Tertullian

“ Grand is the benefit conferred by the Mantle, at the thought whereof moral improbity absolutely blushes. Let philosophy now see to the question of her own profitableness; for she is not the only associate whom I boast. Other scientific arts of public utility I boast. From my store are clothed the first teacher of the forms of letters, the first explainer of their sounds, the first trainer in the rudiments of arithmetic, the grammarian, the rhetorician, the sophist, the medical man, the poet, the musical timebeater, the astrologer, and the birdgazer. ”

“ A philosopher, in fact, is heard so long as he is seen. My very sight puts vices to the blush. Who suffers not, when he sees his own rival? Who can bear to gaze ocularly at him at whom mentally he cannot? ”

“ Well! what a circuit has it taken! from Pelasgians to Lydians; [7] from Lydians to Romans: in order that from the shoulders of the sublimer people it should descend to embrace Carthaginians! Henceforth, finding your tunic too long, you suspend it on a dividing cincture; and the redundancy of your now smooth toga [8] you support by gathering it together fold upon fold; and, with whatever other garment social condition or dignity or season clothes you, the mantle, at any rate, which used to be worn by all ranks and conditions among you, you not only are unmindful of, but even deride. ”

“ Whence comes it that men shaggy and hirsute learn to teach the resin [40] to feed on their arms with such rapacity, the tweezers to weed their chin so thievishly? A prodigy it is, that all this should be done without the Mantle! To the Mantle appertains this whole Asiatic practice! What hast thou, Libya, and thou, Europe, to do with athletic refinements, which thou knowest not how to dress? For, in sooth, what kind of thing is it to practise Greekish depilation more than Greekish attire? ”

“ There is really no garment the doffing whereof congratulates a man more than the gown’s does. [64] Of shoes we say nothing—implements as they are of torture proper to the gown, most uncleanly protection to the feet, yes, and false too. For who would not find it expedient, in cold and heat, to stiffen with feet bare rather than in a shoe with feet bound? A mighty munition for the tread have the Venetian shoe-factories provided in the shape of effeminate boots! Well, but, than the Mantle nothing is more expedite, even if it be double, like that of Crates. ”

“ Each fashion of changing was evil: the one opposed to nature, the other contrary to safety.
Still more disgraceful was the case when lust transfigured a man in his dress, than when some maternal dread did so: and yet adoration is offered by you to me, whom you ought to blush at,—that Clubshaftandhidebearer, who exchanged for womanly attire the whole proud heritage of his name! Such licence was granted to the secret haunts of Lydia, [47] that Hercules was prostituted in the person of Omphale, and Omphale in that of Hercules. ”

“ So, too, the posterity of Hercules, in like wise, proceed to occupy the Peloponnesus for the behoof of Temenus. So, again, the Ionian comrades of Neleus furnish Asia with new cities: so, again, the Corinthians with Archias, fortify Syracuse. But antiquity is by this time a vain thing (to refer to) , when our own careers are before our eyes. How large a portion of our orb has the present age [31] reformed! how many cities has the triple power of our existing empire either produced, or else augmented, or else restored! ”

“ None is born for another, being destined to die for himself. At all events, when we come to the Epicuri and Zenones, you give the epithet of ‘sages’ to the whole teacherhood of Quietude, who have consecrated that Quietude with the name of ‘supreme’ and ‘unique’ pleasure. ”

“ Men of Carthage, ever princes of Africa, ennobled by ancient memories, blest with modern felicities, I rejoice that times are so prosperous with you that you have leisure to spend and pleasure to find in criticising dress. ”

“ Not sufficiently swelling of spirit was the Macedonian, unless he had likewise found delight in a highly inflated garb: only that philosophers withal (I believe) themselves affect somewhat of that kind; for I hear that there has been (such a thing as) philosophizing in purple. If a philosopher (appears) in purple, why not in gilded slippers [54] too? For a Tyrian [55] to be shod in anything but gold, is by no means consonant with Greek habits. Some one will say, “Well, but there was another [56] who wore silk indeed, and shod himself in brazen sandals.” ”

“ Nor less warmly does the force of vainglory also work for the mutation of clothing, even while manhood is preserved. Every affection is a heat: when, however, it is blown to (the flame of) affectation, forthwith, by the blaze of glory, it is an ardour. From this fuel, therefore, you see a great king [53] —inferior only to his glory—seething. He had conquered the Median race, and was conquered by Median garb. Doffing the triumphal mail, he degraded himself into the captive trousers! The breast dissculptured with scaly bosses, by covering it with a transparent texture he bared ”

“ From any and every boundary-stone or altar it is my wont to prescribe medicines to morals—medicines which will be more felicitous in conferring good health upon public affairs, and states, and empires, than your works are. ”

“ For in primitive days not only was the earth, for the greater part of her circuit, empty and uninhabited; but if any particular race had seized upon any part, it existed for itself alone. And so, understanding at last that all things worshipped themselves, (the earth) consulted to weed and scrape her copiousness (of inhabitants) , in one place densely packed, in another abandoning their posts; in order that thence (as it were from grafts and settings) peoples from peoples, cities from cities, might be planted throughout every region of her orb. ”

“ The transfer of dress approximates to culpability just in so far as it is not custom, but nature, which suffers the change. There is a wide enough difference between the honour due to time, and religion. ”

“ With the word the garment entered. And accordingly the very man who used to sentence Greeks to extrusion from the city, but learned (when he was now advanced in years) their alphabet and speech—the self-same Cato, by baring his shoulder at the time of his prætorship, showed no less favour to the Greeks by his mantle-like garb.
Chapter 4 Change Not Always Improvement. Why, now, if the Roman fashion is (social) salvation to every one, are you nevertheless Greek to a degree, even in points not honourable? ”

“ Praising, therefore, our orb in its mutations, why do you point the finger of scorn at a man?
Chapter 3 Beasts Similarly Subject to the Law of Mutation. Beasts, too, instead of a garment, change their form. And yet the peacock withal has plumage for a garment, and a garment indeed of the choicest; nay, in the bloom of his neck richer than any purple, and in the effulgence of his back more gilded than any edging, and in the sweep of his tail more flowing than any train; many-coloured, diverse-coloured, and versi-coloured; never itself, ever another, albeit ever itself when other ”

“ It corresponded in general use to the Roman toga, but in the earlier Roman language, that of republican times, was as distinctively suggestive of a Greek costume as the toga of that of Rome.” To Tertullian, therefore, his preference for the pallium was doubtless commended by all these considerations; and the distinctively Greek character of Christian theology was indicated also by his choice. He loved the learning of Alexandria, and reflected the spirit of the East. ”

“ If Oehler’s reading be retained, we may render: “a covering for the shoulder, it exposes or encloses it at will.”↑ i.e., the “shoeing” appropriate to the mantle will consist at most of sandals; “shoes” being (as has been said) suited to the gown.↑ “Erat.”—Oehler, who refers to “errat” as the general reading, and (if adopted) renders: “This sentiment errs (or wanders) in all directions;” ”

“ I suppose the mane, too, submitted to the comb) for fear of getting her tender neck imbued with lionly toughness. The yawning mouth stuffed with hair, the jaw-teeth overshadowed amid the forelocks, the whole outraged visage, would have roared had it been able. Nemea, at all events (if the spot has any presiding genius) , groaned: for then she looked around, and saw that she had lost her lion. What sort of being the said Hercules was in Omphale’s silk, the description of Omphale in Hercules’ hide has inferentially depicted. ”

“ The shoulder it either exposes or encloses: [67] in other respects it adheres to the shoulder; it has no surrounding support; it has no surrounding tie; it has no anxiety as to the fidelity with which its folds keep their place; easily it manages, easily readjusts itself: even in the doffing it is consigned to no cross until the morrow. If any shirt is worn beneath it, the torment of a girdle is superfluous: if anything in the way of shoeing is worn, it is a most cleanly work ”

“ White and Riddle) , which Tertullian either purposely connects with “cloaca,” a sewer (with which, indeed, it may be really connected, as coming derivatively from the same root) , and takes to mean “the nymphs of the sewers” apparently.↑ The nymphs above named (Oehler) .↑ i.e., are worn by his votaries.↑ i.e., Christianity. Cf. 1 Cor. ii. 6, 7.↑ Toga.↑ Or, “forcipes.”↑ Of course the meaning is, “on the doffing of which a man congratulates himself more,” etc.; but Tertullian as it were personifies the act of doffing, and represents it as congratulating the doffer ”