The history of silk, cotton, linen, wool, and other fibrous ... - Cd3wd.com

THE LINEN MANUFACTURE. 373
of veneration,"' says he, " I unfolded every day this venerable
linen, which had been woven more than 1700 years."
age a Meroe et au Fleuve Blanc.)
( Voy-
IX. According to Josephus the Jewish priests wore drawers
of spun flax, and over the drawers a shirt. He calls a garment
made of Bmaoi a linen garment. It \\q.A flowers woven into it,
ivhich were of three different substances*. He soon after
mentions the same materials as used for making the curtains
of the tabernacle. In all these instances the figures or ornaments
were of splendid colors upon a ground of white linen.
We have no reason to believe, that either the Egyptians or the
Israelites in the time of Moses knew anything of cotton : so
that, if Josephus gives a true account, ^iaaoi must have denoted
a kind of flax.
X. Jerome on Ezekiel xxvii. says, " Byssus grows principally
in Egypt" {Byssus in JEgypto quam maxime nascitur).
Of the celebrity of the Egyptian flax we have the most abun-
dant proofs ; but, if by Byssus Jerome meant cotton, he here
committed a strange mistake ; for, supposing cotton to have
grown at all in Egypt, it certainly grew far more abundantly m
other countries, and of this fact he could scarcely be ignorant.
XL Martianus Capella plainly distinguishes between that
substance and Byssust. He seems to have considered cotton
as an Indian, Byssus as an Egyptian product. He certainly
supposed, that they were not the same thing.
XII. Isidorus Hispalensis expressly states, that Byssus was
a kind of flax, very white and soft.
Byssus genus est quoddam lini nimiurn candidi et mollissimi, quod Graeci papa-
tem vocant.
—
Orig. I. xix. 27.
Byssina (vestis) Candida, confecta ex quodam generc lini grossioris Sunt et qui
genus quoddam lini byesum esse existiment.
—
Ibid. c. 22.
Forster conjectures {p. 4.) that for genus quoddam lini we
should read genus quoddam lanm, and conceives ^ree-wool (a.s
* Ant. Jud. iii. 7. 1, 2. p. 112. ed. Hudson.
The shirt of the High Priest of the Jews was probably like that worn in the
worship of Isis, which was of Byssus, hut adorned with flowers, " Byssina, sed
florid^ depicta." Apuleius, Met. 1. xi.
t Etym. L. Lat. v. Byssus.