Carly Daniel-Hughes examines Tertullian's treatises which deal with dress to open up ‘uncharted terrain’ on the significance of dress in the evolution of Christian identity. The book is structured by analysis of the different works: De pallio; De cultu feminarum 1 and 2; and De virginibus velandis. D.-H. situates dress within the rhetoric and social nexus of the second century a.d. — a world in which erudite inhabitants of the Empire were well aware of the wide ramifications of the codes of dress and cultus on both their outward appearance and on their inner characters.
In the chapters which deal with female dress and adornment, D.-H. combines feminist and post-structuralist approaches (9) in order to undermine Tertullian's rhetoric and grasp some sense of women as agents in their own appearance, or at least to uncover some alternative competing discourses current in contemporary North African society. She attempts to discover how women in that society could express themselves given the social pressure that constructed their appearance and body language as anywhere on the spectrum between chaste virgin and the ‘gateway to the devil’, to use Tertullian's expression (De cultu feminarum 1.1). It rather begs the question of how far Tertullian's rhetoric would have seriously influenced dress habits among his audience, as D.-H. argues towards the end of the book.
The first chapter reviews the discussion in current scholarship concerning the tension between the moralizing and satirical rhetoric of cultus and adornment and the social realities (and potential pitfalls) for upper-class men of being well groomed, and for upper-class women of walking the thin line between appearing as respectable members of their class and seeking attractiveness for its own sake (with all the concomitant associations of sexual desirability and immorality). D.-H. stresses that men as well as women suffered under this discourse of cultus. For those unfamiliar with this discussion the chapter provides an excellent overview of the problem both for Roman society and for ancient historians considering the dynamics of appearance.
Ch. 2 discusses Tertullian's De pallio; here the pallium is considered a ‘squared off tunic’ rather than the rectangular mantle it is assumed to be by most other authorities (8, 45, 49). This seems to miss the point that the pallium can be easily and quickly wrapped around the body as opposed to the more wieldy and heavy toga which would require time to drape correctly and often the help of at least one other person, which is one of the central arguments in Tertullian's writing. This does not detract essentially from the central thesis but it does raise a question about how far male dress has really been understood or imagined. The chapter demonstrates how clothing is ‘good to talk with’ in that a narrative that appears to be about clothing is in fact about far deeper issues: masculinity, virtue, ethnicity (African/Roman) and religious affiliation. Above all, for Tertullian this is about the type of Christian one purports to be; dress serves as a marker of multiple identities elided into a dominant one which stresses Christian masculinity.
The following chapters discuss Tertullian's treatises on female adornment arguing that they fit into Tertullian's wider themes of salvation which actually sit well in his world view with their apparent vehement attitude towards women and matters feminine. They also make the point that D.-H.’s research is, like Tertullian's rhetoric, about much more than dress. In ch. 3, D.-H. argues that Tertullian's view of salvation is embedded in a gender hierarchy in which women are in an inferior position brought about by their close links to the flesh and bodily functions, particularly the processes of birth by which mortality is brought into the world. In Tertullian's view, the body and soul are closely aligned and retain sexual difference in a hierarchical model that will persist in the afterlife. Women are closely associated with Eve, and thus with original sin, and this negative morality is literally embodied in their flesh.
Ch. 4 considers On the Veiling of Virgins which D.-H. argues expands Tertullian's view that the veil offers a cover that conceals the overt shamefulness of female flesh, even that of the chaste virgin. In Tertullian's vitriol, D.-H. identifies an alternative discourse of dedicated virgins and chaste widows who conversely use the lack of a veil as a sign of their sexual purity. The association between outward appearance and inner spirituality and moral character, and Tertullian's attempts to maintain his main soteriological thesis are stressed here. The chapter also includes sections on ‘Chastity and the body in early Christianity’ which addresses similar themes in the Martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicitas and the Acts of Thecla; and on the ‘Dangers of the libidinous gaze’ which reiterates the tensions stressed in earlier chapters between the innate corruption of female flesh, the temptation the female body offers to men and the paradox of dressing modestly which simply expresses women's acceptance of their lesser moral status.
In sum this volume, as stated above, is about so much more than dress. By using Tertullian's treatises/homilies which are ostensibly about dress as a starting point, D.-H. has produced a new discussion of Tertullian's views on salvation and interesting justifications for the existence of the counter discourse reflected in the lived dress and adornment habits of women in Carthage. At times, particularly in the early chapters, it reads like a thesis with rather a lot of quotations from modern authors when it should have the courage of its own convictions, but that is a small quibble.
