On the Veiling of Virgins

But I do not wish for the present to reckon this practice as belonging to truth. Let it be custom for the time being, so that I may oppose custom with custom as well. Throughout Greece and certain of its barbarian regions, more Churches veil their virgins. And this institution exists somewhere under this sky, lest anyone ascribe that custom to Greek or barbarian paganism. But I have put forward those Churches which the Apostles themselves or Apostolic men founded, and I think before certain others. They therefore also have the same authority of custom, and they set against us their times and predecessors rather than these later ones. What shall we observe, what shall we choose? We cannot reject a custom which we cannot condemn, inasmuch as it is not foreign, because it is not of foreigners—with whom, that is, we share the right of peace and the name of brotherhood. One faith is ours and theirs, one God, the same Christ, the same hope, the same sacraments of the washing.

Let me say it once: we are one Church. Thus whatever belongs to ours is ours. Otherwise you divide the body. Nevertheless here, as is customary in all variously established and doubtful and uncertain matters, examination ought to have been applied, to determine which of the two such different customs would better accord with the discipline of God. And certainly that one was to be chosen which encloses virgins, known to God alone—virgins for whom, beyond the fact that glory is to be sought from God, not from men, even their own good is a thing to be blushed at. You confound a virgin more by praising than by blaming her, because the brow of guilt is harder, having been taught shamelessness by the very offense and in it. For that custom which denies virgins while displaying them, no one would have approved, unless some were such as the virgins themselves. For such eyes will desire to see a virgin as the virgin has who wishes to be seen. The same kinds of eyes mutually desire one another.

It is the same lust to be seen and to see. It is as much the mark of a holy man to blush if he has seen a virgin, as of a holy virgin to blush if she has been seen by a man.

But those most holy predecessors were not willing to discern even between the customs. Nevertheless, among us, until recently, both customs were more tolerably shared in. The matter was left to individual choice, so that each woman might wish either to be covered or to be exposed, just as also to marry: which itself is neither compelled nor forbidden. Truth was content to make terms with custom, so that it might silently enjoy itself under the name of custom, at least in part. But since recognition had begun to advance, so that through the license of either practice the judgment of the better part might emerge, straightway that adversary of good things, and of many institutions, did his work. Virgins of men press upon virgins of God, plainly with bare brow roused to reckless audacity. And they seem to be virgins who are able to ask something of men—let alone such a deed as this, namely that their rivals, so much the more free as they are servants of Christ alone, should be surrendered to them.

We are scandalized, they say, because others go about differently: and they prefer to be scandalized rather than provoked. A scandal, unless I am mistaken, is the example not of a good thing but of a bad one, building toward offense. Good things scandalize no one, except an evil mind. If modesty is good, and shame, and disdain for glory, seeking to please God alone, let those who are scandalized by such a good thing acknowledge their own evil. For what if the incontinent also say they are scandalized by the continent—is continence to be recalled? And lest the multiply-married be scandalized, is monogamy to be refused? Why do these women not rather complain that the wantonness and shamelessness of ostentatious virginity is a scandal to them? On account of such market-day heads as these, then, are holy virgins to be dragged into the Church, blushing because they are recognized in the midst of the assembly, trembling because they are detected when summoned as if to violation. For they are no less unwilling to suffer this also.

Every public exposure of a good virgin is a suffering of violation. And yet to suffer violence to the flesh is less; because it comes from the duty of nature. But when the spirit itself is violated in a virgin, with the veil removed she has learned to lose what she was guarding. O sacrilegious hands, which were able to strip off the garb consecrated to God! What worse thing would any persecutor have done, if he had known that this had been chosen by a virgin? You have bared the girl from her head, and now the virgin is no longer wholly herself: she has become another. Arise therefore, O truth, arise, and as it were burst forth from patience: I wish you to defend no custom; for even that one under which you were enjoying yourself is now being blotted out. Show yourself to be that which covers virgins. Interpret your own Scriptures, which custom does not know. For if it had known them, it would never have existed.

But inasmuch as it is also the custom to argue from the Scriptures against truth, it is immediately objected to us that no mention of virgins is made by the Apostle where he prescribes concerning the veil, but that only women are named: since, if he had wished virgins also to be covered, he would have pronounced concerning virgins as well, named together with women: just as there, it is said, where he treats of marriage, he declares what is to be observed also concerning virgins. And so they hold that virgins are not contained under the law of covering the head, as not being named in this law; indeed that from this very fact they are unveiled, because those who are not commanded are also not named. But we also turn the same argument back.

For he who knew how to make mention of each of the two kinds elsewhere—I mean virgin and woman, that is, non-virgin—by reason of distinction, in those passages where he does not name the virgin, by not making a distinction, shows a community of condition. Otherwise he could here also have established a difference between virgin and woman, as he says elsewhere: The woman and the virgin are divided. Therefore those whom he did not divide, he left unaltered by silence. Nor, however, because there the woman and the virgin are divided, will that division serve as a defense here also, as some wish. For how much that is said elsewhere does not avail where it is not said—unless the cause be the same as elsewhere, so that what is said once may suffice? But that cause of the virgin and the woman is far removed from this particular case. The woman and the virgin are divided, he says. Why?

Because the unmarried woman, that is the virgin, thinks on the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit. But the married woman, that is the non-virgin, thinks on 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 marriage or about the mind and thought of the woman and the virgin, but about covering the head. Wishing there to be no distinction in this matter, the Holy Spirit, under the single name of woman, wished the virgin also to be understood—whom by not naming specifically He did not separate from woman, and by not separating He joined her to her from whom He did not separate her. Is it now a new thing to use the principal term and to have the rest nonetheless understood within that term, where there is no necessity of distinguishing the totality one by one?

By nature a concise expression is both pleasing and necessary: because a wordy speech is both burdensome and vain. So also we are content with general terms, which comprehend within themselves the meaning of the specific. Now therefore concerning the very word. Woman is the natural term, and the general term of the natural word is woman. Also general and specific are: virgin, or married, or widow, or however many names of age are added. The specific therefore is subject to the general, because the general is prior: and the subordinate to the antecedent, and the partial to the universal: and it is understood in that to which it is subject, and is signified in it, because it is contained in it. So neither hand, nor foot, nor any of the members needs to be signified when the body is named. And if you say world, there will be in it both heaven and what is in it—sun and moon and stars and constellations—and earth and seas, the whole census of the elements.

You will have said all things when you have said that which consists of all things. So also by naming woman, he named whatever belongs to woman.

But since they make such use of the word "woman" as to think it applies only to her who has experienced a man, we must prove that the proper meaning of that word pertains to the sex itself, not to a degree of the sex, inasmuch as virgins also are commonly reckoned under it. When this kind of second human being was made by God as a helper for man, that female was straightway surnamed "woman," still blessed, still worthy of paradise, still a virgin. She shall be called, it says, woman. You have therefore a name which I will not merely say is common to a virgin, but is proper to her, which from the beginning a virgin received as her lot. But some cleverly wish it to have been said in the future tense, "She shall be called woman," as though she would become this once she had surrendered her virginity: because he also adds: Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his woman, and the two shall be in one flesh.

Let them show, therefore, first where that subtlety lies, if "woman" was named in the future tense—what name did she bear in the meantime? For she could not have existed without a name corresponding to her present condition. Besides, what sort of thing is it that she who was to be designated by a name for the future should in the present bear no surname at all? Adam imposed names on all the animals, and on none from a future condition, but from a present institution—each thing being called, whatever condition might serve it, by what he willed from the beginning; what then was she called at that time? And yet as often as she is named in Scripture she is called "woman" before she was married, and never "virgin" while she was a virgin. That name alone was hers at that time, and when nothing was said in a prophetic manner.

For when Scripture reports that the two were naked, Adam and his woman, this too does not savour of the future, as though he had said "his woman" as a presage of a wife, but because even as his unmarried one she was his woman, as being of his own substance: This, he says, is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman. Hence, therefore, by the silent awareness of nature, divinity itself led the soul into the usage of speech—men not knowing it (as also many other things which we shall be able to show elsewhere are customarily done and said from Scripture)—so that we call our women our wives. Although we also speak improperly in some respects; for even the Greeks, who more commonly use the word for "woman" in the sense of wife, have other proper words for wife. But I prefer to attribute this usage to the testimony of Scripture.

For where two are made into one flesh through the bond of marriage, flesh from flesh and bone from bone, she is called, according to her origin, his woman—from whose substance she begins to be reckoned as made a wife. Thus "woman" is not by nature the name of a wife, but "wife" by condition is the name of a woman. Finally, a woman can be called a woman and not a wife, but a wife cannot be called not a woman, because she cannot even be one. The name of the new female being therefore having been established—which is "woman"—and what came first having been explained, that is, the name having been assigned, he turns now to the prophetic sense, so as to say: On account of her a man shall leave his father and mother. So far is the name separated from the prophecy, as also from the person herself, that he did not speak of Eve herself, but of those future women whom he named in the matrix of the female kind.

Otherwise, Adam was not going to leave father and mother, whom he did not have, on account of Eve. Therefore it does not pertain to Eve, because neither does it pertain to Adam, what 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 apply to Eve, because neither could it apply to Adam. If this is so, it is clear that "woman" was not named on account of the future, to which that future did not belong. To this is added the fact that he himself gave the reason for her name. For when he had said: she shall be called woman, he added: because she was taken from her man, and he was still a virgin. But we shall speak also of the man's name in its proper place.

Let no one therefore interpret a name as a prophecy, when it has been derived from another signification: especially since it is apparent where she received a name from the future—namely there, where Eve is surnamed with a personal name, because the natural one had come first. For if Eve is the mother of the living, behold she is surnamed from the future, behold a wife and not a virgin is foretold. This will be the name of one about to be married: for a mother comes from a wife. Thus here too it is shown that "woman" was not then named from the future—she who was afterwards to receive the name of her future condition. Sufficient answer has been given to this part.

Let us now see whether the Apostle also observes the form of this word according to Genesis, assigning it to the sex, thus calling the virgin Mary "woman," just as Genesis called Eve. For writing to the Galatians he says: God sent his Son made of a woman; who is certainly known to have been a virgin, though Hebion resist. I acknowledge also that the angel Gabriel was sent to a virgin; but when he blesses her, he counts her among women, not among virgins: Blessed art thou among women. The Angel too knew that a virgin is also called a woman. But to these two points also someone has seemed to himself to have answered cleverly: that because Mary was betrothed, she was therefore called "woman" both by the Angel and by the Apostle—for one betrothed is in a manner married; yet between "in a manner" and "truly" there is sufficient difference, at least in this place—for elsewhere it may indeed be so held.

But now they did not pronounce Mary "woman" as though she were already married, but as a female nonetheless, even if not a betrothed one—as though this had been said from the beginning. For that must furnish the precedent from which the form descends. Besides, as regards this chapter, if here a betrothed woman is equated with a wife, so that Mary was called "woman" not as a female but as a wife; then Christ was not born of a virgin, because he was born of a betrothed woman, who would have ceased to be a virgin by that name. But if he was born of a virgin—though of a betrothed one, yet an intact one—acknowledge that a woman can be called a virgin, even an intact one.

Here certainly nothing can be seen 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 have named a later woman, of whom Christ was not to be born—that is, one who had experienced a man—but that one who was present, who was a virgin, and was called "woman" through the proper meaning of this word, defended for the virgin and thus for the entire female kind.

Let us turn now to reviewing the very reasons by which the Apostle teaches that a woman ought to be veiled, to see whether those same reasons apply also to virgins: so that from this too the community of the word between virgins and non-virgins may be established, while the same causes for the veil are found on both sides. If the head of a woman is the man, certainly also of the virgin, from whom comes that woman who has married—unless a virgin is some third monstrous kind with a head of its own. If it is shameful for a woman to be shaved or shorn, certainly also for a virgin. Let the world, rival of God, see to it whether it thus falsely attributes a shorn head to a virgin as an ornament, just as it is permitted to a boy. Therefore, to whom it is equally unfitting to be shaved or shorn, it is equally fitting to be covered.

If a woman is the glory of a man, how much more a virgin, who is also her own glory! If woman is from man and for man, that rib of Adam was first a virgin. If a woman ought to have power upon her head, with all the more justice a virgin, to whom belongs what is the cause of it. For if on account of the angels—namely those whom we read fell from God and heaven through lust for women—who can presume that such angels desired bodies already defiled and the remnants of human lust, rather than burning especially for virgins, whose bloom excuses even human lust? For Scripture thus suggests: And it came to pass, it says, when men began to multiply upon the earth, and daughters were born to them; the sons of God, seeing the daughters of men, that they were fair, took to themselves wives of all whom they chose. Here the Greek word for women means wives, because the mention is of marriages.

When therefore it says "daughters of men," it manifestly indicates virgins, who were still reckoned as being with their parents. For married women are called by the names of their husbands; since he could have said "wives of men," likewise not naming the angels adulterers but husbands, while they take the unmarried daughters of men—whom he said above had been born—he thus also signified virgins born above, but here married to angels, knowing them as nothing other than born, and thereafter married. Therefore that face so dangerous, which has hurled scandals even to heaven, ought to be veiled, so that when standing before God—to whom she is guilty as the cause of the destruction of the angels—she may blush also before the other angels, and at last restrain that evil liberty of her head, which is no longer to be offered even to the eyes of men.

But even if those angels had desired women already defiled, all the more ought they to have been veiled on account of the angels, inasmuch as all the more on account of virgins could the angels have sinned. But if the Apostle also adds the prejudice of nature—that an abundance of hair is an honour for a woman, because hair serves as a covering—this is certainly most especially the mark of a virgin, whose very adornment is properly such that, gathered up to the crown of the head, it covers the very summit of the head with a circuit of hair.

The contraries of all these things certainly bring it about that a man should not veil his head: namely, because he has not naturally acquired the ambition of hair, because it is not shameful for him to be shaved or shorn, because the angels did not go astray on his account, because he is the glory and image of God, because his head is Christ. And so, since the Apostle treats of man and woman—why she ought to be veiled, but he not—it is apparent why he also passed over the virgin in silence: allowing, that is, the virgin to be understood within the woman by the same reasoning by which he did not name the boy as to be counted within the man, having comprised the whole order of each sex under the proper words of each, "woman" and "man." Thus Adam, even while still intact, is surnamed "man" in Genesis: She shall be called, it says, woman, because she was taken from her man.

Thus Adam is man before the union of marriage, just as Eve is woman. Concerning both sides the Apostle has pronounced sufficiently for the universal aspect of each sex, both briefly and fully, with so well-constructed a definition. Every, he says, woman. What is "every," if not of every kind, every rank? Every condition, every dignity, every age? For "every" is whole and complete and lacking in none of its parts. But a virgin also is a part of woman. Likewise also concerning the man not veiling: Every, he says. Behold two different names, man and woman, each "every." Two laws bound to each other, here of veiling, there of uncovering.

Therefore if, because "every man" is said, the name of man is common even to one not yet a man, the beardless male: but since the name is common according to nature, the law of not veiling is also common to him who among men is a virgin according to discipline: why should it not be prejudged likewise that every virgin woman is contained in the fellowship of the name by the naming of "woman," so that she is also contained in the community of the law? If a woman is not for a man, neither is the beardless male a man. If a virgin is not veiled because she is not a woman, let the beardless male be veiled because he is not a man. Let the indulgence of the same virginity be equal. Just 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 as absolute concerning every man, and do not reconsider why he did not also name the boy: while on the other side we transgress it, equally absolute concerning every woman? If anyone, he says, is contentious, we have no such custom, neither the Church of God. He shows that there was some contention about this matter, to quench which he used the whole of this compendium: neither naming the virgin, so as to show that there should be no doubt about her being veiled, and naming every woman, having named the virgin. Thus also the Corinthians themselves understood it. To this day, finally, the Corinthians veil their virgins; what the Apostles taught, those who learned from them approve.

