13 ON THE VEILING OF VIRGINS (De Virginibus Velandis)
Introduction
Timothy Barnes dates On the Veiling of Virgins during Tertullian’s Montanist period, after On Prayer (which is considered an early work), On the Apparel of Women II and On the Military Crown, to 208 or 209, or possibly later according to his revised chronology (Barnes 1985:44, 46, 140, 328). Fredouille allowed a date between 208 and 212 (Fredouille 1972:487–8), after On Prayer and roughly at the same time as On the Military Crown. In the most recent edition of the text, Schulz-Flügel places it after On Prayer (Schulz-Flügel 1997:17), On the Military Crown and On the Soul, at the same time as On the Resurrection of the Dead, after 213, but before the writing of On Monogamy (Schulz-Flügel 1997:44–6). There is some importance in establishing at least a comparative chronology, even if an absolute one is impossible, for some of the same issues are to be found in On the Military Crown 4 and On Prayer 21–2. Are we able to determine a sequence for these three treatises?
In On the Military Crown, Tertullian pointed to Jewish women who were all veiled and said that this practice was not prescribed anywhere (Rebekah veiling herself when she saw Isaac—Gen 24:65—could not be taken as prescriptive for the Jews because it would be a precedent only for unmarried women—girls more realistically—when they were about to marry—On the Military Crown 4.2). It was custom that gave the practice the force of law (On the Military Crown 4.4–5). Tertullian’s ultimate argument was that custom rather than explicit scriptural teaching was the force behind a Christian’s refusal to wear the military garland. In On the Military Crown, Tertullian held out a positive estimation of the value of custom. In On the Veiling of Virgins, he held the opposite position. In both these treatises he was writing to that part of the Christian community that did not support his thinking. In one, he found that custom supported him; in the other, it did not (although he spent the early chapters of On the Veiling of Virgins arguing for apostolic custom against local custom). Interestingly, in On the Military Crown, he put the question of Christian women being veiled aside (On the Military Crown 4.2), quite possibly because he was aware that he was skating on thin ice—he knew that if he mentioned them his opponents could turn his appeal to custom (with regard to the military garland) against him and argue that the custom of not forcing virgins to be veiled should be upheld as a legitimate custom. It would seem to me that these two treatises ought to be dated to around the same time, for veiling and custom both seemed very much on Tertullian’s mind and yet he had to be careful in what he said.
On Prayer 21–2 has many similarities with On the Veiling of Virgins. The question is whether Tertullian expanded or contracted from one to the other. It has generally been held that On Prayer, which does not show any signs of Montanist influence, must be earlier than On the Veiling of Virgins, which does. A contrast between the structures of the two relevant parts of the treatises would support this notion, namely that On the Veiling of Virgins is an expanded form of what appeared in the earlier and briefer On Prayer. On the Veiling of Virgins seems to me to have a smooth and flowing tripartite structure, whereas the material in On Prayer seems more jumbled and haphazardly arranged. Further, the attitude about veiling virgins is a little more relaxed in On Prayer (22.10), where it is granted that no one ought to be compelled to be veiled. Later, because some of the unveiled virgins wanted to ‘liberate’ their veiled sisters (On the Veiling of Virgins 3.4), Tertullian’s attitude hardened—all female persons must be veiled from the time they reach puberty. It was this incident that was probably the occasion that prompted him to revisit this issue (twice—once in Greek and then in Latin) about which he had written in On Prayer some years previously.
There is indeed an evident rhetorical structure to the treatise. It begins with the propositio, the central argument, that virgins ought to be veiled from puberty (1.1a). As will become clear from the rest of the treatise, the reference is to the fact that virgins were appearing at the ecclesial gathering without being veiled. Then an exordium, an opening, follows (1.16–17). Here Tertullian contrasted custom with truth: our understanding of truth grows and develops and therefore must replace customs that are contrary to the truth, no matter how well established those customs might be. The custom of some Carthaginian virgins not being veiled in public, which seems to have been well established, fell into that category according to Tertullian. God’s truth is revealed only gradually (illustrated through the organic metaphor), but, now that the fullness of truth has been revealed through the Paraclete, custom must change. Tertullian announced that he was going to present arguments from the Scriptures, from reason and from ecclesiastical teaching or practical instruction. The narratio (2.1–3.5b) tells the story of the origins of the true custom of veiling virgins (which he traced to the practice of churches founded by the apostles or their associates) and the false custom of not veiling virgins (which has its origins in lustful desire).
The main body of the treatise is confirmatio and refutatio (positive and negative arguments supporting his position) (3.5c–15.3). This section is divided on the basis of the threefold pattern of argumentation: Scripture, nature and teaching, with the arguments for and against being presented in turn. He began with the scriptural arguments (3.5c–6.3). Here he first considered 1 Cor 11:5–16. The non-veiled virgins and their supporters had argued that Paul had directed only women to have their heads covered, and they defined ‘women’ as ‘married women’ only. As virgins, they considered that Paul had exempted them. Tertullian’s response was to show that ‘woman’ is the genus that includes ‘virgin’ as a species. He turned to a passage like 1 Cor 7:34 (4.1–5), where Paul distinguished between virgins and women, to argue that, in 1 Corinthians 11, if he had wanted to make the same distinction, Paul would have been explicit about it, which he was not. He also turned to Gen 2:23–4 (5.1–5) to argue that Eve was called a woman when she was obviously still a virgin. Finally, he made use of Lk 1:26–8 (6.1–3), where Mary, though still a virgin, was called a woman.
After the arguments from Scripture come the arguments from nature or reason (7.1– 8.4). The first argument here is that men were in authority over women. The implication is that women should wear something over their heads to indicate that there was someone in authority over them. If this applied to women, it must of necessity include virgins. Even though we find this argument in 1 Cor 11:3, Tertullian was not making an argument from Scripture, but, like Paul and following Paul, was appealing to what was commonly accepted as being the natural order of things. The second argument is that if women were not going to be veiled then they should cut their hair as men do. Yet it was against nature for women to have short hair. Even the long hair itself was a kind of natural indicator that women should be veiled. This is found in 1 Corinthians 11. Again, if this applied to all women, it applied to virgins. As Paul did in 1 Cor 11:10, Tertullian stated that women should be veiled to prevent them tempting the angels (as well as being an indication of their submission to male authority). Although he claimed to be presenting arguments from nature, Tertullian’s knowledge of what was natural is very much shaped by the Pauline presentation to the Corinthians. Even though we would probably want to classify everything from chapter 2 to chapter 7 as arguments from Scripture, it is clear that, by dividing them into arguments from Scripture and arguments from nature, Tertullian was attempting to make his case look more impressive and convincing.
In a digression involving Gen 6:1–2 (7.2b–4a) about the angels being tempted by virgins, Tertullian argued that virgins too must be counted as part of Paul’s statement about women tempting angels. Next comes a typical rhetorical technique of developing an argument by considering the contrary position to what one had just said (8.1–4). This Tertullian did by considering the implications of men having short hair and not being veiled. The fact that no one insists on veiling boys, even though they are not mentioned as having the exemption that men did, comes from the fact that everyone understands that boys are included as part of the category ‘men.’ So too, virgins should be understood as part of the category Vomen’ and veiled.
