Collected Works 28 part 2/2

We are certain that the Holy Spirit could rather have prescribed some such thing for males, if he had prescribed it for females; since, besides the authority of their sex, it was fitting that males be honored rather even in the name of continence itself—males, in whom, the more the sex is greedier and more heated toward females, the more their continence, being of greater ardor, is more laborious and therefore worthier of every display, if display of virginity is a mark of worth. For does not continence stand higher than virginity, whether of widowers or of those who by mutual consent have already refused the common outrage? For virginity consists in grace, but continence indeed in virtue; there is a great contest in not desiring, when you have grown accustomed to desiring;

but he who has never known the fruit of desiring will easily not desire, having no adversary, namely the desire of the fruit. How then would God not rather have prescribed some such thing for men, in honor—either because they are the image closer akin to himself, or because they labor more? But if nothing for the male, much less for the female. But that which above we in part passed over of the ensuing discussion, lest we should scatter its coherence, we will now discharge by our reply. For where we fixed our step upon the Apostle's absolute definition—that every woman, even of every age, is to be understood—it could be answered from the opposite side: therefore from birth and from the first name of her age the virgin ought to be covered.

But it is not so; rather it is from the time when she has begun to understand herself, and to enter into the awareness of her own nature, and to pass out of the state of a virgin child, and to experience that new thing which belongs to another age. For even Adam and Eve, the head of the race, 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 something to be ashamed of; thus each marked the awareness of their own sex with a covering. But even if she is to be veiled because of the angels, without doubt the law of the veil will operate from that age at which the daughters of men were able to draw upon themselves concupiscence and to undergo marriage; for from that time a girl ceases to be a virgin, from which she is able to be not one. And therefore among Israel it is unlawful to give a girl to a husband except after the maturity attested by blood;

thus before this token it is an unripe matter. Therefore if a girl is a virgin only so long as she is unripe, she ceases to be a virgin when she is recognized as mature, and, as no longer a virgin, she is subjected to the law just as to marriage. And betrothed women indeed have the example of Rebecca, who, when she was being led, still unknown, to a bridegroom still unknown, as soon as she recognized that he was the very one whom she had descried from afar, did not endure the wrestling of his right hand, nor the meeting of a kiss, nor the sharing of a greeting, but confessing what she felt—that is, being wedded in spirit—she denied herself a virgin, being veiled then and there. O woman already of Christ's discipline! For she showed that marriage too, like fornication, is accomplished from sight and mind.

Except that some still veil even a Rebecca; but as for the rest—that is, those who are not betrothed—let the procrastination of parents look to it, whether arising from their straitened circumstances or from scrupulousness; let the very vow of continence look to it: it has nothing to do with an age running its own spans and paying its own dues to maturity. Another mother in secret, Nature, and another father in hiding, Time, have married off their daughter by their own laws. Look upon that virgin of yours as already wedded—in soul by expectation and in flesh by transfiguration—for whom you are preparing a second husband: already her voice is grown deep, her limbs are filled out, modesty everywhere clothes her, and her monthly tributes vouch for her; and do you deny her a woman, whom you say suffers what is womanly?

If the union with a man makes a woman, let them not be covered until after the very experience of marriage—yet even among the heathen women are led to the husband veiled—; but if they are veiled at betrothal, because both in body and in spirit they have been joined to the male through kiss and clasp of right hands, by which they first broke the seal of modesty in spirit, through the common pledge of consciousness whereby they agreed together upon the whole confusion, how much more will time veil them, without which they cannot be betrothed, and by whose urging, even without a betrothal, virgins cease to be! Time also the heathen observe, so that by the law of nature they may render to the several ages their own rights;

for indeed they send females out to business from twelve years, but the male two years more, determining puberty by years, not by betrothals or marriages; she is called mother of a household, though a virgin, and he father of a household, though beardless. By us not even the things of nature are observed, as though the God of nature were other than ours. Acknowledge the woman, acknowledge the wedded one, from the testimonies both of body and of spirit, which she experiences both in consciousness and in flesh; these are the earlier tablets of the natural betrothal and marriage. Impose the veil without upon her who has a covering within; let the upper parts also be covered, whose lower parts are not naked. Would you know what is the authority of age?

