The Better Ornaments

Then, describing the glory and the honor and the worth of virginity, and of those who have vowed and dedicated their virginity to Christ, he teaches that self-control does not consist in purity of the flesh alone, but also in a becoming dress and ornament; and that not even wealth excused an extravagant care for clothes in women who had already renounced the world. Rather, since the apostle lays down for married women too a dress kept inside fitting limits, moderation ought to be observed all the more by a virgin. So even if she is wealthy, she should certainly consider how to use wealth — but for good purposes, for the things God has commanded, that is, for spending on the poor. He also forbids virgins the things that had carelessly come into use: attending weddings, and going to public baths where men and women bathe together. Finally, in a short epilogue, he states what good the virtue of self-control brings and what evil there is without it, and so closes the book.

Discipline is the safeguard of hope, the bond of faith, the guide along the road of salvation. She stirs up good dispositions and feeds them; she is the teacher of virtue. She makes us stay in Christ always, live continually for God, and reach the promises of heaven and the rewards of God. To follow her is healthy; to turn away from her and neglect her is deadly. [f]

The Holy Spirit says in the Psalms, “Keep discipline, or the Lord may become angry and you perish from the right way, when his anger is quickly kindled against you.” And again: “But to the ungodly God says: ‘Why do you preach my laws and take my covenant into your mouth, when you hate discipline and have thrown my words behind you?’” And again we read: “Whoever throws discipline away is miserable.” And from Solomon we have received the commands of wisdom, warning us: “My son, do not despise the discipline of the Lord, and do not lose heart when he corrects you; for the Lord corrects the one he loves.”

But if God corrects the one he loves, and corrects him for the very purpose of mending him, then brothers too — and priests above all — do not hate the people they correct, but love them, so as to mend them. God said as much long ago through Jeremiah, pointing to our own times: “And I will give you shepherds after my own heart, and they will feed you with the food of discipline.”

But if discipline is prescribed again and again, everywhere in Holy Scripture, and the whole foundation of religion and of faith comes out of obedience and fear — then what is more fitting for us to want urgently, what more to wish for and to hold onto, than to stand with our roots firmly fixed, our houses set in solid mass upon the rock, unshaken by the storms and whirlwinds of the world, so that by the divine commands we may come to the rewards of God? We should think it over — knowing it already — that our bodies, cleansed of all the filth of the old infection by the washing of life that makes us holy, are God’s temples, and must not be violated or defiled, since the man who does them violence is the one who is injured. [i]

We are the worshippers and the priests of those temples. Let us obey the one whose we have already begun to be. Paul tells us in his letters, in which he has shaped our way of living by God’s own teaching, “You are not your own, for you were bought at a great price; glorify God and carry him in your body.” Let us glorify God and carry him in a body that is pure and chaste, and with a fuller obedience. And since we have been bought back by the blood of Christ, let us obey the rule of the one who bought us and give it our help, with all the obedience of service, so that nothing unclean or unholy is carried into the temple of God — or he will be offended and leave the temple he lives in.

The words of the Lord give health and give teaching; they cure and they warn at once: “Look — you have been made well. Sin no more, in case something worse happens to you.” He gives the rule of life; he gives the law of innocence, after he has given health. He does not let the man go wandering afterwards with the reins loose and free. He threatens more severely the man who is enslaved again by the very things he was healed of. For it is certainly a smaller fault to have sinned before, while you had not yet known God’s discipline; but there is no further pardon for sinning once you have begun to know God. And let men and women alike, boys and girls alike — every sex and every age — watch this and take care over it, according to the religion and the faith they owe to God, so that what was received holy and pure from the Lord’s gracious favor is kept with a fear no less anxious.

My words now are to virgins. Their glory is the more conspicuous, and so the concern for them is the greater. These are the flower of the church’s seed, the beauty and the ornament of a spiritual gift, a glad character, the sound and uncorrupted work of praise and honor, God’s image answering the holiness of the Lord, the brighter portion of Christ’s flock. The glorious fruitfulness of Mother Church rejoices through them and flourishes richly in them; and the more virginity is added to her number, the more the Mother’s joy increases. To these I speak. These I urge with affection rather than with authority. I am the last and least, very conscious of how low I am, and I claim no right to find fault with anyone; but because I am unceasingly careful, to the point of anxiety, I fear all the more the onset of Satan. [m]

For it is no empty carefulness and no groundless fear that takes thought for the road of salvation and guards the commands of the Lord and of life. Women who have dedicated themselves to Christ, who turn away from the cravings of the flesh, who have vowed themselves to God in the flesh as well as in the spirit — let them finish the work that has so great a reward waiting on it, and let them no longer set about being adorned, or pleasing anyone but their Lord, from whom they also expect the reward of virginity. As he himself says: “Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it is given. For there are eunuchs who were born that way from their mother’s womb; and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men; and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.” [n]

And in this word of the angel too the gift of self-control is set out and virginity is proclaimed: “These are the ones who have not defiled themselves with women, for they have remained virgins; these are the ones who follow the Lamb wherever he goes.” For the Lord does not promise the grace of self-control to men only and pass the women over. The woman is a part of the man, taken and formed out of him, and in Scripture God almost always speaks to the first-formed man, because the two are one flesh; so in the male the woman is meant at the same time.

