On the Pallium - Tertullian
Tertullian
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Translated by the Rev. S. Thelwall.
Text edited by Rev. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson and
first published by T&T Clark in Edinburgh in 1867. Additional
introductionary material and notes provided for the American
edition by A. Cleveland Coxe, 1886.
Chapter I. Time Changes Nations' Dresses And Fortunes
Men of Carthage, ever princes of Africa, ennobled by ancient memories, blest
with modern felicities, I rejoice that times are so prosperous with you that
you have leisure to spend and pleasure to find in criticising dress. These
are the "piping times of peace" and plenty. Blessings rain from the empire
and from the sky. Still, you too of old time wore your garments'your
tunics'of another shape; and indeed they were in repute for the skill of the
weft, and the harmony of the hue, and the due proportion of the size, in
that they were neither prodigally long across the shins, nor immodestly
scanty between the knees, nor niggardly to the arms, nor tight to the hands,
but, without being shadowed by even a girdle arranged to divide the folds,
they stood on men's backs with quadrate symmetry. The garment of the mantle
extrinsically'itself too quadrangular'thrown back on either shoulder, and
meeting closely round the neck in the gripe of the buckle, used to repose on
the shoulders. [2] Its counterpart is now the priestly dress, sacred to
Aesculapius, whom you now call your own. So, too, in your immediate
vicinity, the sister State [3] used to clothe (her citizens); and wherever
else in Africa Tyre (has settled). [4] But when the urn of worldly [5] lots
varied, and God favoured the Romans, the sister State, indeed, of her own
choice hastened to effect a change; in order that when Scipio put in at her
ports she might already beforehand have greeted him in the way of dress,
precocious in her Romanizing. To you, however, after the benefit in which
your injury resulted, as exempting you from the infinity of age, not
(deposing you) from your height of eminence,'after Gracchus and his foul
omens, after Lepidus and his rough jests, after Pompeius and his triple
altars, and Caesar and his long delays, when Statilius Taurus reared your
ramparts, and Sentius Saturninus pronounced the solemn form of your
inauguration,'while concord lends her aid, the gown is offered. Well! what a
circuit has it taken! from Pelasgians to Lydians; [6] from Lydians to
Romans: in order that from the shoulders of the sublimer people it should
descend to embrace Carthaginians! Henceforth, finding your tunic too long,
you suspend it on a dividing cincture; and the redundancy of your now smooth
toga [7] you support by gathering it together fold upon fold; and, with
whatever other garment social condition or dignity or season clothes you,
the mantle, at any rate, which used to be worn by all ranks and conditions
among you, you not only are unmindful of, but even deride. For my own part,
I wonder not (thereat), in the face of a more ancient evidence (of your
forgetfulness). For the ram withal'not that which Laberius [8] (calls)
"Back-twisted-horned, wool-skinned, stones-dragging,"but a beam-like engine
it is, which does military service in battering walls'never before poised by
any, the redoubted Carthage,
"Keenest in pursuits of war," [9] is said to have been the first of all to
have equipped for the oscillatory work of pendulous impetus; [10]
modelling the power of her engine after the choleric fury of the
head-avenging beast. [11] When, however, their country's fortunes are at
the last gasp, and the ram, now turned Roman, is doing his deeds of daring
against the ramparts which erst were his own, forthwith the Carthaginians
stood dumbfounded as at a "novel" and "strange" ingenuity: "so much doth
Time's long age avail to change!" [12] Thus, in short, it is that the
mantle, too, is not recognised.
Chapter II. The Law of Change, or Mutation, Universal.
Draw we now our material from some other source, lest Punichood either blush
or else grieve in the midst of Romans. To change her habit is, at all
events, the stated function of entire nature. The very world [13] itself
(this which we inhabit) meantime discharges it. See to it Anaximander, if he
thinks there are more (worlds): see to it, whoever else (thinks there exists
another) anywhere at the region of the Meropes, as Silenus prates in the
ears of Midas, [14] apt (as those cars are [15] ), it must be admitted,
for even huger fables. Nay, even if Plato thinks there exists one of which
this of ours is the image, that likewise must necessarily have similarly to
undergo mutation; inasmuch as, if it is a "world," [16] it will consist of
diverse substances and offices, answerable to the form of that which is here
the "world: " [17] for "world" it will not be if it be not just as the
"world" is. Things which, in diversity, tend to unity, are diverse by
demutation. In short, it is their vicissitudes which federate the discord of
their diversity. Thus it will be by mutation that every "world" [18] will
exist whose corporate structure is the result of diversities, and whose
attemperation is the result of vicissitudes. At all events, this hostelry of
ours [19] is versiform,'a fact which is patent to eyes that are closed, or
utterly Homeric. [20] Day and night revolve in turn. The sun varies by
annual stations, the moon by monthly phases. The stars'distinct in their
confusion'sometimes drop, sometimes resuscitate, somewhat. The circuit of
the heaven is now resplendent with serenity, now dismal with cloud; or else
rain-showers come rushing down, and whatever missiles (mingle) with them:
thereafter (follows) a slight sprinkling, and then again brilliance. So,
too, the sea has an ill repute for honesty; while at one time, the breezes
equably swaying it, tranquillity gives it the semblance of probity, calm
gives it the semblance of even temper; and then all of a sudden it heaves
restlessly with mountain-waves. Thus, too, if you survey the earth, loving
to clothe herself seasonably, you would nearly be ready to deny her
identity, when, remembering her green, you behold her yellow, and will ere
long see her hoary too. Of the rest of her adornment also, what is there
which is not subject to interchanging mutation'the higher ridges of her
mountains by decursion, the veins of her fountains by disappearance, and the
