Tertullian, De Cultu Feminarum

Nam et illi qui ea constituerunt damnati in poenam mortis deputantur, illi scilicet angeli qui ad filias hominum de caelo ruerunt, ut haec quoque ignominia feminae accedat. Nam cum et materias quasdam bene occultas et artes plerasque non bene revelatas saeculo multo magis imperito prodidissent, siquidem et metallorum opera nudaverant et herbarum ingenia traduxerant et incantationum vires provulgaverant et omnem curiositatem usque ad stellarum interpretationem designaverant, proprie et quasi peculiariter feminis instrumentum istud muliebris gloriae contulerunt, lumina lapillorum quibus monilia variantur, et circulos ex auro quibus brachia artantur, et medicamenta ex fuco quibus lanae colorantur, et illum ipsum nigrum pulverem quo oculorum exordia producuntur. Haec qualia sunt, interim iam ex doctorum suorum qualitate et conditione pronuntiari potest, quod nihil ad integritatem peccatores, nihil ad castitatem adamatores, nihil ad timorem dei desertores spiritus aut monstrare potuerunt aut praestare. Si doctrinae dicendae sunt, mali magistri male docuerint necesse est; si mercedes pro libidine, nullius rei turpis merces decora est. Quid autem tanti fuit ista monstrare sicut conferre? utrumne mulieres sine materiis splendoris et sine ingeniis decoris placere non possent hominibus, quae adhuc incultae et incompositae et, ut ita dixerim, crudae ac rudes angelos moverant? anne sordidi et per gratuitum usum contumeliosi amatores viderentur, si nihil feminis in connubium allectis contulissent? Sed haec non capit aestimare. Nihil plus desiderare poterant quae angelos possidebant, magno scilicet nupserant. Enimvero qui utique interdum cogitabant unde cecidissent et post libidinum vaporata momenta caelum suspirabant, illud ipsum bonum feminarum naturalis decoris, ut causam mali, sic remuneraverunt, ne eis profuisset felicitas sua, sed ut devectae de simplicitate et sinceritate una cum ipsis in offensam dei pervenirent. Certi erant omnem et gloriam et ambitionem et affectionem per carnem placendi deo displicere. Hi sunt nempe angeli quos iudicaturi sumus, hi sunt angeli quibus in lavacro renuntiamus, haec sunt utique per quae ab homine iudicari meruerunt. Quid ergo faciunt apud iudices suos res eorum? quod est commercium damnaturis cum damnandis? opinor, quod Christo et Beliae. Qua constantia tribunal illud ascendimus decreturi adversus eos quorum munera appetimus? Nam et vobis eadem tunc substantia angelica repromissa, idem sexus qui et viris, eandem indicandi dignationem pollicetur. Nisi ergo hic iam praeiudicaverimus res eorum praedamnando quas in illis damnaturi sumus, illi potius nos iudicabunt atque damnabunt.

For those too who established these things are counted as condemned to the penalty of death: those angels, namely, who rushed down from heaven to the daughters of men, so that this disgrace also attaches to woman. For when they had betrayed to an age much more ignorant certain materials that had been well hidden and many arts that were not well revealed (for they had laid bare the workings of metals, and passed on the properties of herbs, and spread abroad the powers of incantations, and traced out every kind of curious inquiry even to the interpretation of the stars), they bestowed on women in particular, as if as their own special property, this equipment of womanly glory: the lustres of the little stones with which necklaces are made bright with colour, and the circlets of gold with which arms are clasped, and the dyes from orchil with which wool is coloured, and that very black powder with which the edges of the eyes are drawn out. What these things are like can for the present be declared already from the character and condition of their teachers: that sinners could neither show nor supply anything towards integrity, lovers nothing towards chastity, deserter spirits nothing towards the fear of God. If they are to be called teachings, bad masters must have taught badly; if wages for lust, the wage of nothing shameful is seemly. But what was so worth while in showing these things, as also in bestowing them? Could women not please men without the materials of splendour and without the devices of beauty, when, still unadorned and unarranged and, so to speak, raw and rough, they had moved angels? Or would the lovers have seemed mean and insulting, having had their use of them for nothing, if they had bestowed nothing on the women they had drawn into marriage? But this does not bear reckoning. The women who possessed angels could desire nothing more; they had made a great match, of course. Indeed [the angels], who no doubt at times thought from where they had fallen, and after the heated moments of their lusts sighed for heaven, repaid that very good of women, their natural beauty, as the cause of their evil, in such a way that their good fortune should not profit them, but that, drawn away from simplicity and sincerity, they should come, together with [the angels] themselves, into offence against God. They were sure that all glory and ambition and the desire of pleasing through the flesh is displeasing to God. These, surely, are the angels whom we are to judge; these are the angels whom we renounce in baptism; these certainly are the things through which they have deserved to be judged by man. What, then, are their things doing among their judges? What commerce is there between those who will condemn and those who are to be condemned? The same, I think, as between Christ and Belial. With what consistency do we mount that tribunal to give sentence against those whose gifts we covet? For to you too the same angelic substance is then promised, the same sex as to men; it promises you the same honour of judging. Unless, therefore, we already prejudge their things here, by condemning beforehand what we are going to condemn in them, they will rather judge and condemn us.

Scio scripturam Enoch, quae hunc ordinem angelis dedit, non recipi a quibusdam, quia nec in armarium Iudaicum admittitur. Opinor, non putaverunt illam ante cataclysmum editam post eum casum orbis omnium rerum abolitorem salvam esse potuisse. Si ista ratio est, recordentur pronepotem ipsius Enoch fuisse superstitem cataclysmi Noë, qui utique domestico nomine et haereditaria traditione audierat et meminerat de proavi sui penes deum gratia et de omnibus praedicatis eius, cum Enoch filio suo Matusalae nihil aliud mandaverit, quam ut notitiam eorum posteris suis traderet. Igitur sine dubio potuit Noë in praedicationis delegatione successisse, vel quia et alias non tacuisset tam de dei conservatoris sui dispositione quam de ipsa domus suae gloria. Hoc si non tam expedite haberet, illud quoque assertionem scripturae illius tueretur. Proinde potuit abolefactam eam violentia cataclysmi in spiritu rursus reformare, quemadmodum et Hierosolymis Babylonia expugnatione deletis omne instrumentum Iudaicae litteraturae per Esdram constat restauratum. Sed cum Enoch eadem scriptura etiam de domino praedicarit, a nobis quidem nihil omnino reiciendum est quod pertineat ad nos. Et legimus omnem scripturam aedificationi habilem divinitus inspirari. A Iudaeis potest iam videri propterea reiecta, sicut et cetera fere quae Christum sonant. Nec utique mirum hoc, si scripturas aliquas non receperunt de eo locutas quem et ipsum coram loquentem non erant recepturi. Eo accedit, quod Enoch apud Iudam apostolum testimonium possidet.

I know that the scripture of Enoch, which has given this role to the angels, is not received by some, because it is not admitted into the Jewish book-chest either. They did not think, I suppose, that, having been published before the flood, it could have survived safe after that disaster of the world, the destroyer of all things. If that is the reason, let them remember that Noah, the great-grandson of Enoch himself, survived the flood; and he had certainly heard, through the family name and by hereditary tradition, and remembered, about his great-grandfather's favour with God and about all his preaching, since Enoch gave his son Methuselah no other charge than that he should hand on the knowledge of these things to his descendants. Therefore Noah could without doubt have succeeded to the trust of this preaching; or else because he would not otherwise have kept silent, both about the dispensation of God, his preserver, and about the very glory of his own house. If he did not have this so readily to hand, this too would protect the claim of that scripture: he could equally have re-formed it in the spirit after it had been wiped out by the violence of the flood, just as, when Jerusalem was destroyed in the Babylonian storming, every document of Jewish literature is agreed to have been restored by Ezra. But since Enoch in that same scripture preached about the Lord as well, nothing at all that pertains to us is to be rejected by us. And we read that every scripture fit for edification is divinely inspired. By the Jews it may now seem to have been rejected for that very reason, like nearly all the rest that speaks of Christ. Nor is this at all surprising, if they did not receive some scriptures that spoke of him whom they were not going to receive even when he spoke in their presence. Add to this that Enoch has a testimony in the apostle Jude.

Nimirum enim deus demonstravit sucis herbarum et concharum salivis incoquere lanas. Exciderat illi, cum universa nasci iuberet, purpureas et coccineas oves mandate. Deus et ipsarum vestium officinas commentus, quae leves et exiles solo pretio graves essent, deus et auri tanta opera produxit, compleotendis et distinguendis lapillis, scrupulosa deus et auribus vulnera intulit, et tanti habuit vexationem operis sui et cruciatus infantiae innocentis tunc primum dolentis, ut ex illis ad ferrum nati cor- peris cicatricibus grana nescio quae penderent, quae plane Parthi perenibus quoque suis bullarum vice inserunt. Quamquam et aurum ipsum, cuius vos gloria occupat, cuidam genti ad vincula servire referunt gentilium litterae. Adeo non veritate bona sunt, sed raritate; artibus autem per angelos peccatores, qui et ipsas materias prodiderunt, inductis operositas cum raritate commissa pretiosilatem et ex ea libidinem possidendae pretiositatis feminarum excitavit. Quod si iidem angeli qui et materias eiusmodi et inlecebras detexerunt, auri dico et lapidum inlustrium, et operas eorum tradiderunt, et iam ipsum calliblepharum vellerumque tincturas inter cetera docuerunt, damnati a deo sunt, ut Enoch refert, quomodo placebimus deo, gaudentes rebus illorum qui iram et animadversionem dei propterea provocaverunt? Nunc ut ista prospexerit deus, deus permiserit, nullam de conchylio vestem Esaias increpet, nullum botronatum retundat, nullas lunulas reprobet, tamen non ut gentiles, ita nos quoque nobis adolemur, institutorem solummodo deum existimantes, non etiam despectorem institutorum suorum. Quanto enim utilius et cautius egerimus, si praesumamus omnia quidem a deo provisa tunc et in saeculo posita, uti nunc essent in quibus disciplina servorum eius probaretur, ut per licentiam utendi continentiae experimenta procederent? Nonne sapientes patresfamiliae de industria quaedam servis suis offerunt atque permittunt, ut experiantur, an et qualiter permissis utantur, si probe, si moderate? Quanto autem laudabilior qui abstinuerit in totum, qui timuerit etiam indulgentiam domini? Sic igitur et apostolus, Omnia, inquit, licent, sed non omnia expediunt. Quanto facilius inlicita timebit qui licita verebitur?

No doubt it was God who showed how to steep wool in the juices of herbs and the slime of shellfish! It had slipped his mind, when he ordered all things to be born, to command purple and scarlet sheep. It was God, too, who devised the workshops for those very garments which, light and thin, are heavy only in price; God, too, who brought forth such great works in gold for enclosing and setting off little stones; God, too, who made fine wounds in ears, and set so much value on the torment of his own work and the torture of innocent infancy, then feeling pain for the first time, that from those scars of a body born for the iron there should hang some grains or other, which the Parthians indeed insert even in their boots in place of studs. And yet gold itself, whose glory possesses you, serves a certain nation for chains, so the writings of the Gentiles report. So it is that these things are good not in truth but by rarity; and when the arts had been introduced by the sinful angels, who also betrayed the materials themselves, elaborate workmanship joined with rarity aroused costliness, and from it women's lust to possess what is costly. But if the same angels who uncovered both materials of this kind and their allurements (I mean those of gold and bright stones), and handed down the working of them, and taught, among other things, even eye-paint itself and the dyeing of fleeces, were condemned by God, as Enoch reports, how shall we please God while delighting in the things of those who for this reason provoked God's anger and punishment? Now, granted that God foresaw these things, that God permitted them, that Isaiah finds fault with no garment of purple, beats down no grape-cluster headdress, condemns no little crescents, still let us not, like the Gentiles, flatter ourselves, thinking God only the founder, and not also the one who looks down on what he founded. For how much more usefully and cautiously shall we act, if we presume that all things were indeed provided by God and placed in the world at that time, so that there might now be things by which the discipline of his servants might be tested, so that through the freedom to use, the trials of self-restraint might go forward? Do not wise heads of households purposely offer and allow certain things to their servants, to test whether and how they use what is allowed, whether honestly, whether moderately? But how much more praiseworthy is he who has abstained altogether, who has feared even his master's indulgence? So, then, the apostle too says: 'All things are lawful, but not all things are expedient.' How much more readily will he fear unlawful things who stands in awe of lawful ones?