See the same Vatable Bible, Leviticus chap. xix. verse 27. _Non attondebitis in circuitum comam capitis vestri, neque dissipabitis extremitatem barbæ tuæ._ No precept nor other law whatsoever has since altered this. The divine legislator of our religion, far from changing it, respected it so much, that he submitted to it himself; the Apostles, and all the most holy and respectable followers of the Christian worship, have warmly supported the necessity of wearing a beard; but the purity of precepts, the simplicity of manners, and humble poverty, have disappeared with the times. We have rich pluralists, short mantled Chrysostoms, and prig-parsons; but, divines with venerable beards, fathers of the primitive church, where are you? In the constitution of the Apostles, this precept is again repeated: _The smallest hair of the beard must on no account be clipped_, it is said therein: _Oportet preterea non barbæ pilum corrumpere_.[52] If I trace things on, from the time of the Apostles to the entire establishment of Christianity, I find, that all the fathers, doctors, and saints of the rising church, strongly recommended the custom of wearing the beard, and regarded a bald chin as the mark of infamy and debauchery. Saint Clement the Roman, who lived likewise in the time of the Apostles, after mentioning the Levitican law, which we have already quoted, says, that _God, who created us after his own likeness, will load those with his hatred who violate his law by shaving their chins_.[53] Footnote 52: Lib. i. cap. 3. Footnote 53: This Saint, who was the disciple of St. Peter, succeeded pope Anaclet, A. D. 91. See in his book _Constitutionum Sanctorum Apostolorum_, the chap. entitled _Catholica Doctrina de Laicis_. Saint Clement of Alexandria, in several parts of his learned works, complains highly of this abuse so disgraceful for mankind; he speaks with great warmth against the rakes of his time, who were not ashamed to appear in public close shaved. This saint, who was still a better philosopher than a theologian, does not think it beneath him, in another part of his work, to write the elogy of the beard: _It contributes_, says he, _to the beauty of man, as a fine head of hair does to that of a woman_.[54] Tertullian, especially, says a great deal about beards, and, with his usual eloquence, forcibly attacks the corrupt manners of his age, which had introduced the shameful custom of shaving; he supports his arguments by St. Jerome and St. Clement of Alexandria, and even goes beyond these two holy fathers.[55] Footnote 54: Saint Clement of Alexandria, who is looked upon as the most learned of all the fathers of the Church, lived at the end of the second and beginning of the third century. See his book on theatrical exhibitions, and his Pedagogue, book iii. a work which abbot Fleuri, in his Ecclesiastical history, calls, _an abridgement of the whole Christian moral_. Footnote 55: