The references in the earliest writers—even including those which have a very indirect bearing on the subject—are extremely few in number; and all passages which can possibly throw any light on the question have been eagerly sought out and called into evidence to support one theory or another. The two best-known passages are the statement of St Jerome: 'Holy worship hath one habit in the ministry, another in general use and common life';[7] and the yet more famous passage in the liturgy of St Clement, in which a rubric directs the priest to begin the service 'girded with a shining vesture.'[8] The phrase =lampran esthêta metendys= has been translated 'being girded with _his_ "splendid" vestment,' a translation which the Greek cannot possibly bear; and this passage, coupled with the excerpt from Jerome just quoted, have been brought forward to testify that gorgeous vestments were in use even at the early times when those documents from which they have been extracted were written. Mr. Marriott has carefully examined and commented on these and the other passages cited as authorities. He proves that the first passage given above is used in a context which shows that Jerome, though possibly he may have had Christian usage in his mind, was thinking primarily of Jewish usage; the second (which not improbably is an interpolation) does not specify a 'splendid' vesture, but a 'white' or 'shining' garment. Mr. Marriott's inference from these and similar passages is 'that white was the colour appropriated in primitive times [_i.e._, in the first four centuries] to the dress of the Christian ministry.' Though this view is preferable to the theory that the primitive vestments were of the same elaborate description as their mediaeval successors, yet it does not altogether commend itself as following naturally from the authorities cited. It will be necessary to review these passages, for, as we shall endeavour to show, they are quite consistent with the third alternative: that _no_ distinctive vestments were set apart for the exclusive use of the Christian minister during the first four centuries of the Christian era. The third passage is also from Jerome. In another part of the same commentary as the last he writes: 'From all these things we learn that we ought not enter the Holy of Holies clad in our everyday garments and in whatever clothes we will, defiled as they are by the usage of common life; but with pure conscience and in pure garments we ought to hold the sacraments of the Lord.'[9] The fourth passage is from Jerome's letter against the Pelagians, in which occur these remarkable words: 'You say, further, that gorgeousness of apparel or ornament is offensive to God. But, I ask, suppose I should wear a comelier tunic, wherein would it offend God? or if bishop, priest, deacon, and the rest of the church officers were to come forward dressed in white?'[10]