Annotatio CCXLIV

”The priests shall not shave their head.” — Ezekiel 44:20

Jerome’s explanation, appended to this passage, the heretics of our times usurp against the ecclesiastical Traditions concerning the shaving off of the hair and beard of priests.¹ Of their number, a certain Hortensius Landus [Ortensio Lando], a deserter of the Augustinian profession, put out a booklet peculiar to this argument, prefaced with a title impiously enough jocose — On the Persecution of Beards² — in which, with various and shameless jests, revilings, and blasphemies, he attacks the Clerics, and especially the monks, who observe the religious institute of shaving the crown and the chin; wresting against them several testimonies of divine Scripture, and the sayings of Catholic interpreters — among which is the explanation of the proposed clause, expressed by Jerome in the thirteenth commentary on Ezekiel in these words: “But that which follows — ‘They shall not shave their head,’ etc.³ — plainly demonstrates that we ought not, like the priests and worshippers of Isis and Serapis, [to be] with shaven heads, nor again to let down the hair — which is properly luxurious and barbarian — but that the honorable habit of priests should be shown by the countenance; and that baldness is not to be made by the razor, nor the head to be shorn so close that we seem to be like shaven men, but the hair to be let down only so far that the skin be covered.” And after a few [words]: “The superstition of the gentiles has shaven heads; but I do not think that any of the Gentiles abstains from wine.” Again, in book six on Isaiah, elucidating that, “In all heads [there shall be] baldness, and every beard shall be shaven,”⁴ etc., he says: “If virility was seen to be had in the beard, [then], with it shaved off from an ecclesiastical man, he is proved effeminate and weak.” And again, in book three on Isaiah, expounding that threat of God, “In that day the Lord shall shave with a razor,”⁵ etc.: “Therefore,” he says, “with that most sharp razor — that is, in the king of the Syrians [Assyrians] — all the hairs, and the comeliness of the beard (which is a sign of virility), the Lord shall shave from Judaea, that nothing in that” #### “The priests shall not shave their head.” — Ezekiel 44:20

(Jerome on Isaiah 7:20 concludes:) “…that nothing in that [Judaea] perchance remain beautiful, but that it be compared to effeminate men, nay to ignominious women.”

To this sentence of Jerome is annexed another, of Epiphanius, bishop of Salamis, who, in the third volume of the Panarion, contending against the Massalians [Messalians], affirms that it was sanctioned by the Apostles, by the authority of divine Scripture, that the beard should not be shaved. His words are these: “Brethren who live in the monasteries throughout Mesopotamia — what is worse — cut off the beard, the form [mark] of a man, but often nourish the hair of the head. And yet concerning the beard indeed the divine Scripture says, in the Constitutions and the doctrine of the Apostles: ‘Thou shalt not corrupt’ — that is, ‘Thou shalt not cut off the hairs of the beard,⁶ nor after the manner of a harlot make thyself wild on account of [thy] hair.’”

There is joined to Epiphanius Clement of Alexandria, presbyter, the preceptor of Origen,⁷ in the third book of the Paedagogus, chapter 11, thus writing: “The hairs of men — lest they be too much let down from the head — glide into a womanish mane; for to men the beard suffices; because, if anyone also trim the beard somewhat, yet it is not to be altogether denuded: for it is a base spectacle, and a beard shorn down to the skin does not seem to be far from plucking and laceration. For the psalmographer [was] delighted with a beard as with a mane, [saying,] ‘As the ointment,’ he says, ‘which descends into the beard, the beard of Aaron’⁸ — who, with the beard by [its] doubling adorning [him], praised the comeliness, [and] gladdened the countenance with the ointment of the Lord. The hairs, therefore, are to be shorn — not with the razor, for this is illiberal, but with the scissors of barbers. But the hairs of the beard, which bring no annoyance, are not to be vexed, as [those] which bring a gravity to the countenance, and strike in a certain paternal awe.”

