The Instructor (Paedagogus) 1 part 11/15

And the vainglorious women are much the same regarding footwear too, displaying their great silliness here also.

Truly shameful, then, are those sandals on which there are golden flowers; but they also see fit to drive the nails spirally into the soles, and many even engrave amorous greetings upon them, so that, as if rhythmically marking the earth with their tread, they may stamp from their gait the imprint of a harlot's spirit.

We must therefore bid farewell to the gilded and jewelled vain artifices of sandals, and to Attic and Sicyonian buskins, and to high boots, both Persian and Tyrrhenian; and, setting before ourselves, as is our custom, the right aim in the truth, we must choose what is according to nature.

For of the use of shoes, one part of it is for the covering of the feet, and the other for the protection against stumblings and the roughness of mountain-paths, preserving the sole of the foot.

To women, then, the white shoe may be conceded, except when they are travelling; then the oiled shoe must be used.

And women who travel need nailed shoes.

For the most part, however, they ought to use shoes;

for it is not fitting that the foot be shown bare;

and besides, woman is easily prone to slip into harm.

But for a man going barefoot is very fitting, except when he is on military service.

For somehow being shod is near to being bound.

It is indeed most conducive to discipline to use bare feet, and it is well suited both for health and for nimbleness, wherever no necessity hinders.

But if we are not travelling, yet cannot endure going barefoot, slippers or felt shoes must be used;

the Attics called them 'dust-feet' (koniopodes), because, it seems to me, the two feet draw near to the dust.

John is a sufficient witness to plain footwear, confessing that he was not worthy to loose the strap of the Lord's sandals.

And whether this also hints at something, it shall be shown elsewhere.

That one ought not to be all aflutter over precious stones and the adornment of gold.

But to be awe-struck at livid or green stones, and the cast-up things of the estranged sea, and the siftings of the earth, is childish.

For to be set upon the transparent little stones and the peculiar colours and the varied glass is nothing other than the act of senseless men, dragged along by things that have a striking appearance.

Thus too little children, beholding the fire, are carried toward it, led by its brightness, not having perceived, through their folly, the dangerousness of touching it.

Such are the stones to silly women, bound about their necklaces and shut up in their collars—amethysts and 'thunder-stones' and jaspers and topaz and the Milesian emerald, a most precious piece of merchandise.

And the highly-prized pearl has revelled extravagantly in the women's quarters;

this is produced in a certain oyster similar to the pinna, in size about as large as a fish's good-sized eye.

And the wretched women are not ashamed to have bestowed all their zeal upon this little oyster, when it is possible to be adorned with the holy Stone, the Word of God, whom the Scripture has somewhere called a pearl, the translucent and pure Jesus, the eye that oversees in the flesh, the transparent Word, through whom the flesh, regenerated by water, becomes precious.

For that oyster too, coming into being in water, encloses the flesh, and from this the pearl is conceived.

And we have received by tradition that the Jerusalem above is walled with holy stones, and we understand the twelve gates of the heavenly city, likened to precious stones, to hint at the surpassing splendour of the apostolic grace.

For upon the precious stones the colours are arranged, and these are precious, while the rest are left as earthy matter.

Symbolically, fittingly, the city of the saints is walled with these, being built up spiritually.

By the inimitable bloom of the stones they have understood the bloom of the Spirit, the undefiled and holy bloom of the substance;

but those women, not understanding the symbolic meaning of the Scriptures, gape wholly after the stones, putting forward that astonishing apology:

'What God has revealed, why should we not use it? And it is at my disposal—why should I not enjoy luxury? And for whom then have these come to be, if not for us?' Such utterances belong to those wholly ignorant of the will of God.

For first, the necessary things, such as water and air, He supplies plainly to all, but whatever things are not necessary He hid in earth and water.

On this account ants mine for gold, and griffins guard gold, and the sea has hidden the pearl-stone;

but you are over-busy about things you ought not to be.

