He [God] takes away anxious care for clothes, food, and all luxuries as being unnecessary. What are we to imagine, then, should be said about love of embellishments, the dyeing of wool, and the variety of colors? What should be said about the love of gems, exquisite working of gold, and still more, of artificial hair and wreathed curls? Furthermore, what should be said about staining the eyes, plucking out hairs, painting with rouge and white lead, dyeing of the hair, and the wicked arts that are employed in such deceptions?
Clement of Alexandria (c. AD 195)
What does God think of spurious beauty, rejecting utterly as He does all falsehood?
Clement of Alexandria (c. AD 195)
Nor are the women to smear their faces with the ensnaring devices of wily cunning. But let us show to them the decoration of sobriety.
Clement of Alexandria (c. AD 195)
For those women sin against God when they rub their skin with ointments, stain their cheeks with rouge, and make their eyes prominent with antimony. To them, I suppose, the artistic skill of God is displeasing!
Tertullian (c. AD 198)
Whatever is born is the work of God. So whatever is plastered on, is the devil’s work…How unworthy of the Christian name it is to wear a fictitious face–you on whom simplicity in every form is enjoined! You, to whom lying with the tongue is not lawful, are lying in appearance.
Tertullian (c. AD 198)
I will then see whether you will rise [at the resurrection] with your ceruse and rouge and saffron–and in all that parade of headgear. I will then see whether it will be women thus decked out whom the angels carry up to meet Christ in the air! If these things are now good, and of God, they will then also present themselves to the rising bodies.
Tertullian (c. AD 198)
Luxurious clothing that cannot conceal the shape of the body is no more a covering. For such clothing, falling close to the body, takes its form more easily. Clinging to the body as though it were the flesh, it receives its shape and outlines the woman’s figure. As a result, the whole make of the body is visible to spectators, although they cannot see the body itself.
Clement of Alexandria (c. AD 195)
Buying, as they do, a single dress at the price of ten thousand talents, they prove themselves to be of less use and less value than cloth.
Clement of Alexandria (c. AD 195)
Concerning modesty of dress and embellishments, indeed, the commandment of Peter is likewise plain, restraining as he does with the same mouth…the glory of garments, the pride of gold, and the showy elaboration of the hair.
Tertullian (c. AD 198)
First, then, blessed sisters, take heed that you do not admit to your use flashy and sluttish garbs and clothing.
Tertullian (c. AD 198)
The dress of a modest woman should be modest.
Novatian (c. AD 235)
But self-control and modesty do not consist only in purity of the flesh, but also in seemliness and in modesty of dress and adornment. Cyprian (c. AD 250)
It is enough for women to protect their locks, and bind up their hair simply along the neck with a plain hair-pin.
Clement of Alexandria (c. AD 195)
This [male] sex of ours acknowledges to itself deceptive trickeries of form peculiarly its own. I am referring to things such as…arranging the hair, and disguising its hoariness by dyes.
Tertullian (c. AD 198)
Though in the form of men, they…curl their hair with curling pins, make the skin of the body smooth, and they walk with bare knees. In every other type of wantonness, they lay aside the strength of their masculinity and grow effeminate in women’s habits and luxury.
Arnobius (c. AD 305)
If you desire to be one of the faithful and to please the Lord, O wife, do not add adornments to your beauty, in order to please other men. Do not wear fine embroidery, garments, or shoes, to entice those who are allured by such things…you still will not escape future punishment for having compelled another to look so close at you as to lust after you.
Apostolic Constitutions (Compiled c. AD 390)
It was the fact that Tamar had painted out and adorned herself that led Judah to regard her as a harlot.
Tertullian (c. AD 198)
Draw your whiteness from simplicity, your ruddy hue from modesty. Paint your eyes with bashfulness, and your mouth with silence. Implant in your ears the words of God and place around your necks the yoke of Christ.
Tertullian (c. AD 198)
To a wife approved by her husband, let it suffice that she is so, not by her dress, but by her good disposition…O good matrons, flee from the adornment of vanity. Such attire is fitting for women who haunt the brothels. Overcome the evil one, O modest women of Christ!
Commodianus (c. AD 240)
It is not right before God that a faithful Christian woman should be adorned…God’s heralds…condemn as being unrighteous those women who adorn themselves in such a manner. You stain your hair. You paint the opening of your eyes with black. You lift up your hair, one by one, on your painted brow. You anoint your cheeks with some sort of reddish color laid on…You are rejecting the law when you wish to please the world.
Commodianus (c. AD 240)
