De Virginibus Velandis

Having now undertaken a task of my own, I shall show in Latin too what is my opinion: that our virgins ought to be veiled from the time they have made the passage of their age. This is what truth demands, to which no one can prescribe—not the span of times, not the patronage of persons, not the privilege of regions. For it is generally from these that custom takes its rise, drawing its beginning from some ignorance or simplicity, and is then strengthened into a practice by succession, and so is upheld against the truth. But our Lord Christ named Himself truth, not custom. If Christ is always, and prior to all things, then truth too is an everlasting and ancient thing. Let those, then, look to it, to whom that is new which to itself is old. It is not so much novelty as truth that convicts heresies. Whatever savours against the truth, that will be heresy—even an old custom. For the rest, it is by his own fault that anyone is ignorant of a thing. But what is unknown ought to be as much sought after as that which is recognized ought to be received. The rule of faith, indeed, is altogether one, alone immovable and unalterable: the rule, namely, of believing in one only God Almighty, the Creator of the world, and in His Son Jesus Christ, born of the Virgin Mary, crucified under Pontius Pilate, raised again the third day from the dead, received into the heavens, sitting now at the right hand of the Father, destined to come to judge the living and the dead, also through the resurrection of the flesh. This law of faith abiding, the rest of discipline and conduct now admit the novelty of correction, the grace of God, namely, working and advancing even to the end. For what kind of thing would it be, that, while the devil is always working and daily adding to the contrivances of iniquity, the work of God should either have ceased or have left off advancing? Whereas it was for this cause that the Lord sent the Paraclete, that, since human mediocrity could not take in all things at once, discipline should be gradually directed and set in order and brought to perfection by that Vicar of the Lord, the Holy Spirit. "I have yet," He says, "many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now: when that Spirit of truth comes, He will lead you into all truth, and will announce to you the things that are to come." And above too He pronounced concerning this work of His. What, then, is the administration of the Paraclete, if not this: that discipline is directed, that the Scriptures are revealed, that the understanding is reformed, that progress is made toward better things? Nothing is without its stages; all things await their time. In short, Ecclesiastes says, "A time for everything." Look at creation itself, advancing little by little to its fruit. First it is a grain, and from the grain a shoot arises, and from the shoot a little tree struggles up; then the boughs and the foliage gather strength, and the whole name of "tree" spreads out; thence the swelling of the bud, and the flower is loosed from the bud, and from the flower the fruit is opened: and this too, for a while raw and shapeless, gradually directing its age, is schooled into the gentleness of flavour. So righteousness too—for the same God is the God of righteousness and of creation—was first in its rudiments, fearing God by nature; thereafter, through the Law and the prophets, it advanced into childhood; thereafter, through the Gospel, it boiled up into youth; now, through the Paraclete, it is being composed into maturity. He alone will be the master, sent from Christ, both to be heeded and revered. For He speaks not from Himself, but the things commanded by Christ. He alone is the precursor, because He alone comes after Christ. They who have received Him prefer truth to custom. They who have heard Him prophesying even up to the present, and not of old, veil their virgins.

But I am unwilling for the present to set down this practice to truth. Let it be custom for the time being, that I may oppose to custom even a custom. Throughout Greece, and certain of its barbarian regions, the majority of the churches keep their virgins covered. There is this institution also somewhere under this sky of ours, lest anyone should ascribe that custom to Greek or barbarian heathenism. But I have set forth those churches which the apostles themselves, or apostolic men, founded—and I think before certain others. They have therefore, those churches too, the same authority of custom; they oppose times and predecessors rather than these latter ones do. What shall we observe, what shall we choose? We cannot spit out a custom which we cannot condemn, inasmuch as it is not foreign, because not of strangers—those, namely, with whom we share the right of peace and the name of brotherhood. We and they have one faith, one God, the same Christ, the same hope, the same sacraments of the laver; to say it once, we are one Church. Thus whatever is our brethren's is ours. For the rest, you divide the body. Yet here, as is wont to happen in all things variously instituted and doubtful and uncertain, an examination was to be applied: which of the two so different customs better suited the discipline of God. And surely that is to be chosen which keeps virgins covered, known to God alone—virgins for whom, besides that glory is to be sought from God and not from men, even their own good is a thing to blush at. You will confound a virgin more by praising than by reproaching her; because the brow of transgression is harder, taught shamelessness by the very transgression and in it. For no one would have approved that custom which, while it displays virgins, denies them, except such as are like the virgins themselves. For such eyes will wish a virgin to be seen as the virgin who wishes to be seen possesses. The same kinds of eyes desire one another in turn. It is of the same lust to be seen and to see. It is as much the mark of a holy man to be abashed if he has seen a virgin, as of a holy virgin if she has been seen by a man.

But neither did those most holy predecessors choose to discern between the customs. Yet among us, more tolerably, until very lately, communion was held with both customs. The matter was left to choice, so that each woman might be either covered or exposed, as she wished—just as in the matter of marrying, which itself is neither compelled nor forbidden. Truth was content to make a pact with custom, so that, silently, under the name of custom, it might enjoy itself even in part. But since recognition had begun to advance, so that through the liberty of either practice the indication of the better part might emerge, at once that adversary of good things—and especially of institutions—did his work. The virgins of men, against the virgins of God, with brow plainly bared, roused to reckless audacity, are seen to be virgins who can ask something of men, much less do such a deed, namely, that their rivals—so much the freer as they are handmaids of Christ alone—should be given over to them. "We are scandalized," they say, "because others go about otherwise"; and they prefer to be scandalized rather than challenged. A scandal, unless I am mistaken, is the example, not of a good thing, but of a bad one, building up unto transgression. Good things scandalize no one but a bad mind. If modesty is good, and bashfulness, and disdain of glory, seeking to please God alone, let those recognize their own evil who are scandalized by such a good. For what?—if the incontinent too should say that they are scandalized by the continent, is continence to be recalled? And lest those of many marriages be scandalized, is monogamy to be refused? Why are these women not rather required to find a scandal to themselves in petulance, in the shamelessness of an ostentatious virginity? On account, then, of such peddling persons, are holy virgins to be dragged into the church, blushing because they are recognized in the midst, terrified because they are uncovered when summoned as if to ravishment? For this too they are no less unwilling to suffer. Every publication of a good virgin is the suffering of ravishment; and yet to suffer the violence of the flesh is the lesser, because it comes from the office of nature. But when the very spirit is violated in a virgin by the removing of her veil, she has learned to lose what she was guarding. O sacrilegious hands, which could pluck off a garb dedicated to God! What worse could any persecutor have done, had he learned that this was chosen by a virgin? You have stripped the maiden from the head, and now she is wholly not a virgin to herself; she has been made another. Rise up, then, O truth; rise up and as it were burst forth from your long forbearance! I wish you to defend no custom; for now even that custom under which you enjoyed yourself is being stormed. Show that it is you who cover virgins. Interpret yourself your own Scriptures, which custom does not know. For if it knew them, it would never have been.

But inasmuch as it is custom's way to argue even from the Scriptures against the truth, it is at once objected to us that no mention of virgins is made by the Apostle where he prescribes concerning the veil, but only women are named—whereas, if he had wished virgins too to be covered, he would have pronounced concerning virgins as well, together with the named women: just as there, they say, where he treats of marriages, he declares also what is to be observed concerning virgins. And so they are not held by the law of veiling the head, as not named in this law—nay, from this they are uncovered, since they are not enjoined who are not even named. But we too twist back the same argument. For he who knew elsewhere to make mention of both kinds—of the virgin, I mean, and of the woman, that is, the non-virgin—out of his care for distinction, in those matters in which he does not name the virgin, by making no distinction, shows the community of condition. For the rest, he could here too have established a difference between virgin and woman, as elsewhere he says, "The woman and the virgin are divided." Therefore those whom he did not divide by his silence, he combined. Nor yet, because there the woman and the virgin are divided, will that division give patronage here too, as some wish. For how much of what is said elsewhere holds good where it is, of course, not said—unless the same cause obtains as elsewhere, so that it suffices to have been said once? But that cause of the virgin and the woman is far removed from this species. "The woman and the virgin," he says, "are divided." Why? Because the unmarried, that is, the virgin, "thinks the things that are the Lord's, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit; but the married, that is, the non-virgin, thinks how she may please her husband." This will be the interpretation of that division, having no place in this chapter, in which there is no pronouncement either about marriages or about the mind and thought of the woman and the virgin, but about the veiling of the head. Of which the Holy Spirit, wishing there to be no dispute, willed that under the one name of "woman" the virgin too should be understood—whom, by not naming her properly, He did not separate from the woman; and by not separating, He joined to her from whom He did not separate. Is it then a new thing now to use a principal term, and to have the rest nonetheless understood in that term, where there is no necessity of distinguishing the whole one by one? Naturally a compendium of speech is both welcome and necessary, since wordy and burdensome and empty is speech. So too we are content with general terms, which comprehend in themselves the understanding of the particular. So now, concerning the term itself. The natural term is "female." The general term of the natural is "woman." The particular term of the general, again, is "virgin," or "married," or "widow," or whatever names of age besides are added. The particular, then, is subject to the general, because the general is prior, and the consequent to the antecedent, and the partial to the universal; it is understood in that to which it is subjected, and is signified in it, because it is contained in it. So neither the hand nor the foot nor any of the members requires to be signified when the body is named. And if you say "the world," there will be in it both heaven and the things in it, sun and moon and stars and constellations, and earth and seas and the whole reckoning of the elements. You will have said all things when you have said that which consists of all. So too, by naming the woman, he named whatever is of the woman.

But since they so usurp the name of "woman" as to think it does not belong save to her alone who has known a man, it behooves us to prove that the propriety of that term pertains to the sex itself, not to the degree of the sex, by which virgins too are commonly reckoned. When that kind of second human being was made by God for the help of man, that female was at once named "woman," while yet happy, while yet worthy of paradise, while yet a virgin. "She shall be called," He says, "woman." You have, then, a name—I do not say now common to the virgin, but proper to her, which from the beginning the virgin obtained. But ingeniously some wish it to have been said of the future: "She shall be called woman," as one who was going to be this when she had unsealed her virginity—since He added also, "Therefore shall a man leave father and mother, and shall be joined to his woman, and the two shall be in one flesh." Let them show, then, first, where this subtlety lies—if she was named "woman" of the future, what term she received in the meantime. For she could not have been without a term of her present quality. For the rest, what kind of thing is it, that she who was to be called by a designated name in the future, should in the present have been named nothing at all? To all the animals Adam imposed names, and to none from a future condition, but from their present institution; and whatever condition served the creature, it was called this which he willed from the beginning. What, then, was she called then? But indeed, as often as she is named in Scripture, she is called "woman," before she was married, and never "virgin," though a virgin. This one name was then hers, even when nothing was said in the prophetic manner. For when Scripture relates that there were two naked, "Adam and his woman," neither does this savour of the future, as though it had called her his woman in presage of a wife; but because she was even unmarried his woman, as of his own substance. "This," he says, "is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called woman." Hence, then, by the silent consciousness of nature, the divinity itself of the soul brought forth into the use of speech—men not knowing it, as in many other things too, which we shall be able to show elsewhere are wont to be done and said in accordance with Scripture—that we call our women "wives," although we speak some things improperly. For the Greeks too, who rather use the term "woman" for "wife," have other proper terms for "wife." But I prefer to set down this usage to the testimony of Scripture. For where two are made into one flesh through the bond of matrimony, flesh of flesh and bone of bones is called "his woman," according to the origin of her from whose substance she begins to be reckoned, made a wife. Thus "woman" is not by nature the name of "wife," but "wife," by condition, is a name of "woman." In short, "woman" and not "wife" can be said; but "not-woman" cannot be said to be "wife," because she cannot even be. The name, then, of the new female being established—which is "woman"—and that being explained which she was before, that is, a name being assigned, He now turns to the prophetic reasoning, so as to say, "On account of her shall a man leave father and mother." So separate is the name from the prophecy, as much as from the very person, that he by no means said it of Eve herself, but with reference to those future females, whom he had named in the matrix of the female sex. Otherwise Adam was not going to leave a father and mother, whom he did not have, on account of Eve. Therefore it does not pertain to Eve, because neither to Adam, this that was said prophetically. For it was foretold concerning the condition of husbands, who on account of a woman were going to leave their parents—which could not fall upon Eve, because neither upon Adam. If the matter is so, it appears that she was not named "woman" on account of the future, to which the future did not pertain. To this it is added, that he himself published the reason of that name. For when he had said, "She shall be called woman," he says, "because she was taken from her man"—and that while he was yet a virgin. But we shall speak of the name "man" too in its own place. Let no one, then, interpret the name as referring to prophecy, which was derived from another signification—especially since it appears where she received a name of the future: there, namely, where she is named "Eve," with a personal term now, because the natural one had preceded. For if "Eve" is "mother of the living," behold, she is named of the future; behold, a wife and not a virgin is foretold. This will be the term of one about to marry; for from a married woman comes a mother. So here too it is shown that she was not then named "woman" of the future—she who afterward was going to receive the name of her future condition. The answer is enough as to this part.