The last of the three groups of arguments comes from ecclesiastical teaching (9.1– 15.3). The first teaching comes from the Scriptures and is about women not speaking in the ecclesial gathering (9.1b), upon which Paul insisted in 1 Corinthians. Perhaps one may think that Tertullian ought to have included this in his arguments from Scripture. What he seems to have done is to have distinguished scriptural passages that have explicit disciplinary or instructional material from other types of passages where such material was more implicit. Tertullian’s argument here only works if the reality was that no Christian woman spoke in the ecclesial assembly. If Tertullian’s opponents were forced to concede that virgins did not speak in the ecclesial gathering, even though Paul had only mentioned women not speaking, then they would have to concede that virgins ought to be veiled, even though Paul had only mentioned women.
Tertullian next countered an argument that allowing virgins to be unveiled distinguished them from married women (9.1c) by stating that there were other ways to recognize them, if indeed they needed to be recognized. Similarly, giving them a seat with the widows (9.2–3) was inappropriate because the latter had proven themselves worthy of honour after many years of testing. Another contrary argument is offered in chapter 10: if female virgins were to be distinguished by not being veiled then male virgins ought to honoured (10.1–2a). Even further, all men ought to be more honoured than any woman because male sexual self-control was more difficult to maintain than (female) virginity (10.2b–4). That men were not honoured thus meant that virgins had even less claim to marks of distinction.
Tertullian responded to a further objection in chapter 11. The case had obviously been put that if virgins were to be veiled then that should be applied to all prepubescent girls as well. Their argument obviously was that if prepubescent girls were not to be veiled then neither should virgins. They could have pointed out that if Tertullian’s earlier statement about ‘woman’ being the general term was true, then all females, even young girls, ought to be included. In response, Tertullian steered away from this flaw in his position and argued that it was only from the time of puberty that the law of veiling was necessary because at this age a girl was marriageable and had sexual self-awareness (11.1–2). So his position was that from the age of twelve a girl should be veiled not because she was a virgin but because she could be a wife and a mother (even though she was not—of course, girls from that age who were married were veiled) and because she was a temptation to men. Women who were engaged were veiled even though they were still virgins (presumably) because of that sexual self-awareness (11.3). When a girl became a woman she could no longer be classed as a virgin. She must dress like an adult and that included wearing the veil (11.4–12.2). Here Tertullian was not using ‘woman’ as the term for the genus but as equivalent to ‘adult female person.’
Tertullian argued that these unveiled virgins were living a contradiction in that they were content to be veiled when out in public, in the glare of Christian and non-Christian alike, and only reserved the right to be unveiled when gathered together with other Christians in liturgy (13.1–14.1). The only reason Tertullian could adduce for this was their desire to gain the spotlight and to impress the men in the gathering. He would not accept their argument that they were glorifying God by their distinguishable dress. The trouble with impressing men was that it often led to pregnancy and to the contradiction of a young woman proclaiming her virginity by not wearing the veil while being pregnant (14.2–5). She was trapped because she could not suddenly start wearing a veil (to acknowledge that she was no longer physically a virgin) without drawing scandal upon herself. By way of contrast, true virginity does nothing to draw attention to itself; rather, it hides itself away (15.1–3).
The treatise ends with a peroratio, a conclusion (16.1–17.5). The threefold division of the treatise into arguments from Scripture, nature and ecclesiastical teaching is again mentioned (16.1–2). He then makes a series of direct appeals. The first is to all women to be veiled (16.3). Mothers are mentioned specifically. We are to take this as evidence that even some married women were seeking to avoid the duty of wearing the veil by wearing scarves that were too small, as he mentioned a little later (17.1–2a). The second appeal is to the virgins themselves to be veiled because they are married to Christ (16.4). In contrast with those women who wore the short scarves, Tertullian mentioned pagan practice of complete covering (17.2b–3a) and the revelation of a particular prophecy (17.3b). Those women who pretend to be covered by the smallest of scarves are no different than ostriches, which hide their heads (here Tertullian’s simile breaks down a little I think) and think they are completely hidden (17.4–5a).
From these comments about the structure of the treatise we may turn to a few other questions. Just who were these virgins whom Tertullian was addressing? Were they merely rebellious and unruly, unmarried teenage girls or was it a group of consecrated virgins? We know that in Carthage in Tertullian’s time there were women and men who were each constituted as an ordo of virgins (On Exhortation to Chastity 13.4), just as there was an ordo of widows (On the Veiling of Virgins 9.2). At the end of our treatise Tertullian refers to the virgins as being married to Christ (On the Veiling of Virgins 16.4). Unless we are reading this with too modern an understanding, one may conclude that there were virgins who dedicated themselves to remain as virgins for the rest of their lives (or perhaps only for a period of years, although there is no evidence to suggest this). On the other hand, Tertullian’s position, announced at the beginning of the work (On the Veiling of Virgins 1.1), is that all girls be veiled from puberty. It would seem that his words must be taken as directed not only to those who had taken some vow of virginity (was such a vow taken at the age of twelve?) but to those who were simply still unmarried during their teenage years (and beyond). Further, in the section 11.4–12.2, Tertullian was concerned with those girls who were not married off at the start of puberty, as was most normally the case, because of some inexplicable reason on the part of their parents. The reference seems to be simply to unmarried female adolescents and young adults. What we need is more evidence about the age of girls marrying in the age of the Severan emperors and the percentage of those who did not marry, evidence not readily to hand. My conclusion, based on On the Veiling of Virgins 11.4 is that Tertullian was writing about Christian girls who had reached puberty and were not yet married as well as with those who had taken a vow of virginity (continentiae uotum) who could have been adolescent or adult (although such a distinction did not operate at this time).
What are we talking about when we mention veils? Perhaps today we think of the images of what we in the West would consider the more extreme form of a Moslem veil—something like a long hood that completely covered the head and reached down the body. This was not what Tertullian had in mind. In fact, he mentioned something very similar when he referred to pagan women of Arabia (On the Veiling of Virgins 17.2). The Roman mantle worn by all post-pubescent women outdoors perhaps was more of a shawl that was draped around the body, a little like the male toga, which could be pulled up over the head when needed (when out of one’s own home) thus leaving the face exposed (Croom 2000:87–8). It was the distinctive sign of the married woman and her modesty. Yet we do not know what adult unmarried women wore when in public. It may be that the push for not wearing the veil among unmarried females who had left childhood behind was not restricted only to the Christians, although there is no evidence to suggest this.
What was Tertullian’s goal in writing this treatise? He certainly followed the Pauline tradition of accepting that women were inferior to men. I do not find him being any more extreme in his views than any other male, whether Christian or not, of the time. What I find interesting is that Tertullian’s Montanism was a form of Christianity that valued women rather more highly than their mainstream fellow Christians—two of the founders of the movement had been women, and women prophets (who were presumably Montanist) did speak in the community, but only after the liturgical assembly had concluded (On the Soul 9.4). Could it be, given that Paul had insisted that any woman who prophesied with her head uncovered brought shame upon herself (1 Cor 11:4), that Tertullian wanted not only married but unmarried women to be veiled in the liturgical gathering, not so that they could simply be submissive to their menfolk but so that there could no hindrance to any woman exercising a prophetic ministry?
