Beards!

[Tsuzuki]

[BCSpace]

But for one who is a man to comb himself and shave himself with a razor, for the sake of fine effect, to arrange his hair at the looking-glass, to shave his cheeks, pluck hairs out of them, and smooth them, how womanly! And, in truth, unless you saw them naked, you would suppose them to be women. For although not allowed to wear gold, yet out of effeminate desire they enwreath their latches and fringes with leaves of gold; or, getting certain spherical figures of the same metal made, they fasten them to their ankles, and hang them from their necks. This is a device of enervated men, who are dragged to the women's apartments, amphibious and lecherous beasts. For this is a meretricious and impious form of snare. For God wished women to be smooth, and rejoice in their locks alone growing spontaneously, as a horse in his mane; but has adorned man, like the lions, with a beard, and endowed him, as an attribute of manhood, with shaggy breasts,--a sign this of strength and rule. So also cocks, which fight in defence of the hens, he has decked with combs, as it were helmets; and so high a value does God set on these locks, that He orders them to make their appearance on men simultaneously with discretion, and delighted with a venerable look, has honoured gravity of countenance with grey hairs. But wisdom, and discriminating judgments that are hoary with wisdom, attain maturity with time, and by the vigour of long experience give strength to old age, producing grey hairs, the admirable flower of venerable wisdom, conciliating confidence. This, then, the mark of the man, the beard, by which he is seen to be a man, is older than Eve, and is the token of the superior nature. In this God deemed it right that he should excel, and dispersed hair over man's whole body. Whatever smoothness and softness was in him He abstracted from his side when He formed the woman Eve, physically receptive, his partner in parentage, his help in household management, while he (for he had parted with all smoothness) remained a man, and shows himself man. And to him has been assigned action, as to her suffering; for what is shaggy is drier and warmer than what is smooth. Wherefore males have both more hair and more heat than females, animals that are entire than the emasculated, perfect than imperfect. It is therefore impious to desecrate the symbol of manhood, hairiness. But the embellishment of smoothing (for I am warned by the Word), if it is to attract men, is the act of an effeminate person,--if to attract women, is the act of an adulterer; and both must be driven as far as possible from our society. "But the very hairs of your head are all numbered," says the Lord; those on the chin, too, are numbered, and those on the whole body. There must be therefore no plucking out, contrary to God's appointment, which has counted them in according to His will. "Know ye not yourselves," says the apostle, "that Christ Jesus is in you?" Whom, had we known as dwelling in us, I know not how we could have dared to dishonour. But the using of pitch to pluck out hair (I shrink from even mentioning the shamelessness connected with this process), and in the act of bending back and bending down, the violence done to nature's modesty by stepping out and bending backwards in shameful postures, yet the doers not ashamed of themselves, but conducting themselves without shame in the midst of the youth, and in the gymnasium, where the prowess of man is tried; the following of this unnatural practice, is it not the extreme of licentiousness? For those who engage in such practices in public will scarcely behave with modesty to any at home. Their want of shame in public attests their unbridled licentiousness in private.

For he who in the light of day denies his manhood, will prove himself manifestly a woman by night. "There shall not be," said the Word by Moses, "a harlot of the daughters of Israel; there shall not be a fornicator of the sons of Israel."

But the pitch does good, it is said. Nay, it defames, say I. No one who entertains right sentiments would wish to appear a fornicator, were he not the victim of that vice, and study to defame the beauty of his form. No one would, I say, voluntarily choose to do this. "For if God foreknew those who are called, according to His purpose, to be conformed to the image of His Son," for whose sake, according to the blessed apostle, He has appointed "Him to be the first-born among many brethren," are they not godless who treat with indignity the body which is of like form with the Lord?

The man, who would be beautiful, must adorn that which is the most beautiful thing in man, his mind, which every day he ought to exhibit in greater comeliness; and should pluck out not hairs, but lusts. I pity the boys possessed by the slave-dealers, that are decked for dishonour. But they are not treated with ignominy by themselves, but by command the wretches are adorned for base gain. But how disgusting are those who willingly practise the things to which, if compelled, they would, if they were men, die rather than do?

But life has reached this pitch of licentiousness through the wantonness of wickedness, and lasciviousness is diffused over the cities, having become law. Beside them women stand in the stews, offering their own flesh for hire for lewd pleasure, and boys, taught to deny their sex, act the part of women.

Luxury has deranged all things; it has disgraced man. A luxurious niceness seeks everything, attempts everything, forces everything, coerces nature. Men play the part of women, and women that of men, contrary to nature; women are at once wives and husbands: no passage is closed against libidinousness; and their promiscuous lechery is a public institution, and luxury is domesticated. O miserable spectacle! horrible conduct! Such are the trophies of your social licentiousness which are exhibited: the evidence of these deeds are the prostitutes. Alas for such wickedness! Besides, the wretches know not how many tragedies the uncertainty of intercourse produces. For fathers, unmindful of children of theirs that have been exposed, often without their knowledge, have intercourse with a son that has debauched himself, and daughters that are prostitutes; and licence in lust shows them to be the men that have begotten them.

These things your wise laws allow: people may sin legally; and the execrable indulgence in pleasure they call a thing indifferent. They who commit adultery against nature think themselves free from adultery. Avenging justice follows their audacious deeds, and, dragging on themselves inevitable calamity, they purchase death for a small sum of money. The miserable dealers in these wares sail, bringing a cargo of fornication, like wine or oil; and others, far more wretched, traffic in pleasures as they do in bread and sauce, not heeding the words of Moses, "Do not prostitute thy daughter, to cause her to be a whore, lest the land fall to whoredom, and the land become full of wickedness."

