Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume IV/Tertullian: Part Fourth/On the Veiling of Virgins/Chapter 8

Chapter VIII.&#8212;The Argument E Contrario.

The contraries, at all events, of all these (considerations) effect that a man is not to cover his head:&#160; to wit, because he has not by nature been gifted with excess of hair; because to be shaven or shorn is not shameful to him; because it was not on his account that the angels transgressed; because his Head is Christ. &#160; Accordingly, since the apostle is treating of man and woman&#8212;why the latter ought to be veiled, but the former not&#8212;it is apparent why he has been silent as to the virgin; allowing, to wit, the virgin to be understood in the woman by the self-same reason by which he forbore to name the boy as implied in the man; embracing the whole order of either sex in the names proper (to each) of woman and man.&#160; So likewise Adam, while still intact, is surnamed in Genesis man: &#160; &#8220;She shall be called,&#8221; says he, &#8220;woman, because she hath been taken from her own man.&#8221;&#160; Thus was Adam a man before nuptial intercourse, in like manner as Eve a woman.&#160; On either side the apostle has made his sentence apply with sufficient plainness to the universal species of each sex; and briefly and fully, with so well-appointed a definition, he says, &#8220;Every woman.&#8221;&#160; What is &#8220;every,&#8221; but of every class, of every order, of every condition, of every dignity, of every age?&#8212;if, (as is the case), &#8220;every&#8221; means total and entire, and in none of its parts defective.&#160; But the virgin is withal a part of the woman.&#160; Equally, too, with regard to not veiling the man, he says &#8220;every.&#8221;&#160; Behold two diverse names, Man and woman&#8212;&#8220;every one&#8221; in each case:&#160; two laws, mutually distinctive; on the one hand (a law) of veiling, on the other (a law) of baring.&#160; Therefore, if the fact that it is said &#8220;every man&#8221; makes it plain that the name of man is common even to him who is not yet a man, a stripling male; (if), moreover, since the name is common according to nature, the law of not veiling him who among men is a virgin is common too according to discipline:&#160; why is it that it is not consequently prejudged that, woman being named, every woman-virgin is similarly comprised in the fellowship of the name, so as to be comprised too in the community of the law?&#160; If a virgin is not a woman, neither is a stripling a man.&#160; If the virgin is not covered on the plea that she is not a woman, let the stripling be covered on the plea that he is not a man.&#160; Let identity of virginity share equality of indulgence.&#160; As virgins are not compelled to be veiled, so let boys not be bidden to be unveiled.&#160; Why do we partly acknowledge the definition of the apostle, as absolute with regard to &#8220;every man,&#8221; without entering upon disquisitions as to why he has not withal named the boy; but partly prevaricate, though it is equally absolute with regard to &#8220;every woman?&#8221;&#160; &#8220;If any,&#8221; he says, &#8220;is contentious, we have not such a custom, nor (has) the Church of God.&#8221; &#160; He shows that there had been some contention about this point; for the extinction whereof he uses the whole compendiousness (of language):&#160; not naming the virgin, on the one hand, in order to show that there is to be no doubt about her veiling; and, on the other hand, naming &#8220;every woman,&#8221; whereas he would have named the virgin (had the question been confined to her).&#160; So, too, did the Corinthians themselves understand him.&#160; In fact, at this day the Corinthians do veil their virgins.&#160; What the apostles taught, their disciples approve.