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.