Plain Dress and Plain Living

So the wearing of gold and the use of softer clothing are not to be forbidden outright. What has to be reined in are the impulses that have no reason in them, in case they carry us off through too much ease and drive us into self-indulgence. For luxury, once it has bolted into excess, is apt to kick up its heels and toss its mane and throw off its driver, the Instructor — who, pulling back on the reins from a distance, guides and drives toward salvation the human horse, that is, the part of the soul that has no reason in it, the part that runs wild after pleasures and base appetites and precious stones and gold and changes of dress and every other luxury. Above all we are to keep in mind what was said in the sacred writings: “Keep your way of life among the nations honorable, so that where they speak against you as wrongdoers, they may see your good works and give glory to God.” [a]

The Instructor allows us, then, plain clothing, white in color, as we said earlier. That way we fit ourselves not to elaborate artistry but to nature as it is made; we push away everything that deceives and misrepresents the truth, and take to ourselves the evenness and simplicity of truth.

Sophocles says, rebuking a young man:

For as with the soldier, the sailor, and the ruler, so with the self-restrained man: his proper dress is what is plain, fitting, and clean. That is why in the law — the law Moses laid down about leprosy — whatever has many colors and blotches is rejected, like the varied scales of a snake. He wants a man to stop decking himself out gaudily in a variety of colors and to be white all over instead, from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot, and so to be clean; so that, beginning from the body, we may lay aside the varied and shifting passions of a man and come to love the unvaried, unambiguous, simple color of truth. And the man who imitates Moses in this too — Plato, best of all — approves the kind of cloth on which no more than a decent woman’s work has been spent. “White colors,” he says, “would suit dignity, in other things and in cloth; dyes are not to be applied, except for the ornaments of war.”

So to men of peace and of light, white belongs. Signs stand very close to their causes, and by being present they point to — or rather demonstrate — that the result exists: smoke is the sign of fire, and a good complexion and a steady pulse are the signs of health. In the same way, clothing of this kind shows what our habits are. Self-restraint is pure and simple, since purity is a settled habit that keeps conduct clean and unmixed with anything base; and simplicity is a settled habit that does away with what is superfluous. Solid clothing too, especially the unfulled kind, keeps in the heat that is in the body — not that the cloth has heat of its own, but it turns back the heat coming out of the body and gives it no way through. Whatever heat reaches it, it takes in and holds; and being warmed by it, it warms the body in return. That is why it should be worn mainly in winter.

Self-restraint is also content with what it has. And contentment is a settled habit that does without superfluities and, so that nothing may be lacking, takes in what is enough for a healthy and blessed life lived according to the Word. Let women wear plain, becoming dress — softer than what suits a man, but not immodest and not sunk altogether in luxury. And let the clothes be suited to age, to the person, to place, to nature, to occupation. For the divine apostle gives us the finest advice: “Put on Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to satisfy its cravings.”

The Word forbids us to do violence to nature by piercing the lobes of the ears. Why not the nose too? — so that what was said might come true: “Like a gold ring in a pig’s snout is beauty in a woman with no sense.” For, in short, if a man thinks gold makes him beautiful, he is worth less than gold; and the man who is worth less than gold is not its master. To admit that you are less ornamental than Lydian ore — how grotesque! And just as gold is fouled by the filth of the sow that stirs up the mud with her snout, so the women who go to excess in their wantonness, puffed up by wealth, disgrace what is truly beautiful with the stains of their love affairs.

The Word does permit them a gold ring for the finger. Not for ornament, though: for sealing the things worth keeping safe in the house, as part of their charge over the household. If everyone were well trained there would be no need of seals — if slaves and masters were equally honest. But since a lack of training breeds a leaning toward dishonesty, we need seals.

There are circumstances, though, where this strictness may be relaxed. Allowance has to be made now and then for women who have not been fortunate enough to marry self-restrained husbands, and who dress up in order to please them. Only let their aim be the admiration of their own husbands and no one else’s. I would not have them give themselves to display, but draw their husbands by a chaste love for them — a strong and lawful charm. But since they are bent on being wretched in soul, let the wives, if they mean to be chaste, set out to quiet their husbands’ unreasoning impulses and passions little by little. They are to be drawn gently toward simplicity, accustomed to self-restraint by degrees. Decency is not produced by loading on what is burdensome, but by taking away what is excessive. Women’s articles of luxury must be clipped like wing feathers, for they breed unsteady follies and empty delights; lifted up and fitted with wings by them, women often fly away from the bonds of marriage. So women ought to dress neatly and tie themselves around with the band of chaste modesty, so that they do not go giddy and slip away from the truth. And it is right for men to trust their wives and hand over the charge of the household to them, since they were given as their helpers in this.