Set forth both: one prematurely embraced, in the dress of a woman, and one who, advanced in maturity, continues in virginity with her own dress: more easily will that one be denied a woman than this one be believed a virgin; so great, in fact, is the credibility of age, that it cannot be obscured even by dress. What of this—that even these of ours by their very dress confess the change of their age, and as soon as they have understood themselves to be women, are bred out of virgins? For from the very head they lay aside what they were: they change the hairstyle, and with a more wanton pin insert their hair, professing an open womanhood with their locks parted from the forehead;

now too they seek advice about their looks from a mirror, and torment their too-peevish face with washing, perhaps even touch it up with some ointment, fling a cloak about them without, cram on a many-shaped shoe, carry more apparatus to the baths. Why should I pursue each detail? These alone, by their manifest outfittings, carry about their whole womanhood, yet wish to be reckoned virgins by the mere bareness of the head, denying by a single article of dress what they profess by their whole array. If they abuse their dress because of men, let them fulfill it in this too, that even among the heathen they veil the head; certainly in the church let them hide their virginity, which outside the church they conceal. Do they fear strangers?

let them also revere the brethren, or let them boldly and consistently be seen as virgins in the streets too, as they dare to be in the churches; I shall praise their vigor, if they have driven any bargain of virginity even among the heathen. Nature is the same without as within, the same institution among men and before the Lord stands with the same liberty. Why then do they hide their good outside, but publish it in the church? I demand a reason. Is it that they may please their brethren, or that they may please God himself? If God himself, he is as fit to behold whatever is done in secret as he is just to reward what is done for him alone; in fact he commands that we trumpet abroad nothing of those things which will earn a reward with him, nor recompense them from men.

But if we are forbidden to let the left hand know of the giving of a single small coin or of any work of almsgiving, how great a darkness ought we to spread around us, when we offer to God so great an oblation of our very body and of our very spirit, when we consecrate to him our very nature! Therefore, since it cannot appear to be done for God's sake—because God does not wish it so done—it follows that it is done for men's favor, and, above all, first as unlawful because lustful of glory; for glory is unlawful to those whose approval consists in all humiliation. And if the virtue of continence is conferred by God, why do you glory, as though you had not received it? But if indeed you have not received it, what have you that was not given you?

But by this very fact it is established that it was not given you by God, that you render it not to God alone. Let us see, then, that which is human, whether it be firm and true. They report that something was once said by a certain man, when this question was first tried: 'And how shall we entice the rest to a work of this kind?' As if, forsooth, they will make us happy if they are more in number, and not the grace of God or the merits of each. Do virgins adorn the church, or the church the virgins, for God, or commend them to him? He confessed, then, that glory is the matter at issue; but where there is glory, there is enticement; where enticement, there is compulsion; where compulsion, there is necessity; where necessity, there is weakness.

Deservedly, therefore, while they do not cover their head, that they may be enticed for glory's sake, they are compelled to cover their bellies by the ruin of weakness; for it is rivalry, not religion, that produces them. Sometimes their belly itself is their god, because the brotherhood readily takes up virgins. And not only do they fall so, but they also draw upon themselves a long rope of offenses; for being brought forward into the midst and, their good being made public, exalted, and heaped by the brethren with every honor and every operation of charity, while they shine, they do not lie hidden, where anything has been committed, reckoning as much of disgrace as they had of honor.

If an uncovered head is ascribed to virginity, then if any virgin has fallen from the grace of virginity, that she may not be betrayed, she remains with head uncovered, and then already walks in a dress belonging to another [that is, which virginity claims for itself; she nonetheless remains, then at least, in a dress belonging to another, lest, forsooth, she be betrayed by a change]. And, conscious of a womanhood now beyond doubt, they dare to approach God with bare head; but the jealous God and Lord, who said, 'Nothing hidden that shall not be revealed,' brings very many too into open view. For they will not confess unless betrayed by the very wailings of their own infants. But the more numerous they are, will you not also hold them suspected of the more crimes? I will say it, though I am unwilling:

a woman is hardly made a woman once for all who does not fear to become one, and who, once she has become one, can lie about being a virgin before God. How much, likewise, will she dare concerning her own womb, lest even a mother be detected? God knows how many infants he has already led both to be perfected and brought to a whole birth, after they had been for a while warred against by their mothers. Most easily do virgins of this sort always conceive and most happily bring forth, and offspring indeed most like their fathers. These are the outrages that a coerced and enticed virginity admits. The very concupiscence of not lying hidden is not chaste: it suffers something that is not a virgin's, an eagerness to please, and to please men at that.

However much she may strive with good intent, she must needs be endangered by her own publication, while she is struck by uncertain and many eyes, while she is tickled by the fingers of those pointing her out, while she is too much loved, while she grows warm amid embraces and constant kisses. Thus the brow is hardened, thus modesty is battered, thus it is dissolved, thus one learns to desire to please in another way now. But indeed true and whole and pure virginity fears nothing more than itself. It will not even endure the eyes of women: it has eyes of its own. It flees to the covering of the head as to a helmet, as to a shield, which may protect its good against the blows of temptations, against the darts of scandals, against suspicions and whispers and rivalry, against envy itself as well.

