Chapter V.—Some Refinements in Dress and Personal Appearance Lawful, Some Unlawful.  Pigments Come Under the Latter Head.

These suggestions are not made to you, of course, to be developed into an entire crudity and wildness of appearance; nor are we seeking to persuade you of the good of squalor and slovenliness; but of the limit and norm and just measure of cultivation of the person.  There must be no overstepping of that line to which simple and sufficient refinements limit their desires—that line which is pleasing to God.  For they who rub97    Exitu.    Urgent.  Comp. de Pæn., c. xi. their skin with medicaments, stain their cheeks with rouge, make their eyes prominent with antimony,98    Matrimonium carnis.    “Fuligine,” lit. “soot.”  Comp. b. i. c. ii. sin against Him.  To them, I suppose, the plastic skill99    Mundum muliebrem.  Comp. Liv. xxxiv. 7.    See c. ii. ad fin. of God is displeasing!  In their own persons, I suppose, they convict, they censure, the Artificer of all things!  For censure they do when they amend, when they add to, (His work;) taking these their additions, of course, from the adversary artificer.  That adversary artificer is the devil.100    Immundum muliebrem.    Comp. b. i. c. viii.  For who would show the way to change the body, but he who by wickedness transfigured man’s spirit?  He it is, undoubtedly, who adapted ingenious devices of this kind; that in your persons it may be apparent that you, in a certain sense, do violence to God.  Whatever is born is the work of God.  Whatever, then, is plastered on101    Jam hinc; comp. ad. Ux., i. 1 ad init. and ad fin., and 8 ad fin.    Infingitur. (that), is the devil’s work.  To superinduce on a divine work Satan’s ingenuities, how criminal is it!  Our servants borrow nothing from our personal enemies:  soldiers eagerly desire nothing from the foes of their own general; for, to demand for (your own) use anything from the adversary of Him in whose hand102    i.e., subject to whom. you are, is a transgression.  Shall a Christian be assisted in anything by that evil one?  (If he do,) I know not whether this name (of “Christian”) will continue (to belong) to him; for he will be his in whose lore he eagerly desires to be instructed.  But how alien from your schoolings103    Disciplinis. and professions are (these things)!  How unworthy the Christian name, to wear a fictitious face, (you,) on whom simplicity in every form is enjoined!—to lie in your appearance, (you,) to whom (lying) with the tongue is not lawful!—to seek after what is another’s, (you,) to whom is delivered (the precept of) abstinence from what is another’s!—to practise adultery in your mien,104    Species. (you,) who make modesty your study!  Think,105    Credite. blessed (sisters), how will you keep God’s precepts if you shall not keep in your own persons His lineaments?

CAPUT V.

1321A

Haec utique non ad crudam in totum et ferinam habitudinem insinuandam vobis suggeruntur; nec de bono squaloris et paedoris suademus , sed de modo et cardine et justitia corporis excolendi . Non supergrediendum ultra quam simplices et sufficientes munditiae concupiscunt, ultra quam Domino placet. In illum enim delinquunt, quae cutem medicaminibus ungunt , genas rubore maculant, oculos fuligine collinunt . Displicet nimirum illis plastica Dei, in ipsis redarguunt , reprehendunt artificem omnium. Reprehendunt enim, cum emendant, cum adjiciunt, utique ab adversario artifice sumentes additamenta ista, id est, diabolo . Nam quis corpus mutare monstraret, nisi qui et hominis 1321B spiritum malitia transfiguravit? Ille indubitate hujusmodi ingenia concinnavit, ut in nobis quodammodo manus Deo inferret . Quod nascitur, opus Dei est; ergo quod fingitur , diaboli negotium est. Divino operi Satanae ingenia superducere quam scelestum est! Servi nostri ab inimicis nostris nihil mutuantur, milites ab hoste imperatoris sui nihil concupiscunt. De adversario enim ejus, in cujus manu sis, aliquid usui postulare, transgressio est. Christianus a malo illo adjuvabitur in aliquo? nescio an hoc nomen ei perseveret. Erit enim ejus, de cujus doctrinis instrui concupiscit. Quantum autem a vestris disciplinis et professionibus aliena sunt, quam indigna nomine christiano faciem fictam gestare, quibus simplicitas omnis indicitur; effigie mentiri, quibus 1321C lingua non licet; appetere , quod datum non sit , quibus alienum abstinentiam in specie exercere, 1322A quibus studium pudicitiae est ! Credite, benedictae, quomodo praecepta Dei custodietis, liniamenta ejus in vobis non custodientes?