Behold, the whole heaven lies open, and you do not seek God;

but the hidden gold and the stones, those condemned to death dig up for us in the earth.

But you also sing against the Scripture, while it cries out expressly:

'Seek first the kingdom of the heavens, and all these things shall be added to you.'

But even if all things have been granted to you, and if all things have been conceded to you, and if all things are lawful for us, says the apostle, yet not all things are profitable.

And God Himself led forth our race into fellowship, having first shared His own things and afforded His own Word common to all men, having made all things for the sake of all.

All things, then, are common, and let not the rich grasp more than their share.

The saying, then, 'It is at my disposal, and I have more than enough—why should I not enjoy luxury?' is neither human nor fellowship-loving, but that other is rather loving:

'It is at my disposal—why should I not share with those in need?' For such a one is perfect, he who has fulfilled the 'You shall love your neighbour as yourself.'

For God has given us, I know, the authority of use, but only as far as what is necessary, and He has willed the use to be common.

And it is absurd for one to live in luxury while many are in want.

For how much more glorious it is to benefit many than to dwell sumptuously! How much more sensible to spend upon men than upon stones and gold! How much more profitable to acquire decorous friends than lifeless adornments! Whom would estates benefit as much as the showing of kindness? It remains, then, for us also to resolve that further objection raised:

'For whom, then, are the more costly things, if all choose the cheaper?' For men, I would say, if we use them without attachment and without making distinctions.

But if it is impossible for all to be self-controlled, yet, on account of the need for necessary things, the easily-obtainable things must be sought after, bidding farewell to these superfluous things.

In general, then, all such finery must be flung away like a child's playthings, by women who wholly renounce the world.

For a woman ought to be orderly within, and to show that the inner woman is beautiful;

for it is in the soul alone that beauty and ugliness become manifest.

Therefore the earnest man alone is truly noble and good, and the beautiful alone is laid down as good; and virtue alone shines forth even through a beautiful body and blossoms in the flesh, displaying the loveliness of self-control as worthy of love, when the character shines upon the form like a light.

For the beauty of each plant and each living creature happens to lie in the excellence proper to each.

And the virtue of a human being is righteousness, self-control, courage, and piety.

Beautiful, therefore, is the human being who is righteous and self-controlled, and in a word the good person—not the rich one.

But nowadays even soldiers wish to be decked out with gold, not having read that line of the poet: 'Who, though bearing gold, went to war like a silly girl.'

But love of finery, which least of all cares for virtue but lays claim to the body—since the lover of beauty has been turned aside into vainglory—must be utterly cast out.

For by fastening onto the body, as if they were its own, things not proper to it, it has bred a practice of lying and a habit of deceit, displaying nothing of what is dignified, unaffected, and truly childlike, but only what is pompous, effeminate, and luxurious.

And these women dim the true beauty, overshadowing it with gold, and do not know what a fault it is—putting upon themselves countless rich fetters; for among the barbarians, they say, criminals are bound with gold.

These women seem to me to have emulated those rich prisoners.

For is not the golden necklace a collar, and so are the twisted chains? And those called pendants, holding the place of chains, are by the Athenians actually called by this very name, 'chains.'

The ankle-bands which adorn women's feet so unbecomingly, Philemon in his 'Fellow-Ephebe' called fetters: 'transparent garments and a kind of golden fetter.'

What, then, is this enviable adornment, but your wishing, O women, to make yourselves appear as if fettered? For if the material softens the disgrace, the affliction itself remains indifferent.

To me, at any rate, they seem of their own will to fall into bonds and to boast of their rich misfortunes.

Perhaps too the poet's myth says that such bonds were cast about Aphrodite when she committed adultery, hinting at nothing other than that finery is a symbol of adultery;

for Homer called those bonds, too, golden.

Yet they are not ashamed to wear the most evident symbols of the Evil One.

For as the serpent deceived Eve, so also the golden adornment, using the serpent's form as a lure, has driven other women into wanton outrage, moulding them into a kind of lampreys and serpents got up for show.

The comic poet Nicostratus, at any rate, says:

'Chains, pendants, rings, earrings, snake-bracelets, anklets, hellebore.'

Aristophanes in the 'Thesmophoriazusae' points out a list of women's adornment.

I will set down the comic poet's very words, which accurately expose the burdensome vulgarity of your lack of taste in goodness:

'Snoods, fillets, soda, pumice-stone, breast-band, back-sling, head-covering, rouge, necklaces, eye-paints, soft Egyptian robes, hellebore, hair-net, girdle, wrap, dainty trimming, border, fine gown, tunic, bordered cloak, round mantle, little shift.'

'And I have not even mentioned the greatest of these.'

'Tiaras, jewelled trinkets, ear-ornaments, mallow-dye, grape-clusters, bracelets, brooches, armlets, necklaces, fetter-bangles, signet-rings, chains, finger-rings, plasters, blister-balms, breast-bands, sundry toys, carnelian gems, throat-collars, ear-pendants.'

For my part I have grown weary, and am vexed at reciting the multitude of trinkets; and it comes over me even to marvel at these women, how it is that they are not worn out carrying so great a load.

O the vain busybodiness! O the empty madness for reputation!

They pour out their wealth like harlots, to their own disgrace, and by their vulgarity counterfeit the gifts of God, emulating the craft of the Evil One.

Plainly the Lord in the Gospel called a fool the rich man who stored up goods in his barns and said to himself:

'You have many good things laid up for many years;'

'eat, drink, and be merry'—him He called a fool, for 'this very night they require your soul of you;'

'so the things you have prepared, whose shall they be?' The painter Apelles, on seeing one of his pupils named Helena painted laden with gold, said:

'Young man, being unable to paint her beautiful, you have made her rich.'

Such Helens, then, are the women of today—not genuinely beautiful, but richly painted up.

To these the Spirit prophesies through Zephaniah:

'Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the Lord's wrath.'

But those who are trained by Christ ought not to adorn themselves with gold, but with the Word, through whom alone gold itself is made manifest.

Blessed indeed would the ancient Hebrews have been, had they stripped off the women's adornment and merely cast it away or melted it down; but as it was, having cast it into gold to make a calf, and through it committed idolatry, they themselves gained no benefit from the craft or the undertaking, yet most typically taught our women to abstain from finery.

Thus desire's whoring-away into gold becomes an idol tried by fire, by which alone luxury, like an idol, is kept—not truth.

Hence the Word reproaches the Hebrews through the prophet:

'They made things of silver and gold for Baal,' He says—meaning, of course, ornaments;

and most plainly threatening, He says 'I will visit upon her the days of the Baalim, in which she burned incense to him, and put on her earrings and her necklaces,' and He adds the cause of the adornment, saying:

'And she went after her lovers, and forgot me, says the Lord.'

Putting away, therefore, these follies belonging to that evil sophist, let them have no share in this harlot's finery, nor practise idolatry under a comely veil.

Very admirably, then, the blessed Peter says: 'Let women likewise adorn themselves, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or costly clothing, but, as befits women who profess godliness, by good works.'

And with good reason he commands that their adornment be absent;

for if they be beautiful, nature suffices;

let not art contend with nature—that is, let not deceit strive against truth;

but if they be ugly by nature, they are convicted by the very things they add to make up for what they do not have.

It befits, therefore, those who serve Christ to embrace simplicity.

For in reality simplicity provides for holiness, levelling out covetousness, and through ordinary means supplying the need that would otherwise be met by superfluities.

It is whole and smooth and even and free of excess, and in this way is sufficient.

Sufficiency is a settled state that reaches its proper limit without deficiency and without excess;

its mother is righteousness, and its nurse is self-sufficiency.

This, then, is a state content with what is needful, and of itself able to furnish what conduces to the blessed life.

