“Women will scarce strip naked before their own husbands, affecting a plausible pretense of modesty,” writes Clement of Alexandria, about the end of the second century, “but any others who wish may see them at home, shut up in their own baths, for they are not ashamed to strip before spectators, as if exposing their persons for sale.  The baths are opened promiscuously to men and women; and there they strip for licentious indulgence (for, from looking, men get to loving), as if their modesty had been washed away in the bath.  Those who have not become utterly destitute of modesty shut out strangers, but bathe with their own servants, and strip naked before their slaves, and are rubbed by them, giving to the crouching menial liberty to lust, by permitting fearless handling, for those who are introduced before their naked mistresses while in the bath, study to strip themselves in order to show audacity in lust, casting off fear in consequence of the wicked custom.  The ancient athletes, ashamed to exhibit a man naked, preserved their modesty by going through the contest in drawers; but these women, divesting themselves of their modesty along with their chemise, wish to appear beautiful, but, contrary to their wish, are simply proved to be wicked.”  (Clement of Alexandria, Paedagogus, Book III, Chapter V. For elucidations of this passage, see Migne’s Patrologiae Cursus Completus, vol. vii.) Promiscuous bathing was forbidden by the early Apostolical Constitutions, but Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, found it necessary, in the third century, to upbraid even virgins vowed to chastity for continuing the custom.  “What of those,” he asks, “who frequent baths, who prostitute to eyes that are curious to lust, bodies that are dedicated to chastity and modesty?  They who disgracefully behold naked men, and are seen naked by men?  Do they not themselves afford enticement to vice?  Do they not solicit and invite the desires of those present to their own corruption and wrong?  ‘Let every one,’ say you, ’look to the disposition with which he comes thither:  my care is only that of refreshing and washing my poor body.’  That kind of defence does not clear you, nor does it excuse the crime of lasciviousness and wantonness.  Such a washing defiles; it does not purify nor cleanse the limbs, but stains them.  You behold no one immodestly, but you, yourself, are gazed upon immodestly; you do not pollute your eyes with disgraceful delight, but in delighting others you yourself are polluted; you make a show of the bathing-place; the places where you assemble are fouler than a theatre.  There all modesty is put off; together with the clothing of garments, the honor and modesty of the body is laid aside, virginity is exposed, to be pointed at and to be handled....  Let your baths be performed with women, whose behavior is modest towards you.” (Cyprian, De Habitu Virginum, cap. 19, 21.) The Church carried the same spirit among the barbarians of northern Europe, and several centuries