Who are these unveiled women? It would too simplistic to suggest that they were nonMontanist Christians who were of a more libertine persuasion, whereas the veiled were the more conservative Montanist virgins. There may be great truth in this, but it could also be that some Montanist virgins in particular were following their non-Montanist counterparts. If what I wrote above about Tertullian’s desire to keep the virgins eligible to prophesy after liturgy is true, then this makes some sense; he would naturally be all the more upset about those who should be more interested in the gift of prophecy throwing away their opportunity, than those (non-Montanist) virgins, for whom prophecy was not such an issue. This would also make sense of the reference to the uncovered woman prophesying in 17.3b.
This text has not been translated into English since the middle of the nineteenth century in the Ante-Nicene Library/Ante-Nicene Fathers series. The text I have used is Dekkers in Corpus Christianorum. I have made very few emendations to this text. I have consulted the German translation of Stücklin (1974), the Italian translation of Gramaglia (1984), and the French translation of Mattei in Schulz-Flügel’s Sources Chrétiennes (1997)
.
Text
[1209] 1.1 Since I have taken the particular trouble of [expressing] my opinion already [in Greek], I shall show in Latin as well that it is proper that our virgins be veiled from when they reach puberty. [I shall show that] truth, to which nothing—either intervals of time, or patronages of person, or privilege of places—is able to object, demands this.
In fact, having begun from some ignorance or innocence, custom generally is strengthened by them into habit through repetition, and so is defended against the truth. But Christ our Lord has named himself truth, not custom. 1.2 If Christ is forever and prior to everything, [then] equally truth is an everlasting and ancient thing. Therefore, let them, for whom what is old in itself is [taken as] new, take notice. It is not so much novelty as truth that restrains heresy. Whatever runs counter to the truth will be heresy, even if it is an old custom.
Besides, the one who does not understand anything does so through their own fault. However, what is thus not understood ought to have been asked about, just as what is understood ought to have been accepted. 1.3 Indeed, the rule of faith is entirely one, alone unchangeable and unalterable. Of course [the rule is] for believing in the only almighty God, the founder of the world, and in [God’s] son Jesus Christ, born from Mary the virgin, crucified under Pontius Pilate, revived from the dead on the third day, taken back into heaven, sitting now at the right of the Father, going to come to judge the living and the dead, even through the resurrection of the flesh.
1.4 While this law of faith endures, other matters of teaching and conduct now allow the novelty of improvement, that is to say by the grace of God operating and making progress until the end. For how is it possible, while the devil is always operating and is daily adding to his abilities with regard to injustice, that the work of God should either cease or should stop progressing?
Therefore, when the Lord sent the Paraclete [it was] in order that, as human inferiority was not able to grasp all things at once, teaching may be guided and arranged and brought to perfection gradually by that substitute of the Lord, the Holy Spirit. 1.5 ‘I still have many things to say to you,’ he says, ‘but you are not yet able to bear them. When that Spirit of truth has come, it will lead you into all truth and will declare to you the things to come.’ And indeed he made mention about this work [of the Spirit] earlier [in the gospel]. What then is the function of the Paraclete [1210] if not this: that teaching is directed, the Scriptures are made known, understanding is reformed, and that it is advanced towards better things?
Nothing is without its time; all things await their opportunity. Furthermore, Ecclesiastes says, ‘[There is] a time for everything.’ Consider that creation itself is advanced gradually towards fruition. 1.6 The grain is first and from the grain the stem shoots and from the stem the shrub struggles forth. Then branches and leaves grow strong and the whole form of the tree is expanded. Then follows the swelling of the bud and the blossom is released from the bud and from the blossom the fruit is exposed to view. This [fruit] also, unripened for some time and oddly shaped, gradually directing its own generation, is brought to perfection into the sweetness of flavour. 1.7 Thus also justice— for it is the same God of justice and creation—was first in a trial state, fearing God by reason of nature. From there it advanced to infancy through the law and prophets. From there it fermented into adolescence through the gospel. Now it is brought to maturity through the Paraclete.
Only [the Paraclete] will both be called and revered as teacher by Christ. For [the Paraclete] speaks not from itself but the things commanded by Christ. [The Paraclete] is the only instructor, because [the Paraclete] alone is after Christ. They who have accepted this [Paraclete], prefer truth to custom. They who constantly, not [just] in the past, have listened to this [Paraclete] prophesying, cover up virgins.
2.1 But I do not wish at this stage to class this usual practice as truth. Meanwhile let it be custom, in order that I may contrast even custom with custom. Throughout Greece and a number of its foreign countries, many churches conceal their virgins. It has also been established under this sky [here in Africa] in various places, such that no one may attribute that custom to the pagans of Greek origin or to foreigners. But it is I who has proposed those churches, which either the apostles themselves or apostolic men established, [as a precedent] and I believe them before [I believe] certain others. Therefore those [apostolic] churches also have the same authority of custom. They set before [us] the prevailing conditions and instructors to a greater extent than those later [churches] of yours. 2.2 What shall we heed? What shall we select? We are not able to reject a custom that we are not able to condemn, as [it is] not a strange [custom] since it does not belong to strangers [but to those] with whom of course we share the law of peace and the name of fraternity. [There is] one faith for us and for them, one God, the same Christ, the same hope, the same mysteries of the ritual bath, let me say once for all, we are one church. So it is ours whatever belongs to our [brothers and sisters]. Otherwise you divide the body.
2.3 Yet in this instance, just as is customary in various ways with all practices [1211] both problematical and uncertain, an examination ought to have been conducted about which of the two so diverse customs agrees better with the teaching of God. And surely that [custom] ought to be selected which encloses virgins (who are known to God alone), for whom—besides [the fact that] celebrity ought to be desired from God and not from men—also their own standing in the community itself now ought to be a source of shame. You may embarrass a virgin more by praising than by finding fault, since the appearance of the offence is more obstinate, since shamelessness has been produced from and in the offence itself. For no one would have approved that custom which refuses [to become intimate with] virgins while [at the same time] displaying [them], unless some men had been of the same nature as the virgins themselves. 2.4 In fact, the eyes that will desire a virgin once seen, are the same kind as a virgin has who will desire to be seen. The same kinds of eyes desire each other mutually. To be seen and to see is of the same passion. Blushing upon seeing a virgin is as typical of a pure man as it is of a pure virgin if she is seen by a man.
3.1 But those most pure instructors have not wanted to discern between customs. But still, among us until recently more tolerance was being shown for each custom. The matter had been entrusted to personal choice, such that each [virgin] had resolved either to be covered or to be exposed, just as [the decision] to marry, which is also neither compelled nor prevented, [had been left]. Truth had been content to betroth itself with custom, in order that it might exist secretly, or at least in part, under the name of custom.
3.2 But seeing that the ability to discern had begun to develop, such that, by means of the freedom of practice of each [custom], an indication of the better option emerged, immediately that adversary of good people, and more particularly of their many good practices, set to work. In contrast with the virgins of God, the virgins of this world go around with foreheads distinctly uncovered, having been roused to a rash audacity. They are considered virgins who are able to ask anything from men, much less the following example, in order that their rivals (with so much more freedom as servants of Christ alone) certainly are surrendered to them. 3.3 ‘We are scandalized,’ the [virgins without veils] say, ‘because the others go about differently [than we do],’ and they choose to be scandalized rather than challenged. A scandal, unless I am mistaken, is not an example of a good situation but of a harmful one, creating an offence. Good situations scandalize nobody, except [those with] an evil mind. If restraint, reserve, aversion to the spotlight, striving to please God alone is good, let them who are scandalized by such goodness realize their own evil. 3.4 So what if those lacking self-control say that they are scandalized by those with self-control! Should self-control be revoked? Lest the polygamists be scandalized, must monogamy be [1212] objected to also? Why do these [virgins with self-control] not complain more that the petulance and shamelessness of ostentatious virginity is an offence to themselves? Therefore, on account of the availability of heads of this kind, must pure virgins be dragged into the church, being ashamed because they are recognized in public, trembling because they are uncovered, summoned as if to their defilement? For they are no less willing to suffer even this. Every confiscation [of the veil] of a virtuous virgin is the suffering of defilement, and yet to suffer physical violence is less [terrible] because it comes from a natural bodily function. 3.5 But when the spirit itself is violated in a virgin by her veil having been taken, she learns to cope with the loss of what she was guarding. O sacrilegious hands that have been able to remove the appearance that was dedicated to God! What could some persecutor have done that was more evil if he had known this [appearance] had been chosen by a virgin? You have laid bare a girl by her head, and now she does not consider herself to be a complete virgin; she is made something else.
Therefore truth, arise! Arise and, as it were, break out from your patience! I want you to defend no custom, for now indeed that custom under which you were existing is swept away. Demonstrate that it is you who covers virgins. Interpret your own Scriptures, which custom does not know, for, if it had known [them], it never would have come into existence.
4.1 However, in so far as it is the custom to argue against the truth from the Scriptures, immediately it is put to us that no mention of virgins has been made by the apostle [Paul in the place] where he makes a ruling about the veil, but that only women were named, since, [it is argued,] if he had wanted virgins to be covered as well, he would also have written something about the virgins when the women were mentioned. In this way, it is said, in that [other] passage where he handles the issue of marriage, he declares what ought to be observed concerning virgins as well. And thus [it is said by my opponents that] those [virgins] are not included in the law about the veiling of the head [in the former passage] as they have not been named in this law but, on the contrary, from this [law comes the practice for virgins] to be unveiled. They who are not named are not commanded by it.
4.2 But we too can throw the same argument back. For he who knew how to make mention of both types at another time—I mean [mention] of virgins and of women (that is, of [those who are, by definition,] not virgins)—for the sake of distinction, in these [passages] in which he does not name virgins, he shows their shared situation by not making a distinction. Still, here too, he was able [if he had wanted] to establish a difference between a virgin and a woman, just as he says in another passage, There is a division between a woman and a virgin.’ Therefore, by saying nothing about those whom he has not divided, he has united [them] with the other [type]. However, because there is a division between woman and virgin in that passage [of 1 Corinthians 7, it does] not [mean that] here too [in 1 Corinthians 11] that the division be supported, as certain people want. In fact, how many sayings [present] elsewhere have no force [in those other passages] where [1213] the sayings certainly are not [present]? The only exception would be where the situation was the same in both cases, such that it was sufficient to say it only once. However, the former case—of a virgin and a woman—is vastly different form this case [in 1 Corinthians 11]. 4.3 [The former passage in 1 Corinthians 7] says, ‘There is a division between a woman and a virgin.’ Why? Because ‘the unmarried [girl]’—that is, a virgin—‘considers the things which are the Lord’s, in order that she may be holy both in body and in spirit.’ The married woman, however,’—that is, one who is not a virgin— ‘considers how she may be pleasing to her husband.’ This will be the interpretation of that division, which has no place in that [eleventh] chapter, in which [there is] mention neither about marriage nor about the life or the thinking of a virgin and a woman, but about the veiling of the head. The Holy Spirit, wanting there to be no discussion of this [veiling], has wanted ‘virgin’—whom, by not naming separately, [the Spirit] has not separated from ‘woman’—to be understood as included within the one noun ‘woman’. Also, by not separating [them], [the Spirit] has [in fact] joined her [to the category ‘woman’] from whom [the Spirit] has not separated [her].
4.4 Therefore, is it so unusual [to use] a designation’s principal [term], while at the same time realising that other [terms are] nevertheless [included] in that [broader] designation, [especially] where there is no necessity for breaking the universal [term] down into its particulars? Naturally, brevity of speech is both welcome and necessary, as a verbose speech is both wearisome and worthless. Thus, we too have been content with universal designations, which include the meaning of the particulars within them. Now therefore, [I want to say something] about the designation itself. The designation in nature is ‘female’. Of the natural designation, that by genus [is] ‘woman’. Also, of the general [designation], that by species is Virgin’ or ‘married woman’ or ‘widow’ or however many [designations] are needed to cover the various stages of life. 4.5 The particular is subject, therefore, to the general, because the general is prior, and the subsequent [is subject] to the antecedent, and the partial to the universal. It is understood in [the term] itself to which it is subject, and is signified in [the term] itself, because it is contained in [the term] itself. Thus neither hand nor foot nor any member wants to be signified when the body is named. And if you say ‘universe’ it will mean both the sky and the things in it—the sun, the moon, the constellations and stars—as well as the earth and the seas and everything in the periodic table. You will have named everything when you have said that which is composed from all [those] things. Thus also by using the noun ‘woman’, [the Holy Spirit] named whatever pertains to a woman.
5.1 But since they use the name ‘woman’ in such a way that they do not consider that that [term] is suitable except for her alone who has submitted [to a man], it falls to us to prove the appropriateness of this designation to the [female] sex as such, [and] not to relate [it] to [one] category of the [female] sex, in order that even virgins may also be counted as belonging to it. When this second type of human being was made by God as man’s helper, that female immediately [1214] was named ‘woman,’ at that time happy, at that time worthy of paradise, at that time a virgin. ‘She will be called woman,’ he said. Thus you have the name, not then a common [one] but I mean a proper [one], which was allotted to the virgin in the beginning. 5.2 But some ingeniously want the saying [to be] about the future: ‘She will be called woman,’ as if she were going to be this when she had surrendered her virginity, as [the writer] also added, ‘On account of this, a man leaves father and mother and will be joined together with his woman, and the two will be in one flesh.’ Therefore, let them show first, where that intricacy {of argument] exists, if she was named ‘woman’ owing to the future, what designation she will have accepted in the meantime. In fact, she is not able to have been without a designation of her present quality. Otherwise, what kind [of situation] is it, that she who would be called by that designated name in the future, would be named nothing in the present? To every animal Adam gave names and [he did so] to none from a future situation but from a present practice—a situation in which each would be subject to him, [each animal] having been addressed from the beginning by a [name] which he wanted. Therefore, what was she called at that time? Instead, every time she is named in the Scriptures before [she became] a wife, she is addressed as ‘woman’, and never [addressed as] ‘virgin’ [even] while [she was] a virgin. This was the one name for her at that time, even when nothing had been said by way of prophecy. For when Scripture reports that the two were naked—Adam and his ‘woman’—this does not indicate the future, as if it said ‘his woman’ in anticipation of ‘his wife,’ but that [she was] his woman, even [when] unmarried, as [she was] from his substance. He said, This bone from my bone and flesh from my flesh will be called woman.’ 5.3 Therefore, from this time, by the unspoken awareness of nature, the divinity itself of the soul has given rise to the use of the word by ignorant people—just as elsewhere too we shall be able to show how many other customs and habits of speech [come] from Scripture—such that we call wives ‘our women,’ although granted that even we may utter certain [words] improperly. For the Greeks also, who use the designation ‘woman’ more frequently in the case of wives, have other proper designations for ‘wife.’ But I prefer to put this use down to the testimony of Scripture. In fact, where two have been made into one flesh through the bond of marriage, the ‘flesh from flesh and bone from bone’ is called, in accordance with her origin, the woman of him from whose substance she begins to be considered as having been made his wife. Thus, ‘woman’ is not by nature a name for ‘wife’, but ‘wife’ is in this situation a name for ‘woman’. Finally, also, she may be called a woman and not a wife; however, she cannot be called a wife and not a woman, because that cannot exist.