Let there be, then, upon the fruits of your hands a holy adornment—generous sharing in fellowship, and works of housekeeping.

'For he who gives to the poor lends to God,' and 'the hands of the brave make rich.'

By 'the brave' He meant those who despise riches and are ready in giving.

And upon the feet let there appear a tireless readiness for doing good, and a walking after righteousness.

And neck-pendants and necklaces are modesty and self-control.

Such are the chains that God fashions in gold.

'Blessed is the man who has found wisdom, and the mortal who has seen understanding,' says the Spirit through Solomon, 'for it is better to traffic in her than in treasures of gold and silver, and she is more precious than costly stones.'

For this is the true good adornment.

And let not their ears be pierced contrary to nature for hanging on earrings and pendants;

for it is neither lawful to do violence to nature beyond what she has willed, nor could there be any better adornment of the ears than that which descends through the natural passages of hearing—the catechesis of the truth.

Eyes anointed with the Word, and ears bored for the perception of divine things, make one a hearer of holy things and a beholder of holy things, the Word truly revealing the true beauty, 'which eye has not seen, nor ear heard before.'

Concerning True Beauty.

It was, then, as it seems, the greatest of all lessons to know oneself;

for if one knows himself, he will know God; and knowing God, he will be made like to God—not by wearing gold nor by trailing robes, but by doing good and by needing as little as possible;

for God alone is without need, and rejoices most of all to see us pure in the adornment of the mind, and then also in that of the body, clothed in a holy robe—self-control.

The soul being threefold, the intellectual part, which is called the rational, is the inner man, the ruler of this visible man, and that inner man himself is led by another—God;

the spirited part, being beast-like, dwells near to madness;

and the appetitive, the third part, is many-formed, more changeful than Proteus the sea-deity, transforming itself now this way, now that, fitting itself out for adulteries and lecheries and corruptions;

'First of all he became a well-bearded lion'—I can still endure the adornment;

the hair of the chin shows a man;

'but then a serpent, or a leopard, or a great boar;'

love of finery has slid down into licentiousness.

The man appears as a beast;

'and he became running water and a tall leafy tree.'

The passions are poured out, the pleasures gush forth, beauty withers and falls to the ground quicker than a leaf, whenever the erotic storms of outrage breathe upon it; and before autumn comes, it withers away in corruption;

for desire becomes all things and moulds itself into all shapes and wishes to play the cheat, so as to hide away the man.

But that man, with whom the Word dwells, is not variegated, is not moulded into shapes; he has the form of the Word, is made like to God, is beautiful, does not beautify himself;

beauty is the true thing, for it is also God;

and that man becomes God, because God wills it.

Rightly, then, said Heraclitus:

God is in man, and man is God, and the Mediator carries out the will of the Father;

for the Word, common to both, is the Mediator—Son of God, and Savior of men; servant of the One, and our Pedagogue.

And since the flesh is a slave, as Paul also testifies, how could anyone with reason adorn the handmaid like a procuress? For that the fleshly is a slave's form, the Apostle says concerning the Lord:

'That He emptied Himself, taking the form of a slave,' calling the outward man a slave even before the Lord became a servant and bore flesh.

But the compassionate God Himself set the flesh free, releasing it from corruption and from deadly and bitter slavery, and clothed it with incorruption, putting upon the flesh this holy adornment of eternity—immortality.

There is also another beauty of human beings—love.

'And love,' according to the Apostle, 'is patient, is kind, is not jealous, is not boastful, is not puffed up.'

For self-adornment is the boastfulness of superfluity and uselessness.

For unbecoming is the foreign shape that is not according to nature;

and the artificial is foreign—which He clearly explains when He says 'it does not seek what is not its own';

for truth calls its own that which is proper to itself, but love of finery seeks what is foreign, being outside God and the Word and love.

And the Spirit testifies through Isaiah that the Lord Himself became unsightly in appearance:

'And we saw Him, and He had no form nor beauty, but His form was without honor, falling short of that of men.'

