Edition Masquer
De Cultu Feminarum

IX.

[1] Quamobrem erga uestitum quoque et reliqua compositionis uestrae impedimenta proinde uobis curanda est amputatio et decussio redundantioris nitoris. Nam quid prodest faciem quidem frugi et expeditam et simplicitate condignam diuinae disciplinae exhibere, cetera uero corporis laciniosis pomparum et deliciarum ineptiis occupare? [2] Hae pompae quam de proximo curent luxuriae negotium et obstrepant pudicitiae disciplinis dinoscere in facili est, quod gratiam decoris cultus societate prostituant, adeo si desint irritam et ingratam reddunt, uelut exarmatam et naufragam; contra si forma defecit, adminiculum nitoris quasi de suo gratiam supplet. [3] Aetates denique requietas iam et in portum modestiae subductas splendor et dignitas cultus auocant et seueritatem appetitionibus inquietant compensantibus scilicet habitus irritamenta pro frigore aetatis. [4] Ergo, benedictae, primo quidem ut lenones et prostitutores uestitus et cultus ne in uos admiseritis; tum si quas uel diuitiarum suarum uel natalmm uel retro dignitatum ratio compellit ita pompaticas progredi, ut sapientiam consecutae, temperare saltem ab huiusmodi curate, ne totis habenis licentiam usurpetis praetextu necessitatis. [5] Quomodo etenim humilitatem quam christiani profitemur implere poteritis non repastinantes diuitiarum uestrarum uel elegantiarum usum quae tantum ad gloriam faciunt? Gloria autem exaltare, non humiliare consueuit.

[6] «Non enim, quaesitis, utemur nostris? Quis autem prohibet uti?» Secundum apostolum tamen qui nos uti monet mundo isto quasi non abutamur. «Praeterit enim, inquit, habitus huius mundi». «Et qui emunt, inquit, sic agant quasi non possidentes». Cur ita? Quoniam praemiserat dicexis: «tempus in collecto est». Si ergo uxores quoque ipsas sic habendas demonstrat tanquam non habeantur, propter angustias temporum, quid de uanis his instrumentis earum? [7] Non enim et ita multi faciunt et se spadonatui obsignant, propter regnum Dei tam fortem et utique permissam uoluntatem sponte ponentes? Quidam ipsam Dei creaturam sibi interdicunt, abstinentes uino et animalibus esculentis quoram fructus nulli periculo aut sollicitudini adiacent, sed humilitatem animae suae in uictus quoque castigatione Deo immolant. Satis igitur et uos usae estis diuitiis atque deliciis, satis dotum uestrarum fructus decidistis ante notitiam salutarium disciplinarum.

[8] Nos sumus in quos decucurrerunt fines saeculorum; nos destinati a Deo ante mundum in extimationem temporum, tanquam castigando et castrando, ut ita dixerim, saeculo erudimur a domino. Nos sumus circumcisio omnium, et spiritalis et carnalis. Nam et spiritu et carne saecularia circumcidimus.

Traduction Masquer
On the Apparel of Women

Chapter IX.--Excess in Dress, as Well as in Personal Culture, to Be Shunned. Arguments Drawn from I Cor. VII.

Wherefore, with regard to clothing also, and all the remaining lumber of your self-elaboration, ¹ the like pruning off and retrenchment of too redundant splendour must be the object of your care. For what boots it to exhibit in your face temperance and unaffectedness, and a simplicity altogether worthy of the divine discipline, but to invest all the other parts of the body with the luxurious absurdities of pomps and delicacies? How intimate is the connection which these pomps have with the business of voluptuousness, and how they interfere with modesty, is easily discernible from the fact that it is by the allied aid of dress that they prostitute the grace of personal comeliness: so plain is it that if (the pomps) be wanting, they render (that grace) bootless and thankless, as if it were disarmed and wrecked. On the other hand, if natural beauty fails, the supporting aid of outward embellishment supplies a grace, as it were, from its own inherent power. ² Those times of life, in fact, which are at last blest with quiet and withdrawn into the harbour of modesty, the splendour and dignity of dress lure away (from that rest and that harbour), and disquiet seriousness by seductions of appetite, which compensate for the chill of age by the provocative charms of apparel. First, then, blessed (sisters), (take heed) that you admit not to your use meretricious and prostitutionary garbs and garments: and, in the next place, if there are any of you whom the exigencies of riches, or birth, or past dignities, compel to appear in public so gorgeously arrayed as not to appear to have attained wisdom, take heed to temper an evil of this kind; lest, under the pretext of necessity, you give the rein without stint to the indulgence of licence. For how will you be able to fulfil (the requirements of) humility, which our (school) profess, ³ if you do not keep within bounds ⁴ the enjoyment of your riches and elegancies, which tend so much to "glory?" Now it has ever been the wont of glory to exalt, not to humble. "Why, shall we not use what is our own?" Who prohibits your using it? Yet (it must be) in accordance with the apostle, who warns us "to use this world ⁵ as if we abuse it not; for the fashion ⁶ of this world ⁷ is passing away." And "they who buy are so to act as if they possessed not." ⁸ Why so? Because he had laid down the premiss, saying, "The time is wound up." ⁹ If, then he shows plainly that even wives themselves are so to be had as if they be not had, ¹⁰ on account of the straits of the times, what would be his sentiments about these vain appliances of theirs? Why, are there not many, withal, who so do, and seal themselves up to eunuchhood for the sake of the kingdom of God, ¹¹ spontaneously relinquishing a pleasure so honourable, ¹² and (as we know) permitted? Are there not some who prohibit to themselves (the use of) the very "creature of God," ¹³ abstaining from wine and animal food, the enjoyments of which border upon no peril or solicitude; but they sacrifice to God the humility of their soul even in the chastened use of food? Sufficiently, therefore, have you, too, used your riches and your delicacies; sufficiently have you cut down the fruits of your dowries, before (receiving) the knowledge of saving disciplines. We are they "upon whom the ends of the ages have met, having ended their course." ¹⁴ We have been predestined by God, before the world ¹⁵ was, (to arise) in the extreme end of the times. ¹⁶ And so we are trained by God for the purpose of chastising, and (so to say) emasculating, the world. ¹⁷ We are the circumcision ¹⁸ --spiritual and carnal--of all things; for both in the spirit and in the flesh we circumcise worldly ¹⁹ principles.