BEARD. - Among the early Christians the beard was a sign of authority, as Clement of Alexandria affirms (Paedagog., III, 11: PG 8, 633). In early Christian art the following wear a beard: God the Father in various scenes (the creation of Adam and Eve, the offering of Cain and Abel, the conversation with Jacob in the dream), Abraham, Pharaoh, Jacob, Elijah, Elisha, Nebuchadnezzar, the elders in the story of Susanna, John the Baptist; Jesus Christ almost always in the delivery of the Law, the Apostles Peter, Paul, Andrew and James the Less; sometimes the artist alternates bearded and beardless apostles, as in the sarcophagus of Gorgonius in the cathedral of Ancona (Wilpert, Sarcofagi, pl. 14, 3). Many sarcophagi depict bearded Christians, in which case these are true portraits, as in the sarcophagi of the two brothers, of the Comes Balerius, of Julius Caterius, of Valerius Valentinianus, etc.
The type of the bearded Christ is never predominant in the West, even later, especially in Carolingian art, which deliberately draws its inspiration from classicism. In Italy, before the most modern age, in which Christ is either completely orientalized or set in our own century, artists are divided, and of the most famous Christs some are bearded (Raphael's Transfiguration, Titian's Christ), others beardless (Michelangelo in the Last Judgment, Leonardo da Vinci in the Last Supper). A special chapter of iconography has created the legend of saints with a beard (cf. H. Delchaye, Les Légendes hagiographiques, 3rd ed., Brussels 1927, pp. 103, 195).
Regarding the beard there exists an entire ecclesiastical tradition. Eastern monks and clerics always kept the beard; in the West, on the other hand, there was never a fixed rule. The Statuta ecclesiae antiquae (Mansi, III, 955) only forbid cultivating the beard. Sidonius Apollinaris (Ep. 4, 13; PL 58, 519), 5th century, describes to us a priest perfectly shaven. Nevertheless in the West in the 11th century one notices monks with beards, as appears from M. Inguanez - M. Avery, Miniature cassinesi del sec. XI illustranti la vita di s. Benedetto, Montecassino 1934. However, since the 9th century the custom of not wearing a beard must have been general in the West if it became one of Photius's accusations against the Latin Church (Nicholas I, Ep. 52 ad Hincmarum: PL 119, 11, 55). Those who at Nicholas's invitation replied to the Greek accusations: Aeneas bishop of Paris: Liber adversus Graecos, 182 (PL 121, 744 ff.); Ratramnus, monk of Corbie, Contra Graecorum opposita, IV, 5 (PL 121, 322 ff.); the German bishops assembled at Worms, Responsio Episcoporum Germaniae (PL 119, 1212), did not disdain to deal with the clerical beard, not without irony: «Si sanctitas est in barba nullus sanctior est hirco» (Responsio Episcop., ibid.). In 1050 the Synod of Coyaca (Spain) has canon 3, which orders the cutting of the beard for clerics (Mansi, XIX, 787) and, in 1119, the Council of Toulouse (Mansi, XXI, 228) threatens excommunication for clerics bearded more laicorum.
Note, however, that the prohibition against wearing a beard did not require that it be shaved, and in fact the custom of trimming the beard on the cheeks and chin with scissors persists even in the 17th century, as is seen, for example, from the portraits of St. Philip Neri and St. Vincent de Paul.
On the other hand, during the 16th century a tendency to wear the beard is noticeable; Julius II and Clement VII sporadically followed this custom, until the latter prohibited it in the Curia, arousing the recriminations of the elegant men of the time. But it was of no avail: the wearing of the beard continued, even on the part of the popes, until the end of that century. During the 17th, everyone, including the popes, followed the common custom of the moustache and small goatee; until with Clement XI shaving the beard came into fashion. From that time prescriptions of popes and bishops in this sense followed one another uninterruptedly until the reply given on 10 Jan. 1920 to the bishop of Breslau (AAS, 12 [1920], p. 43 ff.) which forbids secular clerics to wear a beard; which has led some to hold that the silence of the CIC on this point does not mean abrogation of the earlier discipline. The custom of wearing a beard has instead taken root in certain religious Orders, both monastic (Camaldolese hermits) and mendicant (Capuchins), as well as among missionaries. In the liturgical field the beard is connected with the tonsure, and this brought with it the removal of the former. In the same liturgical act (E. Martène, De Ant. Eccles. Rit., lib. II, Antwerp 1736, pp. 187, 193; lib. III, pp. 629-634), and local monastic constitutions deal precisely with the shaving of monks and friars (Martène, op. cit., lib. III, p. 684 ff.).
