15. And indeed in that very matter, for the sake of the fear which faith suggests to me, for the sake of the love which brotherhood requires, I think that not virgins only and widows, but married women also, and all of the sex alike, should be admonished, that the work of God and His fashioning and formation ought in no manner to be adulterated, either with the application of yellow colour, or with black dust or rouge, or with any kind of medicament which can corrupt the native lineaments. God says, “Let us make man in our image and likeness;”30    Gen. i. 26. and does any one dare to alter and to change what God has made? They are laying hands on God when they try to re-form that which He formed, and to transfigure it, not knowing that everything which comes into being is God’s work, everything that is changed is the devil’s. If any artist, in painting, were to delineate in envious colouring the countenance and likeness and bodily appearance of any one; and the likeness being now painted and completed, another person were to lay hands on it, as if, when it was already formed and already painted, he, being more skilled, could amend it, a serious wrong and a just cause of indignation would seem natural to the former artist. And do you think yourself likely with impunity to commit a boldness of such wicked temerity, an offence to God the artificer? For although you may not be immodest among men, and are not unchaste with your seducing dyes, yet when those things which belong to God are corrupted and violated, you are engaged in a worse adultery. That you think yourself to be adorned, that you think your hair to be dressed, is an assault upon the divine work, is a prevarication of the truth.

XV. Et quidem isto in loco, pro timore quem nobis fides suggerit, pro dilectione quam fraternitas exigit, non virgines tantum aut viduas, sed et nuptas puto et omnes omnino feminas admonendas quod opus Dei et factura ejus et plastica adulterari nullo modo debeat adhibito flavo colore , vel nigro pulvere, vel rubore , aut quolibet denique lineamenta nativa corrumpente 0455A medicamine. Dicit Deus : Faciamus hominem ad imaginem et similitudem nostram. (Gen. I, 26). Et audet quisquam mutare et convertere quod Deus fecit? Manus Deo inferunt quando id quod ille formavit reformare et transfigurare contendunt, nescientes quia opus Dei est omne quod nascitur, diaboli quodcumque mutatur . Si quis pingendi artifex vultum alicujus et speciem et corporis qualitatem aemulo colore signasset, et, signato jam consummatoque simulacro, manus alius inferret, ut jam formata, jam picta quasi peritior reformaret, gravis prioris artificis injuria et justa indignatio videretur. Tu te existimas impune laturam tam improbae temeritatis audaciam, Dei artificis offensam? Ut enim impudica circa homines et incesta fucis lenocinantibus non sis, 0455B corruptis violatisque quae Dei sunt, pejor adultera detineris. Quod ornari te putas, quod putas comi, impugnatio est ista divini operis, praevaricatio est veritatis .