And if we have to seal something for safekeeping while we are away on public business or on other errands in the country, often far from our wives, he — the Word — allows us a signet for this purpose alone. Other rings are to be thrown off, since, as the Scripture says, “Instruction is a gold ornament to a wise man.” Women who wear gold seem to me to be afraid that if someone stripped them of their jewelry they would be taken for slaves, with nothing on them. But the nobility of truth, found in the native beauty that has its seat in the soul, judges a slave not by buying and selling but by a slavish disposition. And what matters for us is not to seem free but to be free — trained by God, adopted by God. So we must take on a way of standing and moving, a step, a dress, in a word a whole way of life, as worthy of free people as it can possibly be. Men are not to wear the ring on the knuckle, because that is a woman’s way, but to put it on the little finger at its base. That way the hand is freest for whatever work we need it for, and the signet will not easily slip off, since the large knot of the joint guards it.

And let our seals be a dove, or a fish, or a ship running before the wind, or a musical lyre, the device Polycrates used, or a ship’s anchor, which Seleucus had engraved as his emblem. And if a man chooses someone fishing, he will remember the apostle, and the children drawn up out of the water. We are not to have the faces of idols cut on them, since we are forbidden to cling to idols; nor a sword or a bow, since we follow peace; nor drinking cups, since we practice self-restraint. Many of the licentious have their male lovers engraved on them, or their mistresses, as if they wanted to make it impossible ever to forget their affairs, by being put in mind of their license without a break.

About the hair, this seems right. Let a man’s head be cropped, unless his hair is curly. But let the chin keep its hair. Twisted locks are not to hang far down from the head, sliding into a woman’s ringlets. A full beard is enough for a man. And if a man does shave part of his beard, it must not be made altogether bare, because that is a disgraceful sight. Shaving the chin down to the skin deserves blame; it comes close to plucking the hair out and smoothing the skin. So, for instance, the psalmist, delighted with the hair of the beard, says, “Like the oil that runs down on the beard, the beard of Aaron.” Having praised the beauty of the beard by saying it twice over, he made the face shine with the oil of the Lord.

Cropping should be taken up not for elegance but because the case requires it: the hair of the head, so that it does not grow long enough to come down and get in the eyes; and the moustache likewise, which gets dirty in eating, is to be trimmed around — not with a razor, which is not well bred, but with a pair of cropping scissors. But the hair on the chin is not to be interfered with. It gives no trouble, and it lends the face dignity and a father’s power to awe. What is more, the look itself teaches many not to sin, because it makes them easy to spot. To those who would rather not sin out in the open, an appearance that escapes notice and does not stand out is very welcome; once they have it, it lets them break the rules undetected, so that, being indistinguishable from anyone else, they can go as far in sinning as they like. A cropped head not only makes a man look dignified; it also makes the skull less liable to injury by accustoming it to cold and heat alike, and it turns away the harm that comes from these, which hair soaks up into itself like a sponge and so keeps inflicting on the brain by its dampness.

It is enough for women to smooth their hair and bind their hair simply along the neck with a plain pin, nourishing chaste hair with simple care into true beauty. Plaiting the hair like a prostitute and piling it up in tresses only makes them look ugly: it cuts the hair and pulls it out with those treacherous braidings, on account of which they will not touch their heads, for fear of disturbing the arrangement. Sleep comes on them, too, not without the fear that they may pull the braid down without knowing what shape it is in.

But additions of other people’s hair are to be rejected outright, and it is an utterly sacrilegious thing for false hair to shade the head, covering the skull with dead locks. On whom does the elder lay his hand? Whom does he bless? Not the woman decked out, but someone else’s hair, and through it someone else’s head. And if “the man is head of the woman, and Christ of the man,” how is it not an outrage that they should fall into a double sin? They cheat men by the excessive quantity of their hair, and as far as it lies with them they shame the Lord, dressing themselves like prostitutes in order to disguise the truth. And they slander the head, which is what is truly beautiful. It follows that the hair is not to be dyed either, nor is grey hair to have its color changed. We are not allowed to make our dress varied either. And above all, old age, which draws trust to itself, is not to be hidden. God’s mark of honor should be shown in broad daylight, to win the respect of the young. For sometimes, when they have been behaving shamefully, the sight of white hair, arriving like an instructor, has turned them to self-restraint and struck the lust of youth cold with the splendor of the sight.