Let us see now whether the Apostle too observes the form of that term according to Genesis, assigning it to the sex, thus calling the Virgin Mary a "woman" just as Genesis calls Eve. For writing to the Galatians, "God sent," he says, "His Son, made of a woman"—who, certainly, it is agreed, was a virgin, though Ebion resist it. I recognize too the angel Gabriel sent to a virgin. But when he blesses her, he reckons her among women, not among virgins: "Blessed are you among women." The angel too knew that even a virgin is called a "woman." But to these two points too someone has seemed to himself to have ingeniously responded—that since indeed Mary was betrothed, she was for that reason pronounced a "woman" both by the angel and by the Apostle. For one betrothed is in a manner married. Yet between "in a manner" and the truth there is difference enough—at least in this place. For elsewhere it may indeed be so held. But now, they pronounced Mary a "woman" not as though already married, but as nonetheless a female, even if not a betrothed one—as though this were said from the beginning. For of necessity that must take precedence from which the form descends. For the rest, as regards this chapter, if here she is equated to one betrothed, so that Mary was therefore called "woman" not as a female but as married—then Christ was not born of a virgin, because of one betrothed, who by this name had ceased to be a virgin. But if He was born of a virgin—betrothed indeed, yet intact—recognize that a "woman," even a virgin, even an intact one, is so called. Here certainly nothing can seem to have been said prophetically, as though the Apostle named a future woman, that is, a married one, by saying "made of a woman." For he could not name a later woman, of whom Christ was not to be born—that is, one who had known a man—but that one who was present, who was a virgin and was called a "woman" according to the propriety of this term, defended for the virgin, and thus for the whole female kind, according to the form of the beginning.

Let us now turn to reviewing the very reasons through which the Apostle teaches that a female ought to be veiled—whether they suit virgins too, so that from this also the community of the term between virgins and non-virgins may be established, while the same reasons for the veil are detected on both sides. If "the head of the woman is the man," surely the head of the virgin too, of whom is made that woman who has married—unless the virgin is some third, monstrous kind, her own head to herself. If it is shameful for a woman to be shaved or shorn, surely for a virgin too. Accordingly let the age, the rival of God, look to it, if it thus falsely passes off cropped hair as a grace to a virgin, just as it is permitted to a boy. Therefore she for whom it is equally unfitting to be shaved or shorn, it equally befits to be covered. If "the woman is the glory of the man," how much more the virgin, who is a glory even to herself? If "the woman is of the man and on account of the man," that rib of Adam was first a virgin. If "the woman ought to have power over her head," with all the more justice the virgin, to whom belongs that which is in question. For if it is "on account of the angels"—those, namely, whom we read fell from God and heaven on account of the lust for females—who can presume that such angels desired bodies already defiled, and the remnants of human lust, rather than that they burned the more for virgins, whose flower excuses even human lust? For Scripture too thus suggests it: "And it came to pass," it says, "when men had begun to be more numerous upon the earth, that daughters were born to them; and the sons of God, beholding the daughters of men, that they were fair, took to themselves wives of all whom they chose." For here the Greek word for "women" savours of "wives," because there is mention of marriages. When, then, it says "daughters of men," it manifestly indicates virgins, who would still be reckoned as belonging to their parents (for married women are styled by their husbands), whereas it could have said "wives of men"—just as it does not name the angels "adulterers," but "husbands," while they take the unmarried "daughters of men," whom it called above "born," thus too signifying virgins. Above, "born"; but here, "married to angels." I do not know any other way in which they are "born" and thereafter "married." A face, then, ought to be shadowed which has hurled scandals even up to heaven—so that, standing before God, to whom it is guilty of the exterminated angels, it may blush before the rest of the angels too, and may at last restrain that evil liberty of its head, no longer to be offered even to the eyes of men. But even if those angels coveted females already contaminated, so much the more ought virgins to have been veiled on account of the angels, by as much the more the angels could have transgressed on account of virgins. But if the Apostle adds also the prejudgment of nature—that the redundance of hair is an honour to the woman, because the hair is for a covering—surely this is a special distinction above all for the virgin, of whom even the very adornment is properly such that, heaped up upon the crown, it covers the very citadel of the head with a circuit of tresses.

