That the early christians understood these to be the doctrines of
christianity, there can be no doubt. The Presbyters and the Asceticks,
I believe, changed the Palluim for the Toga in the infancy of the
christian world; but all other christians were left undistinguished by
their dress. These were generally clad in the sober manner of their own
times. They observed a medium between costliness and sordidness. That
they had no particular form for their dress beyond that of other grave
people, we team from Justin Martyr. "They affected nothing fantastic,
says he, but, living among Greeks and barbarians, they followed the
customs of the country, and in clothes, and in diet, and in all other
affairs of outward life, they shewed the excellent and admirable
constitution of their discipline and conversation." That they discarded
superfluities and ornaments we may collect from various authors of those
times. Basil reduced the objects of cloathing to two, namely, "Honesty
and necessity," that is, to decency and protection. Tertullian laid it
down as a doctrine that a Christian should not only be chaste, but that
he should appear so outwardly. "The garments which we should wear, says
Clemens of Alexandria, should be modest and frugal, and not wrought of
divers colours, but plain.
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