This Is Not My Work

Isaiah too, full of the Holy Spirit, cries out and takes the daughters of Zion to task — corrupted by gold and silver and fine clothes, rich in wealth that was ruining them, walking away from God for the sake of the world’s pleasures. He says: “The daughters of Zion are haughty. They walk with their necks stretched out and their eyes beckoning, trailing their gowns as they go, mincing with their feet. And God will bring the noble daughters of Zion low, and the Lord will strip their dress off them. The Lord will take away the glory of their clothing — their ornaments, their hair, their curls, their crescents like the moon, their curling irons, their bracelets, their strings of pearls, their armlets and rings and earrings, and their silks woven with gold and blue. And instead of a sweet smell there will be dust; you will be tied with a rope instead of a sash; and instead of a golden ornament for your head you will have baldness.” [a]

This is what God blames. This is what he marks out. This is why he says that virgins are being corrupted, that they have walked away from the true and divine worship. They were lifted up, and they fell. With their heads decorated, they earned dishonor and disgrace. Having put on silk and purple, they cannot put on Christ; decked out in gold and pearls and necklaces, they have lost the ornaments of the heart and the spirit.

Who would not curse and keep away from the thing that destroyed somebody else? Who would want to pick up the thing that served as the sword and the weapon for another person’s death? If a man drank and died of draining the cup, you would know that what he drank was poison. If a man ate and died of the food he took, you would know that what could kill when swallowed was deadly — and you would not eat or drink from the place where you had already watched others die. So what ignorance of the truth is this, what madness of mind, to want the very thing that has done harm and always will do harm, and to think that you yourself will not be destroyed by the means you know have destroyed others!

God did not make the sheep scarlet or purple. He did not teach the juices of plants and shellfish to dye and color wool. He did not string necklaces of stones set in gold, or of pearls threaded in a row or bunched in clusters, so that you could hide with them the neck that he made — so that what God shaped in a human being is covered over, and what the devil has added on to it is what shows. Did God want wounds cut in the ears, so that a baby, still innocent and knowing nothing of the world’s evil, is put to pain, and afterward costly beads can hang from the scars and holes in her ears — heavy from what they cost, if not from their weight? [d]

All of it was brought out by the sinning, deserting angels, out of their own arts, when they sank down to the infections of the earth and gave up their heavenly strength. They are the ones who taught women to paint the eyes with a ring of black drawn around them, to stain the cheeks with a lying red, to change the hair with false colors, and to drive out every truth of face and head by the assault of their own corruption.

And on this very point — out of the fear my faith puts in me, out of the love the brotherhood requires — I think the warning ought to go not only to virgins and widows but to married women too, and to every woman alike. God’s work, his shaping and forming, must never be tampered with: not with an application of yellow color, not with black powder or rouge, not with any preparation at all that can spoil the features he gave. God says, “Let us make man in our image and likeness.” Does anyone dare to alter and change what God has made? They are laying hands on God when they try to remake what he formed and give it another shape. They do not realize that everything that comes into being is God’s work, and everything that gets changed is the devil’s. [f]

Suppose a painter drew someone’s face and likeness and bodily figure in colors that rival the living man; and once the likeness was painted and finished, another man laid hands on it, as though he were the better artist and could improve what had already been formed and already painted. The first artist would think it a serious wrong, and he would have every right to be angry. And do you think you can get away with a piece of boldness that reckless and that wicked — an insult to God, the artist? Even if you are not immodest with people, and not unchaste with your seducing dyes, still, when the things that belong to God are ruined and violated, you are caught up in a worse kind of adultery. Your thinking yourself beautified, your thinking your hair well dressed, is an assault on the divine work. It is a betrayal of the truth.

The apostle’s voice warns us: “Clear out the old leaven, so that you may be a new lump, since you are unleavened; for Christ our Passover has been sacrificed. So let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, and not with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” But are sincerity and truth kept when what is sincere is fouled with adulterating colors, and what is true is turned into a lie by the deceitful dyes of a cosmetic? Your Lord says, “You cannot make one hair white or black.” And you, to get the better of your Lord’s word, will be stronger than he is: you will stain your hair, in a bold attempt and with irreverent contempt. With an evil omen of what is coming, you are already making a start for yourself on flame-colored hair — and you sin (what wickedness!) with your head, the nobler part of your body. And although it is written of the Lord, “His head and his hair were white like wool or snow,” you curse that whiteness and hate the gray that is like the Lord’s own head. [i]

Are you not afraid, I beg you — being what you are — that when the day of the resurrection comes, your Maker may not recognize you again? That when you come for his rewards and his promises he may turn you away and shut you out, rebuking you with all the sternness of a censor and a judge, and say: “This is not my work. This is not our image. You have fouled your skin with a false preparation. You have changed your hair with an adulterous color. Your face is overpowered by a lie. Your figure is ruined. The face you have belongs to somebody else. You cannot see God, since the eyes you have are not the ones God made but the ones the devil has spoiled. You followed him; you copied the red, painted eyes of the serpent. Dressed up in your enemy’s fashion, you will burn along with him before long.” [l]

Are these not matters for God’s servants to think over? Are they not always to be dreaded day and night? Let married women look at what they are flattering themselves about when they plead the comfort of their husbands and the wish to please them. They put their husbands forward as their excuse, and they make them partners in the guilt of consenting. As for virgins — and it is virgins this whole address is meant to reach — any who have decked themselves out with arts like these I would not count among virgins at all. Like infected sheep and diseased cattle, they ought to be driven out of the holy and clean flock of virginity, so that by living together they do not spread the contagion to the rest, and ruin others as they have ruined themselves.

And since what we are after is the good of self-control, let us also stay away from everything that is ruinous and hostile to it. I will not pass over the practices that have slipped into use through carelessness and taken for themselves a license nobody granted, against modest and sober habits. Some women are not ashamed to be at wedding parties — to join in the loose talk there and mix in unchaste conversation, to hear what is not fitting, to say what is not permitted, to put themselves on show, to sit in the middle of shameful words and drunken banqueting, where lust is fanned into a blaze, and the bride is worked up to endure what is lewd and the bridegroom to attempt it. What place is there at a wedding for a woman whose mind is not set on marriage? What can be pleasant or joyful in those proceedings for her, when the desires and the wishes there are not her own at all? What is learned there? What is seen? How far a virgin falls short of her own resolve when she arrives modest and goes away immodest! She may still be a virgin in body and mind, but in her eyes, in her ears, in her tongue she has lost some of the virtue she had. [m]

But what about the ones who go to the mixed baths, who put bodies dedicated to chastity and modesty on show for eyes that are curious to lust? They look shamefully at naked men and are seen naked by men. Do they not hold out an enticement to vice themselves? Do they not solicit and invite the desires of the men there toward their own corruption and injury? “Let each person answer for the frame of mind he comes in,” you say. “My concern is only to freshen and wash this poor body of mine.” That kind of defense does not clear you, and it does not excuse the offense of loose and wanton behavior. A washing like that defiles. It does not purify or clean the limbs; it stains them. You look at no one immodestly — but you yourself are looked at immodestly. You do not pollute your eyes with disgraceful pleasure — but in giving pleasure to others you are polluted yourself. You make a spectacle of the bathhouse; the places where you gather are filthier than a theater. There all modesty comes off along with the clothes; the body’s honor and modesty are laid aside; virginity is put out to be pointed at and handled. So now consider whether you are modest among men when you are dressed, when the boldness of nakedness has led on to immodesty. [o]

This is the reason, then, that the church so often mourns over her virgins; this is why she groans at the scandalous and disgusting stories told of them; this is how the flower of her virgins is put out, how the honor and modesty of self-control are injured, how all its glory and dignity are profaned. This is how the enemy besieging us works his way in by his tricks; this is how the devil creeps in, by traps that deceive and by hidden approaches. This is how virgins who want to be more carefully dressed and to move about more freely stop being virgins — corrupted by a dishonor nobody saw: widows before they were ever married, adulterous not against a husband but against Christ. In the same measure that they were destined as virgins for great rewards, they will find great punishments for the loss of their virginity.