pathways of her streams by alluvial formation? There was a time when her
whole orb, withal, underwent mutation, overrun by all waters. To this day
marine conchs and tritons' horns sojourn as foreigners on the mountains,
eager to prove to Plato that even the heights have undulated. But withal, by
ebbing out, her orb again underwent a formal mutation; another, but the
same. Even now her shape undergoes local mutations, when (some particular)
spot is damaged; when among her islands Delos is now no more, Samos a heap
of sand, and the Sibyl (is thus proved) no liar; [21] when in the Atlantic
(the isle) that was equal in size to Libya or Asia is sought in vain; [22]
when formerly a side of Italy, severed to the centre by the shivering shock
of the Adriatic and the Tyrrhenian seas, leaves Sicily as its relics; when
that total swoop of discission, whirling backwards the contentious
encounters of the mains, invested the sea with a novel vice, the vice not of
spuing out wrecks, but of devouring them! The continent as well suffers from
heavenly or else from inherent forces. Glance at Palestine. Where Jordan's
river is the arbiter of boundaries, (behold) a vast waste, and a bereaved
region, and bootless land! And once (there were there) cities, and
flourishing peoples, and the soil yielded its fruits. [23] Afterwards,
since God is a Judge, impiety earned showers of fire: Sodom's day is over,
and Gomorrah is no more; and all is ashes; and the neighbour sea no less
than the soil experiences a living death! Such a cloud overcast Etruria,
burning down her ancient Volsinii, to teach Campania (all the more by the
ereption of her Pompeii) to look expectantly upon her own mountains. But far
be (the repetition of such catastrophes)! Would that Asia, withal, were by
this time without cause for anxiety about the soil's voracity! Would, too,
that Africa had once for all quailed before the devouring chasm, expiated by
the treacherous absorption of one single camp! [24] Many other such
detriments besides have made innovations upon the fashion of our orb, and
moved (particular) spots (in it). Very great also has been the licence of
wars. But it is no less irksome to recount sad details than (to recount) the
vicissitudes of kingdoms, (and to show) how frequent have been their
mutations, from Ninus the progeny of Belus, onwards; if indeed Ninus was the
first to have a kingdom, as the ancient profane authorities assert. Beyond
his time the pen is not wont (to travel), in general, among you (heathens).
From the Assyrians, it may be, the histories of "recorded time" [25] begin
to open. We, however, who are habitual readers of divine histories, are
masters of the subject from the nativity of the universe [26] itself. But
I prefer, at the present time, joyous details, inasmuch as things joyous
withal are subject to mutation. In short, whatever the sea has washed away,
the heaven burned down, the earth undermined, the sword shorn down,
reappears at some other time by the turn of compensation. [27] For in
primitive days not only was the earth, for the greater part of her circuit,
empty and uninhabited; but if any particular race had seized upon any part,
it existed for itself alone. And so, understanding at last that all things
worshipped themselves, (the earth) consulted to weed and scrape her
copiousness (of inhabitants), in one place densely packed, in another
abandoning their posts; in order that thence (as it were from grafts and
settings) peoples from peoples, cities from cities, might be planted
throughout every region of her orb. [28] Transmigrations were made by the
swarms of redundant races. The exuberance of the Scythians fertilizes the
Persians; the Phoenicians gush out into Africa; the Phrygians give birth to
the Romans; the seed of the Chaldeans is led out into Egypt; subsequently,
when transferred thence, it becomes the Jewish race. [29] So, too, the
posterity of Hercules, in like wise, proceed to occupy the Peloponnesus for
the behoof of Temenus. So, again, the Ionian comrades of Neleus furnish Asia
with new cities: so, again, the Corinthians with Archias, fortify Syracuse.
But antiquity is by this time a vain thing (to refer to), when our own
careers are before our eyes. How large a portion of our orb has the present
age [30] reformed! how many cities has the triple power of our existing
empire either produced, or else augmented, or else restored! While God
favours so many Augusti unitedly, how many populations have been transferred
to other localities! how many peoples reduced! how many orders restored to
their ancient splendour! how many barbarians baffled! In truth, our orb is
the admirably cultivated estate of this empire; every aconite of hostility
eradicated; and the cactus and bramble of clandestinely crafty familiarity
[31] wholly uptorn; and (the orb itself) delightsome beyond the orchard of
Alcinous and the rosary of Midas. Praising, therefore, our orb in its
mutations, why do you point the finger of scorn at a man?
Chapter III. Beasts Similarly Subject to the Law of Mutation.
Beasts, too, instead of a garment, change their form. And yet the peacock
withal has plumage for a garment, and a garment indeed of the choicest; nay,
in the bloom of his neck richer than any purple, and in the effulgence of
his back more gilded than any edging, and in the sweep of his tail more
flowing than any train; many-coloured, diverse-coloured, and versi-coloured;
never itself, ever another, albeit ever itself when other; in a word,
mutable as oft as moveable. The serpent, too, deserves to be mentioned,
albeit not in the same breath as the peacock; for he too wholly changes what
has been allotted him'his hide and his age: if it is true, (as it is,) that
when he has felt the creeping of old age throughout him, he squeezes himself
into confinement; crawls into a cave and out of his skin simultaneously;
and, clean shorn on the spot, immediately on crossing the threshold leaves
his slough behind him then and there, and uncoils himself in a new youth:
with his scales his years, too, are repudiated. The hyena, if you observe,
is of an annual sex, alternately masculine and feminine. I say nothing of
the stag, because himself withal, the witness of his own age, feeding on the
serpent, languishes'from the effect of the poison'into youth. There is,
withal,
"A tardigrade field-haunting quadruped,
Humble and rough."
The tortoise of Pacuvius, you think? No. There is another beastling which
the versicle fits; in size, one of the moderate exceedingly, but a grand
name. If, without previously knowing him, you hear tell of a chameleon, you
will at once apprehend something yet more huge united with a lion. But when
you stumble upon him, generally in a vineyard, his whole bulk sheltered
beneath a vine leaf, you will forthwith laugh at the egregious audacity of
the name, inasmuch as there is no moisture even in his body, though in far
more minute creatures the body is liquefied, The chameleon is a living
pellicle. His headkin begins straight from his spine, for neck he has none:
and thus reflection [32] is hard for him; but, in circumspection, his eyes
are outdarting, nay, they are revolving points of light. Dull and weary, he
scarce raises from the ground, but drags, his footstep amazedly, and moves
forward,'he rather demonstrates, than takes, a step: ever fasting, to boot,
yet never fainting; agape he feeds; heaving, bellowslike, he ruminates; his
food wind. Yet withal the chameleon is able to effect a total self-mutation,
and that is all. For, whereas his colour is properly one, yet, whenever
anything has approached him, then he blushes. To the chameleon alone has
been granted'as our common saying has it'to sport with his own hide.
Much had to be said in order that, after due preparation, we might arrive at
man. From whatever beginning you admit him as springing, naked at all events
and ungarmented he came from his fashioner's hand: afterwards, at length,
without waiting for permission, he possesses himself, by a premature grasp,
of wisdom. Then and there hastening to forecover what, in his newly made
body, it was not yet due to modesty (to forecover), he surrounds himself
meantime with fig-leaves: subsequently, on being driven from the confines of
his birthplace because he had sinned, he went, skinclad, to the world [33]
as to a mine. [34]
But these are secrets, nor does their knowledge appertain to all. Come, let
us hear from your own store'(a store) which the Egyptians narrate, and
Alexander [35] digests, and his mother reads'touching the time of
Osiris, [36] when Ammon, rich in sheep, comes to him out of Libya. In
short, they tell us that Mercury, when among them, delighted with the
softness of a ram which he had chanced to stroke, flayed a little ewe; and,
while he persistently tries and (as the pliancy of the material invited him)
thins out the thread by assiduous traction, wove it into the shape of the
pristine net which he had joined with strips of linen. But you have
preferred to assign all the management of wool-work and structure of the
loom to Minerva; whereas a more diligent workshop was presided over by
Arachne. Thenceforth material (was abundant). Nor do I speak of the sheep of
Miletus, and Selge, and Altinum, or of those for which Tarentum or Baetica
is famous, with nature for their dyer: but (I speak of the fact) that shrubs
afford you clothing, and the grassy parts of flax, losing their greenness,
turn white by washing. Nor was it enough to plant and sow your tunic, unless
it had likewise fallen to your lot to fish for raiment. For the sea withal
yields fleeces, inasmuch as the more brilliant shells of a mossy wooliness
furnish a hairy stuff. Further: it is no secret that the silkworm'a species
of wormling it is'presently reproduces safe and sound (the fleecy threads)
which, by drawing them through the air, she distends more skilfully than the
dial-like webs of spiders, and then devours. In like manner, if you kill it,
the threads which you coil are forthwith instinct with vivid colour.
The ingenuities, therefore, of the tailoring art, superadded to, and
following up, so abundant a store of materials'first with a view to coveting
humanity, where Necessity led the way; and subsequently with a view to
adorning withal, ay, and inflating it, where Ambition followed in the
wake'have promulgated the various forms of garments. Of which forms, part
are worn by particular nations, without being common to the rest; part, on
the other hand, universally, as being useful to all: as, for instance, this
Mantle, albeit it is more Greek (than Latin), has yet by this time found, in
speech, a home in Latium. With the word the garment entered. And accordingly
the very man who used to sentence Greeks to extrusion from the city, but
learned (when he was now advanced in years) their alphabet and speech'the
self-same Cato, by baring his shoulder at the time of his praetorship,
showed no less favour to the Greeks by his mantle-like garb.
Chapter IV. Change Not Always Improvement.
Why, now, if the Roman fashion is (social) salvation to every one, are you
nevertheless Greek to a degree, even in points not honourable? Or else, if
it is not so, whence in the world is it that provinces which have had a
better training, provinces which nature adapted rather for surmounting by
hard struggling the difficulties of the soil, derive the pursuits of the
wrestling-ground'pursuits which fall into a sad old age [37] and labour in
vain'and the unction with mud, [38] and the rolling in sand, and the dry
dietary? Whence comes it that some of our Numidians, with their long locks
made longer by horsetail plumes, learn to bid the barber shave their skin
close, and to exempt their crown alone from the knife? Whence comes it that
men shaggy and hirsute learn to teach the resin [39] to feed on their arms
with such rapacity, the tweezers to weed their chin so thievishly? A prodigy
it is, that all this should be done without the Mantle! To the Mantle
appertains this whole Asiatic practice! What hast thou, Libya, and thou,
Europe, to do with athletic refinements, which thou knowest not how to
dress? For, in sooth, what kind of thing is it to practise Greekish
depilation more than Greekish attire?
The transfer of dress approximates to culpability just in so far as it is
not custom, but nature, which suffers the change. There is a wide enough
difference between the honour due to time, and religion. Let Custom show
fidelity to Time, Nature to God. To Nature, accordingly, the Larissaean
hero [40] gave a shock by turning into a virgin; he who had been reared on
the marrows of wild beasts (whence, too, was derived the composition of his
name, because he had been a stranger with his lips to the maternal breast
[41] ); he who had been reared by a rocky and wood-haunting and monstrous
trainer [42] in a stony school. You would bear patiently, if it were in a
boy's case, his mother's solicitude; but he at all events was already
be-haired, he at all events had already secretly given proof of his manhood
to some one, [43] when he consents to wear the flowing stole, [44] to
dress his hair, to cultivate his skin, to consult the mirror, to bedizen his
neck; effeminated even as to his ear by boring, whereof his bust at Sigeum
still retains the trace. Plainly afterwards he turned soldier: for necessity
restored him his sex. The clarion had sounded of battle: nor were arms far
to seek. "The steel's self," says (Homer), "attracteth the hero." [45]
Else if, after that incentive as well as before, he had persevered in his
maidenhood, he might withal have been married! Behold, accordingly,
mutation! A monster, I call him,'a double monster: from man to woman; by and
by from woman to man: whereas neither ought the truth to have been belied,
nor the deception confessed. Each fashion of changing was evil: the one
opposed to nature, the other contrary to safety.
Still more disgraceful was the case when lust transfigured a man in his
dress, than when some maternal dread did so: and yet adoration is offered by
you to me, whom you ought to blush at,'that Clubshaftandhidebearer, who
exchanged for womanly attire the whole proud heritage of his name! Such
licence was granted to the secret haunts of Lydia, [46] that Hercules was
prostituted in the person of Omphale, and Omphale in that of Hercules. Where
were Diomed and his gory mangers? where Busiris and his funereal altars?
where Geryon, triply one? The club preferred still to reek with their brains
when it was being pestered with unguents! The now veteran (stain of the)
Hydra's and of the Centaurs' blood upon the shafts was gradually eradicated
by the pumice-stone, familiar to the hair-pin! while voluptuousness insulted
over the fact that, after transfixing monsters, they should perchance sew a
coronet! No sober woman even, or heroine [47] of any note, would have
adventured her shoulders beneath the hide of such a beast, unless after long
softening and smoothening down and deodorization (which in Omphale's house,
I hope, was effected by balsam and fenugreek-salve: I suppose the mane, too,
submitted to the comb) for fear of getting her tender neck imbued with
lionly toughness. The yawning mouth stuffed with hair, the jaw-teeth
overshadowed amid the forelocks, the whole outraged visage, would have
roared had it been able. Nemea, at all events (if the spot has any presiding
genius), groaned: for then she looked around, and saw that she had lost her
lion. What sort of being the said Hercules was in Omphale's silk, the
description of Omphale in Hercules' hide has inferentially depicted.
But, again, he who had formerly rivalled the Tirynthian [48] 'the pugilist
Cleomachus'subsequently, at Olympia, after losing by efflux his masculine
sex by an incredible mutation'bruised within his skin and without, worthy to
be wreathed among the "Fullers" even of Novius, [49] and deservedly
commemorated by the mimographer Lentulus in his Catinensians'did, of course,
not only cover with bracelets the traces left by (the bands of) the cestus,
but likewise supplanted the coarse ruggedness of his athlete's cloak with
some superfinely wrought tissue.
Of Physco and Sardanapalus I must be silent, whom, but for their eminence in
lusts, no one would recognise as kings. But I must be silent, for fear lest
even they set up a muttering concerning some of your Caesars, equally lost
to shame; for fear lest a mandate have been given to canine [50] constancy
to point to a Caesar impurer than Physco, softer than Sardanapalus, and
indeed a second Nero. [51]
Nor less warmly does the force of vainglory also work for the mutation of
clothing, even while manhood is preserved. Every affection is a heat: when,
however, it is blown to (the flame of) affectation, forthwith, by the blaze
of glory, it is an ardour. From this fuel, therefore, you see a great king
[52] 'inferior only to his glory'seething. He had conquered the Median race,
and was conquered by Median garb. Doffing the triumphal mail, he degraded
himself into the captive trousers! The breast dissculptured with scaly
bosses, by covering it with a transparent texture he bared; punting still
after the work of war, and (as it were) softening, he extinguished it with
the ventilating silk! Not sufficiently swelling of spirit was the
Macedonian, unless he had likewise found delight in a highly inflated garb:
only that philosophers withal (I believe) themselves affect somewhat of that
kind; for I hear that there has been (such a thing as) philosophizing in
purple. If a philosopher (appears) in purple, why not in glided slippers
[53] too? For a Tyrian [54] to be shod in anything but gold, is by no
means consonant with Greek habits. Some one will say, "Well, but there was
another [55] who wore silk indeed, and shod himself in brazen sandals."
Worthily, indeed, in order that at the bottom of his Bacchantian raiment he
might make some tinkling sound, did he walk in cymbals! But if, at that
moment, Diogenes had been barking from his tub, he would not (have trodden
on him [56] ) with muddy feet'as the Platonic couches testify'but would
have carried Empedocles down bodily to the secret recesses of the
Cloacinae; [57] in order that he who had madly thought himself a celestial
being might, as a god, salute first his sisters, [58] and afterwards men.
Such garments, therefore, as alienate from nature and modesty, let it be
allowed to be just to eye fixedly and point at with the finger and expose to
ridicule by a nod. Just so, if a man were to wear a dainty robe trailing on
the ground with Menander-like effeminacy, he would hear applied to himself
that which the comedian says "What sort of a cloak is that maniac wasting?
"For, now that the contracted brow of censorial vigilance is long since
smoothed down, so far as reprehension is concerned, promiscuous usage offers
to our gaze freedmen in equestrian garb, branded slaves in that of
gentlemen, the notoriously infamous in that of the freeborn, clowns in that
of city-folk, buffoons in that of lawyers, rustics in regimentals; the
corpse-bearer, the pimp, the gladiator trainer, clothe themselves as you do.
Turn, again, to women. You have to behold what Caecina Severus pressed upon
the grove attention of the senate'matrons stoleless in public. In fact, the
penalty inflicted by the decrees of the augur Lentulus upon any matron who
had thus cashiered herself was the same as for fornication; inasmuch as
certain matrons had sedulously promoted the disuse of garments which were
the evidences and guardians of dignity, as being impediments to the
practising of prostitution. But now, in their self-prostitution, in order
that they may the more readily be approached, they have abjured stole, and
chemise, and bonnet, and cap; yes, and even the very litters and sedans in
which they used to be kept in privacy and secrecy even in public. But while
one extinguishes her proper adornments, another blazes forth such as are not
hers. Look at the street-walkers, the shambles of popular lusts; also at the
female self-abusers with their sex; and, if it is better to withdraw your
eyes from such shameful spectacles of publicly slaughtered chastity, yet do
but look with eyes askance, (and) you will at once see (them to be) matrons!
And, while the overseer of brothels airs her swelling silk, and consoles her
neck'more impure than her haunt'with necklaces, and inserts in the armlets
(which even matrons themselves would, of the guerdons bestowed upon brave
men, without hesitation have appropriated) hands privy to all that is
shameful, (while) she fits on her impure leg the pure white or pink shoe;
why do you not stare at such garbs? or, again, at those which falsely plead
religion as the supporter of their novelty? while for the sake of an
all-white dress, and the distinction of a fillet, and the privilege of a
helmet, some are initiated into (the mysteries of) Ceres; while, on account
of an opposite hankering after sombre raiment, and a gloomy woollen covering
upon the head, others run mad in Bellona's temple; while the attraction of
surrounding themselves with a tunic more broadly striped with purple, and
casting over their shoulders a cloak of Galatian scarlet, commends Saturn
(to the affections of others). When this Mantle itself, arranged with more
rigorous care, and sandals after the Greek model, serve to flatter
Aesculapius, [59] how much more should you then accuse and assail it with
your eyes, as being guilty of superstition'albeit superstition simple and
unaffected? Certainly, when first it clothes this wisdom [60] which
renounces superstitions with all their vanities, then most assuredly is the
Mantle, above all the garments in which you array your gods and goddesses,
an august robe; and, above all the caps and tufts of your Salii and
Flamines, a sacerdotal attire. Lower your eyes, I advise you, (and)
reverence the garb, on the one ground, meantime, (without waiting for
others,) of being a renouncer of your error.
Chapter V. Virtues of the Mantle. It Pleads in Its Own Defence.
"Still," say you, "must we thus change from gown [61] to Mantle? "Why,
what if from diadem and sceptre? Did Anacharsis change otherwise, when to
the royalty of Scythia he preferred philosophy? Grant that there be no
(miraculous) signs in proof of your transformation for the better: there is
somewhat which this your garb can do. For, to begin with the simplicity of
its uptaking: it needs no tedious arrangement. Accordingly, there is no
necesSity for any artist formally to dispose its wrinkled folds from the
beginning a day beforehand, and then to reduce them to a more finished
elegance, and to assign to the guardianship of the stretchers [62] the
whole figment of the massed boss; subsequently, at daybreak, first gathering
up by the aid of a girdle the tunic which it were better to have woven of
more moderate length (in the first instance), and, again scrutinizing the
boss, and rearranging any disarrangement, to make one part prominent on the
left, but (making now an end of the folds) to draw backwards from the
shoulders the circuit of it whence the hollow is formed, and, leaving the
right shoulder free, heap it still upon the left, with another similar set
of folds reserved for the back, and thus clothe the man with a burden! In
short, I will persistently ask your own conscience, What is your first
sensation in wearing your gown? Do you feel yourself clad, or laded? wearing
a garment, or carrying it? If you shall answer negatively, I will follow you
home; I win see what you hasten to do immediately after crossing your
threshold. There is really no garment the dolling whereof congratulates a
man more than the gown's does. [63] Of shoes we say nothing'implements as
they are of torture proper to the gown, most uncleanly protection to the
feet, yes, and false too. For who would not find it expedient, in cold and
heat, to stiffen with feet bare rather than in a shoe with feet bound? A
mighty munition for the tread have the Venetian shoe-factories provided in
the shape of effeminate boots! Well, but, than the Mantle nothing is more
expedite, even if it be double, like that of Crates. [64] Nowhere is there
a compulsory waste of time in dressing yourself (in it), seeing that its
whole art consists in loosely covering. That can be effected by a single
circumjection, and one in no case inelegant: [65] thus it wholly covers
every part of the man at once. The shoulder it either exposes or encloses:
[66] in other respects it adheres to the shoulder; it has no surrounding
support; it has no surrounding tie; it has no anxiety as to the fidelity
with which its folds keep their place; easily it manages, easily readjusts
itself: even in the dolling it is consigned to no cross until the morrow. If
any shirt is worn beneath it, the torment of a girdle is superfluous: if
anything in the way of shoeing is worn, it is a most cleanly work; [67] or
else the feet are rather bare,'more manly, at all events, (if bare,) than in
shoes. These (pleas I advance) for the Mantle in the meantime, in so far as
you have defamed it by name. Now, however, it challenges you on the score of
its function withal. "I," it says, "owe no duty to the forum, the
election-ground, or the senate-house; I keep no obsequious vigil, preoccupy
no platforms, hover about no praetorian residences; I am not odorant of the
canals, am not odorant of the lattices, am no constant wearer out of
benches, no wholesale router of laws, no barking pleader, no judge, no
soldier, no king: I have withdrawn from the populace. My only business is
with myself: except that other care I have none, save not to care. The
better life you would more enjoy in seclusion than in publicity. But you
will decry me as indolent. Forsooth, 'we are to live for our country, and
empire, and estate.' Such used, [68] of old, to be the sentiment. None is
born for another, being destined to die for himself. At all events, when we
come to the Epicuri and Zenones, you give the epithet of 'sages' to the
whole teacherhood of Quietude, who have consecrated that Quietude with the
name of 'supreme' and 'unique' pleasure. Still, to some extent it will be
allowed, even to me, to confer benefit on the public. From any and every
boundary-stone or altar it is my wont to prescribe medicines to
morals'medicines which will be more felicitous in conferring good health
upon public affairs, and states, and empires, than your works are. Indeed,
if I proceed to encounter you with naked foils, gowns have done the
commonwealth more hurt than cuirasses. Moreover, I flatter no vices; I give
quarter to no lethargy, no slothful encrustation. I apply the cauterizing
iron to the ambition which led M. Tullius to buy a circular table of
citron-wood for more than £4000, [69] and Asinius Gallus to pay twice as
much for an ordinary table of the same Moorish wood (Hem! at what fortunes
did they value woody dapplings!), or, again, Sulla to frame dishes of an
hundred pounds' weight. I fear lest that balance be small, when a
Drusillanus (and he withal a slave of Claudius!) constructs a tray [70] of
the weight of 500 lbs.!'a tray indispensable, perchance, to the aforesaid
tables, for which, if a workshop was erected, [71] there ought to have
been erected a dining-room too. Equally do I plunge the scalpel into the
inhumanity which led Vedius Pollio to expose slaves to fill the bellies of
sea-eels. Delighted, forsooth, with his novel savagery, he kept
land-monsters, toothless, clawless, hornless: it was his pleasure to turn
perforce into wild beasts his fish, which (of course) were to be forthwith
cooked, that in their entrails he himself withal might taste some savour of
the bodies of his own slaves. I will forelop the gluttony which led
Hortensius the orator to be the first to have the heart to slay a peacock
for the sake of food; which led Aufidius Lurco to be the first to vitiate
meat with stuffing, and by the aid of forcemeats to raise them to an
adulterous [72] flavour; which led Asinius Celer to purchase the viand of
a single mullet at nearly £50; [73] which led Aesopus the actor to
preserve in his pantry a dish of the value of nearly £800, made up of birds
of the selfsame costliness (as the mullet aforesaid), consisting of all the
songsters and talkers; which led his son, after such a titbit, to have the
hardihood to hunger after somewhat yet more sumptuous: for he swallowed down
pearls'costly even on the ground of their name'I suppose for fear he should
have supped more beggarly than his father. I am silent as to the Neros and
Apicii and Rufi. I will give a cathartic to the impurity of a Scaurus, and
the gambling of a Curius, and the intemperance of an Antony. And remember
that these, out of the many (whom I have named), were men of the toga-such
as among the men of the pallium you would not easily find. These purulencies
of a state who will eliminate and exsuppurate, save a bemantled speech?
Chapter VI. Further Distinctions, and Crowning Glory, of the Pallium.
"'With speech, 'says (my antagonist), 'you have tried to persuade me,'a most
sage medicament.' But, albeit utterance be mute'impeded by infancy or else
checked by bashfulness, for life is content with an even tongueless
philosophy'my very cut is eloquent. A philosopher, in fact, is heard so long
as he is seen. My. very sight puts vices to the blush. Who suffers not, when
he sees his own rival? Who can bear to gaze ocularly at him at whom mentally
he cannot? Grand is the benefit conferred by the Mantle, at the thought
whereof moral improbity absolutely blushes. Let philosophy now see to the
question of her own profitableness; for she is not the only associate whom I
boast. Other scientific arts of public utility I boast. From my store are
clothed the first teacher of the forms of letters, the first explainer of
their sounds, the first trainer in the rudiments of arithmetic, the
grammarian, the rhetorician, the sophist, the medical man, the poet, the
musical timebeater, the astrologer, and the birdgazer. All that is liberal
in studies is covered by my four angles. 'True; but all these rank lower
than Roman knights.' Well; but your gladiatorial trainers, and all their
ignominious following, are conducted into the arena in togas. This, no
doubt, will be the indignity implied in 'From gown to Mantle!'" Well, so
speaks the Mantle. But I confer on it likewise a fellowship with a divine
sect and discipline. Joy, Mantle, and exult! A better philosophy has now
deigned to honour thee, ever since thou hast begun to be a Christian's
vesture!
Elucidations
I
The garment too quadrangular, p. 5.
Speaking of the Greek priests of Korfou, the erudite Bishop of Lincoln,
lately deceased, has remarked, "There is something very picturesque in the
appearance of these persons, with their black caps resembling the modius
seen on the heads of the ancient statues of Serapis and Osiris, their long
beards and pale complexions, and their black flowing cloak,'a relic, no
doubt, of the old ecclesiastical garment of which Tertullian wrote." These
remarks [74] are illustrated by an engraving on the same page.
He thus identifies the pallium with the gown of Justin Martyr; [75] nor
can there be any reasonable doubt that the pallium of the West was the
counterpart of the Greek and of the , which St. Paul
left at Troas. Endearing associations have clung to it from the mention of
this apostolic cloak in Holy Scripture. It doubtless influenced Justin in
giving his philosopher's gown a new significance, and the modern Greeks
insist that such was the apparel of the apostles. The seamless robe of
Christ Himself belongs to Him only.
Tertullian rarely acknowledges his obligations to other Doctors; but
Justin's example and St. Paul's cloak must have been in his thoughts when he
rejected the toga, and claimed the pallium, as a Christian's attire. Our
Edinburgh translator has assumed that it was the "ascetics' mantle," and
perhaps it was. [76] Our author wished to make all Christians ascetics,
like himself, and hence his enthusiasm for a distinctive costume. Anyhow,
"the Doctor's gown" of the English universities, which is also used among
the Gallicans and in Savoy, is one of the most ancient as well as dignified
vestments in ecclesiastical use; and for the prophetic or preaching function
of the clergy it is singularly appropriate. [77]
"The pallium," says a learned author, [78] the late Wharton B. Marriott of
Oxford, "is the Greek himation, the outer garment or wrapper worn
occasionally by persons of all conditions of life. It corresponded in
general use to the Roman toga, but in the earlier Roman language, that of
republican times, was as distinctively suggestive of a Greek costume as the
toga of that of Rome." To Tertullian, therefore, his preference for the
pallium was doubtless commended by all these considerations; and the
distinctively Greek character of Christian theology was indicated also by
his choice. He loved the learning of Alexandria, and reflected the spirit of
the East.
II
Superstition, p. 10, near note 9.
The pall afterwards imposed upon Anglican and other primates by the Court of
Rome was at first a mere complimentary present from the patriarchal see of
the West. It became a badge of dependence and of bondage (obsta principiis).
Only the ornamental bordering was sent, "made of lamb's-wool and
superstition," says old Fuller, for whose amusing remarks see his Church
Hist., vol. i. p. 179, ed. 1845. Rome gives primitive names to middle-age
corruptions: needless to say the "pall" of her court is nothing like the
pallium of our author.
Footnotes
[1] [Written, according to Neander, about a.d. 208.]
[2] [See Elucidation I.]
[3] Utica (Oehler).
[4] i.e., in Adrumetum (Oehler).
[5] Saecularium.
[6] i.e., Etruscans, who were supposed to be of Lydian origin.
[7] i.e., your gown.
[8] A Roman knight and mime-writer.
[9] Virg., AEn., i. 14.
[10] Or, "attack."
[11] Caput vindicantis. But some read capite: "which avenges itself with
its head."
[12] See Virg., AEn., iii. 415 (Oehler).
[13] Mundus.
[14] See Adv. Herm., c. xxv. ad fin. (Oehler).
[15] As being "the ears of an ass."
[16] Mundus. Oehler's pointing is disregarded.
[17] Mundus. Oehler's pointing is disregarded.
[18] Mundus. Oehler's pointing is disregarded.
[19] Metatio nostra, i.e., the world.
[20] i.e., blind. Cf. Milton, P. L. iii. 35, with the preceding and
subsequent context.
[21] Alluding to the Sibylline oracles, in which we read (l. iii.), Kai
Samos ammos esē, kai Dēlos adēlos and again (l. iv.), Dēlos ouk eti dēlos,
adēla de panta tou Dēlou (Oehler).
[22] See Apolog., c. xi. med.; ad Nat., l. i. c. ix. med.; Plato,
Timaeus, pp. 24, 25 (Oehler).
[23] Oehler's apt conjecture, "et solum sua dabat," is substituted for
the unintelligible "et solus audiebat" of the mss., which Rig. skilfully but
indffectually tries to explain.
[24] The "camp" of Cambyses, said by Herod, (iii.26) to have been
swallowed up in the Libyan Syrtes (Salm. in Oehler). It was one detachment
of his army. Milton tells similar tales of the "Serbonian bog." P.L., ii.
591-594.
[25] Aevi.
[26] Mundi.
[27] "Alias versura compensati redit;" unless we may read "reddit," and
take "versura" as a nominative: "the turn of compensation at some other time
restores."
[28] This rendering, which makes the earth the subject, appears to give
at least an intelligible sense to this hopelessly corrupt passage. Oehler's
pointing is disregarded; and his rendering not strictly adhered to, as being
too forced. If for Oehler's conjectural "se demum intellegens" we might read
"se debere demum intellegens," or simply "se debere intellegens," a good
sense might be made, thus: "understanding at last" (or, simply,
"understanding") "that it was her duty to cultivate all (parts of her
surface)."
[29] Comp. Gen. xi. 26-xii. 5 with Acts vii. 2-4, 15, 45, and xiii.
17-19.
[30] Saeculum.
[31] Oehler understands this of Clodius Albinus, and the Augusti
mentioned above to be Severus and his two sons Antonius and Geta. But see
Kaye, pp. 36-39 (ed. 3, 1845).
[32] Reflecti: perhaps a play upon the word = to turn back, or (mentally)
to reflect.
[33] Orbi.
[34] i.e., a place which he was to work, as condemned criminals worked
mines. Comp., de Pu., c. xxii. sub init.; and see Gen. ii. 25 (in LXX. iii.
1), iii. 7, 21-24.
[35] Alexander Polyhistor, who dedicated his books on the affairs of the
Phrygians and Egyptians to his mother (Rig. in Oehler).
[36] The Egyptian Liber, or Bacchus. See de Cor., c. vii. (Rig. in
Oehler).
[37] Male senescentia. Rig. (as quoted by Oehler) seems to interpret,
"which entail a feeble old age." Oehler himself seems to take it to mean
"pursuits which are growing very old, and toiling to no purpose."
[38] Or, as some take it, with wax (Oehler).
[39] Used as a depilatory.
[40] Achilles.
[41] Achillens: from a privative, and the lip. See Oehler.
[42] The Centaur Chiron, namely.
[43] Deianira, of whom he had begotten Pyrrhus (Oehler).
[44] See the note on this word in de Idol., c. xviii.
[45] Hom., Od., svi. 294 (Oehler).
[46] Jos. Mercer, quoted by Oehler, appears to take the meaning to be,"to
his clandestine Lydian concubine;" but that rendering does not seem
necessary.
[47] Viraginis; but perhaps = virginis. See the Vulg. in Gen. ii. 23.
[48] i.e., Hercules.
[49] Or, "which are now attributed to Novius." Novius was a writer of
that kind of farce called "Atellanae favulae;" and one of his farces ' or
one attributed to him in Tertullian's day ' was called "The Fullers."
[50] i.e., cynical; comp. de Pa., c. ii. ad init.
[51] i.e., Domitian, called by Juv. calvum Neronem, Sat. iv, 38.
[52] Alexander.
[53] Comp. de Idol., c. viii. med.
[54] i.e., one who affects Tyrian ' dresses in Tyrian purple.
[55] Empedocles (Salm. in Oehler).
[56] I have adopted Oehler's suggestion, and inserted these words.
[57] i.e., of Cloacina or Cluacina (= "the Purifier," a name of Venue;
comp. White and Riddle), which Tertullian either purposely connects with
"cloaca," a sewer (with which, indeed, it may be really connected, as coming
derivatively from the same root), and takes to mean "the nymphs of the
sewers" apparently.
[58] The nymphs above named (Oehler).
[59] i.e., are worn by his votaries.
[60] i.e., Christianity. Cf. 1 Cor. ii. 6, 7.
[61] Toga.
[62] Or, "forcipes."
[63] Of course the meaning is, "on the doffing of which a man
congratulates himself more," etc.; but Tertullian as it were personifies the
act of doffing, and represents it as congratulating the doffer; and I have
scrupulously retained all his extravagances, believing them (in the present
treatise at least) to be intentional.
[64] A Cynic philosopher.
[65] "Inhumano;" or, perhaps, "involving superhuman effort."
[66] Oehler attempts to defend the common reading, "humerum velans
exponit vel includit;" but the correction of Salmasius and Lud. de la Cerda
which he quotes, "vel exponit," is followed in preference. If Oehler's
reading be retained, we may render: "a covering for the shoulder, it exposes
or encloses it at will."
[67] i.e., the "shoeing" appropriate to the mantle will consist at most
of sandals; "shoes" being (as has been said) suited to the gown.
[68] "Erat." ' Oehler, who refers to "errat" as the general reading, and
(if adopted) renders: "This sentiment errs (Or wanders) in all
directions;" making olim = passim.
[69] Reckoning the 1000 sesterces at their pre-Augustan value, £8, 17s.
1d.
[70] "Promulsis" ' a tray on which the first course ("promulsis" or
"antecoena") was served, otherwise called "promulsidare."
[71] As Pliny (quoted by Oehler) tells us was the case.
[72] Or, "adulterated."
[73] Reckoning the 1000 sesterces at the post-Augustan value, £7, 16s.
3d.
[74] Wordsworth's Greece, p. 263. London, 1839.
[75] See vol. i. p. 160, this series.
[76] But it was assuming a questionable point (See Kaye, p. 49) to give
it this name in the title, and I have retained it untranslated.
[77] See note on p. 160 of vol. i., this series.
[78] See his valuable and exhaustive treatise, the Vestiarium
Christianum, especially pp. 73, 125, 233, 490. Also, for the Gallicanum, p.
204 and Appendix E., with pp. 210, 424. For the Graecum, pp. xii. (note),
xv. 73, 127, 233.
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