And who is better than the Lord? Yet it was not the illusory beauty of the flesh, but the true beauty both of soul and of body that He displayed—of the soul, beneficence; and of the flesh, immortality.

It is not, then, the countenance of the outward man, but the soul that must be beautified with the adornment of nobility of character;

and one might also say that the flesh should be adorned with the ornament of self-restraint.

But these women, beautifying the surface and leaving the depths a wasteland, have unwittingly made themselves like the temples of the Egyptians.

Among them, fore-courts and sacred enclosures have been elaborately wrought, and groves and consecrated meadows; and the courts are crowned with very many columns;

the walls gleam with exotic stones, and there is no lack of any kind of skilful painting;

the temples glitter with gold and silver and amber, and shine adorned with little gems from India and Ethiopia, and the inner sanctuaries are overshadowed with gold-spangled veils;

but if you enter into the depth of the enclosure, hastening toward the sight of the Better, and seek the image dwelling in the temple, a shrine-bearer or some other of those engaged in the sacred rites, gazing solemnly about the precinct and chanting a paean in the Egyptian tongue, draws back the veil a little as if to show the god, and gives us a hearty laugh at the object of worship.

For the god we sought, and toward which we hastened, will not be found within—but a cat, or a crocodile, or a native serpent, or some such beast, unworthy indeed of the temple, but worthy of a hole or a den or the mire;

the god of the Egyptians appears as a beast wallowing upon a purple couch.

In this way, it seems to me, do the gold-wearing women appear—practising the curling of their tresses, anointing their cheeks, painting their eyes, dyeing their hair, and contriving all sorts of other foolish wickedness, adorning the fleshly enclosure, playing the Egyptian in very truth, so as to draw to themselves their superstitious lovers.

'...the true one—he will loathe it, I know it well.'

For he will not find the worthy image of God dwelling within, but a harlot and adulteress has seized the sanctuary of the soul in its stead; and the true beast will be exposed—an ape smeared over with white lead; and that wily serpent, devouring the rational part of the human being through love of glory, holds the soul as its hole;

having filled everything with deadly poisons, and belched forth his own venom of error, this pander-dragon has refashioned the women into harlots—for love of finery belongs not to a wife, but to a courtesan.

These women care little for housekeeping with their husbands, but loosing the husband's purse-strings, they divert his resources into their lusts, that they may have many witnesses to their seeming beauty; and the whole day long, sitting devoted to the cosmetician's art, they idle away their time among their bought slaves.

Like a bad sauce, then, they make the flesh dainty, and the whole day long they melt away over cosmetics, shut up in their chambers lest they be caught yellowing their hair; but at evening, like something crawling out of a den toward the lamp, this counterfeit beauty creeps forth;

for both drunkenness and the dimness of the light conspire toward their imposture.

And the comic poet Menander shuts out of the house the woman who dyes her tresses yellow:

'Now begone from this house;'

'for the self-controlled woman ought not to make her hair yellow, nor to rouge her cheeks, nor to paint beneath her eyes.'

And these wretched women fail to notice that they are destroying their own beauty by the introduction of what is foreign;

for at break of day, scratching and rubbing themselves and plastering on certain pastes, they wear away the skin, and break down the flesh with drugs, and by the fussiness of their washes they wither their own native bloom.

For this very reason they appear sallow from their plasters, and become easy prey to diseases, having their flesh already grown flabby—the flesh which they have shaded over with drugs—dishonoring the Creator of human beings, as though He had not bestowed beauty according to their worth.

With good reason they become sluggish toward housekeeping, sitting like painted pictures for display—made for show, not for housekeeping.