Of all these things, certainly, the man works the contraries, that he should not veil his head—namely, because he has not naturally obtained the abundance of hair, because it is not shameful for him to be shaved or shorn, because the angels did not stray on account of him, because he is "the glory and image of God," because "his head is Christ." And so, when the Apostle treats of man and woman, why she ought to be veiled and he not, it appears why he kept silence about the virgin too: namely, by the same reasoning allowing the virgin to be understood in the woman, by which he did not name the boy too, as one to be reckoned in the man—having embraced the whole order of both sexes under proper terms, of "woman" and of "man." So too Adam, while yet intact, is named "man" in Genesis: "She shall be called woman," he says, "because she was taken from her man." Thus Adam was "man" before the congress of marriage, just as Eve was "woman." On both sides the Apostle has pronounced enough for the whole species of each sex, both briefly and fully, with a definition so well-equipped: "Every woman," he says. What is "every," if not of every kind, of every order, of every condition, of every dignity, of every age? Since "every" is the whole and the entire, deficient in no part of itself. But a part of the woman is the virgin too. Equally, concerning the man's not veiling, "Every man," he says. Behold two different names, "man" and "woman." "Every" of each. Two laws bound to each other: on this side, veiling; on that, baring. Therefore, if by the saying "every man" the name "man" is common even to one not yet a man, to a beardless male—and since the name is common according to nature, the law too of not veiling is common to him who among men is a virgin, according to discipline—why has it not likewise been prejudged that the female virgin too, when "woman" is named, is held in the partnership of the name, so that she may be held also in the community of the law? If the virgin is not a "woman," neither is the beardless one a "man." If the virgin is not covered because she is not a woman, let the beardless one be covered, because he is not a man. Let the indulgence of the same virginity be equal. As virgins are not compelled to be veiled, so let boys not be commanded to be unveiled. Why do we on one side acknowledge the Apostle's definition complete concerning every man, and do not retract because he did not also name the boy, but on the other side prevaricate, although it is equally complete concerning every woman? "If anyone," he says, "is contentious, we have no such custom, neither the Church of God." He shows that there had been some contention about this species, to extinguish which he used the fullest compendium, neither naming the virgin, that he might show there was to be no doubting about her veiling, and naming "every" woman, since he had named the virgin. So too the Corinthians themselves understood. In short, today the Corinthians veil their virgins. What the apostles taught, those who learned approve.

Let us see now whether, as we have shown that the arguments of nature and of the causes suit the virgin too, so also the prescripts of ecclesiastical discipline concerning the woman look toward the virgin. It is not permitted to a woman to speak in the church, but neither to teach, nor to baptize, nor to offer, nor to claim for herself a share of any manly function, much less of the priestly office. Let us ask whether any of these is lawful for a virgin. If it is not lawful for a virgin, but in all things she is subjected under the same condition, and the necessity of humility is reckoned together with the woman, whence shall this one thing be lawful for her which is not lawful for any female? What of prerogative does she merit against her own condition, if she is a virgin and has proposed to sanctify her flesh? Is the indulgence of the veil therefore granted her, that she may enter the church notable and conspicuous, that she may show the honour of sanctity in the liberty of her head? She might have been more worthily honoured by some prerogative of manly grade or office. I plainly know of a virgin somewhere placed in the order of widows when not yet twenty years old. To whom, if the bishop owed any refreshment, he could surely have furnished it otherwise, with due respect to discipline—lest now such a miracle, not to say monster, should be branded in the church: a virgin-widow, the more portentous in this, that not even as a widow does she cover her head, denying herself to be both: a virgin, who is reckoned a widow, and a widow, who is called a virgin. But she sits there uncovered by that authority by which a virgin too sits—to which seat, besides being above sixty years, women are sometimes elected not only of one husband, that is, married, but also mothers, and indeed bringers-up of children: so that, built up, namely, by the experiments of all the affections, they may both easily know how to help the rest with counsel and consolation, and may nonetheless have run through those things by which a female can be proven. So little is permitted to the virgin for honour from her place.

So neither concerning any insignia. For the rest, it would be inhuman enough, if women indeed, in all things subjected to men, were to display the honour-bearing mark of their virginity, by which they are looked up to and gazed about at and magnified by the brethren, while men—so many virgins, so many voluntary eunuchs—should go about with their good blind, bearing nothing that would make them too illustrious. For they too will have to claim some insignia for themselves: either the feathers of the Garamantes, or the bands of the barbarians, or the cicadas of the Athenians, or the curls of the Germans, or the tattoos of the Britons—or let the contrary be done: let men, veiled on the head, lie hidden in the church. We are certain that the Holy Spirit could rather have subscribed some such thing to males, if He had subscribed it to females—since, besides the authority of the sex, even in the name of continence itself, males ought rather to have been honoured. The more avid and hot their sex is toward females, the more laboriously achieved is their continence, and therefore the worthier of all display—if the display of virginity is its dignity. For does not continence stand even above virginity—whether of the widowed, or of those who by consent have already refused the common shame? For virginity consists in grace, but continence in virtue. It is a great contest not to lust after that to which by lusting you have grown accustomed. But of one whose fruit you have not known, you will easily not lust, having no adversary—the concupiscence of the fruit. How, then, would God not rather have subscribed some such thing to men for honour—either because they are the more familiar image of Himself, or because they labour the more? But if nothing to the male, much more nothing to the female.

