religious dress
- Related Topics:
- temple garment
- cassock
- cowl
- habit
- sackcloth
religious dress, any attire, accoutrements, and markings used in religious rituals that may be corporate, domestic, or personal in nature. Such dress may comprise types of coverings all the way from the highly symbolic and ornamented eucharistic vestments of Eastern Orthodox Christianity to tattooing, scarification, or body painting of members of nonliterate and contemporary tribal societies. Some types of religious dress may be used to distinguish the priestly from the lay members of a religious group or to signify various orders or ranks within a priesthood. Some religious communities may require that religious personages (e.g., priests, monks, nuns, shamans, priestesses, and others) garb themselves with appropriate types of religious dress at all times, whereas other religious communities may only request that religious dress be worn during rituals.
In theocratic traditions, such as Judaism and Islam, religious sanctions govern what may and may not be worn by members of the community. Religious dress embraces not only what is worn by a prayer leader but also what is worn by the congregation outside as well as inside a place of worship. In many traditions, habits serve to identify monastic groups. Indeed, in the latter case, the function of religious dress is more akin to heraldry as a form of symbolic identification than to liturgy with its ritualistic symbolic motifs.
In a more restricted sense, religious vestments articulate a liturgical language as part of a figurative idiom shared with other religious symbols—e.g., icons (images), statues, drama, music, and ritual. According to the richness of the liturgical or ritual vocabulary employed, the more feasibly can a symbology of vesture be attempted. This is especially the case with Eastern Orthodoxy, whose predilection for symbolical theology has spread from sacraments to sacramentals and everything associated with worship, including dress. With allegory paramount in the Middle Ages, the Western church could not escape attributing symbolical values to garments whose origin may have owed little to symbolism. From the liturgical writer Amalarius of Metz in the 9th century to the theologian Durandus of Saint-Pourçain in the 13th–14th century, sacerdotal vestments, in particular the stole and the chasuble, were viewed as symbols and indeed operated as such in a way that still influences current usage. Thus, because the stole is a yoke around the neck of the priest and he should rejoice in his servitude, on donning or doffing it he kisses the emblem of his servile status.
The notion of dress as a substitute skin and, hence, as an acquired personality temporarily assumed has been widespread in nonliterate and in tribal religions; such practices in shamanism have been widely observed in Arctic and Siberian regions. The use of a substitute skin in religious ritual is also explicit in the cultic actions of some advanced cultures, such as in the rite of the Aztec maize goddess Chicomecóatl. A virgin chosen to represent Chicomecóatl, after having danced for 24 hours, was then sacrificed and flayed. The celebrant, dressed in her skin, reenacted the same ritual dance to identify with the victim, who was viewed as the goddess.
Religious dress may also serve a memorial function. In the case of the mullahs (religious leaders) of the Shīʿite Muslims (members of the party of ʿAlī, fourth caliph and son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad, black gowns are worn that allude to the sufferings of Ḥusayn (ʿAlī’s son by Fāṭimah, Muhammad’s only surviving daughter), who was martyred at Karbalāʾ (now in Iraq) in 680 ce. In the Eucharist, which is both a thanksgiving and a reenactment of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on Golgotha, the chasuble (outer garment) worn by the celebrant depicts scenes from the Passion on the orphrey, the name given to the elaborately embroidered strips stitched on the chasuble. The fringes on the Jewish prayer shawl (ṭallit) witness to “the commandments of the Lord” mentioned in chapter 15 of Numbers and remind the worshipper that he (or she, depending on the tradition) has covenanted to observe them.
Types of dress and vestments in Western religions
Judaism
Early sacerdotal dress
Jewish vesture, worn only by men, is an amalgam of ancient and modern religious dress. Originally, sacerdotal dress was probably varied and complex, but, after the destruction of the Second Temple of Jerusalem in 70 ce and the subsequent disappearance of the Temple offices, many garments associated with priestly functions passed into oblivion. Chief among these offices was that of the high priest. In addition to the usual Levitical garments (those of the priestly class), the high priest, while officiating, wore the meʿil (mantle), the ephod (an upper garment), a breastplate, and a headdress. The meʿil was a sleeveless robe of purple the lower hem of which had a fringe of small gold bells alternating with pomegranate tassels in red, scarlet, purple, and violet. The ephod—an object of much controversy—probably consisted of a wide band of material with a belt to secure it to the body, and it was worn over the other priestly garments. Most important was the breastplate (ḥoshen), which was square in outline and probably served as a pouch in which the divinatory devices of Urim and Thummim were kept. The book of Exodus specifies that it was to be woven of golden and linen threads dyed blue, purple, and scarlet (28:15). Because of its oracular function, it was called the “breastpiece of judgment.” On the face of the breastplate were set 12 gems in four rows, symbolizing the 12 tribes of Israel. These stones were a sardius, a topaz, and a carbuncle in the first row; an emerald, a sapphire, and a diamond in the second; a jacinth, an agate, and an amethyst in the third; and a beryl, an onyx, and a jasper in the fourth. The identity, sequence, and objects of representation of these stones are matters of controversy. Worn over the ephod, the breastplate was slung from the shoulders of the wearer by golden attachments. On his head the high priest usually wore a mitzenfet (either a tiara or a turban), except on Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement), when he wore nothing but white linen garments upon entering the Holy of Holies (the inner sanctuary).