But if self-control follows Christ, and virginity is destined for the kingdom of God, what have virgins to do with the clothes of this world, and with ornaments, in which they set out to please men and so offend God? They do not consider that it is declared, “Those who please men are put to shame, because God has despised them.” And Paul too said it gloriously and loftily: “If I were still pleasing men, I would not be Christ’s servant.” [q]

But self-control and modesty do not consist in purity of the flesh alone. They consist in decency as well, and in modesty of dress and adornment, so that — as the apostle says — the woman who is unmarried may be holy in body and in spirit. Paul instructs us and teaches us, saying, “The unmarried man cares about the things of the Lord, how he may please God; but the man who has married cares about the things of this world, how he may please his wife. So both the virgin and the unmarried woman consider the things that are the Lord’s, so that they may be holy in body and in spirit.”

A virgin ought not only to be one. She ought to be seen to be one and believed to be one. Nobody who sees a virgin should be in any doubt whether she is one. Her completeness should show itself equal in every part; the dress of the body should not discredit the good of the mind. Why should she walk out adorned? Why with her hair dressed, as though she either had a husband or were looking for one? If she is a virgin, let her be afraid of pleasing; let her not invite her own risk, if she is keeping herself for better and divine things. Women who have no husband whom they profess to please ought to hold out sound and pure — not only in body, but in spirit. For it is not right that a virgin should have her hair braided for the look of her beauty, or boast of her flesh and of its beauty, when she has no harder struggle than the struggle against her flesh, and no more stubborn contest than the contest of conquering and mastering the body.

Paul proclaims it in a loud and lofty voice: “But God forbid that I should boast of anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” And yet a virgin in the church boasts about her fleshly appearance and the beauty of her body! Paul adds and says, “For those who belong to Christ have crucified their flesh, with its faults and its cravings.” And a woman who professes to have renounced the cravings and the vices of the flesh is found in the middle of the very things she renounced! Virgin, you are caught. You are exposed. You boast of one thing and go in for another. You spatter yourself with the stains of fleshly craving, though you are a candidate for purity and modesty. [r]

“Cry out,” says the Lord to Isaiah. “All flesh is grass, and all its glory like the flower of the grass. The grass withers and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord lasts forever.” It is not becoming for any Christian, and it is least of all becoming for a virgin, to have regard for any glory or honor of the flesh. She should want only the word of God, and take hold of benefits that will last forever. Or if she must boast in the flesh, then let her boast when she is tortured for confessing the Name; when a woman is found to be stronger than her tortures; when she endures fire, or the cross, or the sword, or the wild beasts, so that she may be crowned. These are the precious jewels of the flesh. These are the better ornaments of the body.

But there are some rich women, well supplied with means, who put their own wealth first and argue that they ought to use these good things. Let them know first of all that the woman who is rich is the one who is rich in God; that the woman who is wealthy is the one who is wealthy in Christ; that the good things are the ones that are spiritual, divine and heavenly, which lead us to God and stay with us in lasting possession with God. But whatever is of the earth, and has been received in this world, and will stay here with the world, ought to be despised just as the world itself is despised — the world whose displays and delights we already renounced when by a blessed crossing we came over to God. [s]

John rouses us and urges us on, testifying with a spiritual and heavenly voice. “Do not love the world,” he says, “or the things that are in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything that is in the world is the craving of the flesh, and the craving of the eyes, and the pride of life, which is not from the Father but from the craving of the world. And the world is passing away, and its craving with it; but the one who does the will of God stays forever, just as God also stays forever.”

So eternal and divine things are to be followed, and everything must be done according to the will of God, so that we may follow the divine footsteps and the teachings of our Lord, who warned us and said, “I came down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of the one who sent me.” But if the servant is not greater than his master, and the man who has been set free owes obedience to the one who freed him, then we who want to be Christians ought to imitate what Christ said and did. It is written, and it is read and heard, and it is repeated for our example by the mouth of the church: “Whoever says he stays in Christ ought himself also to walk as Christ walked.” So we must walk with steps that match his; we must strive to keep pace with him. Then the following of the truth answers to the faith our name professes, and a reward is given to the believer — if what is believed is also done.

