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shewing that in those early times St. Paul was better
understood than at a later date.
Subsequently the Beard was alternately commended to
the clergy for its becoming gravity, or condemned from
the ascetic notion that pride was apt to lurk in a fine
Beard. In some of the monasteries lay members wore the
Beard, while those in orders were shaved, and the hairs,
remnant of an earlier superstition, devoutly consecrated to
God with special prayers and imposing ceremonies.
One order of the Cistercians were specially allowed to
wear their Beards, and were hence called " fratres barbati"
or Bearded brethren.
The military orders of the Church, as the Knights of
St. John and the Templars, were always full Bearded.
To touch the Beard, was at one time a solemnity by
which a godfather acknowledged the child of his adoption.
One of the fertile sources of dispute between the Eoman
and Greek Churches has been this subject of wearing or
not wearing the Beard. The Greek Church, with a firm
faithfulness which does credit to its orthodoxy, has stood
manfully by the early Church decisions and refused to
admit any shaven saint into its calendar, heartily despising
the Bomish Church for its weakness in this respect. On
the other hand, the Popes, to mark the distinction between
Eastern and Western Christianity, early introduced statutes
" de radendis barbis," or concerning shaving the Beard.
