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CHASUBLE into the sexual sins of their heathen neighbours, and the inevitable result of polygamy was seen in the absence of a recognized obligation of continence in the husband parallel to that imposed on the wife.

The unchastity of the post-Homeric Greeks was notorious. With this people marriage was but an institution to supply the State with strong and sturdy soldiers. The consequence of this to the position of women was most baneful. We are told by Polybius that sometimes four Spartans had one wife in common. (Fragm. in Ser. Vet. Nov. Coll., ed. Mai, II, 384.) The Athenians were not so degraded, yet here the wife was excluded from the society of her husband, who sought pleasure in the company of hetairai and concubines. The hetairai were not social pariahs among the Athenians. Indeed many of them attained to the influence of queens. Although the Romans styled excess of debauchery "Græcizing", they nevertheless sounded greater depths of filthy wantonness in the days following the early republic than ever did their eastern neighbours. The Greeks threw a glamour of romance and sentiment about their sexual sins. But with the Romans, immorality, even of the abnormal kind, stalked about, its repulsiveness undisguised. We gather this clearly from the pages of Juvenal, Martial, and Suetonius. Cicero makes the public statement that intercourse with prostitutes had never been a thing condemned in Rome (Pro Cælio, xv), and we know that as a rule marriage was looked upon as a mere temporary relation to be severed directly it became irksome to either party. Never did woman sink to such degradation as in Rome. In Greece the enforced seclusion of the wife acted as a moral protection. The Roman matron was not thus restricted, and many of these of highest social rank did not hesitate in the time of Tiberius to have their names inscribed upon the ædiles' list as common prostitutes in order thus to escape the penalties which the Julian Law attached to adultery.

. — Under Christianity chastity has been practised in a manner unknown under any other influence. Christian morality prescribes the right order of relations. It therefore must direct and control the manner of relationship sustained to each other by soul and body. Between these two there is an ineradicable opposition, the flesh with its concupiscences contending unceasingly against the spirit, blinding the latter and weaning it away from the pursuit of its true life. Harmony amd due order between these two must prevail. But this means the pre-eminence and mastery of the spirit, which in turn can only mean the castigation of the body. The real as well as the etymological kinship between chastity and chastisement then is obvious. Necessarily, therefore, chastity is a thing stern and austere. The effect of the example as well as of the words of Our Saviour (Matt., xix, 11— 12) is seen in the lives of the many celibates and virgins who have graced the history of the Christian Church, while the idea of marriage as the sign and symbol of the ineffable union of Christ with His spotless spouse the Church — a union in which fidelity no less than love is mutual — has borne its fruit in beautifying the world with patterns of conjugal chastity.

2em

 Chasuble, 'ailed in Latin casula phineln or pn?n- llla, and in early Gallic sources amphibalus, the principal and most conspicuous \b-s vestment, cover- ing all the rest. Nearly all ecclesiolnyists are now agreed that liturgical costume was simply an adapta- tion of the secular attire commonly worn throughout

the Roman Empire in the early Christian centuries. The priest in discharging his sacred functions at the altar was dressed as in civil life, but the custom probably grew up of reserving for this purpose gar- ments that were newer and cleaner than those used in his daily avocations, and out of this gradually developed the conception of a special liturgical attire. In any case the chasuble in particular seems to have been identical with the ordinary outer gar- ment of the lower orders. It consisted of a square or circular piece of cloth in the centre of which a hole was made; through this the head was passed. With the arms hanging down, this rude garment covered the whole figure. It was like a little house (casula). This derivation is curiously illustrated in the pro- phetic utterance of Druidical origin preserved in Muir- chu's " Life of St. Patrick ", almost the oldest allu- sion to the chasuble and crosier which we possess. Before St. Patrick's coining to Ireland the Druids were supposed to have circulated this oracle:

"Adze-head [this is an allusion to the peculiar Irish form of tonsure] will come with a crook-head staff; in his house head-holed [in sun domu capiti perjnratA. i. e. chasuble] he will chant impiety from his table [i. e. the altar]; from the front [i. e. the eastern] part of his house all his household [attendant clerics] will respond, 'So be it! So be it!'"

The fact that at an early date the word casal estab- lished itself in the Celtic language, and that St. Pat- rick's casal in particular became famous, makes the allusion of the "house head-holed" almost certain. We can hardly help being reminded of St. Isidore's definition of casula as "a garment furnished with a hood, which is a diminutive of casa. a cottage, as, like a small cottage or hut, it covers the entire person". In the earliest chronicles some modification seems to have already taken place in the primitive concep- tion of a hole cut in a round piece of cloth. The early medieval chasubles were made of a semicircular piece of stuff, the straight edge folded in the middle, and the two borders sewn together, leaving an aper- ture for the head. From this it will be seen that the chasuble is only a cope of which the front edges have been sewn together. The inconvenience of the primi- tive chasuble will be readily appreciated. It was impossible to use arms or hands without lifting the whole of the front part of the vestment. To remedy this, more than one expedient was resorted to. The sides were gradually cut away while the length before and behind remained unaltered. Thus, after being first curtailed at the sides until it reached but little below the elbows, it was eventually, in the si\i century, pared away still farther, until it now hardly extends l>elow the shoulders and leaves the arms en- tirely free. While this shortening was still in prog- ress, it became the duty of the deacon and subdea- con, assisting the celebrant, to roll back the chasuble and relieve as far as possible the weight on his arms. Directions to this effect are still given in the "Csere- moniale F.piscoporum", where it speaks of the vesting of a bishop (Cseremon. Episc. lib. II. cap. viii, n. 19). Another device adopted in some me- dieval chasubles, to remedy the inconvenience caused by the drag of the vestment upon the arms, wa insert a cord passing through rings by which thi of the chasuble could !»■ drawn up to the shoulders and secured in that position. This, however, was rare. The chasuble, though now regarded as the priestly vestment ;» he early cen-

turies worn by all ranks of the clergy. "Folded chasubles " (ptnnettr plicaUB), instead of dalmatics, are still prescrilx'd for the deacon and subdeacon at high Mass during penitential seasons. The precise origin of this pinning up of 'he chasuble is still ob- scure, but. like the deacon's wearing of the broad 'ImI. (stolons) which represents the chasuble rolled up and hung over his shoulder like a soldier's great- 