than the promise to Peter relates to the Popes of Rome, or than Isaiah's description of the ruin of the Assyrian King under the figure of Lucifer relates to the Fall of the Angels, or than the two swords at the Last Supper relate to the spiritual and secular jurisdiction, or than the sun and moon in the first chapter of Genesis relate to the Pope and the Emperor. In all these cases, the misinterpretation has been long and persistent; in all these, it is acknowledged by all scholars, outside the Roman communion, that they are absolutely without foundation.

And, as the misinterpretation of the texts on which the theory of Episcopal or Presbyterian absolution rests will die out before a sound understanding of the Biblical records, so also the theory and practice itself, though with occasional recrudescences, will probably die out with the advance of civilization. The true power of the clergy will not be diminished but strengthened by the loss of this fictitious attribute. Norna of the Fitful Head was a happier and more useful member of society after she abandoned her magical arts than when she practised them. In proportion as England has become, and in proportion as it will yet more become, a truly free and truly educated people, able of itself to bind what ought to be bound, and to loose what ought to be loosed, in that proportion will the belief in priestly absolution vanish, just as the belief in wizards and necromancers bas vanished before the advance of science. As alchemy has disappeared to give place to chemistry, as astrology has given way to astronomy, as monastic celibacy has given way to domestic purity, as bull-fights and bear-baits have given way to innocent and elevating amusements, as scholastic casuistry has bowed before the philosophy of Bacon and Pascal, so will the belief in the magical offices of a sacerdotal caste vanish before the growth of manly Chrisian independence and generous Christian sympathy.

CHAPTER VIII.

ECCLESIASTICAL VESTMENTS.

AT a time when all Churches are or ought to be occupied with so many important questions, when so many interesting inquiries have arisen with regard to the origin and the interpretation of the Sacred Books, when the adjustment of science and theology needs more than ever to be properly balanced, when the framework of the English Prayer Book requires so many changes and expansions in order to meet the wants of the time, when measures for the conciliation of our Nonconformist brethren press so closely on the hearts and consciences of those who care for peace and truth, when so many social and political problems are crying for solution, some apology is due for treating of a subject so apparently trivial as the Vestments of the Clergy. But, inasmuch as it has nevertheless occupied considerable attention in the English Church, its discussion cannot be altogether out of place.

What has to be said will be divided into two parts: the first, an antiquarian investigation into the origin of ecclesiastical vestments; the second, some practical remarks on the present state of the controversy in England.

I. The antiquarian investigation of this matter is not in itself devoid of interest. It belongs to the general survey of the origin of usages and customs in the early ages of Christianity. The conclusion to which it leads is that the dress of the clergy had no distinct intention

symbolical, sacerdotal, sacrificial, or mystical; but originated simply in the fashions common to the whole community of the Roman Empire during the three first centuries.

There is nothing new to be said in favor of this conclusion. But it has nevertheless been, and is still, persistently denied. In spite of the assertion to the contrary of Cardinal Bona, Père Thomassin, Dr. Rock, and our own lamented Wharton Marriott, it has been asserted, both by the admirers and depreciators of clerical vestments, that they were borrowed in the first instance (to use Milton's phrase in his splendid invective against the English clergy) "from Aaron's wardrobe or the Flamen's vestry;" that they are intrinsically marks of distinction between the clergy and the laity, between the Eucharist and every other religious service, between a sacerdotal and an anti-sacerdotal view of the Christian ministrythat if they are abolished, all is lost to the idea of a Christian priesthood; that if they are retained, all is gained.

In face then of these reiterated statements, it may not be out of place to prove that every one of them is not only not true, but is the reverse of the truth; that if they symbolize anything, they symbolize ideas the contrary of those now ascribed to them.

II. Let us, in our mind's eye, dress up a lay figure at the time of the Christian era, when the same general costume pervaded all classes of the Roman Empire, from Palestine to Spain, very much as the costume of the nineteenth century pervades at least all the upper classes of Europe now.

Dress of the ancient world.

The Roman, Greek, or Syrian, whether gentleman or

1 As the vestments in question are chiefly those of the Latin Church, these remarks apply more to the dress of the Western than of the Eastern population of the Empire. But in general (as appears even from the New Testament alone, without referring to secular authorities) the dress even of the Syrian peasants was substantially the same as that of the Greek or the Roman.

peasant, unless in exceptional cases, had no hat, no coat, no waistcoat, and no trousers. He had shoes or sandals; he wore next his skin, first, a shirt or jacket, double or single; then a long shawl or plaid; and again, especially in the later Roman period, a cloak or overcoat.1

Inner dress.

1. The first, or inner garb, if we strip the ancient Roman to his shirt, was what is called in classical Greek, chiton; in classical Latin, tunica; a woollen vest, which sometimes had beneath it another fitting close to the skin, called subucula, or interula, or, in the case of soldiers, camisia.2 It is this name of camisia, which, under the name of chemise, has gradually superseded the others, and which has been perpetuated in ecclesiastical phraseology under another synonym derived from its white color (for shirts, with the ancients as with the moderns, were usually white), and hence it came to be called an alb.

This is the dress which became appropriated specially to the Deacon. He, as the working-man of the clergy, officiated, as it were, in his shirt sleeves.

But as the homeliest garments are subject to the va rieties of fashion, the shirt, the chemise, the camisia, whether of Pagan or Christian, had two forms.3 The simpler or more ancient was an under-shirt with short sleeves, or rather with no sleeves at all, called in Greek 4 exomis, in Latin colobium. The more costly form may be compared to the shirt of Charles II., with fine ruffles.

1 For the general dress, see, for the Greek, Bekker's Charicles, pp. 402-20; for the Roman, Bekker's Gallus, pp. 401-30; for the Syrian, Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, under Dress; for the ecclesiastical dresses, Smith's Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, under the different words.

2 St. Jerome, Epist. 64, ad Fabiolam. He apologizes for using so vulgar a word as camisia.

3 Bona 1, 14; Thomassin, Vetus et Nova Disciplina, ii. 2, 49. That in Greece there was generally an under shirt and an outer shirt is proved in Charicles, p. 406.

4 Charicles, 415.

It was called the Dalmatica, from its birthplace Dalmatia — in the same way as the cravats of the French in the seventeenth century were called Steinkerks from the battle of that name; or the Ulsters of the present day from the Northern province of Ireland. The first1 persons recorded to have worn it are the infamous Emperors Commodus and Heliogabalus. It was thought an outrage on all propriety when Heliogabalus appeared publicly in this dress in the streets after dinner, calling himself a second Fabius or Scipio, because it was the sort of frock which the Cornelii or Fabii were wont to wear in their childhood when they were naughty boys. It was as if some English magnate were to walk up St. James's Street in his dressing-gown. But the fashion spread rapidly, and thirty years afterwards appears as the dress of Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, when led out to death not, however, in that instance as his outer garment. It became fixed as the name of the dress of the deacon after the time of Constantine, when it superseded the original colobium; and although it quickly spread to the other orders, it is evident that it was, for the reasons above given, particularly suitable to the inferior clergy, who, as having nothing over it, would seem to require a more elaborate shirt. This was the first element of ecclesiastical vestments, as deacons were the first elements of a Christian ministry.

In later times, after the invasion of the Northern barbarians, this shirt, which must, perhaps, always have been worn over some thicker garment next the skin, was drawn over the fur coat, sheepskin, or otter skin, the pellisse of the Northern nations; and hence in the twelfth century arose the barbarous name of super-pellicium, or surplice -the overfur. Its name indicates that it is the latest of ecclesiastical vestments, and though, like all the others

1 Bingham, vi. 4, 19.