But what we passed over above in part of the ensuing discussion, lest we should scatter its coherence, we shall now discharge by an answer. For where we fixed our footing upon the Apostle's absolute definition—that "every woman," even of every age, is to be understood—the answer was ready on the other side: that therefore the virgin ought to be covered from her birth and from the first name of her age. But it is not so; rather, from the time when she has begun to understand herself, and to enter into the sense of her own nature, and to come out of the virgin's state and to suffer that new thing which is of another age. For even the princes of the race, Adam and Eve, 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 blush at. Thus each marked with a covering the understanding of his own sex. But even if she is to be veiled on account of the angels, without doubt the law of the veil will operate from that age at which the "daughters of men" could draw on lust for themselves and suffer marriage. For from that time a girl ceases to be a virgin from which she can cease to be one. And therefore among Israel it is unlawful to give a girl to a husband except after maturity attested by blood; so before this index she is an unripe thing. Therefore, if she is a virgin so long as she is unripe, she ceases to be a virgin when she is recognized as ripe; and as a non-virgin she is now subjected to the law, just as also to marriage. And the betrothed indeed have the example of Rebekah, who, when she was being led, herself still unknown, to a bridegroom yet unknown, as soon as she knew that he was the one she had descried from afar, did not endure the contest of the right hand, nor the meeting of a kiss, nor the sharing of a greeting, but, confessing what she had felt—that is, married in spirit—she there veiled herself, denying she was a virgin. O woman already of Christ's discipline! For she showed that even marriage is made from sight and from the mind, just as ravishment—except that some even now veil Rebekah. But concerning the rest, that is, those who are not betrothed, let the procrastination of parents look to it, descending from straitened circumstances or scrupulosity; let the very vow of continence look to it. It has nothing to do with the age running its own spaces 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 at that virgin of yours, already married—in soul by expectation, and in flesh by transfiguration—for whom you are preparing a second husband. Already her voice too is grown stale, and her limbs are completed, and modesty is everywhere clothing itself, and the months are paying their tribute: and do you deny her to be a woman, whom you say to suffer the things of women? If the congress of a man makes a woman, let them not be covered save after that very suffering of marriage. But indeed, even among the heathen, women are led veiled to the husband. But if they are veiled at betrothal, because they are mingled both in body and in spirit with the male through the kiss and the joined hands—through which they first unsealed their modesty in spirit, through the common pledge of consciousness by which they agreed upon all their union—how much more will Time veil those women, without whom they cannot be betrothed, and at whose urging, without betrothals, they cease to be virgins? Time even the heathen observe, that by the law of nature they may render their rights to the ages. For females indeed from twelve years, but the male from two years more, they send to business, decreeing puberty by years, not by betrothals or marriages. A woman is called "mother of a household," though a virgin, and a man "father of a household," though beardless. By us not even natural things are observed—as though there were another God of nature than ours.

Recognize both the woman and the married woman from the testimonies both of body and of spirit, which she suffers both in consciousness and in the flesh. These are the earlier tablets of natural betrothals and marriages. Impose the veil from without on her who has a covering within. Let those upper parts too be covered whose lower parts are not naked. Do you wish to know what is the authority of age? Set both side by side—one compressed in the garb of a woman, and one who, advanced in maturity, endures in virginity with her own garb: more easily will the former be denied to be a woman than the latter be believed a virgin. So great, indeed, is the faith of age, that it cannot be obstructed even by garb. What of this—that even these of ours confess by their very garb the change of age, and, as soon as they have understood themselves to be women, are weaned from the virgins, laying aside from the head itself what they were? They turn their hair and insert tresses with a wantoner pin; with the locks parted from the brow, they profess open womanliness; they soften themselves at the bath; they seek beauty from the mirror; and the more capricious face they soften at the bath, and perhaps even touch it up with some cosmetic; they fling a mantle without; they pack a multiform shoe; they carry more apparatus to the baths. Why should I pursue the particulars? But, alone in their manifest equipment, they carry their whole womanliness about with them—yet they wish to play the virgin by the bareness of the head alone, denying by one garb what they profess by their whole get-up.

