Veiling meant many things to the ancients. On women, veils could signify virtue, beauty, piety, self-control, and status. On men, covering the head could signify piety or an emotion such as grief. Late Roman mosaics show people covering their hands with veils when receiving or giving something precious. They covered their altars, doorways, shrines, and temples; and many covered their heads when sacrificing to their gods. Early Christian intellectuals such as Origen and Gregory of Nyssa used these everyday practices of veiling to interpret sacred texts. These writers understood the divine as veiled, and the notion of a veiled spiritual truth informed their interpretation of the bible. Veiling in the Late Antique World (Cambridge UP, 2026) provides the first assessment of textual and material evidence for veiling in the late antique Mediterranean world. Susanna Drake here explores the relation between the social history of the veil and the intellectual history of the concept of truth as veiled/revealed.
New Books in Late Antiquity is Presented by Ancient Jew Review
Susanna Drake is Professor of Religious Studies at Macalister College. Her first book was Slandering the Jew: Sexuality and Difference in Early Christian Texts.
Michael Motia teaches Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston
