in the form of an olive, encased in a sort of network of colored threads. Nor are the little golden bells wanting. Some of those which have come down to us are of very pleasing and varied design.
It must not be forgotten that there was, in the ornamentation of the period we are considering, a singular admixture of Assyrian with Egyptian forms. Assyrian garments were also bordered with heavy fringes, the tassels of which sometimes take the form of pomegranates. Moses must have seen at the palace of the Pharaos, as ambassadors, as tributaries, or as captives, some of those Eastern princes whose majestic countenances and kingly garments long ages have preserved to us on the sculptured blocks of the palaces of Babylon and Ninive.
In a fragment of a Coptic translation of the Acts of the Council of Nicæa, which has lately been discovered by M. Revillout among the Oriental MSS. of the Museum of Turin, the fathers of the holy council give the following advice to a young man just entering into life: “My son, avoid a woman who loves gay clothing; for displays of rings and little bells[77] are but her signals of wantonness.”[78] The piety of the middle ages brought back these ornaments to their ancient and sacred uses. The memory of Aaron’s vestments gave the idea of fastening long borders of little bells to the edges of sacerdotal garments.[79]
Claude Quitton, librarian of Clairvaux, passing by the Château de Larrey in Burgundy, the 5th and 6th of September, 1744, saw there certain rich vestments, among others a chasuble, closed everywhere, save at the top to pass the head through, and having little bells (grelots) hanging all round its lower edge or border.
Thus through a long series of ages this custom of adorning vestments with bells has come, almost without a break, down to these latter centuries.
The other vestments of the high-priest were common also to the Levites, and, as well as the striking analogies between the Egyptian and Mosaic manner of offering sacrifice, may furnish matter for consideration at some future time. Meanwhile, we will close the present notice with the appropriate words of St. John Chrysostom: “Deus ad errantium salutem his se coli passus est quibus dœmonas gentiles colebant aliquantulum ilia in melius inflectens”—“God, for the salvation of the erring, suffered himself to be honored in those
things which had served in the worship of idols, modifying them in some measure for the better.” And, continues this great doctor, God, by thus introducing into his temple all that was richest in the vestments of the Egyptians, all that was most solemn in their sanctuaries, most elevated in their symbolism, and most impressive in their ceremonies, willed that his people should feel no regret, and experience no want or void, in their worship of him, when, amid the new ceremonial, they should call to mind that which they had seen in Egypt: “Ne unquam postea Ægyptiorum aut eorum quæ apud Ægyptios fuerant experti cupiditate tangerentur.” It was not only fitting but also necessary that the worship of the Lord JEHOVAH should not in any point appear inferior to that of idols; for the unspiritually-minded nation of whom Moses was the leader was incapable of appreciating the greatness and majesty of God, except in some proportion to the splendor of his worship.
[46] L’Egypte et Moïse. Première Partie. Par l’Abbé Victor Ancessi. Paris: Leroux, Editeur, 28 Rue Bonaparte.
[47] The secret of this art was only recovered by the engravers of Damascus in the time of the caliphs.
[48] The name given by the Egyptians to their tombs.