tonsure

 

(tŏn'shər) [Lat.,=to shave], formerly, practice in some Christian churches of cutting some of the hair from the scalp of clerics. In the West the tonsure consisted of a circular patch on the crown of the head from which the hair was kept cut; some tonsures kept the entire head shaved above the ears, and some retained a broad band of hair around the head. Different religious orders had different tonsures. In the 6th and 7th cent. one of the outstanding questions between the Celtic use and the Roman use was the tonsure, which the Celts made by cutting the hair off the front part of the head. The Roman Catholic Church abolished the practice of tonsure in 1972. See orders, holy.

Tonsure is the practice of some Christian churches, mystics, Buddhist and some Hindu temples of cutting the hair from the scalp of clerics, devotees or holy people as a symbol of their renunciation of worldly fashion and esteem.

History

The origin of the tonsure remains unclear but it certainly was not widely known in antiquity. There were three forms of tonsure known in the 7th and 8th centuries:

• The Oriental, which claimed the authority of St. Paul the Apostle (Acts 18:18) and consisted of shaving the whole head. This was observed by churches owing allegiance to Eastern Orthodoxy. Hence Theodore of Tarsus, who had acquired his learning in Byzantine Asia Minor and bore this tonsure, had to allow his hair to grow for four months before he could be tonsured after the Roman fashion, and then ordained Archbishop of Canterbury by Pope Vitalian in 668.

• The Celtic, which consisted of shaving the whole front of the head from ear to ear, the hair being allowed to hang down behind. An alternate explanation (apparently first described in the modern day in the article On The Shape Of The Insular Tonsure) describes the "delta" tonsure cut as a triangle with the apex at the forehead, and the base from ear to ear at the back of the head. The Roman party in Britain attributed the origin of the Celtic tonsure to Simon Magus, though some traced it back to the swineherd of Lóegaire mac Néill, the Irish king who opposed St. Patrick; this latter view is refuted by the fact that it was common to all of the Celts, both insular and continental. Some practitioners of Celtic Christianity claimed the authority of St. John for this, as for their Easter practices. It is entirely plausible that the Celts were merely observing an older practice, possibly from Antioch, which had become obsolete elsewhere.

• The Roman: this consisted of shaving only the top of the head, so as to allow the hair to grow in the form of a crown. This is claimed to have originated with St. Peter, and was the practice of the Latin Rite Roman Catholic Church until obligatory tonsure was suppressed in 1972.

These claimed origins are possibly unhistorical; the earliest history of the tonsure is lost in obscurity. This practice is not improbably connected with the idea that long hair is the mark of a freeman, while the shaven head marks the slave (in the religious sense: a servant of God).

Among the Germanic tribes there appeared the custom that an unsuccessful pretender or a dethroned king would be tonsured. Then, he had to retire to a monastery but sometimes this lasted only until his hair grew back.

Tonsure today

Christianity

Eastern Christianity

Today in Eastern Orthodoxy and in the Eastern Catholic Churches of Byzantine Rite, there are three types of tonsure: baptismal, monastic, and clerical. It always consists of the cutting of four locks of hair in a cruciform pattern: at the front of head as the celebrant says "In the Name of the Father", at the back of head at the words "and the Son", and on either side of the head at the words "and the Holy Spirit". In all cases, the hair is allowed to grow back; the tonsure as such is not adopted as a hairstyle.

• Baptismal tonsure

Baptismal tonsure is performed during the rite of Holy Baptism as a first sacrificial offering by the newly baptized. This tonsure is always performed, whether the one being baptized is an infant or an adult.

• Monastic tonsure

Monastic tonsure (of which there are three grades: Rassophore, Stavrophore and the Great Schema), is the rite of initiation into the monastic state, symbolic of cutting off of self-will. Orthodox monks traditionally never cut their hair or beards after receiving the monastic tonsure as a sign of the consecration of their lives to God (reminiscent of the Vow of the Nazirite).

• Clerical tonsure

Clerical tonsure is done prior to ordination to any rank, such as reader.^[1] This led to a once common usage that one was, for instance, "tonsured a reader", although technically the rite of tonsure occurred prior to the ordination.

Western Christianity

In the Latin or Western Rite of the Roman Catholic Church, "first tonsure" (generally consisting of a symbolic cutting of a few tufts of hair or at most a coin-sized bare spot toward the back of the head) was, in medieval times, the rite of inducting someone into the clergy and qualifying him for the civil benefits then enjoyed by clerics. Tonsure was a prerequisite for receiving the minor and major orders. In accordance with Pope Paul VI's motu proprio Ministeria quaedam of 15 August 1972, "first tonsure is no longer conferred", except in those institutes that have been authorized to continue to use the ceremony, such as the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter and the Personal Apostolic Administration of Saint John Mary Vianney; and since then, as is stated also in canon 266 of the Code of Canon Law, "by the reception of the diaconate a person becomes a cleric."

Apart from this clerical tonsure, some Western Rite monastic orders, for example Carthusians and Trappists, employed a very full version of tonsure, keeping only a narrow ring of short hair sometimes called "the monastic crown" (see "Roman tonsure", above). Some of these monks, whether priests or not, still maintain the tradition. The full tonsure, especially back in the Middle Ages, led to the wearing of a skull cap in church to keep the head warm. This skull cap, called a zuchetto, is still worn to this day by the Pope, Cardinals, bishops and some priests and deacons.

Buddhism

In Buddhism tonsure is a part of the rite of pabbajja and also a part of becoming a monk. This involves shaving head and face. This tonsure is renewed as often as required to keep the head cleanly shaven, and some Chinese Buddhist monks will also have six dots on the top of the head, the result of burning the shaven scalp with the tip of a smoking incense stick.

Hinduism

In Hinduism, the underlying concept is that hair is a symbolic offering to the gods, representing a real sacrifice of beauty, and in return, are given blessings in proportion to their sacrifice.

Hair cutting (Sanskrit cuda karma, cuda karana) is one of traditional saṃskāras performed for young children:

"According to the teaching of the revealed texts, the Kudakarman (tonsure) must be performed, for the sake of spiritual merit, by all twice-born men in the first or third year."^[2]

In some traditions the head is shaven completely while in others a small tuft of hair called sikha is left.

In some South Indian temples like Tirumala it is customary for pilgrims to shave their heads as a sacrifice to God.

There has been an Indian custom to perform a tonsure on widows after their husbands' death. It is not uncommon to tonsure head of child after death of a parent (usually father).

References

1. ^ In the West, the minor orders were those of porter, lector, exorcist and acolyte, and the major orders were subdiaconate, diaconate and priesthood, with the rank of bishop usually being considered a fuller form of priesthood. In the East, the minor orders were those of reader and subdeacon, as now in the Latin Rite, which, however, except in a very few countries, prefers the denomination "acolyte" to that of "subdeacon", and which now clearly distinguishes the three orders of episcopate, presbyterate and diaconate.
2. ^ Manu samhita 2.35, Georg Bühler translation

Sources

• Based on Charles Plummer's essay, "Excursus on the Paschal Controversy and Tonsure" (in his edition of Bede's Opera Historica, 1898).
• N. F. Robinson, Monasticism in the Orthodox Church (AMS Press, 1911) ISBN-10: 0404053750

See also

• Bede
• Buddhism
• First haircut
• Monasticism
• Mundan ceremony
• Nun
• Religious order
• Rule of St Benedict
• Sikha
• Lock of hair

External Links

• The Form of the Celtic Tonsure
• On the Shape of the Insular Tonsure
• Clerical Tonsure (Russian Orthodox)nrm:Touzeure

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