Let us now examine whether, just as we have shown that the arguments from nature and from causes apply also to the virgin, so too the prescriptions of ecclesiastical discipline concerning woman extend to the virgin. A woman is not permitted to speak in the church, nor to teach, nor to baptize, nor to offer, nor to claim the lot of any male function, let alone of the priestly office. Let us inquire whether any of these things is lawful for a virgin. If it is not lawful for a virgin, but she is subject in all things under the same condition, and the necessity of humility is reckoned together with woman, whence will this one thing be lawful for her, which is not lawful for any woman? What prerogative does she deserve against her own condition, if she is a virgin and has purposed to sanctify her flesh?

Is the concession of a veil granted to her for this reason, that she may enter the church conspicuous and distinguished, that she may display the honor of her holiness in the freedom of her head? She could more worthily have been honored by some prerogative of male rank or office. I know well that in a certain place a virgin was placed in widowhood before the age of twenty years. If the bishop owed her any indulgence, he could certainly have provided it otherwise while preserving respect for discipline, lest such a marvel—not to say monstrosity—should now be noted in the Church: a virgin-widow, all the more portentous in that she did not even cover her head as a widow does; denying both conditions—both that of a virgin, who is reckoned a widow, and that of a widow, who is called a virgin. But she sits there in that seat untouched by the same authority as a virgin.

To that seat, besides the sixty years of age, not only women who have been married once, that is, those who have at some time been wed, are chosen, but also mothers, and indeed those who have raised children—so that, being formed by experience of all the affections, they may readily know how to assist others with counsel and consolation, and that they may likewise have run through those things by which a woman can be proved. So entirely is nothing permitted to a virgin for honor by reason of her place.

Nor likewise from any other distinctions. Otherwise it is sufficiently inhuman, if women indeed, subject to men in all things, should display the honorable mark of their virginity, by which they are looked up to and gazed upon and magnified by the brethren, while men—so many virgins, so many voluntary eunuchs—should walk in their blind good, bearing nothing that would make them likewise illustrious. They too ought to defend for themselves some distinguishing marks—either the feathers of the Garamantes, or the cords of the Barbarians, or the cicadas of the Athenians, or the tufts of the Germans, or the tattoos of the Britons; or else, on the contrary, let them be veiled on the head and hide themselves in the church.

We are certain that the Holy Spirit could more readily have subscribed some such thing for males, if He had subscribed it for females, since, beyond the authority of sex, males ought rather to have been honored even in the name of continence itself; for the more their sex is eager and ardent toward women, the more laborious is their continence of greater ardor, and therefore worthier of all display—if display is the dignity of virginity. For does not continence also surpass virginity, whether of widows or of those who by mutual consent have now refused the common dishonor? For virginity consists in grace, but continence in virtue. Not to desire that to which you have grown accustomed through desiring it is a great struggle. But he who has never known the fruit of desiring will easily not desire it, having no adversary—the desire of the fruit.

How then would God not rather have subscribed some such thing for men in honor, whether because of His more familiar image, that is, His own, or because of the one who labors more? But if nothing for the male, much less for the female.

But what we left aside above, on account of the partly subsequent disputation, lest we scatter its coherence, we shall now dispose of with a reply. For when we fixed our position from the Apostle's absolute definition, that every woman of every age is to be understood, it was to be answered from the other side that therefore a virgin ought to be covered from birth and from the first name of age. But it is not so; rather, from the time when she has begun to understand herself, and to enter into the reckoning of her own nature, and to depart from the virgin state, and to suffer that new thing which belongs to another age. For even the first parents 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 that they should blush. And so each marked the understanding of their own sex with a covering.

But also if she is to be veiled on account of the angels, without doubt the law of the veil will take effect from that age at which the daughters of men could have drawn desire upon themselves, and suffered marriage. For from that point a virgin ceases to be one, from the point at which she can cease to be one. And therefore among Israel it is unlawful to give a girl to a man unless after the maturity attested by blood: so that before this sign the matter is unripe. Therefore if she is a virgin as long as she is unripe, she ceases to be a virgin when she is known as ripe, and as no longer a virgin she is brought under the law, just as also under marriage.