These sayings of the Fathers, Hortensius confirms with the authorities of divine Scripture — by which he not only reproves this custom of shaving, but also blames that form of shearing which the clerics now use, the head being shorn in the manner of a crown [the tonsure]. And [he says] that concerning shaving indeed it is written, by prohibition, in Ezekiel: [a] “The priests shall not shave their head”;⁹ and concerning Samuel the priest: [b] “A razor shall not pass over his head all the days of his life”;¹⁰ and in Numbers, to him who has consecrated himself to God, it is said: [c] “A razor shall not pass over his head all the time of his consecration”;¹¹ and in Leviticus it is commanded to all: [d] “You shall not shave your beard, nor shall you make marks upon you”;¹² whence also, in the epistle of Jeremiah [in Baruch], the Prophet, detesting the rite of the priests of Babylon shaving [their] head and beard, says: [e] “In the houses of the idols the priests sit, having torn tunics, and their head and beard shaven, whose heads are bare.”¹³ But concerning the circular shearing of the head, he says that God commanded in Leviticus: [f] “You shall not shear your hair round, nor shave your beard”;¹⁴ and in Jeremiah God, threatening dispersion to the contemners of this law, says: [g] “I will disperse into every wind those who are shorn round in [their] hair.”¹⁵

And these are [the things] which that uncowled deserter [transfuga] brought into his booklet against the sacred custom of shearing and shaving — before approved by himself for a long time — intermixed with jests, gibes, and impure fables; to whom we briefly respond that neither by divine laws, nor by any decrees of the Fathers, is the shearing or shaving of the head and the chin simply prohibited; but, on the contrary, we assert that the custom of shearing was received both from God, and from the Church, and in a manner from the very laws of nature herself.

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For, writing concerning the natural law of shearing, Paul, in the first [epistle] to the Corinthians, says: “Nature itself teaches you, that if a man nourish [long] hair, it is an ignominy to him; but if a woman nourish [long] hair, it is a glory to her: because the hairs are given to her for a veil; and it is base for a woman to be shorn, or made bald.”¹⁶ Expounding which words, Chrysostom says: “Nature has given to the human race, even in the dressing of the hairs, a presidency [rule], and the symbols of subjection. For it bade the man, with the hair cut, to display with a free and uncovered head the sign of principality; but the woman it willed to wear the hair [long], as a certain veil of submission, and a mark of servitude. As, therefore, a woman — if, with hair cut off and head bared, she shall have usurped the man’s symbol against the order of nature — disfigures herself; so a man, if — the dignity of his power being neglected — he shall have assumed the womanish [long] hair, shall affect himself with ignominy, bearing the mark of servitude and the token of an effeminate soul. Since, therefore, men are all persuaded by the instinct of nature to the shearing of the hair, how much more consentaneous is it that Priests — who, in the dignity of [their] office and by the example of [their] life, ought to preside over the rest — should bear about the insignia of virile presidency, with the womanish hair shorn?”

But that God very often commanded the shearing of the hair and beard, and the shaving [abrasion], the sacred letters teach us — in which it is written that the Nazarites, the hair being first kept [grown], at length, after a great continence of life, shaved the head, and were bidden to put the hairs into the fire of the sacrifice;¹⁷ that by this visible sign they might be admonished to cut away from themselves all the superfluous goods of the present life (which are signified by the superfluities of the hairs of the human body), and to sacrifice [them] in the service of God. This also we read to have been commanded to Ezekiel the prophet and priest, God saying to him: “Thou, son of man, take to thyself a sharp razor, shaving the hairs, and thou shalt lead it over [thy] head, and over thy beard.”¹⁸ And in the Acts of the Apostles, Luke committed to memory that Priscilla and Aquila, the vow of the Nazarites being undertaken, shaved the hair in Cenchreae, the port of the Corinthians;¹⁹ and that the same [was] done, not long after, at Jerusalem, by Paul, at the exhortation of James the Apostle, together with very many other disciples of Christ.²⁰

Moreover, that this very thing was established by Ecclesiastical sanctions from the very beginning of the nascent Church, Isidore, bishop of Hispalis [Seville], is witness, in the second book On Ecclesiastical Offices, chapter four, thus writing: “The use of the ecclesiastical tonsure — arisen, if I err not, from the Nazarites — was introduced into the Church by the Apostles, that those who, dedicated to divine worship, should be consecrated to the Lord as Nazarites (that is, saints of God), might be renewed with the hair cut off.” Which sentence of Isidore, that it is true, the epistle of Anicetus the pontiff [pope] confirms — written not long from the times of the Apostles to the bishops of Gaul — in which also these things, among the rest, are had: “Prohibit, brethren, throughout all the Churches of your regions, that Clerics — who ought to be an example of virtue, honesty, chastity, and gravity to the laity and the simple, and prudently to exhibit themselves, as a sign of a purer life, to the ruder [sort] for imitation — should, according to the Apostle, not nourish the hair [long], but should shave the head above in the manner of a sphere: because, as they ought to be set apart in [their] manner of life, so also in the tonsure, and in every habit, ought they to appear set apart.” There is extant also, in the fourth Council of Carthage — which, in the year of our salvation 416,” #### “The priests shall not shave their head.” — Ezekiel 44:20

(the Fourth Council of Carthage, held in the year of our salvation 416, continues:) was collected [held], the canon numbered forty-fourth, in these words:²¹ “Clerics shall neither nourish the hair, nor the beard.” It is had likewise, in the fourth synod of Toledo (celebrated a thousand years ago from now), another canon, forty-second in order, prescribing the form and figure of the ecclesiastical tonsure in this manner: “Let all clerics, or readers, like the levites and priests, the head being shorn entirely above, leave below only the crown of a circle [the ring]; not as hitherto the readers in the parts of Galicia are seen to do, who, with prolix [hair], like laics, shear a slight little circle only on the top of the head. For this rite hitherto in the Spains was of the heretics; whence it behooves that, for cutting off scandal from the Churches, this sign of dishonor be taken away, and that there be one tonsure, or habit, as is the use of all Spain. But he who shall not have kept this shall be guilty [of an offense] against the Catholic faith.”

Isidore of Hispalis [Seville], in the book which we just now cited, referring the causes of the ecclesiastical tonsure, says that the Church instituted this in the first place,²² that, as clerics ought to be distinct from the laics in the manner of living, and conspicuous among them by probity of life, so by a certain distinct cultivation of the head it behooved them to be discerned from the rest of the seculars — which also the decree of Anicetus openly indicates, saying, “that, as they ought to be distinct from others in [their] conversation, so let them be distinct in the tonsure and habit.”

Secondly, that clerics by this external symbol of the shorn head might be taught that they should bear within, in the mind (whose seat the head is said to be), that which it would be right [to bear] — that is, to cut away the superfluous cares of the flesh (which the superfluity of the hairs adumbrates) together with the hairs; and to cast away crimes [sins] with the tresses; and to lay aside the carnal and womanish mind together with the carnal and womanish hair; and to impose a new and virile mind, virilely, upon the shorn head.

Thirdly, that in the Clerics the insignia of each dignity — namely, the royal and the sacerdotal — might be beheld. For as in the old Law the Priests placed upon the head the tiara (that is, a little cap having the figure of a half-sphere), but the kings girded [their] temples with a golden crown: so now the upper portion of the head, shorn to the likeness of a hemispherical tiara, displays the sacerdotal dignity; but the garland of hairs, led round the temples in the manner of a crown, represents the likeness of royal majesty — so that plainly that sentence of Peter may suit the clerics: “You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood.”²³

Fourthly, Germanus, bishop of Constantinople, in the explanation of the divine Liturgy, and Bede the presbyter in [his] history, add a fourth cause of a rite of this kind: that, when the Jews, in contumely of the Christian name, had shaved Peter — preaching at Antioch — in the upper part of the head, the later pontiffs and bishops, imposing upon their own heads, for the sake of humility, the ignominy inflicted upon Peter, changed it into an ornament and glory of the Christian priesthood. And these, they report, were the causes of the shearing of the head.

The reason for shaving the beard, Bede, in the commentaries on Ezra, says was instituted for the recollection of humility²⁴ — namely, lest men dedicated to God should be extolled into pride by the magnitude or multitude of their virtues. For since the beard, which is [a mark] of the virile sex and of age, signifies

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the right hand, fortitude, prudence, and the other virtues worthy of a perfect man — therefore holy men are bidden to cut it off, or shave it away, that from this they may understand that they ought to cast away all confidence in their own virtue, and to remember that their virtues, howsoever great and many, are mingled with vices, and that accordingly they are few and small, or almost none, if they be examined by the scrutiny of the divine equity — David saying: “Enter not into judgment with thy servant, O Lord, because no living [man] shall be justified in thy sight”;²⁵ and Job: “If I wish to justify myself, and to show myself innocent, God will prove me depraved.”²⁶ From these, therefore, it is manifest that the tonsure is not only approved by the Divine and Ecclesiastical Laws, but is even enjoined for many and just causes.

