205ARGUE

216 . Ward, "Why Must Public Nudity" 97, and "Women in Roman Baths" 125-47; Brown 315-16. The historicity of
coed nudity is supported by the writings of numerous Roman historians including Ovid, Nicarchus, Pliny the Elder,
Quintilian, and Marial. See also Ableman 38; Wilkinson 99-101.
217 . "Christians Undressed" 11. Roy Bowen Ward notes that by the Fifth Century the anti-body philosophy adopted
by church leaders had become so entrenched that St. Jerome considered it immoral for a Christian virgin to bathe in
the nude--even if alone. The transformation away from a more natural acceptance of nudity came about as the result
of the powerful influence of a few individuals. For details, see Ward, "Women in Roman Baths" 142-46; Brown
314-17; Mackenzie 24; and Renbourn 483-84.
218 . An extensive list of sources may be found in Jonathan Smith 220, footnote 12. See also pp. 222-24, 227, 235-
37; Miles, chapter 1, esp. pp. 33-34; Cunningham 49-50; Danielou 38-39; Ward, "Why Must Public Nudity" 97; B.
Easton 46; and Mackey 42.
219 . Miles 33.
220 . Cyril of Jerusalem, The Mystagogical Lectures, FOC 64, 161, quoted in Miles 33; Danielou 38, 39; and
Cunningham 49-50. John the Deacon, in about 500 A.D., wrote: "They are commanded to go in naked, even down
to their feet, so that [they may show that] they have put off the earthly garments of mortality. The church has
ordained these things for many years with watchful care, even though the old books may not reveal traces of them."
(Jonathan Smith 235; Miles 34) St. Hippolytus, presbyter of Rome circa 215 A.D., said that total nudity was
required. The rule ordered, "let no one go down to the water having any alien object with them," and directs women
to remove even their jewelry and the combs from their hair (Cunningham 49; Ward, "Why Must Public Nudity" 97;
B. Easton 46). Several paintings in the Christian catacombs in the first centuries of the common era depicted naked
baptism (Miles 34; Jonathan Smith 222; Mackey 42). There are many theories as to the reason nudity was an
important part of early Christian baptism. Most interpret nudity as symbolic of spiritual rebirth in the Christian
faith. Margaret Miles explains that it symbolized "death to former commitments and socialization and birth to a new
existence. . . . The stripping of clothing followed by nakedness . . . was a paradigm of the deconstruction of secular
socialization." (Miles 36) Alternatively, but in a similar vein, Jonathan Smith writes: "Being naked and without
shame [in baptism] is . . . a typological return to the state of Adam and Eve before the Fall." (Jonathan Smith 237)
221 . Cunningham 49.
222 . See Taylor, esp. 26.
223 . Renbourn 15, 507.