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| Elucidations
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Elucidations.
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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 remarks74
| 74 Wordsworth’s
Greece, p. 263. London, 1839. | are
illustrated by an engraving on the same page.
He thus identifies the pallium with the
gown of Justin Martyr;75
| 75 See vol. i. p. 160, this
series. | nor can there be any
reasonable doubt that the pallium of the West was the
counterpart of the Greek φελόνιον and of
the φαιλόνη, 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
| 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. | 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
| 77 See note on p. 160 of vol.
i., this series. |
“The pallium,” says a learned
author,78
| 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 Græcum, pp.
xii. (note), xv. 73, 127, 233. | the late Wharton B. Marriott of Oxford,
“is the Greek ἱματιον, 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. E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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