601 A Dis&ertation on Beards. [DEC. 



palace, together with the cooks and other servants, who had been accus- 

 tomed to receive the same enormous emoluments. I am a great admirer 

 of the achievements of Julian, but I cannot, as a barber, commend his 

 unjust treatment of the gentlemen of my profession, nor, as a man of taste, 

 applaud his indiscriminate cruelty to the anatomists of the kitchen. Rut, 

 as a nameless archer avenged their wrongs in the plains of Sogdiana, I am 

 willing to obliterate this blemish from his character, in deference to his 

 many rare and memorable virtues. 



Up to this stage of our history, there has been but little ink and no 

 blood shed either in defending or attacking this ornament shall I call it, 

 or deformity of the human countenance. But I am now come to a 

 period pregnant with controversies of various descriptions, and not without 

 its controversy on this particular subject. On the death of Julian, the 

 triumph of Christianity was securely established, and the religion of the 

 fishermen of Galilee became the religion of the Roman world. Its 

 adherents, no longer under the necessity of struggling for existence with 

 the powers that were, began in the fourth and fifth centuries to quarrel 

 with each other about forms and ceremonies, perfectly insignificant and 

 indifferent in themselves. No question was more fiercely battled than 

 that which related to the beards of their clergy. A text in Leviticus 

 expressly commanded the Jewish priests not to mar the corners of their 

 beards. It was urged by one set of theologians, that the command in 

 this text was confined to the Jewish priesthood; and by another, that 

 it extended to the Christian priesthood also. St. Jerome was a staunch 

 advocate of the latter doctrine, and declared a priest without a beard to 

 be a foul and disgraceful nudity. The point was referred to the decision 

 of two general counsels, held at Carthage, in the years 410 and 418; but, 

 unfortunately, we have no means of ascertaining how they decided it. 

 One party gives the words of their judgment thus " Clerici neque comam 

 nutriant, neque barbam" than which nothing can be more clear and 

 explicit. The other, however, comes forward with an old MS. from the 

 Vatican, and gives us the same words, with the addition of another, which 

 entirely alters their meaning " Clerici neque comam nutriant, neque 

 barba,m radant" The history of the church does not afford us any col- 

 lateral help, by which we can affirm either of these versions to be incorrect. 

 If we suppose that these counsels proscribed the beard, we must either 

 conclude that their authority was demurred to by the individuals whom 

 its proscription affected, or disbelieve the story of Paulus Diaconus, that 

 one of the imperial prefects persecuted the monks by smearing their 

 beards with wax and oil, and by then setting them on fire for his private 

 amusement. If, on the contrary, we suppose thai they favoured its growth, 

 what are we to do with the story of Pope J oan, and all its extraordinary 

 incidents ? " If priests had been compelled to wear beards in the early 

 days of the church," says Pierius, "the chair of St. Peter would never have 

 been filled by a profligate woman." Nor, I may add, would Pasquin have 

 had occasion to write his alliterative verses, in commemoration of her 

 imprudence and infamy: 



" Papa, Pater Patriae, Papissae pandito portum 

 Pro Petri porta peperit Papissa Papellum." 



If we look to later decisions of the church for assistance in these our doubts, 

 we find them to be equally dubious and uncertain. The rescript of Alex- 

 ander the Third to the Archbishop of Canterbury, on this subject, is liable 