If on account of men they abuse their garb, let them fulfil it even in this, and as among the heathen they veil the head, certainly in the church let them hide their virginity, which outside the church they conceal. They fear strangers: let them reverence the brethren too; or let them constantly dare to be seen as virgins even in the streets, as they dare in the churches. I will praise their vigour, if they have peddled anything of their virginity even among the heathen. The same nature is without as within; the same institution among men and before the Lord stands by the same liberty. Why, then, do they outside thrust away their good, but in the church publish it? I demand the reason. Is it that they may please their brethren, or that they may please God Himself? If God Himself, He is as fit to look upon whatever things are done in secret as He is just to reward those things which are done for Himself alone. In short, He enjoins that we should trumpet nothing of those things which will merit reward with Him, nor compensate them from men. But if we are forbidden, by a left hand conscious of it, to do the working of even a single coin or whatever alms, how much darkness ought we to pour around it when we offer to God so great an oblation of our very body and our very spirit, when we consecrate to Him our very nature? Therefore what cannot seem to be done on account of God—because God does not wish it so done—it follows is done for the sake of men: certainly first unlawful, as lustful of glory. For glory is unlawful to those whose probation consists in all humiliation. And if from God the virtue of continence is conferred, why do you glory as though you had not received it? But if you have not received, what have you that was not given you? But by this very thing it is established that it was not given you by God, that you do not render it to God alone. Let us see, then, what is human—whether it be firm and true.

They report that something was once said by a certain man, when first this question was attempted: "And how shall we solicit the rest to a work of this kind?" Forsooth, virgins will make us happy if they are many, and not the grace of God or the merits of each. Do virgins adorn or commend the Church to God, or the Church the virgins? He confessed, therefore, that glory was at issue. Now where there is glory, there is solicitation; where solicitation, there compulsion; where compulsion, there necessity; where necessity, there weakness. Deservedly, then, while they do not cover the head, that they may be solicited for glory's sake, they are compelled to cover their bellies in the ruin of their weakness. For it is rivalry, not religion, that brings them forth. Sometimes their very god is their belly, because the brotherhood readily receives virgins. And they not only fall, but also draw to themselves a long rope of transgressions. For brought into the midst, and elated by the publication of their good, and heaped by the brethren with all honour and the working of charity, while they do not totter—when anything has been committed, they reckon as much disgrace as they had of honour. If the uncovered head is ascribed to virginity, if any virgin has fallen from the grace of virginity, lest she be betrayed, she remains with head uncovered, and then she now walks about in another's garb. Conscious of a womanliness now undoubted, they dare to approach God with bare head. But the jealous God and Lord, who said, "Nothing hidden that shall not be revealed," brings most of them too into view. For they will not confess save when betrayed by the wailings of their very infants. But the more there are of them, will you not also hold them suspect of more crimes? I will say, though I am unwilling: hardly is she once made a woman who fears to be made one, and who, once made, can play the virgin before God. How much, again, will she dare concerning her own womb, lest she be detected even as a mother? God knows how many infants He has helped both to be completed and brought intact to birth, after they had for some while been warred upon by their mothers. Most easily do virgins of this kind always conceive, and most happily bear—and indeed children most like their fathers. These crimes does a constrained and unwilling virginity admit. The very concupiscence of not lying hidden is not modest. It suffers something which is not of the virgin—the eagerness, namely, of pleasing even men. However much, with good intent, she may strive, of necessity she is imperilled by the publication of herself, while she is struck by uncertain and many eyes, while she is tickled by the fingers of those who point her out, while she is too much loved, while she grows warm amid embraces and assiduous kisses. So the brow is hardened, so modesty is rubbed away, so it is loosed, so she learns to desire to please otherwise.