For this very reason, too, the calculating woman in the comic poet says:

'What sensible or splendid thing could we women do, who sit decked out in cosmetics, marring the character of freeborn women, contriving overturnings of households and breakups of marriages and substitutions of children?' For this very thing the comic poet Antiphanes, too, in his 'Malthake,' mocks the harlot-like ways of women, reciting the phrases common to them all, devised for wasting time:

'She comes, she goes off again, she comes again, she goes off, she arrives, she is present, she washes, she comes up, she scours herself, she combs herself, she steps in, she rubs herself, she bathes, she examines herself, she dresses, she perfumes herself, she adorns herself, she anoints herself;'

'and if she has anything wrong, she hangs herself.'

Three times, not once, do they deserve to perish, who use crocodile dung, and smear themselves with the froth of putrefactions, and rub soot over their eyebrows, and grind white lead into their cheeks.

Those women, then, who are wearisome even to the heathen poets on account of their conduct—how should they not be cast out by the truth? Another comic poet, at any rate, Alexis, in convicting them:

(and indeed of this man too I will set down the passage, which by the elaborateness of its expression puts to shame the brazenness of their shamelessness):

for he was not so over-elaborate;

but I am ashamed that the women's quarters should be so far ridiculed in comedy—the women's quarters which, having become a help, then nonetheless ruins the husband as well.

For first of all, for the sake of gain and of plundering their neighbors, all their other works become incidental to them.

'Cork is stitched into their high shoes.'

'She wears a thin sandal, and lowering her head onto her shoulder she goes forth;'

'so that those who look on cry out at her shapely figure.'

'They have such breasts as those the comic poets wear;'

'setting up such things straight, the covering of the belly, they thrust it forward as if with these poles.'

'One has tawny eyebrows;'

'It happens that she is dark;'

'someone is exceedingly fair-skinned;'

'she has some attractive feature of her body;'

'of necessity she must laugh, so that those present may behold what a graceful mouth she carries.'

'And if she does not enjoy laughing, she spends the whole day with a thin straight twig of myrtle between her lips, so that in time she grins whether she will or no.'

These things I set before you, for turning aside from the mischief of love of finery, drawn from worldly wisdom—since the Word has willed by every means to save us; and a little later I will astringe you also with the divine Scriptures.

And somehow what does not escape notice tends, out of shame at being reproved, to withdraw from its sins.

As the plastered hand and the painted eye betray, from their very look, a suspicion of the diseased, so the cosmetic smearings and dyes hint at a soul diseased in its depths.

And the divine Pedagogue counsels us to pass by a strange river—meaning the strange woman, the wanton—allegorizing the wanton as a strange river, that flows over to all and is poured out to all for luxury through harlot-like licentiousness;

'Keep away from strange water,' He says, 'and do not drink from a strange spring,' counselling us to guard against the stream of voluptuousness, that we may live a long time and years of life may be added to us—whether by not hunting after strange pleasure, or also by turning aside from heresies.

Love of dainties, then, and love of wine, even if they are great passions, are yet not so great in magnitude as is love of finery.

A full table and cups one after another are enough to satisfy gluttony;

but for the lovers of gold and lovers of purple and lovers of jewels, neither all the gold above the earth and beneath the earth is sufficient, nor the sea of the Tyrians, nor yet the cargo from the Indians and Ethiopians, nor even Pactolus, that river which flows with wealth.

Not even if one of them should become a Midas would he be satisfied, but he would still be poor, longing for yet more wealth; and these people are ready to die together with their gold.

But if wealth is blind, as indeed it is, how are those women who are excited about it and infatuated with it not themselves blind? Having no limit, then, to their desire, they run aground upon shamelessness;

for they need theatre and procession and a multitude of spectators, and wandering about in temples, and loitering in the public streets, so as to make themselves conspicuous to all.

For they adorn themselves in order to please others—these women who glory in the face, not in the heart;

for as the brands betray the runaway slave, so the painted flowerings betray the adulteress.

'And though you clothe yourself in scarlet and adorn yourself with golden ornaments, and though you smear your eyes with antimony, your beautifying is in vain,' says the Word through Jeremiah.