Bad Advertisement?
Are you a Christian?
Online Store:Visit Our Store
| The Rule of Veiling Not Applicable to Children.
PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP 
Chapter XI.—The Rule
of Veiling Not Applicable to Children.
But what we intermitted above for the sake of the
subsequent discussion—not to dissipate its coherence—we
will now discharge by an answer. For when we joined issue about
the apostle’s absolute definition, that “ every
woman” must be understood (as meaning woman) of even
every age, it might be replied by the opposite side, that in
that case it behoved the virgin to be veiled from her nativity,
and from the first entry of her age (upon the roll of time).
But it is not so; but from the time when she
begins to be self-conscious, and to awake to the sense of her own
nature, and to emerge from the virgin’s (sense), and to
experience that novel (sensation) which belongs to the succeeding
age. For withal the founders of the race, Adam and Eve, so long
as they were without intelligence, went “naked;” but after
they tasted of “the tree of recognition,” they were first
sensible of nothing more than of their cause for shame. Thus they
each marked their intelligence of their own sex by a covering.311
But even if it is “on account of
the angels” that she is to be veiled,312
doubtless the age from which the law of the veil will come into
operation will be that from which “the daughters of men”
were able to invite concupiscence of their persons, and to experience
marriage. For a virgin ceases to be a virgin from
the time that it becomes possible for her not to be one.
And accordingly, among Israel, it is unlawful to deliver one to a
husband except after the attestation by blood of her maturity;313
thus, before this indication, the nature is
unripe. Therefore if she is a virgin so long as she is
unripe, she ceases to be a virgin when she is perceived to be
ripe; and, as not-virgin, is now subject to the law, just as she
is to marriage. And the betrothed indeed have the example
of Rebecca, who, when she was being conducted—herself still
unknown—to an unknown betrothed, as soon as she learned that he
whom she had sighted from afar was the man, awaited not the grasp of
the hand, nor the meeting of the kiss, nor the interchange of
salutation; but confessing what she had felt—namely, that she had
been (already) wedded in spirit—denied herself to be a
virgin by then and there veiling herself.314
Oh woman already belonging to
Christ’s discipline! For she showed that marriage likewise,
as fornication is, is transacted by gaze and mind; only that a
Rebecca likewise some do still veil. With regard to the
rest, however (that is, those who are not betrothed), let the
procrastination of their parents, arising from straitened means or
scrupulosity, look (to them); let the vow of continence itself look (to
them). In no respect does (such procrastination) pertain to an
age which is already running its own assigned course, and paying its
own dues to maturity. Another secret mother, Nature, and another
hidden father, Time, have wedded their daughter to their own
laws. Behold that virgin-daughter of yours already
wedded—her soul by expectancy, her flesh by
transformation—for whom you are preparing a second husband!
Already her voice is changed, her limbs fully formed, her
“shame” everywhere clothing itself, the months paying their
tributes; and do you deny her to be a woman whom you assert to
be undergoing womanly experiences? If the contact of a
man makes a woman, let there be no covering except after
actual experience of marriage. Nay, but even among the heathens
(the betrothed) are led veiled to the husband. But if it
is at betrothal that they are veiled, because (then) both in
body and in spirit they have mingled with a male, through the kiss and
the right hands, through which means they first in spirit unsealed
their modesty, through the common pledge of conscience whereby they
mutually plighted their whole confusion; how much more will time veil
them?—(time) without which espoused they cannot be; and by whose
urgency, without espousals, they cease to be virgins. Time
even the heathens observe, that, in obedience to the law of nature,
they may render their own rights to the (different) ages. For
their females they despatch to their businesses from (the age
of) twelve years, but the male from two years later; decreeing
puberty (to consist) in years, not in espousals or nuptials.
“Housewife” one is called, albeit a virgin, and
“house-father,” albeit a stripling. By us not
even natural laws are observed; as if the God of nature were
some other than ours!E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
