This morning, after brushing my teeth, I asked myself, "Why bother shaving? Where did this whole thing about no facial hair come from?"
Well, it's the Egyptians' fault. Evidently, they were making razors as long as 5,000 years ago. The people of India invented them around the same time.
Then Alexander the Great got involved. He made his men shave their beards, since he knew they would be fighting in close combat. Short hair is hard to grab, and no hair is even harder to grasp.
The first barber showed up in Rome in 300 B.C. .
For a while I thought that it was all the sculptors' fault -- aiming for smoothness and form in their sculptures. After all, so many sculptures show perfectly clean-shaven individuals. Just think. Michelangelo's statue of David never gets a five O'clock shadow.
Even Clement of Alexandria argued for the beard:
Um. Oh. Yeah. Well...but wait...
St. Augustine of Hippo argued that:
After all, even Pericles wore a beard. Hmm. I suppose that destroys my beard and sculpture idea. Michelangelo's Moses clamps down the coffin on that idea.
But now I remember why I don't wear a beard. It gets in the soup. I would hate to comb out all the cracker bits.