Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume IV/Tertullian: Part Fourth/On the Apparel of Women/II/Chapter 13

Chapter XIII.&#8212;It is Not Enough that God Know Us to Be Chaste:&#160; We Must Seem So Before Men.&#160; Especially in These Times of Persecution We Must Inure Our Bodies to the Hardships Which They May Not Improbably Be Called to Suffer.

Perhaps some (woman) will say:&#160; &#8220;To me it is not necessary to be approved by men; for I do not require the testimony of men: &#160; God is the inspector of the heart.&#8221; &#160; (That) we all know; provided, however, we remember what the same (God) has said through the apostle:&#160; &#8220;Let your probity appear before men.&#8221; &#160; For what purpose, except that malice may have no access at all to you, or that you may be an example and testimony to the evil?&#160; Else, what is (that):&#160; &#8220;Let your works shine?&#8221; &#160; Why, moreover, does the Lord call us the light of the world; why has He compared us to a city built upon a mountain; if we do not shine in (the midst of) darkness, and stand eminent amid them who are sunk down?&#160; If you hide your lamp beneath a bushel, you must necessarily be left quite in darkness, and be run against by many.&#160; The things which make us luminaries of the world are these&#8212;our good works.&#160; What is good, moreover, provided it be true and full, loves not darkness:&#160; it joys in being seen, and exults over the very pointings which are made at it.&#160; To Christian modesty it is not enough to be so, but to seem so too.&#160; For so great ought its plenitude to be, that it may flow out from the mind to the garb, and burst out from the conscience to the outward appearance; so that even from the outside it may gaze, as it were, upon its own furniture, &#8212;(a furniture) such as to be suited to retain faith as its inmate perpetually.&#160; For such delicacies as tend by their softness and effeminacy to unman the manliness of faith are to be discarded.&#160; Otherwise, I know not whether the wrist that has been wont to be surrounded with the palmleaf-like bracelet will endure till it grow into the numb hardness of its own chain!&#160; I know not whether the leg that has rejoiced in the anklet will suffer itself to be squeezed into the gyve!&#160; I fear the neck, beset with pearl and emerald nooses, will give no room to the broadsword!&#160; Wherefore, blessed (sisters), let us meditate on hardships, and we shall not feel them; let us abandon luxuries, and we shall not regret them.&#160; Let us stand ready to endure every violence, having nothing which we may fear to leave behind.&#160; It is these things which are the bonds which retard our hope.&#160; Let us cast away earthly ornaments if we desire heavenly.&#160; Love not gold; in which (one substance) are branded all the sins of the people of Israel.&#160; You ought to hate what ruined your fathers; what was adored by them who were forsaking God. &#160; Even then (we find) gold is food for the fire. &#160; But Christians always, and now more than ever, pass their times not in gold but in iron:&#160; the stoles of martyrdom are (now) preparing:&#160; the angels who are to carry us are (now) being awaited!&#160; Do you go forth (to meet them) already arrayed in the cosmetics and ornaments of prophets and apostles; drawing your whiteness from simplicity, your ruddy hue from modesty; painting your eyes with bashfulness, and your mouth with silence; implanting in your ears the words of God; fitting on your necks the yoke of Christ.&#160; Submit your head to your husbands, and you will be enough adorned.&#160; Busy your hands with spinning; keep your feet at home; and you will &#8220;please&#8221; better than (by arraying yourselves) in gold.&#160; Clothe yourselves with the silk of uprightness, the fine linen of holiness, the purple of modesty.&#160; Thus painted, you will have God as your Lover!