Nor are women to smear their faces with the ensnaring contrivances of crafty cunning. Let us show them the ornament of self-restraint instead. In the first place, the best beauty is the beauty of the soul, as we have often pointed out. When the soul is adorned by the Holy Spirit and breathed through with the shining charms that come from him — righteousness, wisdom, courage, self-restraint, love of what is good, modesty, than which no color in bloom was ever lovelier — then let bodily beauty be cultivated too: the symmetry of limbs and members, with a fair complexion. Here the adornment of health is in place, and through it the artificial image passes over into the truth, according to the form God has given. Restraint in drink and moderation in food do their work in producing beauty according to nature; for the body not only keeps its health by them, they also make beauty appear. From what is fiery comes a gleam and a sparkle; from moisture, brightness and grace; from dryness, strength and firmness; from what is airy, free breathing and balance. Out of these this well-proportioned and beautiful image of the Word is adorned.

Beauty is the free flower of health. Health is produced inside the body, while beauty blossoms out of the body and shows a clear bloom in the complexion. So these most fitting and healthful practices, by exercising the body, produce true and lasting beauty, since the heat draws to itself all the moisture and the cold breath. Heat, when it is stirred by things that move it, is a thing that draws to itself; and when it draws, it gently breathes out through the warmed flesh the abundance of the food, along with some moisture, but with an excess of heat. That is why the first food is carried off. But when the body is not moved, the food that has been eaten does not adhere; it falls away, like a loaf from a cold oven, either whole or leaving only the bottom behind. So urine and excrement are excessive in people who do not throw off their refuse by the rubbing that exercise requires. Other superfluities abound in them too, and sweat as well, since the food is not taken up by the body but runs out and is lost. From that, lusts are stirred up as well, the surplus flowing to the parts of generation. So by well-measured motions this surplus ought to be melted down and dispersed in digestion, and by that beauty gets its ruddy color.

But for people made in “the image and likeness of God” to dishonor the original by putting on a borrowed ornament, preferring man’s mischievous contrivance to the divine creation — that is monstrous.

The Instructor tells them to go out “in becoming dress, adorning themselves with modesty and self-restraint,” and to be “subject to their own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the way their wives live, when they see” — he says — “your chaste way of life. Let your adorning not be the outward kind, braiding the hair and wearing gold or putting on clothes, but the hidden person of the heart, in what cannot be corrupted: the ornament of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very costly.”

For above all it is the work of their own hands that adds genuine beauty to women, exercising their bodies and adorning them by their own effort — not bringing in unadorning adornment made by others, which is vulgar and whorish, but the kind that every good woman supplies and weaves with her own hands whenever she most needs it. It is never suitable for women whose lives are shaped according to God to appear dressed in things bought at the market, but in their own homemade work. A wife who keeps the house is a most beautiful thing, clothing both herself and her husband in fine array of her own making; and in it everyone is glad — the children because of their mother, the husband because of his wife, she because of them, and all of them in God. In short: “A woman of worth is a storehouse of excellence. She does not eat the bread of idleness; the laws of mercy are on her tongue; she opens her mouth wisely and rightly; her children rise up and call her blessed” — so the sacred Word says through Solomon — “and her husband also, and he praises her. For a devout woman is blessed; and let her praise the fear of the LORD.”

And again, “A capable woman is her husband’s crown.” As far as they can, women must correct their gestures, their looks, their steps, and their speech. They must not do as some do, who imitate the acting of comedy and practice the mincing motions of dancers, carrying themselves in company as if they were on a stage, with sensual movements and gliding steps and affected voices, casting languishing glances all around, tricked out as bait for pleasure. “For honey drips from the lips of a woman who is a prostitute, and she oils your throat with words meant to please. But in the end you will find it more bitter than bile and sharper than a two-edged sword. For the feet of folly lead those who use it down to Hades after death.”

The noble Samson was overcome by a prostitute, and by another woman he was shorn of his manhood. But Joseph was not taken in by another woman: the Egyptian prostitute was defeated. And self-restraint, taking chains upon itself, shows itself better than unbridled license. It is very well said:

But womanish movements, dissoluteness, and luxury are to be forbidden altogether. Sensual movement in walking, and “a mincing gait,” as Anacreon says, are the marks of a prostitute through and through.

