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Cyprian draws on the Watchers tradition from 1 Enoch 8 to warn Christian virgins against wearing dyed wool, jewelry, and eye paint, calling them inventions of fallen angels who abandoned their heavenly place.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
1 Enoch 8:1
Pseudepigrapha
1 And Azâzal taught men to make swords, knives, shields, and breastplates, and revealed to them the metals of the earth and how to work with them, as well as how to make bracelets, ornaments, and the use antimony, beautifying the eyelids, along with all kinds of precious stones and various dyes. 2 Widespread wickedness arose, and they engaged in fornication, were led astray, and corrupted all their ways. Semjâzâ taught spells and the cutting of roots, Armârôs taught how to break spells, Barâqîjâl taught astrology, Kôkabîal taught about the constellations, Ezêqêal taught about the clouds, Araqiêal taught the signs of the earth, Shamsiêal taught the signs of the sun, and Sariêal taught the course of the moon. And as men died, they cried out, and their cries ascended to heaven.
Cyprian Treatises 2:14
Early Christian
14 For God neither made the sheep scarlet or purple, nor taught the juices of herbs and shell-fish to dye and color wool, nor arranged necklaces with stones set in gold, and with pearls distributed in a woven series or numerous cluster, wherewith you would hide the neck which He made; that what God formed in man may be covered, and that may be seen upon it which the devil has invented in addition. Has God willed that wounds should be made in the ears, wherewith infancy, as yet innocent, and unconscious of worldly evil, may be put to pain, that subsequently from the scars and holes of the ears precious beads may hang, heavy, if not by their weight, still by the amount of their cost? All which things sinning and apostate angels put forth by their arts, when, lowered to the contagious of earth, they forsook their heavenly vigour. They taught them also to paint the eyes with blackness drawn round them in a circle, and to stain the cheeks with a deceitful red, and to change the hair with false colors, and to drive out all truth, both of face and head, by the assault of their own corruption.
Date: 245-260 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
... 6.3.2.10. Cyprian In his treatise De habitu virginum (12-14, ca. 250 C.E.), Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, proscribes the wearing of ornaments and dyed clothes. Dyeing, jewelry, eye paint, and other facial cosmetics sinning and apostate angels put forth by their arts, when, lowered to the contagions of earth, they forsook their heavenly vigor (peccatores et apostatae angeli suis artibus prodiderunt quando ad terrena contagia devoluti a caelesti vigore recesserunt, 14). That Cyprian uses Tertullian’s treatise De cultu feminarum seems beyond dispute; his firsthand knowledge of 1 Enoch is less certain. His reference to their forsaking their heavenly vigor parallels verbatim the same word in Minucius Felix. ...
Nickelsburg, George W. E.
A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch Chapters 1-36, 81-108
(p. 89) Fortress Press, 2001
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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