Hence arise those incentives to vice, that they paint their faces
with this subject, said among other things:[58]
If any professional painter had taken the features of a subject and her beauty and the quality of her body, carefully emulating their natural coloring, and putting his signature to the work; and then someone else had laid hands on the signed and finished portrait, and presumed as if he were a better artist to redesign what had already been designed and painted, it would look like a serious insult to the first painter, and just grounds for indignation. And now you reckon, do you, that in your outrageously bold temerity you can insult God's skill as a craftsman with impunity? For while you may not be a shameless and unchaste woman in human eyes, with your rouge and your make-up, by corrupting and violating what is God's work, you convict yourself of being worse than an adulteress. What you suppose is just adorning yourself, what you suppose is just doing your hair, is really an attack on a divine work, a distortion of the truth. There is the voice of the apostle warning us: Purge out the old leaven, so that you may be fresh dough, as you are unleavened. For Christ has been sacrificed as our passover. And so let us celebrate the feast, not in the old leaven, nor in the leaven of malice and wickedness, but in the unleavened bread of genuineness and truth (1 Cor 5:7–8). Can genuineness and truth remain, when what is genuine has been polluted, and what is true has been changed into a lie, adulterated with strange colors and treated with rouge? Your Lord says, You cannot make one hair white or black (Mt 5:36), and you, to drown your Lord's voice, wish to prove more powerful. You have the nerve, the hardihood, and the sacrilegious contempt to dye your hair; what an ill omen for the future that you should already be arranging for yourself a flamecolored coiffure!
It would take too long to include everything that follows. 50. The later writer had this to say against such persons: [59]
Hence arise those incentives to vice, that they paint their faces with exquisite colors, while they dread displeasing their husbands, and from adulterating their features they go on to dream about adulterating their chastity. What mindless folly is this, to change the artistry of nature, to resort to painting it, and while they fear the judgment of their husbands, to lose their own! For the woman who desires to change what she was born with is the first to pronounce judgment on herself; thus while she is taking pains to please another, she is first of all displeased with herself. What truer judge, woman, can we seek of your ugliness than yourself, afraid as you are of being seen as you are? If you are beautiful, why conceal yourself? If ugly, why falsely present yourself as beautiful, since you will gain the favor neither of your own awareness of yourself nor of another's mistaken awareness of you? For he loves another woman, and you wish to please another man, and you get angry if he loves another, though he is being taught all about adultery by you. You are miserably the very teacher of the wrong done to you. Herself the victim of a pimp, she turns to pimping, and although she is a worthless woman, she is still not sinning against anyone else, but against herself. Crimes committed in adultery are almost more tolerable; for in that case it is modesty, in this nature that is adulterated.
It is clear enough, I think, that by this rhetoric women are being forcefully urged not to adulterate their appearance with cosmetics, and to cultivate modesty and bashfulness. Accordingly we acknowledge here neither the plain and calm, nor the moderately ornate style, but quite simply the grand manner of oratory. And in these two writers whom I have chosen to quote, and in other churchmen who speak both worthily and well, that is, as the matter requires, plainly and clearly, or in rather more ornate and flowery language, or with fiery vigor, these three styles can be found throughout their many writings or speeches; and students by assiduous reading or listening can, with practice, acquire the knack and the habit of using them.
More general remarks on the three styles: an experience of his own
22, 51. Nor should anybody suppose that it is against the rules to mix these three styles; on the contrary, to the extent that it can reasonably be done, a speech should be given variety by the use of all of them, because when it continues too long in one vein, it ceases to hold the listener's attention. But when a transition is made from one to another, a discourse proceeds more acceptably, even if it goes on rather too long, although each style has its own variations in the mouths of eloquent speakers, which prevent it from growing cold or stale in the ears of those who are listening. Nonetheless, it is easier to endure the plain style alone for any length of time than the grand manner alone. The fact is that the more profoundly the listeners' emotions need to be stirred if we are to win their assent, the shorter the time they can be held at that pitch, once they have been sufficiently aroused. And that is why we must beware lest, while we are wishing to stir to a still higher pitch feelings that are already running high, they should in fact fall away from the level to which our rousing oratory has brought them. But after introducing some things that can be said more calmly and plainly, you can then profitably return to what has to be said in the grand manner, thus letting the force of your speech alternate like the waves of the sea. From all this it follows that the grand manner of speaking, if you have to speak for any length of time, should not be offered neat, but should be varied by the inclusion of other styles; but the whole speech, all the same, is to be attributed to that style which predominates.
23, 52. For it makes a difference what style is introduced into which in particular and necessary places. Thus it is correct always, or nearly always, to begin a speech that is to be in the grand manner with a moderate opening. And an eloquent speaker is quite capable of saying some things calmly and plainly which could be delivered in the grand manner, so that what he does actually say in the grand manner is rendered grander still in comparison, its brilliance highlighted by what you could call the shadows of the other passages. But if in a speech where any style predominates there are knotty problems to be solved, what is called for is acumen, and this claims the calm, plain style as its own. And thus this style is to be employed even in the other two kinds, when such points occur.
In the same way, when something is to be praised or faulted, but where neither a person's life nor liberty is at stake, and no kind of assent to some action is being sought, the moderate style should be applied and introduced, in whatever other kind of speech the point arises. Thus in a speech in the grand manner the other two styles can also find a place, and the same is true for a discourse in the calm, plain style. The moderate kind of speech, however, sometimes though not always requires the plain style if, as I said, a knotty problem crops up that needs to be solved, or when some matters that could be are deliberately not embellished, but are expressed in plain, unadorned words, in order to throw into relief some more decorative and nicely turned embellishments. But a speech in the moderate style never calls for the grand manner, since it is delivered in order to delight the spirits of the audience, not to stir them to action.
24, 53. Certainly it is not to be assumed that if a speaker is applauded rather frequently and warmly he must therefore be speaking in the grand manner; shrewd arguments in the plain style and embellishments in the moderate can elicit the same response, after all. The grand manner, however, by its very weight frequently makes the voices hush,[60] makes the tears gush. Well anyway, I was once in Caesarea of Mauritania,[61] trying to dissuade the people from their local civil war, or rather something more than civil, which they called "the mob" [62]—for it is not only citizens but also neighbors, brothers, indeed parents and sons, divided into two parties, ritually fighting each other with stones at a certain time of the year, and each of them killing anyone he could; and I did indeed speak and act in the grand manner, to the best of my ability, in order to root out such a cruel and inveterate evil from their hearts and habits and rid them of it by my speaking. But still I did not consider I had achieved anything when I heard them applauding me, but only when I