And those among us who are skilled in speaking,
speak to them, and exhort them in those words which God has given
us. And then we pray, and salute one another, the men the men.
But the women and the maidens will wrap their hands in their
garments; we also, with circumspection and with all purity, our
eyes looking upward, shall wrap our right hand in our garments;
and then they will come and give us the salutation on our right
hand, wrapped in our garments. Then we go where God permits us."
(_Two Epistles Concerning Virginity_; Second Epistle, Chapter
III, vol. xiv. Ante-Nicene Christian Library, p. 384.)
"Women will scarce strip naked before their own husbands,
affecting a plausible pretense of modesty," writes Clement of
Alexandria, about the end of the second century, "but any others
who wish may see them at home, shut up in their own baths, for
they are not ashamed to strip before spectators, as if exposing
their persons for sale. The baths are opened promiscuously to men
and women; and there they strip for licentious indulgence (for,
from looking, men get to loving), as if their modesty had been
washed away in the bath. Those who have not become utterly
destitute of modesty shut out strangers, but bathe with their own
servants, and strip naked before their slaves, and are rubbed by
them, giving to the crouching menial liberty to lust, by
permitting fearless handling, for those who are introduced before
their naked mistresses while in the bath, study to strip
themselves in order to show audacity in lust, casting off fear in
consequence of the wicked custom.
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