For there is something to be feared even among the heathen, which they call fascination—the more unhappy outcome of praise and of excessive glory. This we sometimes interpret as of the devil, for it is his to hate the good; sometimes we assign it to God, for his is the judgment of pride, exalting the humble and depressing the exalted. The holier virgin, therefore, will fear, even under the name of fascination, an adversary on this side, God on that—the envious disposition of the one, the censorious light of the other—and will rejoice to be known to herself alone and to God. But even if she has become known to anyone, she is wise, if she has barred the way against temptations. For who will dare to press with his eyes a closed face, a face that feels nothing, a face, as I might say, austere? Whatever evil thought will be broken by that very severity.

She now even denies herself a woman, who conceals the virgin. In these things consists the defense of our opinion: according to Scripture, according to nature, according to discipline. Scripture founds the law, nature bears witness, discipline demands it. Which of these does the custom of the contrary opinion profit, or what color has the differing 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 manifest, and by the testimony of nature 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 troublesome than glory and the zeal to please men.

Let that, therefore, be to you both Scripture and nature and discipline, which you shall have found approved by God, just as you are bidden to examine all things and to follow after whatever is better. It remains also that we turn to the women themselves, that they may the more willingly undertake these things. I beseech you, whether mother or sister or virgin daughter—let me speak according to the names of 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, draw round yourself the rampart of shame, build a wall for your sex, which will neither let out your own eyes nor admit those of others. Fill out the dress of a woman, that you may keep the standing of a virgin. Feign something of those things which are within, that to God alone you may exhibit the truth;

although you do not feign yourself wedded; for you have wedded 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 bids even others' brides and married women to be veiled, and, surely, much more his own. But we also admonish you women of the other chastity, who have entered upon marriage, not so to grow careless of the discipline of the veil, not even for the space of an hour, that, because you cannot reject it, you may in another way destroy it, walking neither covered nor bare. For with turbans and woolen bands some do not veil the head, but bind it up, protected indeed at the front, but bared at the very place where the head properly is;

others cover themselves moderately with little linen cloths—not, I suppose, to press the head—yet not let down even to the ears, they are covered only as far as the skull. I pity them, if they are so weak of hearing that they cannot hear through a covering. Let them know that the whole is head in a woman; her boundaries and borders extend as far as the place where the dress begins; as much as loosened hair can occupy, so great is the region of the veil, so that even the neck also is encompassed; for these are the very things that ought to be subjected, on account of which power ought to be had over the head; the veil is their yoke. The heathen women of Arabia will judge you, who cover not the head only, but the whole face too, so that, content with one eye set free, they prefer to enjoy half the light rather than to prostitute the whole face:

a woman prefers to see rather than to be seen. On which account a certain Roman queen said they were most unhappy, since they could love more than be loved—though they are happy even by exemption from another and indeed more frequent unhappiness, in that women can more easily be loved than love. And the modesty of heathen discipline is indeed purer and, so to speak, more barbarian. To us the Lord, even by revelations, has measured out the dimensions of the veil. For to a certain sister of ours an angel, in her sleep, beating her neck as though he would applaud it, said: 'Elegant neck, and deservedly bare! It is good that you be uncovered from the head down to the loins, lest this liberty of the neck also profit you nothing.' And whatever you have said to one, you have said to all.

But how great a chastisement will even those women deserve who, amid the psalms or at any mention of God, persist uncovered—and deservedly those who, even in prayer itself, most easily set a fringe or a tuft or any thread whatever upon the crown of the head, and think themselves covered! At so great a price do they belie their head. Others, whose palm is plainly greater than any fringe and thread, no less abuse their own head, so as to be like a certain beast rather than a bird, though feathered—with a short head, an outstretched neck, the rest of it very large; this creature, they say, when it must lie hidden, thrusts only its head, plainly the whole of it, into some thicket, leaving the rest of itself in the open; thus, while it is secure as to its head, it is caught, being bare where it is larger, wholly along with its head.

For such indeed will these women also be, covered less than is useful. It behooves us, therefore, to walk at every time and in every place mindful of the law, prepared and equipped for every mention of God—who, if he be in the heart, will be acknowledged also upon the head of women. These things being read with good peace, and utility being set before custom, may peace and grace from our Lord Jesus overflow with Septimius Tertullianus, whose little work this is. (Text and apparatus edited by V. Bulhart, 1957. Transcribed by Roger Pearse, 2001.)