ABSTRACT
Late ancient Christian leaders hoped that by imbuing ascetics’ appearance with biblical, theological, and moral signifi cance, they might persuade their audiences to fashion particular looks that visibly demonstrated their advanced moral and spiritual states to spectators. It is impossible to know how convincing their arguments were or how many ascetics adjusted their dress in response. Although we possess extant texts in which Christian leaders praise particular female ascetics for dressing according to their counsel, indicating that some ascetics may have heeded their leaders’ advice, such praise is consistently presented as a model for other ascetics to follow, so we must be aware of the rhetorical function of these anecdotes.1 We might assume that ascetics who were supervised by clerics, ascetic mentors, or monastic leaders were more likely to conform to their wishes than those who practiced forms of asceticism that lacked direct oversight, such as those who remained in the family home or lived in a “spiritual marriage” with an ascetic partner.2 It is clear, though, that not all ascetics dressed as Christian leaders wished. We possess a handful of texts in which ascetics’ dress and grooming are condemned and censured. In these texts, Christian leaders deploy new strategies of persuasion and, in one case, enforce their sartorial prescriptions through conciliar edict in an attempt to bring these unruly ascetics into the fold.
