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ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY.
BKIEF glance at Ecclesiastical History will fur-
nish one or two interesting matters. Most of the
Fathers of the Church both wore and approved of the
Beard. Clement, of Alexandria, says, " nature adorned man
like the lion, with a Beard, as the index of strength and
empire." Lactantius, Theodoret, St. Augustine, and St.
Cyprian, are all eloquent in praise of this natural feature :
about which many discussions were raised in the early
ages of the Church, when matters of discipline necessarily
engaged much of the attention of its leaders. To settle
these disputes, at the 4th Council of Carthage, held A.D.
252, canon 44, it was enacted " that a clergyman shall
" not cherish his hair nor shave his Beard." (Clericus nec
comam nutriat nec barbam radat.) And Bingham quotes
an early letter, in which it is said of one who from a lay-
man had become a clergyman, " his habit, gait, modesty,
countenance, and discourse, were all religious, and agree-
ably to these his hair was short and his Beard long;"
