Tertullian, De Virginibus Velandis

Convertamur ad ipsas iam rationes recensendas per quas apostolus docet velari feminam oportere, an eaodem etiam virginibus competant, ut ex hoc quoque vocabuli communio inter virgines et non virgines constet, dum eaedem velaminis causae in utraque parte deprehenduntur. Si caput mulieris vir est, utique et virginis, de qua fit mulier illa quae nupsit, nisi si virgo tertium genus est monstruosum aliquod sui capitis. Si mulieri turpe est radi sive tonderi, utique et virgini. Proinde viderit saeculum aemulum dei, si ita virgini caesum capillum decori mentitur, quamadmodum et puero permissum. Ergo eui aeque non convenit radi sive tonderi, aeque convenit operiri. Si gloria viri est mulier, quanto magis virgo, quae et gloria sibi est? Si mulier ex viro et propter virum, costa illa Adae virgo primum fuit. Si mulier potestatem habere super caput debet, vel eo iustius virgo, ad quam pertinet quod in causa est. Si enim propter angelos, scilicet quos legimus a deo et caelo excidisse ob concupiscentiam feminarum, quis praesumere potest tales angelos maculata iam corpora et humanae libidinis reliquias desiderasse, ut non ad virgines potius exarserint, quarum flos etiam humanam libidinem excusat? Nam et scriptura sic suggerit: Et factum est, inquit, cum coepissent homines plures fieri super terram, et filiae natae sunt eis; conspicati autem filii dei filias hominum, quod pulchrae essent, acceperunt sibi uxores ex omnibus quas elegerunt. Hic enim nomen mulierum Graecum uxores sapit, quia de nuptiis mentio est. Cum ergo filias hominum dicit, manifeste virgines portendit, quae adhuc apud parentes deputarentur (nam nuptae maritorum nuncupantur), cum potuerit dixisse uxores hominum, aeque non adulteros nominans angelos, sed marites, dum innuptas sumunt filias hominum, quas natas supra dixit, sic quoque virgines significans. Supra natas, at hic angelis nuptas. Aliud eas nescio quam natas et dehinc nuptas. Debet ergo adumbrari facies tam periculosa, quae usque ad caelum scandala iaculata est, ut coram deo adsistens, cui rea est angelorum exterminatorum, ceteris quoque angelis erubescat, et malam illam aliquando libertatem capitis sui comprimat, iam nec hominum oculis offerendam. Sed etsi contaminatas iam feminas angeli illi appetissent, tanto magis propter angelos virgines velari debuissent, quanto magis propter virgines angeli deliquisse potuissent. Si autem et naturae praeiudicium adicit apostolus, quod honor sit mulieris redundantia capillorum, quia coma pro operimento est, utique hoc maxime virgini insigne est, quarum et ornatus ipse proprie sic est, ut concumulata in verticem ipsam capitis arcem ambitu crinium contegat.

Let us turn now to reviewing the actual reasons by which the apostle teaches that a woman ought to be veiled, [to see] whether the same apply also to virgins, so that from this too the sharing of the name between virgins and non-virgins may be established, when the same reasons for the veil are found on both sides. If the man is the head of the woman, surely of the virgin too, from whom comes that woman who has married, unless the virgin is a third kind, some monster that is its own head. If it is shameful for a woman to be shaved or shorn, surely for a virgin too. So let the world, God’s rival, look to it, if it falsely claims that cropped hair is becoming to a virgin, as hair let grow is to a boy. Therefore she for whom it is equally unfitting to be shaved or shorn, for her it is equally fitting to be covered. If woman is the glory of man, how much more the virgin, who is also a glory to herself? If woman is from man and for the sake of man, that rib of Adam was first a virgin. If woman ought to have power over her head, all the more justly the virgin, to whom the reason for it belongs. For if [it is] because of the angels, namely those whom we read fell away from God and heaven through desire for women, who can presume that such angels desired bodies already defiled and the leavings of human lust, rather than burning for virgins, whose bloom excuses even human lust? For Scripture too suggests this: ‘And it came to pass,’ it says, ‘when men had begun to grow more numerous upon the earth, and daughters were born to them, the sons of God, having seen the daughters of men, that they were beautiful, took for themselves wives from all whom they chose.’ For here the Greek word for ‘women’ has the sense of ‘wives’, because marriage is mentioned. When, therefore, it says ‘daughters of men’, it plainly indicates virgins, who would still be counted as belonging to their parents (for married women are named as their husbands’), when it could have said ‘wives of men’; likewise it names the angels not adulterers but husbands, since they take the unmarried daughters of men, whom it said above were born, thus too indicating virgins: above, ‘born’, but here ‘married’ to angels. I know them as nothing other than ‘born’ and then ‘married’. A face so dangerous, then, ought to be shaded, which has hurled stumbling-blocks as far as heaven, so that, standing before God, before whom it stands accused of the angels’ banishment, it may blush before the other angels too, and may at last restrain that evil freedom of its head, which ought now not to be offered even to the eyes of men. But even if those angels had sought women already defiled, all the more ought virgins to have been veiled because of the angels, as it was all the more possible for the angels to have sinned because of virgins. If, moreover, the apostle adds the prior verdict of nature, that abundance of hair is a woman’s honour because hair serves as a covering, surely this is above all the mark of a virgin, whose very adornment is properly such that, heaped up on the crown, it covers the very citadel of the head with a ring of hair.