Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor 11

For this reason, then, we must not entirely forbid wearing gold or using softer clothing, but we must restrain the irrational impulses, lest they lead us into luxury, carrying us away under the weight of excessive negligence. Luxury is terrible; once it has slipped into excess, it makes one leap and dance and throw off both the charioteer and the tutor, who, looking from afar and pulling back the reins, guides and carries the human horse — the irrational part of the soul concerned with pleasures and shameful desires, ornaments, gold, varied clothing, and every other vanity — toward salvation. Keeping this in mind, we recall the holy saying: "Keep your conduct among the Gentiles good, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God" (1 Peter 2:12). The tutor, therefore, gives us permission to use simple clothing and white color, as we said before, so that we may not cling to what is artificially variegated but to what is natural by birth, rejecting everything deceptive and false to the truth, and welcoming the single-minded and single-faced truth. Sophocles, reproaching a young man for luxury, says: "You are conspicuous in womanly garments." For just as a soldier, a sailor, and a ruler each have their own proper dress — simple, modest, and clean — so also does a self-controlled person. And the law concerning leprosy, given through Moses in the Law, rejects the variegated and heavily spun as unholy, since it resembles the variegated scales of a serpent. It demands that the one who is no longer dyed with varied colors, but completely whitened from head to foot, be clean, so that, having transitioned from the body, we may put away the variegated and cunning passion of the mind and love the simple, unchanging color of truth. Plato, the best of all, who in this matter is an imitator of Moses, accepts that kind of weaving in which no more work is added than befits a self-controlled woman. "White colors, therefore, are suitable for dignity and also for weaving," he says, "and dyes should not be applied except for war ornaments." White is therefore suitable for peaceful and bright people. Just as signs closest to their causes, by being present, signify — or rather show — the existence of the one who produced them, such as smoke indicates fire, and good color and good breathing indicate health, so among us this kind of dress indicates the condition of character. Self-control is pure and simple; purity is a habit that prepares for a pure and unmixed life, unmingled with shameful things, and simplicity is a habit that removes what is superfluous. A thick garment, especially an unwashed one, retains the body's warmth — not because the garment possesses warmth in itself, but because it turns back the warmth escaping from the body and gives it no passage out; and if some cold should enter, the garment holds it, warms it, and in turn warms the body. For this reason we must use such clothing especially in winter. It is also easy to use, and ease of use is a habit without superfluity, receptive of what suffices for a rational, healthy, and blessed life. Let the woman also use simple and dignified dress, softer than what befits a man, but not entirely given over to softness, not overflowing with it.