Clement of Alexandria · a new plain-English translation from the original language
It is childish to gape in wonder at bluish or greenish stones, at the castaway trash of a foreign sea, and at the scrapings of the earth. To rush after transparent little stones with their peculiar colors, and after variegated glass besides, is nothing but the mark of senseless people, dragged along by the mere impact-value of the impression they make. In just this way children, when they see fire, run toward it, drawn by its brightness, but through folly not perceiving how dangerous it is to touch. Such, for foolish women, are the stones bound into their necklaces and shut up in their neck-chains — amethysts, thunderstones, jaspers, topaz, and the Milesian emerald, a most costly item of commerce. And the highly-prized pearl has come revelling extravagantly into the women's quarters; it is formed in a certain shellfish resembling the pinna, its size that of a large fish's eye. And these ill-starred women are not ashamed to have devoted their whole zeal to a small shellfish, when they might adorn themselves with the holy stone, the Word of God, whom Scripture somewhere calls a pearl — the transparent and pure Jesus, the eye that beholds in the flesh, the Word made manifest, through whom flesh becomes precious, being regenerated by water. For indeed that shellfish, formed in water, encases the flesh, and out of this the pearl is conceived. We have received that the upper Jerusalem is walled with holy stones, and we understand that the twelve gates of the heavenly city, likened to precious stones, hint darkly at the conspicuous splendor of the apostolic voice. For in costly stones the colors are arranged in order — these are the precious part, while the rest is left as mere earthy matter. Fittingly, then, the city of the saints is walled symbolically with these stones, being built up spiritually. Toward the inimitable flower of the stones people have perceived the unsullied and holy flower of the spirit, of its very essence; but women who do not understand the symbolic sense of the scriptures are wholly agape over the stones, bringing forward that marvelous piece of reasoning: whatever God has shown us, why should we not use it? And since it is available to me, why should I not indulge myself? And for whom else has all this come to be, if not for us? Such words belong to those who are utterly ignorant of the will of God. For in the first place, God supplies openly to all what is necessary, like water and air, but he has hidden in earth and water whatever is not necessary. That is precisely why ants dig for gold, and griffins guard gold, and the sea has hidden the pearl-stone away; but you women are meddlesome about what you have no business with. Look, the whole heaven lies open, and you do not seek God; but hidden gold and gemstones are dug up on our behalf by men condemned to death. Yet you sing in discord even against Scripture, though it cries out plainly: 'Seek first the kingdom of the heavens, and all these things will be added to you.' And even if all things have been given to you as a gift, and even if all things have been permitted you, and even if 'all things are lawful for us,' as the apostle says, 'not all things are beneficial.' God himself brought our race into fellowship, first sharing his own possessions, and making his own Word common to all mankind, helping all men, doing all things on behalf of all. All things, then, are common, and the rich are not to claim more than their share. So the claim 'it is available to me, and I have it in abundance, why should I not indulge myself?' is neither human nor social; this rather is the mark of love: 'it is available to me, why should I not share it with those in need?' For such a person is the perfect one, who has fulfilled 'you shall love your neighbor as yourself.' This is true luxury, the extravagance that is stored up as treasure, whereas expenditure on vain desires amounts to ruin, not to true spending. For God has, I know, given us the right to use things, but only up to what is necessary, and he has willed that the use of things be common. It is monstrous for one person to live in luxury while the majority are poor. How much more glorious is it to benefit many than to live extravagantly! How much more sensible to spend on people than on stones and gold! How much more profitable to possess adorned friends than lifeless ornaments! What good could fields do us to match the good of giving generously?
It remains, then, for us to resolve also the point that follows: for whom, then, are the more costly things intended, if everyone should choose the cheaper ones? For human beings, I would say, provided we use them without attachment or ostentation. But if it is not possible for everyone to be self-controlled, still, because of the need for necessities, one ought to pursue only what is easily obtained, bidding these superfluous luxuries a long farewell. In general, then, ornaments, like children's trinkets, ought to be utterly cast aside by women who renounce the world itself as well. For women ought to be adorned from within, and to display the inner woman as beautiful; for it is in the soul alone that both beauty and ugliness are made manifest. That is why only the virtuous person is truly beautiful and good, and only the good is reckoned beautiful, and virtue alone shines forth even through a beautiful body and blossoms upon the flesh, showing the loveliness of self-control to be worthy of love, whenever character, as it were, lights up the form like a radiance. For the beauty of each plant and each animal consists in the virtue proper to it. The virtue of a human being is justice, self-control, courage, and piety. Beautiful, then, is the human being who is just and self-controlled and, in sum, good — not the rich one. Even soldiers nowadays want to be decked out in gold, not having read the poet's line about one who, though he had gold, went to war 'like an infant girl.' But this love of ornament, which cares nothing at all for virtue but lays claim to the body instead — the love of beauty having been turned aside into empty vanity — must be utterly cast out. For by attaching to the body things that do not properly belong to it, as though they did belong, it breeds the practice of falsehood and the habit of deceit, displaying not what is truly dignified, unaffected, and childlike, but what is haughty, affected, and given to soft living. Such women dim their true beauty by overshadowing it with gold, and do not realize what sort of offense this is, having wrapped themselves in countless rich chains — just as, they say, among the barbarians criminals are bound in gold. These women seem to me to have emulated those rich prisoners in chains. For is not a gold necklace really a collar, and are not the twisted ornaments the same? And the so-called pendants, functioning as chains, are called by that very name, 'chains,' among the Athenians. And Philemon, in the Synephebos, called the disorderly foot-ornaments of women 'fetters' — sheer garments and a kind of golden fetter.