But, that we may respond to those [testimonies] which seem to shake this determination, it must be known that those [things] which Hortensius brought against us are distinguished in a twofold order. In the first are placed the testimonies of Scripture, which do not interdict shaving or shearing to all persons, and everywhere, and always, but to certain persons, places, and times — that is, only to the Nazarites, until they should fulfill [their] vow, or only to the Levites, until they should tarry in the holy land, and while the temple at Jerusalem stood, in which alone they could sacrifice, and exercise the other things pertaining to the sacrifice. For there, and for that time, and to the priests alone, God commanded that they should not shave the head and beard, that they might be as far as possible from the superstition of the neighboring nations — whose priests, as is read in the epistle of Jeremiah,²⁷ with head and chin shaven, sacrificed to the idols. But now neither do the priests of the Jews, cast out of Palestine, abstain from shaving, nor are the Christian priests prohibited from it — whom Christ, by his death, freed from the laws of the ancient priesthood. To this order, therefore, pertain [those things] which God imposed upon the Nazarites in the book of Numbers,²⁸ and commanded concerning shaving to the priests, whether through Moses, or through Ezekiel, or through the other prophets.

In the second order are the oracles of the Scriptures and the sayings of the covenant, which seem to prohibit shearing and shaving — when nevertheless they forbid neither, but only restrain the perverse intention, and the depraved custom of those shearing and shaving: of whom some, persuaded by a vain superstition, shaved themselves in imitation of the gentile priests; others, led by a certain womanish softness, shaved the beard, that they might make themselves effeminate — as Suetonius relates concerning certain Roman Emperors: that Julius Caesar shaved the beard with such diligence and fastidiousness that he even plucked out the hairs, not without reproach; but that Otho daily shaved the face, and smeared [it] with moist bread, and instituted this from the first down [of youth], that he might never be bearded. Such an impious use, therefore, and the wicked custom of shaving and shearing, Jerome, Clement, Epiphanius, and the apostolic — nay, the divine — law condemn: [the law] cited by Epiphanius from chapter 19 of Leviticus: “You shall not shear the hair round, nor shave the beard.”²⁹ For thus does Theodoret, bishop of Cyrus [Cyrrhus], explain it, in question 28 on Leviticus, saying: “Certain [interpreters] — that which the Seventy rendered, ‘You shall not make a σισόην [sisoe, a curl] out of the hair of your head, nor…’” ### ANNOTATIO CCXLIV (concluded)

“The priests shall not shave their head.” — Ezekiel 44:20

(Theodoret continues:) ”‘…corrupting your face [with] your beard’ they have interpreted [as] ‘the hairs made curly of set purpose.’ But I think that something else is interdicted by the law: for it is the custom among the Greeks, in boys, not to shear the extremities of the hairs, but to let the hairs grow long, and some time after to dedicate them to the Demons. They were wont also to shave the beard when they mourned someone, and to cut the cheeks in honor of the dead; and moreover they pierced some parts of the body with a needle, and clothed [themselves] in black in reverence of the Demons. These things, therefore, are interdicted by the divine law.”

But Thomas, the presbyter Cardinal [Cajetan], thinks that no mention of the tonsure is made here; for thus he writes in the commentaries: “In the Hebrew is had לא תקפו פאת ראשכם [Lo thakkiphu peath roschem], that is, ‘You shall not round the corner of your head.’ Nothing is said of shearing, but of rounding; and I would believe that the superstition of the garlands is restrained, which garlanded the heads of those celebrating the sacred [rites] of the Gods: for, crowned with a circle of the ivy sacred to Bacchus, they celebrated [them], as the book of Maccabees relates. Nor ‘shalt thou shave the beard’ — in Hebrew ולא תשחית את פאת זקנך [Ve lo thaschid eth peath zechanecha], that is, ‘And thou shalt not destroy the corner of thy beard.’ There is interdicted, to the letter, the total shaving of the corners of the beard; and there are called ‘corners of the beard,’ as the Hebrews testify, the uppermost parts of the beard, which are joined to the temples; and to this day the Hebrews keep these corners hairy, although they shave the rest of the beard.”