Democratic Sentinel, Volume 9, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 March 1885 — Beards. [ARTICLE]

Beards.

Most of the fathers of the church wore and approved the beard. Clement, of Alexandria, says: “Nature adorned man, like a lion, with a beard, as the mark of strength and power. ” Lactantius,Thebdpret, St. Augustine and St. Cyprian are all eloquent in praise of this characteristic feature, about which many discussions were raised in the early days of the church, when matters of discipline engaged much of the attention of its leaders. To settle these disputes, at the Fourth Council of Carthage —A. D. 252, Can. 44—it was euac ed “that a cleric shall not cherish his hair nor shave his beard.” Bingham quotes an early letter in which it is said of one who from a layman had become a clergyman: “His habit, gait and modest countenance and

discourse were all religions; and agreeably to these, hip hair was short. and his beard long.” A source o* dis ute between the Roman and Greek Churches has been the sul iect of wear iog and not wearing the beard. The Greek Church has adhered to the decision of the early church, and refused to admit any shaven saint into its calendar. and thereby condemning the Romanish Church for the opposite conduct.