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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 30
The priest's stole was also accepted: and in the mosaics of Sta. Maria in Trastevere is seen a priest ornamented with this insignia. It is worthy of notice that the four popes who are represented in the same mosaic wear the pallium but no stole. The one seems to exclude the other. And as a matter of fact the ordines of the ninth century in describing the costume of the pope omit always the stole. One can readily understand that who bore one of these insignia should not wear the other.
However, they ended by combining them, and at Ravenna, where they always had a taste for decorations, bishop Ecclesius in the mosaics of San Vitale wears both the priest's stole and the Roman pallium. This, however, seems to be unique, and his successors have the pallium only. The two are found together again in the Sacramentary of Autun (Vide M. Lelisle's reproduction in the Gazette Archéologique, 1884, pl. 20), and on the paliotto of St. Ambrose of Milan; such seems to have been the usage of the Franks.
In view of these facts one is led to the conclusion that all these insignia, called pallium, omophorion, orarium, stole, epitrachilion, have the same origin. They are the marks of dignity, introduced into church usage during the fourth century, analogous to those which the Theodosian code orders for certain kinds of civil functionaries. For one reason or another the Roman Church refused to receive these marks, or rather confined itself to the papal pallium, which then took a wholly technical signification. But everywhere else, this mark of the then superior orders of the hierarchy was adopted, only varying slightly to mark the degree, the deacon wearing it over the left shoulder, the bishop and priest around the neck, the deacon over the tunicle which is his uppermost vestment, the priest under the chasuble; the bishop over his chasuble. [196] However, for this distinction between a bishop and priest we have very little evidence. The Canon of III Braga, already cited, which prescribes that priests shall wear the stole crossed over the breast, presupposes that it is worn under the chasuble, but the council understands that this method of wearing it pertains distinctively to priests, and that bishops have another method which they should observe; for the word sacerdotes, used by the council, includes bishops as well as priests. The rest of the Spanish ecclesiastical literature gives us no information upon the point. In Gaul, St. Germanus of Paris (as we have seen) speaks of the episcopal pallium after having described the chasuble, which makes one believe that it was worn on top. I have already said that Bishop Ecclesius of Ravenna is represented with the stole pendant before, under the chasuble and at the same time with the pallium on top of it; and that this usage was adopted in France in the Carlovingian times. Greek bishops also wear at the same time the epitrachilion and the omophorion. This accumulation of insignia was forbidden in Spain in the seventh century (Vide IV Toledo, Canon XXXIX), and (as we have stated) the Pope abstained from it until about the twelfth century, contenting himself with the pallium without adding to it the stole.*
The pallium, with the exception of the crosses which adorn its ends, was always white; so too was the deacon's stole and also that of the priest and bishop. The pallium was always and everywhere made of wool; in the East the deacon's stole was of linen; I cannot say of what material the priest's and deacon's stole was in the West.
[196] What follows down to the next asterisk is a foot-note to p. 379 of Duchesne's book.
Reference address : https://elpenor.org/ecumenical-councils/laodicea.asp?pg=30
