This opinion of the first fathers of the Church is supported by two councils: the first is the fourth council of Carthage, the 44th canon of which runs thus: Clericus nec comam nutriat, nec barbam radat. A clergyman must neither keep up his hair nor shave away his beard. Tho’ this canon has been entirely altered by the suppression of the word radat, as Tertullian remarks, and, after him, a number of commentators, it is certain it ought to be thus, which we will prove by what we are going to say. The second is a council held at Barcelona in 540, in the third canon of which we read: Ut nullus Clericorum comam nutriat, aut barbam radat. Let no clergyman either keep up his hair, or shave away his beard.
After such sacred laws, and the opinion and example of the apostles, and of all the fathers of the primitive church; after the decisions of two authentic councils, one should not think there had existed men sufficiently deceitful or ignorant to maintain, not only that it is indifferent to shave or not, but likewise that the beard is contrary to the institution of the Church. Lighted by the torch of truth, and guided by the most scrupulous impartiality, we will follow up the chain of the different events which have so often changed the sentiments and beards of one part of Europe.
I find all the popes of the earliest times of Christianity wore long beards, ’till the first division into two Churches, Greek and Latin. Their rivality had already broken out in the excommunication of the iconoclasts. When Charlemain became emperor of the West, the popes then threw off the yoke of the Grecian authority, and seized that occasion to distinguish themselves from their enemies by something particular. It was at this very epoch, according to fathers Henschenius and Papebrock,[[58]] that Leo III. gave the Latin church, for the first time, the example of a pope shaved. The disputes soon redoubled. Photius, the Greek patriarch, renewed the pretensions of the clergy of the East to precendency over those of the West: he excommunicated, in his turn, pope Nicholas I. who had already excommunicated him. Never had the chins of the Greeks been so bearded, nor those of the Latins so closely shaved. Photius, having taken the title of œcumenical patriarch, declared the Western bishops heretics. Among other things, he reproached them with cutting off their beards. A strange reason for setting the Western and Eastern empires at variance, says a great writer of our age. To think this reason so strange, is making very light of beards.[[59]]
[58]. See the Propileum of fathers Henschenius and Papebrock for the month of May, p. 209, vol. i. of the acts of the saints.
[59]. Let it be always recollected that we have nothing to do here but with discipline. Some indispensable invectives against the divers opinion of the popes, ought not to startle tender consciences. The dogma, which we highly respect, has no part in this discussion.
Nicholas I. does not offer any thing in his own defence against this serious accusation. In his letter to Hincmar, archbishop of Rheims, and the other bishops of France, A. D. 867, he only says, speaking of the Greeks: “Moreover, they endeavour to throw blame on us, because the clergy who are under our authority don’t refuse to be shaved.”[[60]] This phrase, which shews that all the clergy at that time were constrained to appear shaved, presents nothing in excuse for this violent conduct. If the pope could have offered some reasons to palliate this looseness of discipline, he would not have failed to make use of them on this occasion; but he does not give one. Rivalship was the sole cause of these puerile dissensions. What a number of disputes, and troubles has not this ridiculous infatuation of the Latin priests occasioned! Had they but let their beards grow out, they would have avoided all these mischiefs.
[60]. Quin & reprehendere satagunt, quia penes os clerici barbas radere suas non abnuunt, &c. Acta Conciliorum.
The death of the patriarch, without destroying the schism, calmed people’s minds for some times, and the ignorance of the times (according to some) contributed greatly to extinguish the flames of this violent quarrel. John XII. forgetting, or perhaps not knowing the animosity that had reigned between the two churches, soon appeared again with a long beard according to fathers Henschenius and Papebrock.[[61]]
[61]. See Propileum, already quoted, page 20.
This irregular and inconsequent conduct of the popes, and indifference for the true discipline of the Church, seems to be justified in a council held at Limoges in 1031. By the determinations of that assembly it is of little moment whether a priest be shaved or not. The reasons of the Greeks and Latins are there weighed, and the latter are said to support their arguments by the example of St. Peter. (This assertion is contrary to all truth, as all the monuments which have preserved us the image of that Saint prove.) They add, in favour of those priests that go shaved, that they ought to be distinguished from the laity by their outward appearance. This reason, were it just, would be good only at a time when it should be the fashion for laymen to wear long beards, and it ought to be an additional incitement to priests to let theirs grow out, among a nation who do not wear this mark of manhood.