5.4 Therefore, by having established the name of the new female, which is ‘woman’, and by having explained what she was previously—that is, by the assigned name— [Scripture] turned to the prophetic reason, in order to say, ‘Because of this, a man will leave father and [1215] mother.’ To such an extent is the name separate from prophecy, even as much as from the person herself, such that [Scripture here] did not speak in fact about Eve herself, but about those future females, whom [Adam] has named in [she who is] the origin of the female population. Besides, Adam was not about to leave father and mother, whom he did not have, because of Eve. Therefore, it does not apply to Eve because that which was said prophetically does not [apply] to Adam either. In fact, the prediction [is] about the situation of husbands who were about to leave their parents on account of a woman, which was not able to happen to Eve, because [it was] not [able to happen] to Adam either. If this be the case, it appears [it was] not on account of the future that she was named ‘woman’, to whom the future did not apply.
5.5 To this [Scripture] adds that [Adam] himself gave a reason for the name. For when he had said, ‘She will be called woman, because she has been taken from her man,’ he himself [was] still a virgin. But let us speak also about the name of the man in its own place. And thus let no one interpret prophetically the name [‘woman’], which was derived from another explanation, especially as it is apparent when she accepted a name from a future [situation], in other words in that passage where she is named Eve, now [she is named] with a personal designation, because she already had a natural [one]. For if Eve is ‘the mother of the living’, behold she is named from a future [situation], behold she is foretold as a wife and not a virgin. This will be the designation of the one about to marry, for the mother [is derived] from the married woman. Thus, this too is shown then having been named ‘woman’ not from a future [situation], who was soon about to accept the name of her future situation. The response is sufficient for this section.
6.1 Now let us see if the apostle too maintains the particular meaning of that designation [‘woman’] as it is found in Genesis, by considering it as a [general] reference to gender [rather than, as my opponents would have, as not applicable to virgins], thereby calling the virgin Mary ‘woman’, in the same way as Genesis also [called] Eve [‘woman’]. For instance, writing to the Galatians, he says, ‘God sent [God’s] Son, made from a woman,’ who, it is certainly agreed, was a virgin, although Ebion opposes [this].
I recognize also that the angel Gabriel [was] sent to a virgin. But while he blesses her, he counts [her] among women not among virgins: ‘You are highly regarded among women.’ The angel knew also that even a virgin is called a woman. 6.2 But also to these two [passages] someone has responded ingeniously, at least in their own mind, that, as Mary [was] indeed engaged, she [was] mentioned also as a woman both by the angel and by the apostle. For an engaged female [is] in some sense a married woman. Still, between ‘in some sense’ and the truth there is plenty of difference, at least in this instance, for in other instances, it certainly ought to be considered so. Now, in fact, they [(Paul and Gabriel)] mentioned Mary as a ‘woman’ not as if [she were] already a married woman, but as a female nonetheless, even if not a bride, as if [1216] she were called this from the beginning. In fact, it is necessary that he [Paul] decide beforehand that from which the term [‘woman’] descended. 6.3 Otherwise, as far as this section is concerned, if this [term ‘woman’] is equated with an engaged person, such that Mary was said to have been a woman for that reason—not as a female but as a wedded woman—therefore the Christ was not then born from a virgin since [he was born] from an engaged female, who had ceased to be a virgin by this fact. Because, if he was born from a virgin—granted, [one] also engaged—one still unspoilt, recognize also that a virgin, even an unspoilt one, is said to be a woman. Without a doubt, nothing here can be regarded as having been said prophetically, as [though] the apostle named [someone who would be] a woman in the future—that is, a married woman—by saying ‘made from a woman’. In fact, he was not able to name [one who would] later [be] a woman, from whom the Christ did not have to be born,—that is, [a woman] having experience of men—but she, who was present, who was a virgin and was being called a woman according to the proper meaning of this designation, which, in keeping with the original usage, has been maintained for a virgin and thus for the whole genus of women.
7.1 Let us turn now to the reasons themselves that need to be examined, by which the apostle teaches that it is proper that a female be veiled. [We shall do this] in order to establish from this common use of the designation [‘woman’] by both virgins and nonvirgins whether the same [reasons for veiling] are suitable for virgins too, while at the same time the reasons for the veil are discerned for both. If the head of a woman is a man, certainly [he is head] also of a virgin, from whom comes that woman who has been veiled in marriage, unless the virgin is a third division [of humanity], something strange with an origin of its own.
If it is a disgrace for a woman to be shaved or cropped, [it is] especially so for a virgin. Therefore, let the world, the rival of God, see whether it is just as mistaken for the appearance of a virgin [to have] cut hair, as it also is [mistaken] for a boy to be permitted [to have long hair]. 7.2 Therefore, just as it is not fitting for her either to be shaved or cropped, it is just as fitting that she be hidden [under a veil].
If the glory of a man is a woman, how much more [is] a virgin, who is a glory to herself? If a woman [is] from a man and for a man, that rib of Adam was at first a virgin. If a woman ought to have [a sign of] authority on her head, even more rightly [ought] the virgin, because she is responsible [to the one] to whom she belongs. In fact, if [it is] ‘on account of the angels’—we read plainly that they have fallen from God and from heaven because of their desire for females—can anyone presume that such angels have desired the already defiled bodies and the relics of human lust instead of being even more on fire for virgins, whose youthful freshness even excuses human [1217] lust?
For Scripture also provides the following: ‘As it happened, when human beings began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, now the sons of God, having seen the daughters of men, since they were beautiful, took wives for themselves from all whom they selected.’ 7.3 For here the Greek name of ‘woman’ has the sense of wives, because marriage is mentioned. Therefore, when it says, ‘the daughters of, when it could have said ‘the wives of men’, it obviously indicates Virgins,’ who to that point were counted with their parents—for married women are called by the name of their husbands. Equally, it does not name the angels ‘adulterers’ but ‘husbands’ when they take the unmarried daughters of men, who, it was said above ‘were born’— thus also it indicated [they were] virgins. Earlier [in the passage] they were born, here they were married to the angels. I do not know anything else other than that they were born and subsequently married. Therefore, a face which is so dangerous and which has cast scandals from here to heaven, ought to be shaded in order that, standing in the presence of God before whom it is accused of being responsible for the angels being banished, it may blush before the other angels also, and may restrain that former evil freedom of its own head, [a freedom] which now ought not be placed before the eyes of men. 7.4 But even if those angels had grasped after females who were already unclean, so much more the virgins ought to be veiled ‘on account of the angels’, as the sin of the angels would have been greater on account of [them being] virgins.