And for those who are betrothed there is indeed the example of Rebecca, who, when she was being led to her still unknown bridegroom, herself still unknown, as soon as she recognized that he was the one she had seen from afar, did not endure the wrestling of the right hand, nor the meeting of a kiss, nor the exchange of a greeting, but confessing what she had felt—that is, that she was a bride in spirit—she denied that she was a virgin, veiling herself on the spot. O woman already of Christ's discipline! For she showed that marriage too is made by sight and by the mind, just as fornication is. Except that some still veil even Rebecca. But as for the rest—that is, those who are not betrothed—let the procrastination of parents, arising from difficulties or scrupulousness, see to itself; and let the very vow of continence see to itself. Nothing pertains to an age running its own course and paying its own debts to maturity.

Another mother in secret, nature, and another father in hiding, time, have married their daughter by their own laws. Behold that virgin of yours already a bride—in soul by expectation, in flesh by transformation—for whom you are preparing a second husband. Already her voice too has grown coarser, and her limbs have filled out, and modesty is clothed everywhere, and the months pay their tribute: and you deny she is a woman, when you say she suffers womanly things! If the union of a man makes a woman, let them not be veiled except after the very experience of the nuptials. And yet even among the pagans they are veiled when led to a husband.

But if they are veiled at betrothal, because they have been mingled with a male both in body and in spirit through the kiss and the right hand, by which they first unsealed the modesty of the spirit, through the common pledge of shared conscience, by which they have agreed to the whole confusion—how much more will time veil those who cannot be betrothed without it, and at whose urging virgins cease to be virgins without betrothals! Time even the pagans observe, so as to render by the law of nature their rights to the ages. For females indeed they send to business from twelve years, but the male from two years more, determining puberty in years, not in betrothals or marriages. A woman of the household she is called even if a virgin, and a man of the household even if beardless. By us not even natural things are observed, as though the God of nature were other than ours.

Acknowledge her also as a woman, acknowledge her also as a bride, from the testimonies both of body and of spirit, which she suffers both in conscience and in flesh. These are the prior tablets of natural betrothals and marriages. Impose the veil from without upon her who has a covering from within. Let even the upper parts be covered, whose lower parts are not bare. Do you wish to know what is the authority of age? Set forth both: one who is immature, pressed into the dress of a woman, and one who, having advanced in maturity, continues in virginity with her own dress—the former will more easily be denied to be a woman than the latter will be believed to be a virgin. So great indeed is the credibility of age that it cannot be obstructed even by dress.

What of the fact that even these women of ours confess by their very dress the change of age, and as soon as they have understood themselves to be women, they are led out from among the virgins, laying aside from the very head what they were: they change their hair, and insert it with a more wanton pin, having declared open womanhood by the parting of the hair from the forehead. Now too they seek the counsel of beauty from the mirror, and soften a more fastidious face with washing, and perhaps also touch it up with some cosmetic; they cast the mantle loosely outside, they fit on a manifold shoe, they carry more equipment to the baths. Why should I pursue each detail? But virgins alone manifestly adorn themselves and carry about them the whole of womanhood.

These women of ours, he says—namely Christian women—confess by their very dress the change of age, and at the same time feel their puberty springing up within them, and understand that they are now women and have departed from among virgins. And so from the very head they lay aside the virginal dress, they change their hair, and insert it with a more wanton pin, having declared open womanhood by the parting of the hair from the forehead. Then he concludes: Nay, virgins alone, about to be reckoned as such, carry about them the whole of womanhood. But they wish to be reckoned as virgins by the bare head alone, denying by one dress what they profess by their whole bearing.

If they abuse their dress on account of men, let them fulfill it also in this respect, so as to veil their head even among the pagans. At least in the church let them conceal their virginity, which they hide outside the church. They fear strangers; let them also reverence their brothers: or let them boldly dare, and be seen as virgins in the streets just as they dare to be in the church. I will praise the vigor, if they were to make some display of their virginity even among the pagans. The same nature outside as inside, the same institution among men and before the Lord, is established by the same freedom. Why then do they hide their good outside, but proclaim it in the church? I demand the reason: whether it be to please their brothers, or God Himself. If God Himself: He is as capable of beholding what is done in secret as He is just in rewarding what is done for Him alone.