So listen to me, virgins, as to a parent. Listen, I beg you, to a man who is afraid even while he warns. Listen to someone who is honestly looking out for your good and your benefit. Be what God the Creator made you. Be what your Father’s hand appointed you to be. Let your face stay unspoiled, your neck unadorned, your figure simple. Let no wounds be cut in your ears. Let no costly chain of bracelets and necklaces go around your arms or your neck. Let your feet be free of gold bands, your hair stained with no dye, your eyes fit to look at God. Let your bathing be done among women, where your bathing is modest. Keep away from the shameless feasts and lewd banquets of weddings; their infection is dangerous. [p]

Conquer dress, since you are a virgin. Conquer gold, since you have conquered the flesh and the world. It makes no sense to be unbeatable in the greater fight and no match in the smaller one. The road that leads to life is tight and narrow; the track that runs toward glory is hard and steep. This is the path the martyrs travel; the virgins pass along it; the righteous of every kind climb it. Avoid the broad and roomy roads. There the snares are deadly and the pleasures bring death; there the devil flatters in order to deceive, smiles in order to do harm, entices in order to kill. The first crop belongs to the martyrs — a hundredfold. The second is yours — sixtyfold. With the martyrs there is no thought of the flesh or of the world, no small or trifling or easy struggle; so in you, whose reward stands second in grace, let the strength to endure stand next to theirs. There is no easy climb to great things. Think what we go through, what work it is, when we try to get up hills and mountaintops. What will it take, then, to climb to heaven? If you keep your eye on the reward that was promised, the work is lighter. Immortality is given to those who hold out; everlasting life is set in front of them; the Lord promises a kingdom.

Hold on, virgins! Hold on to what you have begun to be; hold on to what you are going to be. A great reward is waiting for you, a great repayment for your virtue, an immense gain from your chastity. Do you want to know what evil the virtue of self-control escapes, and what good it holds? God says to the woman: “I will multiply your sorrows and your groaning; in sorrow you will bear children; and your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” You are free of that sentence. You have no fear of a woman’s sorrows and groaning. You have no fear of childbirth, and no husband is lord over you; your Lord and head is Christ, in the likeness of a man and in his place, and your lot and your condition are equal with the men’s. It is the word of the Lord that says: “The children of this world have children and are themselves born; but those who are counted worthy of that world, and of the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage. They cannot die any more, for they are equal to the angels of God, being the children of the resurrection.” [s]

What we are all going to be, you have already begun to be. You already hold the glory of the resurrection in this world. You pass through the world without catching the world’s infection. In staying chaste and virgins, you are equal to the angels of God. Only let your virginity remain whole and unhurt and last. As it began bravely, let it keep going without a break, and let it look for ornaments not of necklaces or of clothes but of conduct. Let it look toward God and heaven, and let it not lower to the craving of the flesh and of the world the eyes that have been lifted to the things above, or fix them on what is on earth.

The first command ordered us to increase and multiply; the second called for self-control. While the world was still rough and empty, we multiplied by fruitful begetting in numbers and grew to fill out the human race. Now that the world is full and the earth well supplied, those who can take self-control live like eunuchs and are made eunuchs for the kingdom. The Lord does not command this; he urges it. He does not lay on a yoke of necessity, since the free choice of the will is left standing. But when he says that in his Father’s house there are many dwelling places, he is pointing out the rooms of the better home. Those better homes are what you are looking for; by cutting away the desires of the flesh, you gain the reward of a greater grace in the household of heaven. [v]

Everyone, of course, who comes into the divine gift and inheritance by the making holy of baptism puts off the old self there, by the grace of the washing that saves; renewed by the Holy Spirit from the filth of the old infection, they are cleansed by a second birth. But the greater holiness and truth of that repeated birth belongs to you, who no longer have any desires of the flesh or of the body. Only the things that belong to virtue and to the Spirit are left in you, for glory. It is the word of the apostle whom the Lord called his chosen vessel, whom God sent to announce the command of heaven. He says: “The first man is from the earth, made of earth; the second man is from heaven. As the man of earth is, so are those who are of earth; and as the heavenly man is, so are the heavenly also. As we have carried the image of the man made of earth, let us also carry the image of the one who is from heaven.” Virginity carries this image. So does integrity, and holiness, and truth. So do the disciplines that keep God in mind, holding on to righteousness along with reverence: steady in faith, humble in fear, brave for any suffering, meek in putting up with wrong, quick to show mercy, of one mind and one heart in the peace of the brotherhood.

Every one of these things, good virgins, you ought to keep, to love, to carry out — you who have given yourselves to God and Christ and are going on to the Lord you dedicated yourselves to, in the higher and better part. Those of you who are older, pass on your teaching to the younger. You who are younger, spur on the ones your own age. Stir one another up with encouragement on both sides; challenge each other to glory by competing proofs of virtue. Endure bravely, go forward spiritually, arrive happily. Only remember us at that time, when virginity begins to be rewarded in you.