it reasonable that a woman, wearing a purple veil, should wish to become an object of general gazing. Would that it were possible to strip the purple even from clothing itself, so that it would not turn the eyes of onlookers toward the face of the one who wears it; but women, weaving quite a small remainder of their garment, have made the whole of it purple, kindling their idle self-indulgence, and indeed, as they flit about in a daze over these foolish and delicate purples, in the words of the poet, 'purple death seized them.' Because of this purple dye, Tyre and Sidon, along with the coastal district neighboring Laconia, are most sought after; and those who dye it, along with the men who fish the purple shells, and the shellfish themselves, come to be greatly esteemed, thanks to the blood from which the purple color springs in them. But the deceitful women, and the effeminate among men, mixing in gluttonous fabrics, rage to excess after deceitful dyes, no longer procuring the linens from Egypt, but others obtained from the land of the Hebrews and from the land of the Cilicians. As for the amorgina and byssus fabrics, I pass over them in silence; luxury has outstripped even their very names. The covering, I think, ought to show the thing covered as better than itself, as the statue shows the temple to be, and the soul the body, and the body the clothing. But now it is entirely the opposite: if their body were put up for sale, it would never fetch a thousand Attic drachmas, yet by buying a single garment for ten thousand talents, they prove themselves more worthless and dishonored than the fabrics. Why then do you pursue the rare and costly things ahead of the ordinary and the cheap? Because you are ignorant of what is truly beautiful and truly good; and instead of the things that really are, the things that merely seem are pursued eagerly among the foolish, who, like madmen, imagine white things and black alike.
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