5.2 Construction of the perception of Imago Dei in a woman in the writings of the Church
5.2.3 Imago Dei through women’s modesty
I want to teach you how Paul…mixes the authority with affection. How does he manage to do it? He says in the Epistle to the Corinthians, ‘Men, love your wives’ (Col 3:19; Eph 5:25)…Paul then says, ‘Wives, respect your husbands’ (Col 3:18; Eph 5:22)…You see how the tyranny is not burdensome when the master is the frenzied lover of the woman who serves, when fear is tempered with love? Thus, the burdensome quality is removed from servitude (quoted in Clark 1983:44).
Chrysostom therefore presents the woman’s servitude as the most ‘natural’ way of responding to man’s ‘generosity’ towards her. In so doing, he makes the woman feel indebted and as though she really deserves the subordinate status as the only way of showing her gratitude. However, the cost of servitude, that the woman offers in return, is much greater and bitterer than the ‘love’ she receives from man.
but cheap ones, because each woman is an Eve: “Do you not know that you are (each) an Eve?”
(Tertullian in Roberts and Donaldson 1956:14). For him, therefore, a woman should rather be dressed in mourning to expiate the sin of Eve, who “crushed the image of God, the man Adam”:
She would carry herself around like Eve, mourning and penitent, that she might more fully expiate by each garment of penitence that which she acquired from Eve…God’s judgment on this sex lives on in our age; the guilt necessarily lives on as well. You are the Devil’s gate-way; you are the unsealer of that tree; you are the first forsakers of the divine law; you are the one who persuaded him whom the Devil was not brave enough to approach; you so lightly crushed the image of God, the man Adam; because of your punishment, that is, death, even the Son of God had to die. And you think to adorn yourselves beyond your ‘tunics of skin’96
In vain do you call in the aid of all the most skilful manufacturers of false hair. God bids you ‘be veiled.’
(Tertullian in Clark 1983:39, cf. translation by Roberts and Donaldson 1956:14).
From this statement, we can gather that Tertullian, like many Fathers, subjected woman to the sin and guilt of Eve. He regards her as the source of sin, and hence, as the cause of the death of Christ. It also reveals that Tertullian believed that it is the man, Adam, who bears the image of God and not Eve.
Tertullian was also sharply opposed to women’s adornment of their hair and upheld the view of veiling. He argued that women who adorn their hair would not meet Christ in the air on the day of the Lord:
97 Some should be seen! And oh that in ‘that day’ of Christian exultation, I, most miserable (as I am), may elevate my head, even though below (the level of) your heels! I shall (then) see whether you will rise with (your) ceruse and rouge and saffron, and in all that parade of head-gear: whether it will be women thus tricked out whom the angels carry up to meet Christ in the air!98
96 He was referring to Gen 3:21.
97 “See 1 Cor. xi. 2-16.”
(quoted in Clark 1983).
98 “See 1 Thess. iv. 13-17.”
It is evident in this statement that Tertullian is referring to the views of Peter and the writer of 1 Timothy that women should not adorn their hair (1 Pet 3:399, 1 Tim 2:9100
You should not let your clothing be conspicuous, nor should you strive to please by your clothes but your behaviour. Do not have such delicate headcoverings that your hairnets show underneath. Do not let any part of your hair remain uncovered nor should you be outside with hair either carelessly strewn or painstakingly arranged (quoted in Clark 1983:139). (He also added)… Even the washing of the body and the use of baths should not be habitual, but allowed at the customary interval of time, that is, once a month (quoted in Clark 1983:140).
) and to Paul’s view that women should be veiled (1 Cor 11:2-16).
Like Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria despised women’s adornment of their hair. He argued:
It is unholy and deceptive for a woman to wear a wig. If the man is the head of the woman, is it not impious for her to deceive him with all that extra hair and at the same time offend the lord by dressing like a harlot, when her own natural hair is so beautiful?
(FC 23:248 quoted in Bray 1999:109).
Chrysostom declared that a woman ought to wear a veil because it is a mark of her subjection.
“Being covered is a mark of subjection and authority. It induces the woman to be humble and preserve her virtue, for the virtue and honour of the governed is to dwell in obedience” (NPNF 112:153 quoted in Bray 1999:109).
Augustine, who built a monastery for women in North Africa after he had come from Italy, also had strict rules for women’s dress in the monastery. The monastery was run by his sister, and among other rules he made for the 400 women who stayed there, he gave prescriptions for how they must dress when they went out and he particularly insisted on proper covering of the head:
99 “Do not adorn yourselves outwardly by braiding your hair, and by wearing gold ornaments or fine clothing” (1Pet 3:3).
100 “also that the women should dress themselves modestly and decently in suitable clothing, not with their hair braided, or with gold, pearls, or expensive clothes” (1Tim 2:9).
Perhaps Augustine felt that an excessive desire of physical cleanness could lead a woman to compromise her inner purity. Nevertheless, would it be that his problem with unruly hair has something to do with African hair? An African woman’s hair is naturally short and perhaps for Augustine it requires a net covering since in itself it neither reflects a woman’s glory, nor does it serve for a covering. According to 1 Cor 11:15,101