“The Chinese annals from the year 150 B. C. to A. D. 638 make frequent mention of the great quantity of silk produced by the wild worms, and observe that their cocoons were as large as eggs or apricots.”
The following passage is also deserving of attention: “Le papillon de ces vers sauvages, dit le Père d’Incarville, est à ailes vitrées.” This information, if correct, would prove that there was at least one kind of wild silk-worms in China, which was a different species from the Phalæna Mori; for that has no transparent membranes in its wings, and would not be likely to receive them in consequence of any change in its mode of life.
We now proceed to take the Christian authors of the fourth and following centuries in the order of time.
ARNOBIUS (A. D. 306.)
thus speaks of the heathen gods:
They want the covering of a garment: the Tritonian virgin must spin a thread of extraordinary fineness, and according to circumstances put on a tunic either of mail, or silk[62].
[62] Adv. Gentes, l. iii. p. 580, ed. Erasmi.
GREGORIUS NAZIENZENUS, CL., A. D. 370.
The following passage contains, we believe, the earliest allusion to the use of silk in the services of the Christian Church.
Ἄλλοι μὲν χρυσόν τε καὶ ἄργυρον, οἱ δὲ τὰ Σηρῶν