Chapter 1
BOOK TWO Chapter 1 andmaidens of the Lord, my fellow servants and sisters, on the strength of the right of fellow servantship and brother—the right by which I, the very last of you, am counted as one of you—I am emboldened to address to you some words,1 not, of course, of affection, but paving the way for affection in the cause of your salvation.
Salvation, however, and not of women only, but also of men, is especially to be procured in the observance of modesty. For, since we are all temples of God because the Holy Spirit has entered into us and sanctified us,2 modesty is the sacristan and priestess of that temple; modesty will prevent anything unclean or profane from entering, lest God who dwells therein should be offended and leave the defiled abode.
(2) But it is not our object now to speak of modesty which the omnipresent divine precepts sufficiently promulgate and prescribe, but I do intend to talk about something that pertains to modesty, that is, the way in which you ought to 1 Cf. Eph. 3.8. See the same modest form of reference to himself in To the Martyrs 1.2 and Prayer 20.1.
2 Cf. 1 Cor. 3.16; 2 Cor. 6.16.
TERTULLIAN
conduct yourselves.3 For, too many women—I trust God will permit me to reprove this very thing by censuring it in all concerned—either in ignorant simplicity or downright dis honesty so conduct themselves as if modesty consisted solely in the integrity of the flesh and the avoidance of actual sin and as if there were no need to care for the externals, I mean about the arrangement of dress and ornament. They go right ahead in their former pursuit of beauty and glamour, showing in their walk the very same appearance as do women of the pagans who are devoid of all understanding of true modesty because there is nothing true in those. who do not know God, the Master and Teacher of all truth. (3) For, if any modesty can be assumed to exist among the Gentiles, it is certainly so imperfect and defective that even though it asserts itself to some extent in the way of thinking, it destroys itself by a licentious extravagance in the matter of dress after the manner of the usual perversity of the Gentiles of actually desiring that of which it shuns the effect. Flow many pagan women are there who do not desire to be pleasing even to strangers? Who is there among them who does not try to have herself painted up in order that when desired she may refuse? In fact, this is a characteristic of Gentile modesty, not actually to fall, but to be willing to do so, or even not to be willing, yet not quite to refuse. Is there any wonder? All things are perverse which are not from God.
(4) Let those women, therefore, look to it, who, by not holding on to the whole good, easily mix with evil even what they do hold fast. It is your obligation to be different from them, as in all other things, so also in your gait, since you ought to be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.4
3 Cf. 1 Thess. 4.1.
4 Cf. Matt. 5.48.