“It is time,” says the comedy, “as it seems to me, to leave off a prostitute’s steps and her luxury.” And the steps of prostitution do not lean toward the truth, for they never come near the paths of life. Her tracks are dangerous and not easily known. The eyes above all are to be used sparingly, since it is better to slip with the feet than with the eyes. The Lord cures this disease very briefly: “If your eye trips you up, cut it out,” he says, dragging lust up by its foundation. Languishing looks, and ogling — which is to wink with the eyes — are nothing but committing adultery with the eyes, lust skirmishing through them. Of the whole body the eyes are destroyed first. “The eye that looks at beautiful things gladdens the heart” — that is, the eye that has learned to see rightly gladdens it. “Winking with the eye in guile heaps troubles on men.” This is just how they bring in Sardanapalus, the womanish king of the Assyrians: sitting on a couch with his legs up, carding purple wool, rolling up the whites of his eyes. Women who follow such practices offer themselves for prostitution by their looks. “For the lamp of the body is the eye,” says the Scripture, and by it the inside, lit by the shining light, comes into view. A woman’s sexual immorality is in the lifting of her eyes.

“So put to death what belongs to the earth in you: sexual immorality, uncleanness, uncontrolled passion, evil craving, and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these the anger of God comes on the sons of disobedience” — so the apostle cries out. But we set the passions alight, and are not ashamed.

Some of these women chew mastic and go about showing their teeth to everyone who comes near. Others, as if they had no fingers, put on airs by scratching their heads with pins — pins made of tortoiseshell or ivory or some other dead creature they get hold of at great trouble. Others, as if they had some sort of rash, stain their faces with brightly colored ointments so as to look handsome in the eyes of onlookers.

Solomon calls such a woman “foolish and brazen,” one who “knows no shame. She sits at the door of her house, in a seat where she can be seen, calling out to everyone who passes on the road, to those going straight on their way” — saying plainly, by her style and her whole life, “Who among you is most senseless? Let him turn in to me.” And to those with no wisdom she urges, “Touch secret bread with pleasure, and sweet stolen water” — meaning by this a love affair kept out of sight. (Drawing on this, Pindar the Boeotian says: “What is stolen in the pursuit of love is something sweet.”) But the wretched man “does not know that the sons of earth perish beside her, and that she reaches down to the level of Hades.”

But the Instructor says: “Hurry away, and do not linger in that place; do not fix your eye on her. That is how you will cross strange water and pass over Acheron.”

This is why the Lord says through Isaiah: “Because the daughters of Zion walk with their necks held high, winking with their eyes, sweeping their garments as they go and playing with their feet, the Lord will humble the daughters of Zion, and he will strip their figure bare.” Their disfigured figure.

I think it wrong even for the serving girls who walk at a lady’s left hand or follow behind her to speak or act shamefully; I think it right that their mistresses correct them. The comic poet Philemon censures this very sharply: “As I go out, I see a pretty serving girl following alone behind a freeborn lady, and someone from the Plataicum following close beside her and ogling her.” For the wantonness of the servant recoils on the mistress. Letting people take smaller liberties leaves them unafraid to go on to greater ones, since the mistress, by allowing what is improper, shows that she does not disapprove of it. And not to be angry at those who behave wantonly is clear proof of a disposition leaning the same way. “As the mistress is, so is the bitch,” as the proverb says.

We must give up a furious way of walking too, and choose a dignified, unhurried step — but not a dawdling one. No one is to swagger in the streets, or throw back his head to stare at the people he meets when they look at him, as if he were strutting on a stage and being pointed at. Nor, when they are pushing up a hill, are they to be shoved along by their household slaves, as we see the more luxurious sort do — men who look strong, but who have been drained by softness of soul.

A true gentleman must have no mark of womanishness visible on his face or on any other part of his body. Let no stain on his manhood, then, ever be found in his movements or his habits. And a man in health is not to use his slaves as horses to carry him. It is laid on them “to be subject to their masters with all fear, not only to the good and considerate but also to the crooked,” as Peter says; and in the same way fairness and forbearance and kindness are what suits masters well. For he says: “Finally, be all of one mind, sympathetic with one another, loving each other as brothers, tender-hearted, humble-minded” — and whatever else he adds to that — “so that you may inherit a blessing.”

