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| Dress as Connected with Idolatry.
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Chapter XVIII.—Dress
as Connected with Idolatry.
But we must now treat of the garb only and
apparatus of office. There is a dress proper to every one, as well for
daily use as for office and dignity. That famous purple, therefore, and
the gold as an ornament of the neck, were, among the Egyptians and
Babylonians, ensigns of dignity, in the same way as bordered, or
striped, or palm-embroidered togas, and the golden wreaths of
provincial priests, are now; but not on the same terms. For they used
only to be conferred, under the name of honour, on such as
deserved the familiar friendship of kings (whence, too, such used to be
styled the “purpled-men”294
of kings, just
as among us,295
some, from their
white toga, are called “candidates”296
); but
not on the understanding that that garb should be tied to
priesthoods also, or to any idol-ceremonies. For if
that were the case, of course men of such holiness and
constancy297
would instantly have
refused the defiled dresses; and it would instantly have appeared that
Daniel had been no zealous slave to idols, nor worshipped Bel, nor the
dragon, which long after did appear. That purple, therefore, was
simple, and used not at that time to be a mark of
dignity298
| 298 i.e.,
Official character. | among the barbarians,
but of nobility.299
| 299 Or, “free”
or “good” “birth.” | For as both Joseph,
who had been a slave, and Daniel, who through300
captivity had changed his state, attained the freedom of the states of
Babylon and Egypt through the dress of barbaric nobility;301
| 301 i.e., the dress
was the sign that they had obtained it. | so among us believers also, if need so be,
the bordered toga will be proper to be conceded to boys, and the stole
to girls,302
| 302 I have departed from
Oehler’s reading here, as I have not succeeded in finding that
the “stola” was a boy’s garment;
and, for grammatical reasons, the reading of Gelenius and Pamelius
(which I have taken) seems best. | as ensigns of birth,
not of power; of race, not of office; of rank, not of superstition. But
the purple, or the other ensigns of dignities and powers, dedicated
from the beginning to idolatry engrafted on the dignity and the powers,
carry the spot of their own profanation; since, moreover, bordered and
striped togas, and broad-barred ones, are put even on idols themselves;
and fasces also, and rods, are borne before them; and
deservedly, for demons are the magistrates of this world: they bear the
fasces and the purples, the ensigns of one college. What
end, then, will you advance if you use the garb indeed, but administer
not the functions of it? In things unclean, none can appear clean. If
you put on a tunic defiled in itself, it perhaps may not be defiled
through you; but you, through it, will be unable to be clean. Now by
this time, you who argue about “Joseph” and
“Daniel,” know that things old and new, rude and polished,
begun and developed, slavish and free, are not always comparable. For
they, even by their circumstances, were slaves; but you, the slave of
none,303
in so far as you are the slave of Christ
alone,304
who has freed you likewise from the captivity
of the world, will incur the duty of acting after your Lord’s
pattern. That Lord walked in humility and obscurity, with no
definite home: for “the Son of man,” said He, “hath
not where to lay His head;”305
unadorned in
dress, for else He had not said, “Behold, they who are clad in soft
raiment are in kings’ houses:”306
in
short, inglorious in countenance and aspect, just as Isaiah withal had
fore-announced.307
If, also, He
exercised no right of power even over His own followers, to whom He
discharged menial ministry;308
if, in short, though
conscious of His own kingdom,309
He shrank back from
being made a king,310
He in the fullest
manner gave His own an example for turning coldly from all the pride
and garb, as well of dignity as of power. For if they were to be
used, who would rather have used them than the Son of God? What
kind and what number of fasces would escort Him? what kind of
purple would bloom from His shoulders? what kind of gold would beam
from His head, had He not judged the glory of the world to be alien
both to Himself and to His? Therefore what He was unwilling to accept,
He has rejected; what He rejected, He has condemned; what He condemned,
He has counted as part of the devil’s pomp. For He would
not have condemned things, except such as were not His; but things
which are not God’s, can be no other’s but the
devil’s. If you have forsworn “the devil’s
pomp,”311
know that whatever
there you touch is idolatry. Let even this fact help to remind
you that all the powers and dignities of this world are not only alien
to, but enemies of, God; that through them punishments have been
determined against God’s servants; through them, too, penalties
prepared for the impious are ignored. But “both your birth
and your substance are troublesome to you in resisting
idolatry.”312
| 312 i.e., From your
birth and means, you will be expected to fill offices which are in some
way connected with idolatry. | For avoiding it,
remedies cannot be lacking; since, even if they be lacking, there
remains that one by which you will be made a happier magistrate, not in
the earth, but in the heavens.313
| 313 i.e., Martyrdom
(La Cerda, quoted by Oehler). For the idea of being “a
magistrate in the heavens,” [sitting on a throne] compare such
passages as Matt. xix. 28;
Luke xxii. 28, 30; 1 Cor. vi. 2, 3; Rev. ii. 26, 27; iii.
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