However, if the apostle also adds the precedent of nature, that cascading hair may be the honour of a woman, since hair is meant to be a covering, certainly this is especially a mark of distinction for a virgin, whose adornment is properly this: that, by having heaped her hair together on the very crown of the head, she may cover up her highest point with a circle of hair.
8.1 Certainly the obverse of all these [arguments] means that a man may not veil his head, because he has not obtained by nature a great display of hair, because to be shaved or cropped is not felt to be a disgrace for him, because it was not on account of him that the angels deviated, because [he is] ‘the glory and the image of God’, [and] because ‘Christ [is] his head’. And so when the apostle deals with man and woman—why it may be proper for the latter to be veiled but not the former—it is clear why he has said nothing about a virgin. Just as he has of course allowed a virgin to be understood in the [designation] ‘woman’, similarly has not [needed] to name a boy, though he would be counted in [the designation] ‘man’; the whole class of each sex having been encompassed by the proper designations of ‘woman’ and ‘man’. 8.2 For thus Adam, then pure, is named ‘man’ in Genesis. ‘She will be called woman,’ it says, ‘since she has been taken from her man.’ Thus Adam [was] a man before the union of marriage, just as [1218] Eve too [was] a woman. In both cases the apostle has mentioned enough about the universal species of each sex by so well-constructed a definition that is both concise and [yet] thorough when he says, ‘every woman’. What is ‘every’ if not of every genus, of every class, of every situation, of every rank, of every age, since ‘every’ is whole and complete and in no part defective? Moreover, ‘virgin’ is part of [the designation] ‘woman’. Equally he says ‘every’ about not veiling a man. 8.3 Consider the two different names: man and woman. Both [mean] ‘every’. The two laws [are] mutually exclusive: one of veiling, the other of leaving bare. Therefore, if by the fact that it said ‘every man’, the name ‘man’ is common to a man as yet not a man, to a beardless male—moreover, since the name is common according to nature, the law also is common of not veiling him who is a virgin among men, according to [ecclesiastical] teaching—why, in a similar way also, might it not have been decided previously that every female virgin is included by association with the name ‘woman,’ so that she may be included in the sharing of the law? If a virgin is not a woman, neither is a beardless youth a man. If a virgin is not hidden [under a veil] since [you consider that] she is not a woman, let the beardless youth be hidden [under a veil] since [you would have to concede that] he is not a man! The same forbearance should be afforded to both types of virginity. Just as virgins are not compelled [by you] to be veiled, so [it must follow that] boys may not be bidden to be unveiled! 8.4 Why on the one hand do we recognize the definition of the apostle as applying completely to every man and decline to accept the reason why he still has not mentioned a boy, but on the other hand we evade the issue when equally it is completely applicable to every woman? He says, ‘If anyone is quarrelsome, [remember that] we do not have such a custom, nor [does] the church of God.’ He shows that there was some debate about that view. In order to counter it he employed complete brevity: not naming the virgin, in order that he might show that there was no doubt about veiling, and naming every woman, although he had <not> mentioned the virgin. The Corinthians themselves have understood [this] in this way. Indeed, the Corinthians today veil their virgins. They who have learnt what the apostles taught, approve (it).
9.1 Now let us see whether, just as we have pointed out that the arguments from nature and from reason are suitable for a virgin, even the precepts of ecclesiastical teaching about women apply in this way to virgins.
‘It is not allowed for a woman to speak in church’, but also neither to teach, nor to baptize, nor to offer [sacrifice at the altar], nor to claim a share of any male function, much less [1219] of priestly office, for herself. Let us ask if any of these is permitted to a virgin. If it is not permitted to a virgin, but she is subjected to the same situation in everything, and the necessity of humility is adjudged the same as for a woman, why will this one [function] be permitted to her which is not permitted to every female? What privilege is earned contrary to her situation, if she who is a virgin also has decided to sanctify her flesh? Is the reason for [your] indulgence concerning the veil made for her so that she may enter the [gathered] church notable and distinguished? In order that she may show the honour of sanctity in the freedom of her head? It was possible to be honoured more deservingly by some male privilege of either rank or office!
9.2 In addition, I know of a virgin somewhere who was placed among the order of widows before she was twenty. If the bishop had owed something by way of assistance to her, he could have fulfilled [it] in some other way, especially with a healthy respect for [church] teaching, so that she would not now be branded such an oddity in the church, not to say a monstrosity—a virgin widow. This indeed [is] the more unusual because as a widow she has not covered her head, denying herself both ways—both as a virgin who is considered a widow and as a widow who is called a virgin. 9.3 But by that authority she sits there indeed as an uncovered virgin. To that [reserved] seat [in the church], not only those women who have had one husband—that is married women—and who are over sixty, but even mothers and nurturers of children too are selected. No doubt [the widows sit there], having been prepared by the experiences of all moods, that they might know [how] to help others more easily both with counsel and solace, and notwithstanding [that this virgin and others sit with the widows, they sit there] in order that they might undergo those things by which a female may be approved. To such an extent no honour is allowed to a virgin with regard to the position [which widows hold].
10.1 Also, [it is] not [permitted] on the grounds of any distinctions. Otherwise it is extremely rude enough if females, having been placed under men in everything, should display an honourable mark of their virginity by which they should be respected, be looked round at, and be esteemed by the brothers, while so many men [who are] virgins, so many voluntary eunuchs, go around with their goodness hidden, carrying nothing which would make them noticeable too. 10.2 They would be bound to defend some distinctions for themselves, either the feathers of the Garamanantes, or the ribbons of the foreigners, or the cicadas of the Athenians, or the tufts of hair of the Germans, or the brands of the Britons. Or let it happen in the opposite way: let them be kept out of sight in the church with a veiled head.
We are sure that the Holy Spirit was more able to attach something of this kind to males [1220] if [the Spirit] attached [it] to females, since it was appropriate that males were more honoured, even by reason of their self-control in addition to the authority of their gender. 10.3 The more their gender grows eager and hot for females, the more the self-control of the greater inflamed passion grows difficult, and for that reason the more deserving of all display, if the display of virginity is a dignified thing. In fact, is not selfcontrol superior to virginity, whether of widows or those who by agreement have already protested against the common hardship? For virginity endures by favour, self-control by true virtue. 10.4 The struggle of not desiring is great [for the one] for whom desiring has taken root. However, [if] you have not known the enjoyment of this desiring, it will be easy for you not to desire, because you do not have as an opponent the desire for enjoyment. Therefore, how would God not have approved something like this even more for the honour of men: namely, either naturally, because they belong more to the image [of God], or because of their greater effort? If however nothing [is approved] for a male, to a greater extent [is nothing approved] for a female.
11.1 But now let us settle by means of a response what we interrupted above for the sake of the subsequent debate, in order not to break up its coherence. For whereas we stood our ground about the unconditional definition of the apostle, which ought to be understood [as applying to] every woman, of every age as well,—the other side was able to respond that therefore from birth and from the first sign of her [coming of] age, a virgin should be hidden [under a veil]. However, this is not the case. But [it is the case] from when she has begun to understand herself, and to feel a sense of her nature, and to pass from [the state] of a virgin, and to undergo that which is new of her higher age. 11.2 For the first of the race, Adam and Eve, as long as they were without understanding, lived naked. But when they tasted [the fruit] from the tree of knowledge, at first they sensed nothing other than shame. Thus each marked their understanding of their own sex with a covering. But even if she ought to be veiled on account of the angels, without a doubt the law of veiling will be in operation from that age from which the daughters of men were able to draw desire to themselves and experience marriage. For a virgin ceases [to be a virgin] from the time when she is able not to be [one]. And for that reason it is illegal within Israel to hand [a virgin] over to a man except after the attestation of her maturity by the blood [of menstruation]. Thus, before this indication her condition is immature. Therefore, if she is a virgin for as long as she is immature, she ceases [to be] a virgin when she is recognized as mature and, as not a virgin, is now subject to the law, just as also to marriage.
11.3 The engaged have the example of Rebekah who, unknown up to the time when she was brought to her unknown husband, at once recognized that he was the one whom she had seen from a long way off. She did not undergo the embrace of the hand, nor the meeting [1221] of the eyes, nor the exchange of greeting but, having acknowledged what she had felt, that is [that she was] a married woman in spirit, denied [that she was] a virgin by having veiled [herself] on the spot. O woman already [obedient] to the teaching of Christ! In fact, she showed that even marriage is realized by appearance and attitude, just as defilement [is realized], except that, even now certain ones still veil Rebekah.
11.4 About the rest, that is those who are not engaged, let the delay of their parents, who give in out of poverty or anxiety, consider [the example of Rebekah]. Also let [their delay] consider the vow of self-control itself. [The delay] has nothing to do with age that runs through its own stages and pays its own debts to maturity. Another hidden mother, nature, and another concealed father, time, have given their own daughter in marriage according to their own laws. Look upon that virgin of yours as already married—both her mind by expectation and her flesh by transformation—for whom you prepare a second husband. And now her voice has changed, and her limbs have finished growing, and the shameful [part of her body] is clothed completely, and the months pay their tributes. And do you deny [she is] a woman whom you say is experiencing womanhood? If the union of man makes a woman [which it does not], let them not be covered except after the experience of marriage itself! At any rate, even among the pagans, they are led veiled to a man. 11.5 However, if they are veiled at the engagement because both in body and in spirit they have associated with a male by a kiss and [the joining of] their right hands, through which they surrendered in spirit their original shame, through the common pledge of awareness by which they have fixed the entire union, by how much more will time, without which they are not able to be promised in marriage and by whose insistence they cease being virgins without engagements, veil them? 11.6 Even the pagans respect time, such that, from the law of nature, they accord to the different ages their own rights. For they send females at twelve years, a male at two years more, to the occupation [of marriage], determining puberty by years, not by engagements or marriages. She is called ‘mother of the family’, although a virgin, and [he is called] ‘father of the family’, although a beardless youth. What is natural is not respected by us, as if there be a God of nature other than ours. 12.1 Recognize the woman also—recognize the married woman—also from the testimonies both of body and of spirit that she experiences both in awareness and in the flesh. These are the earlier writing tablets of natural engagements and weddings. Place a veil outwardly for those having a covering inwardly. Let her upper parts be covered whose lower parts [1222] are not naked. Would you like to understand what the importance of age is? Consider both [females]: [one] immaturely having been squeezed into the dress of a woman, and [the other] who, of a mature age, still maintains a virgin’s mode of dress. The former will more easily be denied [to be] a woman than the latter will be believed [to be] a virgin. So great is the reliability of age that it cannot be impeded by dress. 12.2 What [can be said about the fact] that these [virgins] of ours confess a change of age by [the rest of their] dress and at the same time understand themselves [to be] women, they are moving away from [being] virgins? Indeed, from the head they lay aside what they were; they change their hair and implant their coiffure with an outlandish hairpin, asserting open womanhood by parting their locks of hair from the front. And then they seek beauty advice from the mirror and they torment their more fastidious face with washing, perhaps they even falsify it with some rouge, fling a mantle around themselves, cram [their foot into] an oddly-shaped shoe, bring more implements to the baths. Why should I go into detail? However, the obvious preparations alone proclaim complete womanhood, but they want to act like a virgin with only the head naked, denying by one [item of] dress what they acknowledge by their total demeanour.
13.1 If on account of men they misuse their appearance, let them complete that [appearance] in this [situation I describe] as well, and as they veil their head in the presence of pagans, surely in the church let them conceal their virginity, which they keep secret outside the church. Let them fear strangers and let them respect the community, or let them have the courage to be seen in the streets as virgins as well, just as they dare [to be seen] in the church. I shall praise their effort if they shall have marketed something of virginity even among pagans. Her nature [is] the same outdoors as well as indoors. The same practice in the presence of men and the Lord is consistent with the same freedom [before both]. 13.2 Why then do they hide their goodness outdoors when they parade [it] in the church? I demand a reason. Is it in order to please their community or God?
If in order actually [to please] God, [God] is just as capable of perceiving whatever is done in secret as [God] is fair in rewarding those things done for [God] alone. Finally, [God] instructs us not to trumpet anything that shall be used to obtain a reward in the presence [of God], nor let us receive compensation for it from people. Since if we are prohibited from the left hand knowing of [the giving of] one victory coin or whatever act of almsgiving [we perform], how much should we surround ourselves with darkness when we are offering so great a gift to God as our body itself and our spirit itself, when we are consecrating our nature itself to [God]?
[1223] Therefore, because it cannot be seen to be done on account of God—as God does not want it to be done thus—it follows that it is done for the favour of men, which, in the first place, is as illicit as the lust for the spotlight. In fact, the spotlight is an illicit thing for those whose trial consists of every humility. 13.3 And if the virtue of selfcontrol is conferred by God, ‘why are you boasting as if you have not received [it]?’ But if you have not received [it], what do you have which has not been given to you? For this reason, therefore, that you attribute it not to God alone, it is clear that it was not given to you by [God]. Therefore, let us see whether what is human may be lasting and true. 14.1 Sometimes they refer to the saying of a certain person when that question— ‘And how shall we rouse others to action of this kind?’—was first addressed. Of course, if they will grow in number, they—and not the favour of God or the merits of each—shall make us happy! Do virgins adorn or commend the church to God or does the church adorn or commend virgins? Therefore it is acknowledged that the spotlight is the motive. Further, where [there is] the spotlight, there [is] anxiety. Where [there is] anxiety, there [is] pressure. Where [there is] pressure, there [is] compulsion. Where [there is] compulsion, there [is] weakness.
