Cyprian, when blaming virgins for wearing jewels, necklaces and wool stuffs colored with costly dyes (On the Dress of Virgins, 14.) likewise remarks:
". . . . . All which things sinning and apostate angels put forth by their arts, when, lowered to the contagions of earth, they forsook their heavenly vigor."
When we remember that early Christianity sets its face like a flint against all delights of the senses and that this extreme reaction of the spiritual against the sensuous has largely shaped our social customs of today, we begin to see how important and far-reaching were these opinions of the Church Fathers that feminine adornment had been taught by angels who had sinned in wedding earthly women, and that it was therefore a sinful thing in that it has emanated from a depraved source. Some of the theories built upon this assumption are quite curious. Here are a few:
"That which He Himself has not produced is not pleasing to God, unless He was unable to order sheep to be born with purple and sky-blue fleeces: If He was able, then plainly He was unwilling, what God willed not, of course, ought not to be fashioned."
Tertullian on Female Dress, I. 8.
"For it was God, no doubt, who showed the way to dye wools with the juices of herbs and the humous of conchs: It had escaped Him, when He was bidding the universe come into being, to issue a command for (the production of) purple and scarlet sheep."
Tertul. on Female Press, II. 10.
Why should she walk out adorned? Why with dressed hair, as if she either had or sought for a husband? Rather let her dread to please if she is a virgin * * * * * * * * * It is not right that a virgin should have her hair braided for the appearance of her beauty.
Cyprian on the Dress of Virgins, 5.
"You are bound to please your husbands only. But you will please them in proportion as you take no care to please others. Be ye without carefulness, blessed [sisters]; no wife is "ugly to her own husband." She "pleased" him enough when she was selected [by him as his wife]; whether