Later religious dress
Later religious dress of Judaism after the destruction of the Temple in 70 ce reflects usages that predate that event but were continued in Judaism at the synagogue. Included among such garments are tefillin (phylacteries) and tzitzit (fringes), which have certain features in common. The name phylacteries is sometimes thought to point to a prophylactic origin, but the term is actually a translation of the Hebrew word for “frontlets” (ṭoṭafot). Phylacteries are worn in obedience to the commandment found in Deuteronomy (11:18) and Exodus (13:9, 16): “And you shall bind [the words of God] as a sign upon your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.” This implies that there should be two phylacteries: one to be worn on the arm, the other on the head. Both kinds consist of a small black box of hide containing a manuscript and are secured to the respective parts of the body by leather thongs. On the sides of the head tefilla is the Hebrew letter shin, the first letter of the name Shaddai (“Almighty”). Both boxes are secured by leather thongs. The practice can be dated at least as far back as the 3rd century bce. The knotted thongs indicate a prophylactic purpose—i.e., to protect the wearer against demons. Likewise, the wearer of these objects was, for the prayer’s duration, under the protection of the Almighty, whose name he bore. The importance of knots in Semitic magic is also alluded to in the Qurʿān (the Islamic holy book).
Something similar obtains in the case of the tzitzit (fringes), or “twisted cords.” The wearing of fringes is in obedience to a commandment in Numbers: “It shall be to you a tassel to look upon and remember all the commandments of the Lord, [and] to do them” (15:38–40). The fringes were attached to the outer garment with no attempt at or reason for concealment. Later, because of persecution, they became an inner garment, enabling the wearer to observe the Torah clandestinely. This garment, which is not entirely obsolete, is styled arbaʿkanfot (“four corners”) in allusion to a verse in Deuteronomy enjoining the worshipper to “make yourself tassels on the four corners of your cloak with which you cover yourself” (22:12), although no literary reference to its use can be traced further back than the 14th century.
The ṭallit also has the four fringes, but it is often confined to synagogal use and, even there, is generally limited to the morning service, whereas the arbaʿ kanfot is worn all day. Both silk and wool are used, but the woolen ṭallit is preferable, with white as its ground color. In the 20th and 21st centuries the ṭallit is worn like a scarf and is sometimes pulled over the head to aid in concentrating during prayer. Formerly, however, it was always wrapped around the head. In Orthodox Judaism the head is invariably covered during worship, usually by a skullcap known as a kippah or yarmulke. Because a Jewish male is not supposed to walk more than four cubits (six feet) with his head uncovered, observant Jews wear the skullcap clipped to their hair and indeed may wear it all day because they believe themselves to be in the presence of God at all times.
The dress of rabbis never conformed to precise standards. Rabbis do not generally wear special clothing except during special observances such as Yom Kippur, when they wear a white robe called a kittel (also called a sargenes). This white garment, however, is worn not only by rabbis but also by other worshippers. The kittel emphasizes that Yom Kippur is an occasion not only of repentance but also of grace, for which festal wear is appropriate. Emphasis on the atoning aspect of the occasion also led to the kittel being interpreted as takhrikhim, or graveclothes, which are worn to aid the worshipper’s mood of repentance, a practice also adopted by the ḥazzan (cantor) on two other occasions and by the host at the seder (meal) on Passover (a feast celebrating the Exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt in the 13th century bce). Shrouds are normally of unadorned white linen, following the sumptuary ruling of the 1st-century-ce rabbi Gamaliel the Elder. To the shroud may be added the ṭallit used by the deceased, but with the fringes removed or cut, because the prescription governing their use applies only to the living. Both liturgical vesture and everyday clothing must conform to the Mosaic requirement that forbids the combination of linen and wool in the same garment.
Christianity
In the pre-Constantinian church (before the early 4th century), no distinctive liturgical dress was worn, and the Eucharist (Holy Communion) was celebrated by priests whose dress did not differ from that worn by lay members of their congregations. Present liturgical vestments in Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches derive from a common origin—i.e., the garments that were fashionable in the late Roman Empire. After the Schism of 1054, however, they each followed separate courses.
