Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume XI/John Cassian/The Twelve Books/Book I/Chapter 4

by Philip Schaff et al.

Chapter IV.

Of the Tunics of the Egyptians.

They wear also linen tunics^[1] which scarcely reach to the elbows, and for the rest leave their hands bare, that the cutting off of the sleeves may suggest that they have cut off all the deeds and works of this world, and the garment of linen teach that they are dead to all earthly conversation, and that hereby they may hear the Apostle saying day by day to them: “Mortify your members which are upon the earth;” their very dress also declaring this: “For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God;” and again: “And I live, yet now not I but Christ liveth in me. To me indeed the world is crucified, and I to the world.”^[2]

Footnotes

1. Colobium (κολόβιον), a tunic with very short sleeves. Cf. Dorotheus (Migne, Patrol. Græca lxxxviii. 1631). Τὸ σχῆμα ὃ φοροῦμεν κολόβιόν ἐστι, μὴ ἕχον χειρίδια, καὶ ζώνη δερματίνη καὶ ἀνάλαβος καὶ κουκούλιον.
2. Col. iii. 5, 3. Gal. ii. 20; vi. 14. Cf. Sozomen l. c.: “They wore their tunics without sleeves in order to teach that the hands ought not to be ready to do evil.”