Because we do not use garments of silk, we are reckoned monks; because we are not drunken, and do not convulse ourselves with laughter, we are called restrained and sad: if our tunic is not white, we immediately hear the proverb, He is an impostor and a Greek.--_Epist. ad Marcellum, De Ægrotatione Blesillæ, tom._ i. _p._ 156, _ed. Erasmi_, 1526. You formerly went with naked feet; now you not only use shoes, but even ornamented ones. You then wore a poor tunic and a _black_ shirt under it, dirty and pale, and having your hand callous with labor; now you go adorned with linen and silk, and with vestments obtained from the Atrebates and from Laodicea.--_Adv. Jovinianum, l._ ii. _Opp. ed. Paris_, 1546, _tom._ ii. _p._ 29. In the following he further condemns the practice of wrapping the bodies of the dead in cloth of gold: Why do you wrap your dead in garments of gold? Why does not ambition cease amidst wailings and tears? Cannot the bodies of the rich go to corruption except in silk?--_Epist._ L. ii. You cannot but be offended yourself, when you admire garments of silk and gold in others.--_Epist._ L. ii. No. 9, _p._ 138, _ed. Par._ 1613, _12mo._ CHRYSOSTOM, CL., A. D. 398. Ἀλλὰ σηρικὰ τὰ ἱμάτια; ἀλλὰ ῥακίων γέμουσα ἡ ψυχή. _Comment. in Psalm 48. tom._ v. _p._ 517. _ed. Ben._ Does the rich man wear silken shawls? His soul however is full of tatters. Καλὰ τὰ σηρικὰ ἱμάτια, ἀλλὰ σκωλήκων ἐστὶν ὕφασμα. (_Quoted by Vossius, Etym. Lat. p._ 466.) Silken shawls are beautiful, but the production of worms. Chrysostom also inveighs against the practice of embroidering shoes with silk thread, observing that it was a shame even to wear it woven in shawls. Such is the change of circumstances, that now even the poorest persons of both sexes, if decently attired, have silk in their shoes. HELIODORUS, CL., A. D. 390. This author, describing the ceremonies at the nuptials of Theagenes and Chariclea, says, “The ambassadors of the Seres came, bringing the thread and webs of their spiders, one of the webs dyed _purple_ (!), the other white.” _Æthiopica, lib._ x. _p._ 494. _Commelini._ Salmasius (_in Tertullianum de Pallio, p._ 242.) quotes the following passage from _an uncertain author_. Ὁμοία ἐστὶν ἡ τοῦ παρόντος βίου τερπνότης Ἰνδικῷ σκωληκιῷ, ὅπερ τῷ φυλλῷ τοῦ δένδρου συντυλιχθὲν, καὶ τῇ τροφῇ ἀσχοληθὲν, συνεπνίγη ἐν αὐτῷ τοῦ μεταξίου κουκουλίῳ. The pleasure of the present life is like the Indian worm, which, having involved itself in the leaf of the tree and having been satisfied with food, chokes itself in the cocoon of its own thread.--Yates’s Translation. This writer, whoever he was, appears to have had a correct idea of the manner in which the silk-worm wraps itself in a leaf of the tree, on which it feeds, and spins its tomb within[64].