14.2 And thus, while they do not cover their head, in order that they may be seduced for the sake of the spotlight, it is appropriate that they are forced to cover their stomachs because of the catastrophe of their weakness. For envy not piety led them. Sometimes too their god is their stomach itself because the brotherhood readily supports the virgins. It is not so much [that] they go to ruin but also [that] they draw a long string of offences. For, having been brought forth into the public eye and elated by their goodness having been made public and having been overloaded with every honour and esteem and charity by the community—as long as they do not live concealed [under a veil]—when some [other offence] has been committed the [community] considers it as great a disgrace as [before] they held it an honour. 14.3 If an uncovered head is ascribed to virginity, if any virgin has fallen at all from the grace of virginity, she continues with an uncovered head lest she be found out, and then she walks about with the dress that now belongs to someone else (that is, which virginity claims for itself. She continues nevertheless in the dress reserved for someone else, lest of course she be found out by the change). Conscious of a now undoubted womanhood, they dare to approach God with a naked head. But a jealous God and Lord, who said, [1224] ‘[There is] nothing that has been hidden which will not be revealed,’ brings most of them even into [public] view. For they will not confess unless they have been betrayed by the cries of their infants themselves. 14.4 But the more there are of these [false virgins] the more you will have to suspect them of further offences. Let me say, though I would prefer not, that it is difficult to become a woman the first time for one who fears it, and she who has already become [pregnant] is able to pretend that she is a virgin under God. How much will she dare [to pretend] likewise about her womb lest she be detected as a mother too? God knows how many infants now [God] has allowed to be brought to term and be delivered to birth intact, after the battle from their mothers [to hide their existence] has been over for some time. Virgins of this kind always conceive most easily and give birth most happily and [to offspring] in fact most similar to their fathers. 14.5 A pressured and unwilling virginity allows these shameful actions [to occur]. The very desire of not keeping out of sight is not a modest [one]. She experiences something that is not proper to a virgin—the enthusiasm for pleasing, and men especially. However much you may wish she endeavour with her good intention, it is unavoidable that she be in danger by the exposure of herself, while she is transfixed by many untrustworthy eyes, while she is tickled by the fingers of those who point, while she is greatly delighted in [by others], while she glows during the ever-present embraces and kisses. Thus the brow is hardened, thus decency is eroded and loosened, thus she now learns to desire to please in a different way.
15.1 For true, complete and pure virginity certainly fears nothing more than itself. It does not even want to experience the eyes of females. It itself has other eyes. It seeks refuge in the veil of the head as in a helmet, as in a shield, in order to cover its own goodness against the blows of temptations, against the barbs of scandals, against suspicions and mutterings and jealousy, as well as envy itself. For there is something to be feared even among the pagans, which they call witchcraft, the unhappy consequence of excessive praise and celebrity. 15.2 Sometimes we understand this [to be] from the devil, for hatred of good belongs to [the devil]. Sometimes we consider [this to be] from God, for the power of judging arrogance is [God’s], ‘of exalting the lowly and of bringing down to earth the conceited.’ And so the more holy virgin will fear, especially in the name of witchcraft, the devil, on the one hand, and God, on the other. [She will fear] the malicious character of the former and the severe light of the latter. And she will be glad when she is known to herself alone and to God. 15.3 But even if she becomes known to someone, she is sensible if she blocks the path for temptations. For who will dare to pursue an enclosed face with his eyes, an expressionless face, a melancholy face, might I say? Any evil thought whatever will be shattered by the very severity itself. Now she who keeps secret [that she is] a virgin even denies [that she is] a woman.
[1225] 16.1 The defence of our opinion consists of these [arguments] in accordance with Scripture, nature and [ecclesiastical] teaching. Scripture establishes the law, nature is called to witness [to it], [ecclesiastical] teaching carries [it] out. To which of these is the custom that comes from opinion beneficial, or what is the complexion of the opposite way of thinking? Scripture is of God. Nature is of God. [Ecclesiastical] teaching is of God. Whatever is contrary to these is not of God. 16.2 If Scripture is uncertain, nature is clear, and about its testimony Scripture cannot be uncertain. If there is doubt about nature, [ecclesiastical] teaching shows what has been more approved by God. Nothing is more precious to [God than] humility, nothing more acceptable [than] propriety, nothing more troublesome than celebrity and the eagerness to be pleasing to men. And so may Scripture, nature and [ecclesiastical] teaching be that for you which you have discovered to be acceptable to God; just as you have been ordered ‘to examine everything and to follow whatever is better.’
16.3 It still remains that we turn to [the women] themselves, so that they may uphold those [three] things more willingly. I beg you, whether mother, sister, or virgin daughter according to the proper description of age which I have named, veil your head! If a mother, [do so] on account of your sons. If a sister, [do so] on account of your brothers. If a daughter, [do so] on account of your fathers. You are a danger for every age group.
16.4 Put on the armour of decency, draw a stockade of reserve around, build a wall for your sex, [of the sort] that neither may reveal your eyes nor give access to [the eyes of] others. Complete the dress of a woman so that you may retain the condition of a virgin. Dissemble to some extent about the things that are within in order that you may display the truth to God alone. Nevertheless, do not pretend to be a married woman. For you are promised in marriage to Christ to whom you have surrendered your flesh, to him you have pledged your maturity. Walk according to the will of your groom. Christ it is who commands both the brides of others and wedded women to be veiled, [and] certainly [he commands] his own much more.
17.1 But we warn you as well, women of the other modesty who have rushed into marriage, lest you so fade away from the teaching of the veil, even for a second, that, because you are not able to cast that [veil] aside, you destroy [it] by another means, walking neither covered nor bare-headed. For certain women, with turbans and wool, do not veil the head, but they bind [it], covering [it] over indeed in the front, yet it is bare as far as the head properly [speaking is concerned]. Others are covered on top of the head to a limited extent by strips of linen—lest they constrict the head, I believe—not hanging down as far as the ears. 17.2 I feel sorry if they have such infirm hearing that they are not able to hear through a covering. Let them know that the whole head is the woman. The limits and [1226] boundaries of it extend as far as from where clothing begins. The veil needs to be as long as the hair is when it is let down, in order that the neck too may be wrapped. For [married women] are the ones who must be subjected, [they are the ones] on account of whom ‘power over the head’ ought to be had [by men]. The veil is their yoke.
The pagan females of Arabia, who do not cover the head but the total face as well in this fashion, such that they may be content with one eye free to enjoy half the light, rather than to prostitute the whole face, will judge you. 17.3 A female [there] wishes to see rather than be seen. Therefore, a certain Roman queen says that they are most unhappy since they can love deeply more than be loved deeply, although they are happy because of their immunity from the other even more frequent unhappiness, since females [if they did not have their veils] could more easily be loved deeply than love deeply. And yet the restraint of pagan teaching is actually purer and thus, as I have said, more barbaric [than ours].
The Lord has even measured off for us the dimensions of the veil through revelations. For to a certain sister of ours the angel in a dream, beating her neck as if applauding, said, ‘[This is an] elegant neck and rightly bared! It is good you are uncovered completely from head to loins, lest that freedom of the neck not be beneficial to you!’ And certainly what you have said to one, you have said to all.
17.4 However, will they deserve as much castigation as those who during the psalms, or at any mention of God, continue uncovered, who even when they are about to spend time in prayer, most readily place a fringe or a piece of cloth or whatever thread they like over the top of their head and consider themselves covered? They say falsely that their head [is only] that size. Others, whose palm of their hand is clearly greater than every fringe and thread, do not abuse their head any less, just like a certain [animal], which is more beast than bird, even though it is feathered, and has a small head, long neck [and] in other respects walks upright. This [bird], they say, when it has to hide itself, conceals only its head—indeed, the whole [of its head]—into [something] very dense [and] leaves behind the rest of itself out in the open. Thus, while there is safety for its head, the revealed part of it—which is the majority [of it]—is seized together with its head. In fact, this will be the case as well for those who have covered less than is useful. 17.5 Therefore, it is proper at all times and in every place to proceed mindful of the law, prepared and provided for every mention of God, who if present in the heart, will be understood also in the head of females.
To those who will read these things at their leisure, to those who prefer truth to custom, may the grace and peace of our lord, Jesus, abound, and with Septimius Tertullianus, whose little work this is.