What, then, is this envied adornment any longer, women, but your wanting to appear to yourselves as fettered captives? For if the material lessens the disgrace, the underlying condition is still the same. To me, at least, they seem to fall willingly into bonds and to boast of their costly misfortunes. And perhaps the poet's myth, too, says that such bonds were thrown around Aphrodite when caught in adultery, hinting at nothing other than that these ornaments are a symbol of adultery — for Homer said that those bonds too were golden. And by now women are not even ashamed to wear about themselves the most conspicuous symbols of wickedness. For just as the serpent deceived Eve, so too golden ornament, using the serpent's shape as a lure, has driven other women to distraction into wanton excess, molding certain moray-eels and snakes into elegant shapes. At any rate the comic poet Nicostratus speaks of chains, pendants, rings, ear-drops, snakes, anklets, hellebore. And Aristophanes, in the Thesmophoriazusae, quite censoriously catalogues the whole apparatus of women's adornment. I will set down for you the comic poet's very words, which precisely expose the vulgarity of your want of good taste: A. Headbands, hair-ties, soda, pumice, girdles, hair-bands, veils, rouge, necklaces, eye-liner, luxury robes, hellebore, hairnets, sashes, wraps, dainty gowns, purple-bordered garments, fine robes, tunics, low-cut gowns, cloaks, undertunics. And I have not even mentioned the biggest items of all. B. Well, what then? A. Perfume-flasks, jeweled ornaments, plasters, mallow-salve, curls, bracelets, brooches, armlets, necklaces, fetters, seal-rings, chains, rings, poultices, blister-plasters, hair-bands, dildoes, sardonyxes, throat-bands, curling-irons. I myself have grown weary, and I am tired of reciting the multitude of these ornaments; and I find myself wondering how these women are not worn out carrying so great a burden. Oh, the empty officiousness, oh, the vain madness for reputation! They pour out their wealth like courtesans, to their own disgrace, and they debase God's gifts with tastelessness, emulating the craft of the wicked one. The Lord, in the gospel, plainly calls the rich man foolish who stores up treasure in his barns and says to himself: 'You possess plenty of goods, set aside for years to come; take your ease, feast, and enjoy yourself' — 'for this very night your soul will be demanded of you; and the things you have amassed, then, to whom will they belong?' Apelles the painter, on seeing one of his pupils paint a Helen laden with gold, said: young man, since you could not paint her beautiful, you have made her rich. Such, then, are the Helens of today's women — not genuinely beautiful, but richly got up. To such women the Spirit prophesies through Zephaniah: 'Neither their silver nor their gold shall have power to rescue them on the day of the Lord's anger.' For those trained by Christ, it is not fitting to be decked out in gold; rather, it is the Word alone through whom true splendor is revealed. Blessed indeed would the ancient Hebrews have been, if, having stripped the women of their ornament, they had simply thrown it away or melted it down; but instead, having cast it into a golden calf and worshiped it as an idol, they themselves gained nothing either from the craft or from the undertaking, though they taught our women, in the most emblematic way, to abstain from ornaments. For that which has played the harlot out of desire for gold becomes an idol tried by fire, in which alone luxury, like an idol, is preserved — not truth. This is why the Word, through the prophet, reproaches the Hebrews: 'They made silver and gold objects,' he says, 'for Baal' — ornaments, obviously; and, threatening most plainly, he says: 'And I will visit upon her the festival-days of the Baals, when she burned incense to them, and decked herself with her rings and her jewelry,' and he added the reason for this ornamentation, saying: 'and she went after her lovers, and forgot me, says the Lord.'
Having put away such trifling, then, let them not share in this courtesan-like adornment along with its wicked instigator, nor play the idolater behind a pretty veil. Truly wonderfully does the blessed Peter say: 'Women likewise, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or costly clothing, but with what befits women professing godliness, adorning themselves through good works.' And it is fitting that he bids their ornamentation be absent; for if they are beautiful, nature is enough — let art not contend with nature, that is, let deception not vie with truth; but if they are ugly by nature, they only expose themselves further by attaching what they do not really have. It is fitting, then, that women who serve Christ embrace simplicity. For in truth simplicity provides for holiness, equalizing excesses, and obtaining through ordinary means what abundance would otherwise supply. For the simple, as the very name shows, does not stand out nor swell with any pretension nor puff itself up, but is altogether even, smooth, equal, and without excess, and in this way is sufficient. Sufficiency is a disposition that reaches its proper limit without deficiency and without excess; its mother is justice, and its nurse is self-sufficiency. This, then, is a disposition content with what is needed, and by its own resources it furnishes everything that goes toward a happy existence. So let the ornament placed on the fruit of your hands consist in this: sacred, open-handed fellowship, and diligent care for the household. 'For the one who gives to the poor lends to God,' and 'the hands of courageous men bring wealth.' He calls courageous those who despise money and are ready in giving. And on the feet let there appear an untiring readiness for good works and a journeying toward righteousness. Let pendants and necklaces be modesty and self-control. Such are the necklaces God fashions of gold. 'Happy is the man who discovers wisdom, and the human being who attains discernment,' says the Spirit through Solomon, 'for her acquisition is a better trade than dealing in silver and gold, and she is worth more than expensive gems.' This is true good order. Let their ears not be pierced contrary to nature to hang earrings and jeweled ornaments; for it is not right to violate nature, contrary to what she intends, nor indeed could there be any better ornament for the ears than that which descends into the natural passages of hearing — true instruction. Eyes anointed with the Word, and ears bored through for perception, prepare a hearer of divine things and a beholder of holy things, the Word truly showing forth the true beauty which 'eye has not seen nor ear heard before.'
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