The mere thought of what she is ought to inspire a
woman with modesty.... On no account must a woman be permitted to
show to a man any portion of her body naked, for fear lest both
fall: the one by gazing eagerly, the other by delighting to
attract those eager glances." (_Paedagogus_, Book II, Chapter V.)
James, Bishop of Nisibis, in the fourth century, was a man of
great holiness. We are told by Thedoret that once, when James had
newly come into Persia, it was vouchsafed to him to perform a
miracle under the following circumstances: He chanced to pass by
a fountain where young women were washing their linen, and, his
modesty being profoundly shocked by the exposure involved in this
occupation, he cursed the fountain, which instantly dried up, and
he changed the hair of the girls from black to a sandy color.
(Jortin, _Remarks on Ecclesiastical History_, vol. iii, p. 4.)
Procopius, writing in the sixth century after Christ, and
narrating how the Empress Theodora, in early life, would often
appear almost naked before the public in the theatre, adds that
she would willingly have appeared altogether nude, but that "no
woman is allowed to expose herself altogether, unless she wears
at least short drawers over the lower part of the abdomen."
Chrysostom mentions, at the end of the fourth century, that
Arcadius attempted to put down the August festival (Majuma),
during which women appeared naked in the theatres, or swimming in
large baths.
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