You call yourself wealthy and rich. But Paul meets your riches, and in his own voice lays down that your dress and your ornament are to be kept inside a just limit. “Let women,” he said, “adorn themselves with modesty and good sense — not with braided hair, or gold, or pearls, or expensive clothes, but as befits women who profess chastity, with a good way of life.” Peter agrees with these same instructions, and says, “In a woman let the adorning not be the outward adorning of clothes, or gold, or dress, but the adorning of the heart.” [t]

But if these men warn us that the women who are in the habit of excusing their dress by pointing to their husbands should be held in and kept by religious observance inside the church’s discipline, how much more right is it that a virgin should keep that observance? She has no excuse for adorning herself, and the deceitfulness of her fault cannot be laid on anyone else. She is left holding the guilt of it herself.

You say that you are wealthy and rich. But not everything that can be done ought also to be done, and the broad appetites that rise out of the pride of the world should not be stretched beyond the honor and the modesty of virginity, since it is written: “All things are lawful, but not all things are useful; all things are lawful, but not all things build up.” For the rest: if you dress your hair expensively, and walk about so as to draw notice in public, and pull the eyes of young men onto you, and drag their sighs after you, and feed the lust of craving, and fan the fuel of those sighs — then, even if you do not perish yourself, you make others perish, and you offer yourself to the people watching as a sword, or as poison. You cannot be excused on the plea that you are chaste and modest in mind. Your shameful dress and your immodest ornament accuse you. You cannot be counted now among the girls and virgins of Christ, when you live in such a way as to make yourselves objects of desire. [v]

You say that you are wealthy and rich. But it does not suit a virgin to boast of her riches, since Holy Scripture says: “What good has our pride done us? What benefit has the boasting of riches brought us? All those things have passed away like a shadow.” And the apostle warns us again, and says, “And those who buy, as though they did not buy; and those who own, as though they did not own; and those who use this world, as though they did not use it. For the form of this world is passing away.” Peter too — the man to whom the Lord entrusts his sheep to be fed and guarded, and on whom he set and founded the church — says that he has no silver and gold; but he says that he is rich in the grace of Christ, that he is wealthy in his faith and his strength, with which he did many great works of power, and with which he overflowed with spiritual good things toward the grace of glory. These riches, this wealth, cannot belong to a woman who would rather be rich to this world than to Christ. [w]

You say that you are wealthy and rich, and you think you ought to use the things God has willed you to have. Use them, certainly — but for the things that bring salvation. Use them, but for good purposes. Use them, but for the things God has commanded and the Lord has set out. Let the poor feel that you are wealthy; let the needy feel that you are rich. Lend your estate to God; give food to Christ. Move him by the prayers of many, so that he may grant you to carry the glory of virginity through, and to arrive at the rewards of the Lord. Put your treasures on deposit there, where no thief digs through the wall, where no cunning robber breaks in. Get possessions for yourself — but heavenly ones, where no rust wears them out, no hail bruises them, no sun burns them, no rain spoils them, and your fruits are steady and perennial and out of the reach of every worldly harm. [y]

For in this very matter you are sinning against God, if you think riches were given you by him for this purpose: to enjoy them to the full with no thought of salvation. God gave man a voice as well, and love songs and indecent things are not to be sung on that account. God willed iron to be for the tilling of the earth, and murders are not to be committed on that account. Or because God appointed incense and wine and fire, are we to sacrifice to idols with them? Or because the herds of cattle are plentiful in your fields, ought you to slaughter victims and offerings to the gods? Otherwise a large estate is a temptation, unless the wealth serves good uses; so that every man, in proportion to his wealth, ought to use his inheritance to buy off his sins rather than to add to them.

The marks of ornament and clothing, and the enticements of beauty, do not suit anyone but prostitutes and immodest women; and no women dress more expensively than the women whose modesty is cheap. So in the Holy Scriptures, by which the Lord wanted us both instructed and warned, the harlot city is described as more beautifully arrayed and adorned, with her ornaments on — and described so all the more because those very ornaments are about to perish. “And there came,” it says, “one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls, and he talked with me and said: ‘Come here. I will show you the judgment of the great prostitute who sits on many waters, with whom the kings of the earth have committed sexual immorality.’ And he carried me away in the spirit; and I saw a woman sitting on a beast, and that woman was dressed in a purple and scarlet cloak, and was adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls, and had a golden cup in her hand, full of curses and filth and the sexual immorality of the whole earth.” Let chaste and modest virgins avoid the dress of the unchaste, the manners of the immodest, the badges of the brothel, the ornaments of prostitutes. [ab]