Such was predicted of old, and the result is notorious: the whole earth has now become full of fornication and wickedness. I admire the ancient legislators of the Romans: these detested effeminacy of conduct; and the giving of the body to feminine purposes, contrary to the law of nature, they judged worthy of the extremest penalty, according to the righteousness of the law.

For it is not lawful to pluck out the beard, man's natural and noble ornament.

"A youth with his first beard: for with this, youth is most graceful."

By and by he is anointed, delighting in the beard "on which descended" the prophetic, "ointment" with which Aaron was honoured. And it becomes him who is rightly trained, on whom peace has pitched its tent, to preserve peace also with his hair.

What, then, will not women with strong propensities to lust practise, when they look on men perpetrating such enormities? Rather we ought not to call such as these men, but lewd wretches (bataloi), and effeminate (gunides), whose voices are feeble, and whose clothes are womanish both in feel and dye. And such creatures are manifestly shown to be what they are from their external appearance, their clothes, shoes, form, walk, cut of their hair, look. "For from his look shall a man be known," says the Scripture, "and from meeting a man the man is known: the dress of a man, the step of his foot, the laugh of his teeth, tell tales of him."

For these, for the most part, plucking out the rest of their hair, only dress that on the head, all but binding their locks with fillets like women. Lions glory in their shaggy hair, but are armed by their hair in the fight; and boars even are made imposing by their mane; the hunters are afraid of them when they see them bristling their hair.

 

Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor 3:1

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/clement-instructor-book3.html

 

 

 

 

Tough call.  Either:

 

1. The early Christian Church was opposed to men shaving.

 

or

 

2.  The early apostate christian church was opposed to men shaving.

 

or

 

3. The Lord's Church changes with the times to ensure that it's men are seen as the most upstanding as possible within society.

 

Btw, neither men or women get any leeway for wearing earrings in the rest of the above document. And women are forbidden to wear make-up.

Edited November 15, 2015 by BCSpace

[3DOP]

The Romans called the Germanic tribes "barbarians" because they wore beards... the Latin "barba" means beard (and that's where we get barber and barbarian).

 

There is nothing wrong with men growing facial hair.  It is natural and God given.  Let it grow!

 

Likewise, there is nothing wrong with women growing leg and armpit hair, too.  It is natural and God given.

 

How many of our aesthetic judgements are based on cultural norms?  I'd hope that God would roll his eyes at such things, but then again, who am I to project my thoughts onto God?

 

 

MN. Hey.

 

No shaving?...Why cut the hair then at all? Why trim your nails? While it might be "natural" for irrational animals to never shave or trim their hair, St. Paul says that even nature itself teaches that it is a "shame" for a man to have "long hair". What was long? I dunno. But we can draw a principle. Maybe, unlike the other hairy mammals, God expects the humans to use some prudent judgment regarding our hair and whiskers to account for practical necessities, making ourselves appealing to spouses and potential spouses, and observing cultural norms. Maybe women shaving their legs and pits is just our culture...maybe not. In any case, if its okay to let the women's pits and men's beards grow to their fullest extent, it doesn't mean its wrong to take it off. And in either event, don't complain if your choices make somebody else think you are gross.

Edited November 15, 2015 by 3DOP

[Hamba Tuhan]

Last saturday I had my back, shoulders and the back of my arms professionally shaved, it's growing back in and it.itches.like.you.know.what

 

I don't know how to say it nicely, but this serves you right...

Edited November 15, 2015 by Hamba Tuhan

[JAHS]

A few interesting scriptures about beards.

 

Very partiular about hair care:

Ye shall not round the corners of your heads, neither shalt thou mar the corners of thy beard. (Leviticus 19:27)

 

I am trying to picture this one:

Wherefore Hanun took David’s servants, and shaved off the one half of their beards, and cut off their garments in the middle, even to their buttocks, and sent them away. (2 Samuel 10:4)

 

One way to tell time:

And he sent to meet them: for the men were greatly ashamed. And the king said, Tarry at Jericho until your beards be grown, and then return.

(1 Chronicles 19:5)

 

A handy handle in both love and war:

And Joab took Amasa by the beard with the right hand to kiss him. (2 Samuel 20:9)

 

And I went out after him, and smote him, and delivered it out of his mouth: and when he arose against me, I caught him by his beard, and smote him, and slew him. (1 Samuel 17:35)

 

 

[Duncan]

I don't know how to say it nicely, but this serves you right...

 

 

i'll get you at recess!!!

[MiserereNobis]

Hamlet, in act 2 scene 2, gets upset with Polonius for interrupting the player's speech and tells him, "it shall to the barber's with your beard!"  A threat of emasculation!

 

The Eastern Orthodox have got some great beards, too.  Bartholomew, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople:

 

[Hamba Tuhan]

i'll get you at recess!!!

 

You'll have to catch me first, and you're not going to find that easy after your recent visit to Delilah's House of Hair Removal.

[volgadon]

Hamlet, in act 2 scene 2, gets upset with Polonius for interrupting the player's speech and tells him, "it shall to the barber's with your beard!"  A threat of emasculation!

 

The Eastern Orthodox have got some great beards, too.  Bartholomew, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople:

 

I affectionately term this aculpture commemorating the historical meeting of 1964, the sparrow and the bear.

[Bernard Gui]

I just had to cut 1.5 inches off mine. It was developing a mind of its own.

My son Hirsuccio reprimanded me because according to him, 2 or 3 inches

is just the foundation of a decent shrub - the hedge must be allowed to grow

much longer in order to reveal its true character.

 

My roommate and I both sported beards my first year at BYU....the next

year they were banned, some say out of jealousy. 

 

IIRC, Brother Brigham was bearded only for a very short time. Most of his life

he was smooth as a baby's bottom. Which isn't saying much for the baby's bottom.

Edited November 16, 2015 by Bernard Gui