[42] Methodus Medendi, l. xiii. c. 22.
“Of this kind are the shawls interwoven with gold, the materials of which are brought from afar, and which are called Seric or silk.”
CLEMENS ALEXANDRINUS,
dissuading the Christian convert from luxury in dress, thus speaks:
Εἰ δὲ συμπεριφέρεσθαι χρὴ, ὀλίγον ἐνδοτέον αὐταῖς μαλακωτέροις χρῆσθαι τοῖς ὑφάσμασιν· μόνον τὰς μεμωρημένας λεπτουργίας, καὶ τὰς ἐν ταῖς ὑφαῖς περιέργους πλοκὰς ἐκποδὼν μεθιστάντας· νῆμα χρυσοῦ, καὶ σῆρας Ἰνδικοὺς, καὶ τοὺς περιέργους βόμβυκας χαίρειν ἐῶντας, ὃς σκώληξ φύεται τὸ πρῶτον· εἶτα ἐξ αὐτοῦ δασεῖα ἀναφαίνεται κάμπη. μεθ’ ἣν εἰς τρίτην μεταμόρφωσιν νεοχμοῦται βομβύλιον· οἱ δὲ νεκύδαλον αὐτὸ καλοῦσιν· ἐξ οὗ μακρὸς τίκτεται στήμων, καθάπερ ἐκ τῆς ἀράχνης ὁ τῆς ἀράχνης μίτος.—Pædag. ii. 10.
But, if it is necessary to accommodate ourselves to the women, let us concede to them the use of cloths, which are a little softer, only refusing that degree of fineness, which would imply folly, and such webs as are excessively labored and intricate; bidding farewell to gold thread, and to the Indian Seres, and that industrious bombyx, which is first a worm, then puts on the appearance of a hairy caterpillar, and hence passes, in the third place, into a Bombylius, or, as some call it, a Necydalus; and out of which is produced a long thread, in the same manner as the thread of the spider.—Yates’s Translation.
The use of the epithet “Indian” in this passage may be accounted for from the circumstance, that in the time of the writer silken goods were brought to Alexandria and other cities of Egypt from India. Clemens has evidently borrowed this description from Aristotle.
SECOND CENTURY.
TERTULLIAN.
thus describes the Bombyx: