On the Work of Monks 40–41

Now, how lamentably ridiculous, if it can be said, is what they have again found for the defense of their hair! "The apostle," they say, "forbade a man to have long hair; but those who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven are no longer men." O singular madness! Rightly does one who says this arm himself with the counsel of abominable ungodliness against the plain proclamations of holy Scripture, persevere in a crooked path, and try to bring in a pestilent doctrine; for he is not the blessed man who has not walked in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stood in the way of sinners, nor sat in the seat of pestilence. For if he meditated on the law of God day and night, he would find there the apostle Paul himself, who, certainly professing the highest chastity, says, "I would that all men were as I myself am," and yet shows himself to be a man not only by living so but also by speaking so. For he says: "When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I thought as a child, I reasoned as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things." But why should I mention the apostle, when those who say these things do not know what to think even of our Lord and Savior himself? For of whom else is it said: "until we all attain to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the age of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed and carried about by every wind of doctrine, in the trickery of men, in craftiness for the scheming of error"? With this trickery these men deceive the ignorant; with this craftiness and the schemes of the enemy they themselves are carried about, and in their own carrying about they try in a way to spin round the minds of the weak who cling to them, so that together they do not know where they are. For they have heard or read what is written, "As many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ, where there is neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, neither male nor female," and they do not understand that this was said with respect to the desire of carnal sex, because in the inner man, where we are renewed in the newness of our mind, there is no sex of this kind. So let them not deny that they are men because they do nothing with the male sex. For married Christians, who do this, are certainly not Christians in respect of what they have in common with other non-Christians and with the very beasts. For it is one thing that is either granted to weakness or paid to mortal propagation, and another that is sealed by a faithful profession for laying hold of incorruptible and eternal life. So what is commanded to men about not veiling the head is figured in the body indeed, but is enacted in the mind, where the image and glory of God is. The words themselves show it. "A man," he says, "ought not to veil his head, since he is the image and glory of God." And where this image is, he himself declares when he says: "Do not lie to one another, stripping off the old man with his deeds; put on the new, who is renewed in the knowledge of God according to the image of him who created him." Who would doubt that this renewal takes place in the mind? But let even one who doubts hear a plainer statement. For admonishing the same things he says in another place: "As the truth is in Jesus, put off, according to your former way of life, the old man, who is corrupted according to the desires of deceit; and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new man, who has been created according to God." What then? Do women not have this renewal of mind, where the image of God is? Who would say this? But by the sex of their body they do not signify it; that is why they are commanded to be veiled. For by the very fact that they are women they signify that part which can be called the part of desire, over which the mind rules, the mind itself being subject to its God, when life is lived most rightly and in most orderly fashion. So what in one human being is mind and desire (the one rules, the other is ruled; the one governs, the other is subject), this is figured in two human beings, man and woman, according to the sex of the body. Speaking of this sacrament, the apostle says that the man ought not to be veiled, but the woman ought to be. For the mind is advanced to higher things the more gloriously, the more carefully desire is restrained from lower things, until the whole human being, with this body too, now mortal and frail, is clothed with incorruption and immortality in the final resurrection, and death is swallowed up in victory.

Therefore let those who are unwilling to do what is right at least stop teaching what is perverse. But those whom we rebuke in this discourse are others; as for those who give offense and disturb the church by this one fault of their hair, let grow against the apostolic precept (for while some, unwilling to think anything bad of them, are forced to twist the plain words of the apostle into a perverse meaning, and others prefer to defend the sound understanding of the Scriptures rather than flatter any men, most bitter and most dangerous disputes arise between the weaker and the stronger brothers; and if those men perhaps knew this, they would without doubt correct this too, whose other qualities we admire and love): those, then, we do not rebuke, but ask and beseech, by the divinity and humanity of Christ and by the love of the Holy Spirit, that they no longer put this stumbling block before the weak, for whom Christ died, and increase the pain and torment of our heart, when we think how much more readily bad men can imitate this evil to deceive people, when they see it in those whom, for so many other good things, we honor with the due services of Christian love. But if, after this admonition, or rather entreaty, of ours, they think they must persist in it, we shall do nothing else but grieve and groan. Let them know this; it is enough: if they are servants of God, let them have pity; if they do not have pity, I do not wish to say anything harsher. All these things, then, in which I have perhaps been more talkative than your occupations and mine would wish, make known, if you approve, to our brothers and sons for whose sake you deigned to lay this burden on me; but if anything seems to need withdrawing or correcting, let me know by your blessedness's reply.