But true and whole and pure virginity fears nothing more than itself. It will not even endure the eyes of women. It has its own other eyes. It flees to the veil of the head as to a helmet, as to a shield, to protect its good against the strokes of temptations, against the darts of scandals, against suspicions and whisperings and rivalry, and envy itself too. For there is something to be feared even among the heathen, which they call "fascination"—the more unhappy outcome of praise and of too enormous glory. This we sometimes interpret to the devil, for the hatred of good is his; sometimes we set down to God, for the judgment of pride is His, who exalts the humble and casts down the elated. The holier virgin, then, will fear, even in the name of fascination: on this side the adversary, on that side God—the envious disposition of the one, the censorious light of the other; and she 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 obstructed the step to temptations. For who will dare to press with his eyes a closed face, a face that does not feel, a face, so to say, sad? Whatever evil thought will be broken by that very severity. She now denies herself even to be a woman, who hides the virgin.

In these things consists the defence of our opinion, according to Scripture, according to nature, according to discipline. Scripture founds the law, nature bears witness, discipline exacts. To which of these does the custom of the contrary opinion render aid, or what is the colour of the diverse view? Of God is Scripture, of God is nature, of God is discipline. Whatever is contrary to these is not of God. If Scripture is uncertain, nature is manifest; and concerning its testimony Scripture cannot be uncertain. If nature is doubted of, discipline shows what is more ratified by God. Nothing is dearer to Him than humility, nothing more acceptable than modesty, nothing more troublesome than glory and the eagerness of pleasing men. Let that, then, be to you both Scripture and nature and discipline, which you shall have found ratified by God—as you are bidden "to examine all things, and to follow whatever is better." It remains also that we turn to the women themselves, that they may the more willingly receive these things. I beseech you—whether mother, or sister, or virgin daughter, that I may speak according to the names of the ages—veil your head: if a mother, on account of your sons; if a sister, on account of your brothers; if a daughter, on account of your fathers. All ages are imperilled in you. Put on the armour of modesty, draw around yourself the rampart of bashfulness, build a wall for your sex, which may neither send out your own eyes nor admit those of others. Fulfil the garb of a woman, that you may keep the standing of a virgin. Belie something of those things which are within, that you may exhibit the truth to God alone. And yet you do not belie a married woman. For you have married Christ; to Him you have handed over your flesh; to Him you have betrothed your maturity. Walk according to the will of your Spouse. It is Christ who bids even the betrothed and married women of others be veiled—surely much more His own.

But you too we admonish, women of another modesty, who have fallen into marriage, not so to grow out of the discipline of the veil—no, not even for a moment of an hour—that, because you cannot reject it, you should in another way destroy it, walking neither covered nor naked. For some, with turbans and woollen bands, do not veil the head, but bind it up, protected indeed from the brow, but bare where the head properly is. Others are covered with little linens, modestly—I suppose, lest they press the head—not let down even to the ears, only as far as the brain. I pity them, if they are of so weak a hearing that they cannot hear through a covering. Let them know that the whole head is "woman." Its limits and bounds extend as far as the place where the dress begins. As much as the loosed hair can occupy, so great is the region of the veil, that the neck too may be encircled. For these are they who ought to be subjected, on account of whom power ought to be had over the head. The veil is their yoke. The heathen women of Arabia will judge you, who veil not the head only, but the face too so wholly, 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 than to be seen. On which account a certain Roman queen called them most unhappy, in that they can be loved more than they can love—whereas they are happy even by immunity from another and indeed more frequent unhappiness: that women can more easily be loved than love. And of the heathen discipline indeed the modesty is purer and, so to say, more barbarous. To us the Lord has, even by revelations, measured out the spaces of the veil. For to a certain sister of ours an angel in her sleep, beating her neck as if in applause, said: "Elegant the neck, and deservedly bare! It is good that from the head down to the loins you be uncovered, lest this liberty of the neck profit you nothing." And surely what you say to one, you have said to all. But what chastisement will they too deserve who, among the psalms or at any mention of God, persist uncovered—those who, even lingering in prayer itself, most easily set upon the brain a fringe or a tuft or any thread whatever, and suppose themselves covered? At so cheap a rate do they belie their head. Others, whose palm is plainly greater than every fringe and thread, no less abuse their own head, like a certain beast rather than a bird, though feathered, with a short head, an outstretched neck, and the rest high-stepping. This creature, they say, when it has to hide, thrusts its whole head, plainly, into a thicket, and leaves the rest of itself in the open. So, while it is secure as to the head, it is taken bare where it is greater, wholly, together with the head. Such will these women be too—covered less than is useful. It behooves, then, to walk at all times and in every place mindful of the law, prepared and equipped for every mention of God; who, if He be in the breast, will be recognized also on the head of women. These things, with good peace to the readers who prefer usefulness to custom, may peace and grace abound from our Lord Jesus, together with Septimius Tertullian, whose this little work is.