Much importance has been attached to this decree. It is regarded as an additional and incontrovertible proof that ecclesiastical vestments were in use in the primitive church. But on examination, however, it will be found no more to bear such a construction than St Paul's request for his =phailonê=. The ordinance merely shows that Sylvester had a laudable desire to improve the aesthetics of public worship, and, with this end in view, decreed that thenceforward ecclesiastics should all wear the _tunica dalmatica_—which had quite outgrown its early evil reputation, and must be admitted to have been a better-looking garment than the scanty and somewhat undignified _colobium_. It is not at all improbable that many of the clergy wore _dalmaticae_ even before Sylvester's edict: in this case the edict would have the additional advantage of securing uniformity. All attempts to set up the _dalmatica_ as a separate vestment in early times fail hopelessly. It is unknown to the drafters of the Toletan canons, and no _early_ representation of an ecclesiastic is extant having two vestments visible under the _planeta_.[26] This would certainly be the case if the two were independent vestments. It is true that St Isidore of Seville wrote, 'Dalmatica vestis primum in Dalmatia provincia Graecia texta est sacerdotalis, candida cum clavis ex purpura;'[27] (the _dalmatica_ is a priestly vestment first made in Dalmatia, a province of Greece, white with purple _clavi_); but the concluding words show that he was merely thinking of the _alba_ under its more specific name, _dalmatica_. A brief recapitulation of this somewhat lengthy argument may not be out of place. Two forms of tunic may be said to have contended one with another for the favour of the Roman people—the sleeveless _colobium_ and the sleeved _dalmatica_. The latter ultimately gained the victory; and the decree of Pope Sylvester, commanding all ecclesiastics under his authority to assume it in place of the former, finally established its use in the church. Now, when we find that, two or three centuries after Sylvester's time, a vestment was worn by ecclesiastics in Divine service identical with the _tunica dalmatica_ in almost every respect, even to the presence of the _clavi_, which (in the secular dress) indicated the rank of the wearer, it is only natural to regard the one as directly derived from the other.