Zeno of Citium seems to sketch a fine and lovable image of a young man, and he makes the statue this way: “Let his face be clean, his eyebrows not drawn down, his eyes neither wide open nor turned back. Let his neck not be stretched back, nor the parts of his body be slack; let the parts that hang from the body look as though they were well strung. Let there be the keenness of a well-ordered mind for conversation, and a memory for what has been rightly said. Let his attitudes and movements give no ground of hope to the licentious; let modesty and manliness bloom on him. But far from him be the idle loitering at the shops of the perfumers and the goldsmiths and the wool dealers, and at the other shops where men dressed like prostitutes spend whole days, like the women who sit in brothels.”

So men should not spend their time in barbers’ shops and taverns babbling nonsense; and they should give up hunting the women who pass by, and their endless slandering of many people to raise a laugh. The game of dice is to be forbidden, and so is the pursuit of gain, especially by knucklebones, which many keenly follow. Things like this the extravagance of luxury invents for the idle. The cause is idleness, and a love of frivolities that have nothing to do with the truth. There is no other way to get enjoyment without harm; and each man’s preferred way of life is a copy of his character.

But, as it appears, only company with good men does any good. On the other side, the all-wise Instructor, speaking through the mouth of Moses, recognized keeping company with bad men as swinish, and so forbade the ancient people to eat pig — to point out that people who call on God ought not to mix with unclean men, who like pigs delight in bodily pleasures, in impure food, and in itching with filthy lust after the ruinous delights of lewdness. Further, he says, “You are not to eat a kite, or a swift bird of prey, or an eagle,” meaning: you are not to come near men who make their living by plunder. Other things are set out in the same figurative way.

With whom, then, are we to associate? With the righteous, he says again, speaking figuratively; for everything “that parts the hoof and chews the cud is clean.” The parting of the hoof points to the balance of righteousness, and chewing the cud points to the proper food of righteousness — the word, which comes in from outside like food, by teaching, but is called back up from the mind, as from the stomach, into reasoned recollection. And the righteous man, having the word in his mouth, chews the spiritual food; and righteousness parts the hoof rightly, because it makes us holy in this life and sends us on our way to the world to come.

The Instructor, then, will not take us to public shows. It would not be out of place to call the racecourse and the theater “the seat of plagues,” for there is evil counsel there against the Just One, and so the gathering against him is under a curse. These gatherings are indeed full of confusion and lawlessness, and the pretexts for gathering are the cause of the disorder: men and women assembling indiscriminately, if only for the sight of one another. In this respect the gathering has already shown itself bad. When the eye is greedy the desires grow warm, and eyes that get used to looking shamelessly at their neighbors during the leisure allowed them set the passions of love on fire. So let shows and plays, full as they are of coarse language and endless gossip, be forbidden. What base action is there that is not put on display in the theaters? What shameless saying is there that the buffoons do not bring forward? And those who enjoy the evil in them stamp clear copies of it at home. On the other hand, those who are proof against these things, and take no impression from them, will never stumble over luxurious pleasures.

If people say they take themselves to the shows for recreation, to pass the time, I would say that cities that make serious business out of passing time are not wise; for cruel contests for glory, which have cost so many lives, are not sport. Neither is senseless spending of money, nor are the riots the shows set off. And ease of mind is not to be bought by the eager pursuit of frivolities, for no one in his senses will ever prefer what is pleasant to what is good.

But it is said, we are not all philosophers. Do we not all pursue life, then? What are you saying? How did you come to trust? How, tell me, do you love God and your neighbor, if you do not philosophize? And how do you love yourself, if you do not love life? “I never learned my letters,” someone says. But if you have not learned to read, you cannot excuse yourself in the matter of hearing, for hearing is not something taught. And faith is not the property of the wise according to the world, but of the wise according to God, and it is taught without letters; its handbook, plain and divine at once, is called love — a spiritual book. It is in your power to listen to the divine wisdom, yes, and to shape your life by it. You are not forbidden, either, to conduct your affairs in the world decently, according to God. Let the man who sells or buys anything not name two prices for what he buys or sells. Let him state the plain price; and if by aiming to speak the truth he does not get his price, he gets the truth, and he is rich in the possession of what is right. But let puffing and swearing over anything being sold be far from you; and let swearing over other things be banished as well.

