The Expositor's Bible: The Acts of the Apostles, Vol. 2Stokes, George Thomas
Religion
The Expositor's Bible: The Acts of the Apostles, Vol. 2
Stokes, George Thomas
Bible. Acts -- Commentaries; Bible. Acts -- Criticism, interpretation, etc.
[100] The early Church has left us a treatise showing how
thoroughly it recognised its duty in this respect. The "Pædagogue"
or the "Instructor" of Clement of Alexandria is a handbook of the
social life of the early Christians, teaching them what to do and
wear and say under every conceivable circumstance. Clement thinks
nothing too trivial for the rule of Christian principle,
prescribing the kind of clothes, shoes, and beds which should be
used. He may seem at times to border on the ludicrous in his
minuteness; but then we cannot realise how profoundly paganism had
corrupted human life and manners. Thus in Book III., ch. xi., he
treats of the management of the hair by men. Paganism had
introduced many sensual practices in this direction. Clement lays
down: "Let the head of men be shaven, unless it has curly hair.
But let the chin have the hair. But let not twisted locks hang far
down from the head gliding into womanish ringlets.... Since
cropping is to be adopted, not on account of elegance, but for the
necessity of the case; the hair of the head, that it may not grow
so long as to come down and interfere with the eyes, and that of
the moustache similarly which is dirtied in eating, is to be cut
round, not by a razor, for that were unbecoming, but by a pair of
cropping scissors. But the hair on the chin is not to be
disturbed, as it gives no trouble, and lends to the face dignity
and paternal terror." This treatise of a very early Christian
writer can be easily consulted in Clark's Ante-Nicene Library.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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