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Edited from a variety of translations (mentioned in the preface) by H. R. Percival
THE ECUMENICAL COUNCILS Resources Online and in Print
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56 Pages
Page 28
Excursus on the Vestments of the Early Church.
It would be out of place to enter into any specific treatment of the different vestments worn by the clergy in the performance of their various duties. For a full discussion of this whole matter I must refer my readers to the great writers on liturgical and kindred matters, especially to Cardinal Bona, De Rebus Liturgicis; Pugin, Ecclesiastical Glossary; Rock, Church of our Fathers; Hefele, Beiträge zu Kircheschichte, Archäologie und Liturgik (essay in Die Liturgischen Gervänder, vol. ij. p. 184 sqq.). And I would take this opportunity of warning the student against the entirely unwarranted conclusions of Durandus's Rationale Divinorum Officiorum and of Marriott's Vestiarium Christianum.
The manner in which the use of the stole is spoken of in this canon shews not only the great antiquity of that vestment but of other ecclesiastical vestments as well. Before, however, giving the details of our knowledge with regard to this particular vestment I shall need no apology for quoting a passage, very germane to the whole subject, from the pen of that most delightful writer Curzon, to whose care and erudition all scholars and students of manuscripts are so deeply indebted.
(Robert Curzon, Armenia, p. 202.)
Here I will remark that the sacred vestures of the Christian Church are the same, with very insignificant modifications, among every denomination of Christians in the world; that they have always been the same, and never were otherwise in any country, from the remotest times when we have any written accounts of them, or any mosaics, sculptures, or pictures to explain their forms. They are no more a Popish invention, or have anything more to do with the Roman Church, than any other usage which is common to all denominations of Christians. They are and always have been, of general and universal--that is, of Catholic--use; they have never been used for many centuries for ornament or dress by the laity, having been considered as set apart to be used only by priests in the church during the celebration of the worship of Almighty God.
Thus far the very learned Curzon. As is natural the distinctive dress of the bishops is the first that we hear of, and that in connexion with St. John, who is said to have worn a golden mitre or fillet. [195]
(Duchesne, Origines du Culte Chrétien, p. 376 et sqq.)
It was not the bishops alone who were distinguished by insignia from the other ecclesiastics. Priests and deacons had their distinctive insignia as well. There was, however, a difference between Rome and the rest of the world in this matter. At Rome it would seem that but little favour was extended at first to these marks of rank; the letter of Pope Celestine to the bishops shews this already. But what makes it evident still more clearly, is that the orarium of the priest and of the deacon, looked upon as a visible and distinctive mark of these orders, was unknown at Rome, at least down to the tenth century, while it had been adopted everywhere else.
[195] Eusebius. Hist. Eccl., v. 24.
Reference address : https://elpenor.org/ecumenical-councils/laodicea.asp?pg=28
