Tertullian, On the Apparel of Women Book I
If the faith abiding on earth matched the reward expected in heaven, not one of you, dearest sisters, would have wanted a more joyful — let alone glorious — appearance once you knew the living God and learned the reality of your condition as women. You would not be wallowing in filth, deliberately cultivating squalor, parading yourselves as a weeping, repentant Eve. That would only compound the shame you inherit from her — the ignominy of the first sin, the envy that brought human perdition — which you try to atone for with every ostentatious display. "In pain and anxiety you will bear children, woman, and your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you" (Genesis 3:16). Do you not know you are Eve? God's sentence on this sex still stands in this world: the guilt must live on. You are the devil's gateway. You are the one who unsealed that tree. You are the first deserter of the divine law. You persuaded the man the devil could not attack. You destroyed God's image, man, so easily. Because of your merit — death — even the Son of God had to die. And yet you think to adorn yourself beyond the skins God gave you? Come now: even if from the beginning Milesians sheared sheep, Seres cultivated silk, Tyrians dyed, Phrygians sewed, Babylonians wove, pearls gleamed, coral glittered, gold itself emerged from the earth already tainted by desire, and mirrors already lied — Eve, cast out of paradise, already dead, would have craved these things. So she should neither desire nor know them now if she wants to rise again, because she never had them, never knew them, when she was alive. All this finery is nothing but the trappings of a condemned, dead woman, laid out for a funeral procession.
And the ones who introduced these things are themselves reckoned among those condemned to death: the angels who plunged from heaven to the daughters of men, adding this further disgrace to womankind. They revealed hidden materials and undeclared arts to a far more ignorant world — exposing metalwork, transmitting herbal lore, publicizing incantations, mapping out every curiosity up to astrology — and they specifically handed women these instruments of feminine glory: gemstones for necklaces, gold bands for arms, dyes for wool, black powder to paint the eyes. The quality of the teachers tells you the quality of the lessons: they gave nothing for the sinner's integrity, nothing for the lover's chastity, nothing for the deserter's fear of God. If these are teachings, evil teachers taught evil. If these are rewards for lust, no shameful reward is honorable. What was the point of displaying these things, let alone bestowing them? Could women not please men without splendor's materials, without decoration's artifices — those same raw, rough, uncultivated women who moved angels? Did lovers seem contemptible, using women for nothing, if they brought no bridal gifts? But that misses the point: women who possessed angels, who married into high rank, could desire nothing more. Those angels, after their fleeting lusts, sometimes remembered their fall and sighed for heaven. They repaid women's natural beauty — the very cause of their evil — so that the women's happiness would not benefit them, but so they would be dragged down from simplicity and sincerity into offense against God. They knew full well that all glory, ambition, and affectation of pleasing God through the flesh displeases God. These are the angels we will judge. These are the angels we renounce in baptism. These are the very things by which they deserved to be judged by men. What will their gifts do before their judges? What commerce can the condemned have with the condemned? I think it is like Christ and Belial. With what consistency do we ascend that tribunal to pass sentence on those whose gifts we covet? The same angelic substance is promised to you, the same sex as men, the same dignity of judging — unless we have already prejudged the matter here by condemning their things, which we will condemn in them then. If we do not, they will judge and condemn us.
I know the Book of Enoch, which assigned this order to angels, is rejected by some because it never entered the Jewish canon. They assume it could not have survived the Flood, the destroyer of all things. But they forget: Noah, Enoch's great-grandson, survived the Flood. He heard and remembered, through family tradition, his ancestor's favor with God and all his prophecies. Enoch charged his son Methuselah with one thing: hand this knowledge down. So Noah certainly could have preserved the teaching — either because he never stayed silent about the God who preserved him and the glory of his house, or because, even if the Flood destroyed the text, the Spirit could restore it, just as Ezra restored all Jewish literature after Babylon razed Jerusalem. And since Enoch also prophesied the Lord in that same book, we reject nothing in it that concerns us. We read that "all Scripture is God-breathed and useful for building up" (2 Tim 3:16). The Jews reject it now for the same reason they reject almost everything that speaks of Christ — no surprise, since they would not receive him even speaking in person. Besides, Enoch has the testimony of the apostle Jude. Let no badge of condemnation be pinned on feminine display because of its authors' fate. Charge those angels with nothing but their rejection of heaven and their marriage to flesh. Let us examine the things themselves, so we may also detect the counsels of the desires that drive them. A woman's appearance carries a double aspect: cultivation and ornament. Cultivation is what they call the worldly woman — gold, silver, gems, clothes. Ornament is what properly belongs to the impure woman — care of hair, skin, the body parts that draw the eye. We charge the first with the crime of ambition, the second with the crime of prostitution. So look from here, handmaid of God: which of these fits the discipline you are judged by — the institutions of humility and chastity?
Latin
Si tanta in terris moraretur fides, quanta merces ejus exspectatur in coelis, nulla omnino vestrum, sorores dilectissimae, ex quo Deum vivum cognovisset, et de sua, id est de foeminae conditione didicisset, laetiorem habitum, ne dicam gloriosiorem appetiisset, ut non magis in sordibus ageret, et squalorem potius affectaret, ipsam se circumferens Evam lugentem et poenitentem; quo plenius id quod de Eva trahit (ignominiam dico primi delicti, et invidiam perditionis humanae) omni satisfactionis habitu expiaret. In doloribus et anxietatibus paries, mulier, et ad virum tuum conversio tua; et ille dominabitur tui; et Evam te esse nescis? Vivit sententia Dei super sexum istum, in hoc saeculo: vivat et reatus necesse est. Tu es diaboli janua, tu es arboris illius resignatrix, tu es divinae legis prima desertrix, tu es quae eum persuasisti, quem diabolus aggredi non valuit. Tu imaginem Dei, hominem, tam facile elisisti: propter tuum meritum, id est mortem, etiam Filius Dei mori habuit; et adornari tibi in mente est super pelliceas tuas tunicas? Age nunc, si ab initio rerum et Milesii oves tonderent, et Seres arbores nerent, et Tyrii tinguerent, et Phryges insuerent, et Babylonii intexerent, et margaritae canderent et ceraunia coruscarent, si ipsum quoque aurum jam de terra cum cupiditate prodisset; si jam et speculo tantum mentiri liceret: et haec Eva concupisset de paradiso expulsa, jam mortua, opinor. Ergo nec nunc appetere debet, aut nosse, si cupit reviviscere, quae nec habuerat, nec noverat, quando vivebat. Ideo omnia ista damnatae et mortuae mulieris impedimenta sunt, quasi ad pompam funeris constituta. Nam et illi qui ea constituerunt, damnati in poenam mortis deputantur: illi scilicet angeli, qui ad filias hominum de coelo ruerunt, ut haec quoque ignominia foeminae 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 foeminis instrumentum istud muliebris gloriae contulerunt: lumina lapillorum quibus monilia variantur: et circulos ex auro, quibus brachia arctantur: et medicamenta ex fuco, quibus lanae colorantur: et illum ipsum nigrum pulverem, quo oculorum exordia producuntur. Haec qualia sint, interim jam 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 foeminis 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 coelum suspirabant, illud ipsum bonum foeminarum naturalis decoris, ut caussam mali, sic remuneraverunt, ne eis profuisset felicitas sua, sed ut devectum de simplicitate et sinceritate una cum ipsis in offensam Dei pervenirent. Certi erant omnem, et gloriam, et ambitionem, et affectationem per carnem placendi Deo displicere. Hi sunt nempe angeli quos judicaturi sumus, hi sunt angeli quibus in lavacro renuntiamus; haec sunt utique, per quae ab homine judicari meruerunt. Quid ergo facient apud judices 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, eamdem judicandi dignationem pollicetur: nisi ergo hic jam praejudicaverimus, res eorum praedamnando, quas in illis tunc damnaturi sumus, illi potius nos judicabunt atque damnabunt. Scio scripturam Enoch, quae hunc ordinem angelis dedit, non recipi a quibusdam, quia nec in armarium judaicum 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 ejus; cum Enoch filio suo Mathusalae 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. Perinde potuit abolefactam eam violentia cataclysmi, in spiritu rursus reformare: quemadmodum et Hierosolymis Babylonia expugnatione deletis, omne instrumentum judaicae litteraturae per Esdram constat restauratum. Sed cum Enoch eadem scriptura etiam de Domino praedicarit, a nobis quidem nihil omnino rejiciendum est, quod pertinet ad nos. Et legimus, omnem Scripturam aedificationi habilem divinitus inspirari. A Judaeis potest jam videri propterea rejecta, sicut et caetera 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 Judam Apostolum testimonium possidet. Nulla nunc muliebri pompae nota inusta sit praedamnationis, de exitu auctorum. Nihil angelis illis imputetur, praeter repudium coeli, et matrimonium carnis. Rerum ipsarum qualitates examinemus, ut consilia quoque concupiscentiae earum deprehendamus. Habitus foeminae duplicem speciem circumfert, cultum, ornatum. Cultum dicimus, quem mundum muliebrem vocant; ornatum, quem immundum muliebrem convenit dici. Ille in auro, et argento, et gemmis, et vestibus deputatur: ista in cura capilli, et cutis, et earum partium corporis, quae oculos trahunt. Alteri ambitionis crimen intendimus, alteri prostitutionis: ut jam hinc prospicias, Dei ancilla, quid ex his disciplinae tuae conveniat, quae de diversis institutis censearis, scilicet humilitatis et castitatis.