And this is how the people who frequent the marketplace and the shop do their philosophy. “You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold guiltless the one who takes his name in vain.” But those who act against these things — the greedy, the liars, the pretenders, those who make merchandise of the truth — the Lord threw out of his Father’s court, unwilling that the holy house of God should be a house of dishonest trading, either in words or in goods.

Woman and man are to go to church decently dressed, with a natural step, embracing silence, holding unfeigned love, pure in body, pure in heart, fit to pray to God. Let a woman observe this too: let her be completely covered, unless she happens to be at home. That style of dress is dignified, and it protects her from being stared at. And she will never fall who keeps modesty and her shawl before her eyes; nor will she invite anyone else to fall into sin by uncovering her face. For this is what the Word wants, since it is fitting for her to pray veiled. They say that the wife of Aeneas, out of an excess of propriety, did not uncover herself even in her terror at the capture of Troy, but stayed veiled while she fled the burning city.

People consecrated to Christ ought to look like this, and to shape their whole life as they shape themselves in church for the sake of dignity — and to be so, not merely to seem so: so meek, so devout, so loving. But now, I do not know how it happens, people change their fashions and their manners with the place. They say that octopuses take the color of the rocks they cling to; and so these people, having laid aside what the assembly breathed into them, become like whoever they keep company with once they have left. In fact, in laying aside the artificial mask of solemnity, they are shown to be what they secretly were. After paying their respects to the discourse about God, they leave inside what they heard. Outside they amuse themselves foolishly with godless playing and love songs quavered out, taken up with flute-playing and dancing and drunkenness and every kind of trash. The people who sing this way, and sing the responses, are the ones who a moment before were singing hymns to immortality — found out at last to be wicked, and wickedly singing this most ruinous recantation: “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.” But not tomorrow, in truth; already these are dead to God, burying their own dead, that is, sinking themselves down into death. The apostle attacks them very firmly: “Do not be deceived. Neither adulterers, nor men who make themselves soft, nor men who go to bed with men, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor slanderers,” and whatever else he adds to these, “will inherit the kingdom of God.”

And if we are called to the kingdom of God, let us live in a way worthy of the kingdom, loving God and our neighbor. But love is not proved by a kiss; it is proved by kindly feeling. There are people who do nothing but make the churches echo with a kiss, without having love itself inside them. This very thing — the shameless use of a kiss, which ought to be a hidden thing — gives rise to foul suspicions and evil reports. The apostle calls the kiss holy. When the kingdom is being weighed as it deserves, we give out the soul’s affection with a chaste and closed mouth, which is above all how gentle manners are expressed.

But there is another kiss, unholy, full of poison, counterfeiting holiness. Do you not know that spiders bring men pain by merely touching the mouth? And kisses often inject the poison of licentiousness. It is very plain to us, then, that a kiss is not love. For “love is of God.” “And this is the love of God,” says John, “that we keep his commandments” — not that we stroke each other on the mouth. “And his commandments are not burdensome.” But greetings of the people we love out in the streets, full as they are of foolish boldness, belong to people who want to be conspicuous to those outside, and who have not the least particle of grace. For if it is right to pray to God secretly, “in your inner room,” then it follows that we are also to greet our neighbor secretly, indoors — the neighbor we are commanded to love second, and in the same way as God — “buying up the time.” “For we are the salt of the earth.” “Whoever blesses his friend early in the morning with a loud voice will be counted as no different from one who curses.”

But above all, it seems right that we turn away from the sight of women. For it is a sin not only to touch but to look, and the man who is rightly trained must keep clear of them especially. “Let your eyes look straight ahead, and let your eyelids blink straight.” It is possible for a man who looks to stand firm; still, care must be taken against falling. It is possible for a man who looks to slip, but it is impossible for a man who does not look to lust. It is not enough for the chaste to be pure; they must give all diligence to be beyond the reach of blame, shutting out every ground of suspicion, so that purity may be brought to its fullness — so that we may not only be trustworthy, but appear worthy of trust. For this too must be guarded against, as the apostle says: “so that no one should blame us; we provide for what is honorable not only in the sight of the Lord, but also in the sight of men.” “But turn your eyes away from a graceful woman, and do not gaze at another man’s beauty,” says the Scripture. And if you ask the reason, it will go on to tell you: “For by a woman’s beauty many have gone astray, and at it affection blazes up like fire” — the affection that arises from the fire we call love, leading on to the fire that will never cease, because of sin.