No threaded gems have pressed thy sparkling neck:
No cloth, with lines incased in ductile gold,
Or twice with the Sidonian murex dyed,
Has glittered on thee: thou hast never worn
The fleeces soft which distant Seres send:
Nor are thy ears transfixed for pendent gold.
The effect of such exhortations as the preceding, was to induce piously disposed persons to apply pieces of gold cloth to public and sacred, instead of private purposes. After this period we find continual instances of their use in the decoration of churches and in the robes of the priesthood.
AMBROSE, CL. A. D. 374.
Sericæ vestes, et auro intexta velamina, quibus divitis corpus ambitur, damna viventium, non subsidia defunctorum sunt.—De Nabutho Jezraelitâ, cap. i. tom. i. p. 566. Ed. Bened.
Silken garments, and veils interwoven with gold, with which the body of the rich man is encompassed, are a loss to the living, and no gain to the dead.