He commands, finally, that we trumpet none of those things that will earn their reward with Him, nor that we exchange them for compensation from men. But if we are forbidden to perform even a single farthing's worth, or whatever work of almsgiving, with the left hand as witness, how great a darkness ought we to cast around us when we offer so great an oblation to God—of our very body and our very spirit—when we consecrate that very nature itself. Therefore what cannot be seen to be done for God, because God does not will it to be done thus, it follows that it is done for the sake of men: which is in the first place unlawful, as being lustful of glory. For glory is unlawful for those whose probation consists in all humiliation. And if the virtue of continence is conferred by God: What do you glory in, as though you had not received it? But if you have not received it, what do you have that was not given to you?

By this very fact, moreover, it is established that it was not given to you by God, in that you do not present it to God alone. Let us therefore see whether what is human is firm and true.

They relate that it was once said by a certain woman, when this question was first raised: And how shall we attract others to such a practice? As if they would make us happy, if there were more of them, and not by God's grace or the merits of each. Do virgins adorn the church, or does the church adorn and commend virgins to God? She confessed therefore that glory was the motive. Now where there is glory, there is enticement; where there is enticement, there is compulsion; where there is compulsion, there is necessity; where there is necessity, there is weakness. Rightly therefore, while they do not cover their heads in order to attract attention for the sake of glory, they are compelled to cover their bellies by the ruin of weakness. For it is rivalry, not religion, that brings them forth: sometimes also their very belly is their god, because the brotherhood easily receives a virgin. Nor do they merely fall, but they also draw upon themselves a long rope of sins.

For when their good has been brought into the open and made public, and they are puffed up and heaped with every honor and act of charity by the brethren, since they cannot hide where something has been committed, they contemplate as much disgrace as they had honor. If an uncovered head is attributed to virginity, then if any virgin has fallen from the grace of virginity, lest she be exposed, she continues with uncovered head: and then she walks in a habit that belongs to another, that is the one which virginity claims for itself; she continues nonetheless in that habit, or at least then in one belonging to another, so as not to be betrayed by a change. Already undoubtedly conscious of their womanhood, they dare to approach God with bare head. But God and the Lord, who is jealous, who said: Nothing is hidden that shall not be revealed, brings many of them even into public view. For they will not confess, unless betrayed by the very cries of their own infants.

But how many more will you not also suspect of more numerous crimes? I will say it, though unwillingly, it is difficult for a woman to fall only once, who does not fear to fall, and who, having already fallen, can lie about being a virgin before God. How much also will she dare regarding her own womb, lest she be detected even as a mother! God knows that he has already seen infants both brought to completion and carried to birth intact, having been for a time fought against by their mothers. Such virgins always conceive most easily, and give birth most happily, and indeed to children very like their fathers. These shameful deeds are admitted by virginity compelled and unwilling. The very desire not to be hidden is not chaste; it suffers something that is not fitting for a virgin, the eagerness to please, and that assuredly even men.

However much she may strive with good intention, she must needs be endangered by the public display of herself, while she is struck by uncertain and many eyes, while she is titillated by the fingers of those who point her out, while she is loved too much, while she grows warm amid continual embraces and kisses. Thus the brow is hardened, thus modesty is worn away, thus it is dissolved, thus she learns to desire to please in another way.

But true, and whole, and pure virginity fears nothing more than itself; it does not even wish to endure the eyes of women; it has other eyes of its own; it takes refuge in the veil upon the head, as in a helmet, as in a shield, which may protect its good against the blows of temptations, against the darts of scandals, against suspicions, and whispers, and rivalry, and even envy itself. For there is something to be feared even among the pagans, which they call the evil eye, the unhappy outcome of praise and excessive glory. This we sometimes interpret as belonging to the devil: for his is the hatred of good; sometimes we attribute it to God: for his is the judgment upon pride, which exalts the humble and casts down the lofty.

The holier virgin will therefore fear, even under the name of the evil eye, on the one side the adversary, on the other God: the one's envious nature, the other's censorious light: and she will rejoice to be known to herself alone and to God. But even if she becomes known to someone, she is wise if she has blocked the path to temptations. For who will dare to press with his eyes a face that is closed, a face that takes no notice, a face, if I may say so, that is stern? Every evil thought will be broken by that very severity. She even denies that she is a woman, who conceals the virgin.

Whatever is contrary to these is not of God. If Scripture is uncertain, nature is manifest, and from its testimony Scripture cannot be uncertain. If nature is doubted, discipline shows what is more ratified by God. Nothing is dearer to him than humility, nothing more acceptable than modesty, nothing more hateful than glory and the eagerness to please men. Let that therefore be to you both Scripture, and nature, and discipline, which you shall find to be ratified by God, as you are commanded 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, as I have named you according to your years, veil your head: if a mother, for the sake of your sons; if a sister, for the sake of your brothers; if a daughter, for the sake of your fathers; all ages are endangered in you.

Put on the armor of modesty, draw around you the rampart of shame, build a wall for your sex, which neither lets your own eyes go out, nor admits those of others. Complete the attire of a woman, that you may preserve the state of a virgin. Dissemble something of what is within, that you may show the truth to God alone, although you do not dissemble that you are married; for you have married Christ: to him you have given your flesh, to him you have pledged your maturity. Walk according to the will of your Spouse. It is Christ who commands that even the brides and wives of others be veiled, and certainly much more his own.

But we also admonish you of another modesty, women who have entered into marriage, lest you grow so lax from the discipline of the veil, not even for a moment of an hour, that since you cannot cast it off entirely, you destroy it in another way, being neither covered nor bare in your burning. For some cover their head not with caps and bands of wool, but bind it up, protected indeed at the front, but bare at the part which is properly the head. Others are covered only slightly with small linen cloths, I suppose lest they weigh down the head, and not let down even to the ears, being covered only to the brain. I pity them, if their hearing is so weak that they cannot hear through a covering. Let them know that the whole woman is head. Its limits and boundaries extend as far as where the garment begins; as much space as loosened hair can occupy, so great is the region of the veil, so that the neck also is encompassed.

For these are the very parts which ought to be subject, on account of which power ought to be held over the head: the veil is their yoke. The pagan women of Arabia will judge you, who cover not only the head but also the whole face so completely, that with one eye set free they are content to enjoy half the light rather than to prostitute the whole face; women whom a certain Roman queen therefore called most unhappy, because they could love more than be loved, since they are happy by reason of immunity from the other's unhappiness, and indeed the more frequent one, because women can more easily be loved than love. And indeed a pagan discipline purer, and, if I may say so, a more barbarous modesty. For us the Lord has measured out the dimensions of the veil even by revelations.

For to a certain sister of ours an angel in a dream, striking her neck as if in applause: Elegant, he said, neck, and rightly bare; it is good that you be veiled from head to loins. Lest even for you that freedom of the neck profit nothing. And assuredly what you say to one, you say to all. But how great a chastisement will those also deserve, who persist unveiled during psalms, or at any mention of God! Is it not right that even those who in prayer itself most readily place a fringe, or a tuft, or any thread whatsoever upon the brain, and think themselves covered, value their head so highly? Others, for whom plainly the palm is greater than any fringe or thread, abuse their head no less, like some creature more beast than bird, though feathered, with a small head, a stretched-out neck, and otherwise of easy gait. This creature, they say, when it must hide, thrusts its head alone, entirely and plainly, into a thicket, leaving the rest of itself in the open.

So while it is secure in respect of its head, it is caught naked where it is larger, caught entirely along with its head. Such also will those women be who are covered less than is useful. It is necessary therefore at all times and in every place to walk mindful of the law, prepared and equipped for every mention of God: which if it shall be in the heart, it will be recognized also in the heads of women. Upon those who read these things in good peace, preferring truth to custom, may peace and grace from our Lord Jesus abound, together with Septimius Tertullianus, whose this little work is.