upward, shall wrap our right hand in our garments;
and then they will come and give us the salutation on our right
hand, wrapped in our garments. Then we go where God permits us."
(_Two Epistles Concerning Virginity_; Second Epistle, Chapter
III, vol. xiv. Ante-Nicene Christian Library, p. 384.)

"Women will scarce strip naked before their own husbands,
affecting a plausible pretense of modesty," writes Clement of
Alexandria, about the end of the second century, "but any others
who wish may see them at home, shut up in their own baths, for
they are not ashamed to strip before spectators, as if exposing
their persons for sale. The baths are opened promiscuously to men
and women; and there they strip for licentious indulgence (for,
from looking, men get to loving), as if their modesty had been
washed away in the bath. Those who have not become utterly
destitute of modesty shut out strangers, but bathe with their own
servants, and strip naked before their slaves, and are rubbed by
them, giving to the crouching menial liberty to lust, by
permitting fearless handling, for those who are introduced before
their naked mistresses while in the bath, study to strip
themselves in order to show audacity in lust, casting off fear in
consequence of the wicked custom. The ancient athletes, ashamed
to exhibit a man naked, preserved their modesty by going through
the contest in drawers; but these women, divesting themselves of
their modesty along with their chemise, wish to appear beautiful,
but, contrary to their wish, are simply proved to be wicked."
(Clement of Alexandria, _Paedagogus_, Book III, Chapter V. For
elucidations of this passage, see Migne's _Patrologiae Cursus
Completus_, vol. vii.) Promiscuous bathing was forbidden by the
early Apostolical Constitutions, but Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage,
found it necessary, in the third century, to upbraid even virgins
vowed to chastity for continuing the custom. "What of those," he
asks, "who frequent baths, who prostitute to eyes that are
curious to lust, bodies that are dedicated to chastity and
modesty? They who disgracefully behold naked men, and are seen
naked by men? Do they not themselves afford enticement to vice?
Do they not solicit and invite the desires of those present to
their own corruption and wrong? 'Let every one,' say you, 'look