Commentaria in Isaiam
Anklets.—They are bracelets of the legs or feet, says the Chaldee. They are called periscelides, from peri and skelos, as if to say around the leg.
Little chains.—Murenulae are twisted collars or winding chains of gold; when, namely, from the gold made slender into little rods a chain of winding order is woven, says St. Jerome to Marcella; they are called in Hebrew kishurim, that is, bindings. They are called murenulae from the murena, a fish, because like it, made of gold and silver in rods and variegated, they are coiled and encircle the neck; or rather, a collar. So St. Basil and Pollux interpret the Greek word which the Septuagint have. See also on these Clement of Alexandria, Paedagogus, book 2, chap. 13.
Smelling-bottles.—They are perfume-boxes, or pyxes pierced and eyed with holes, which breathe out their odours and sweet fragrance through their openings. Hence they are called houses of the breath. By houses of the breath he understands the vessels in which women kept at home the ointments with which they sprinkled the table, the bed or the garments; such was the alabaster of St. Magdalene, who, breaking it, poured the ointment upon the head of Christ; such too the harlot had who says in Proverbs 7:17: “I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes and cinnamon.”
Earrings.—They are circles of gold or silver which hang from the ear with a gem. Earrings were first used as amulets of the ears against incantations; for hence in Hebrew they are called lechashim, from whispering: but from this they passed into ornament and delight. So also rings, which were first worn, as the fables have it, by Prometheus as a mark of disgrace, are now worn for honour. So Hyginus. “On that day,” says St. Jerome on Ezechiel 16, “among the other ornaments of women golden circles are wont to hang from the forehead over the mouth and overhang the nostrils.” Hence Theodoret translates ornament of the nose: and this the Hebrew nezem signifies. Others understand properly a gem or ring piercing the nose and hanging from it, such as some Indians wear. But this is barbarous and unlovely.
Verse 22. Changes of raiment.—Nobles and the rich often change their clothes, and so have various changes of raiment: and this is a sign of wealth and luxury. Add that “changes of raiment” are the more precious garments, which are rarely put off as soon as one returns home. For the Roman dress at home was the synthesis, abroad the toga. Hence the Septuagint call these changes of raiment bordered purple, which the Romans called laticlave.
Mantles.—Noble matrons still use these little cloaks, especially on journeys: those of the Jewish women were precious and proud.
Fine linen.—They were white and transparent veils, with which they wantonly displayed the breast, or thigh, or the whole body at banquets and dances. Hence the Septuagint translate: Laconian transparent garments. For Laconian maidens were so called because they showed the bare thigh as they walked. So St. Basil.
Pins.—Namely hair-pins of gold and silver, which were worn on the head for show, by which the hair was parted and fastened again lest it fall loose. Hear Martial.
Lest thin silk bruise her moist hair, let a pin fasten and hold up her dripping locks.
These pins, therefore, were not curling-irons with which the hair was curled, but long and stout pins with which the hair and head were adorned. So St. Jerome and Isidore, book 19, chap. 31.
23. Fine linen garments.—In Hebrew it is sedinim, whence the Latin sindones, says Forerius. He so calls linen coverings, or outer robes, most delicate and fine, such as noble widows wear among us, of Cambrai cloth. The Septuagint signify that these linens were dyed purple, violet and scarlet. St. Basil gives the reason, namely that these proud women, as in other things so in this, wished sacrilegiously to imitate the priestly dress. For the Pontiff, when about to pray for the whole world, put on a tunic woven of purple, hyacinth, linen and scarlet, that by these colours he might represent the four elements of the world for which he prayed, as I said on Exodus 28:5. This hyacinth colour, like scarlet, was also nearly the colour of notorious women, that is the unchaste: as it is now the symbol of married women and of conjugal love.
Veils.—In Hebrew tsenifoth, that is, cidars and tiaras. So Forerius and the Hebrews. The cidaris, or tiara, was a round little cap for the head, pointed, such as the priests and pontiffs used. See here again apes of the pontifical ornament. The Prophets charge it to them as a crime that they imitate in their clothing the manner of neighbouring nations. This is confirmed by Proverbs 11:22: “A golden ring in a swine’s snout, a woman fair and foolish”; and Ezechiel 16:12: “And I gave a ring upon thy mouth, and earrings in thy ears,” and so on.
Summer garments.—So called because they cover the bodies of women in summer. St. Jerome says they were mantles, such as Rebecca had, and women in Arabia have now; mantles, I say, of light and fine wool, that neither weigh down nor heat, such as our silks are. Forerius, however, thinks that the theristra were head veils: for these are called redidim, because a veil on the head of a woman is a sign that she is under the power and dominion of her husband. Hence by the theristra may also be understood the broad hats which women used against the sun, as now pilgrims and travellers use hats made of straw.
24. And instead of a sweet smell (of musk and other spices) there shall be stench—from the filth and squalor of captivity and prison. Moreover, after the death of Christ a natural and peculiar stench is in the Jews; hence Ammianus Marcellinus, book 22, calls the Jews stinking, and adds that on that account they were a heavy annoyance to the Emperor Marcus; and Martial, book 4, epigram to Bassa: “Thou smellest, O Bassa,” he says, “of the fasts of the sabbath-keepers,” that is of the Jews: he says “fasts” because a fasting stomach sends out a heavy breath.
This hereditary stench of the Jews Fortunatus asserted to be washed away by baptism, book 5: Let the Jewish odour be washed away by holy baptism.
So Sanchez. Hence the Saracens also formerly had their infants baptized, that by baptism they might drive the stench from them; as is plain from the Sixth Synod in Trullo, canon 85, and Baronius, volume 12, in the year of Christ …
And instead of a girdle (it will be of gold and gems) a cord—with which, like beasts of burden, the captives will be dragged to Babylon.
And instead of curled hair, baldness—which either they themselves in sign of mourning, or the enemy, or God by disease will bring upon them. See what was said on verse 17.
And instead of a breastband (with which the breasts are bound lest by their size they be unseemly) a hair-shirt.—In Hebrew, a girding of sackcloth. The Hebrews now add here: because instead of beauty, in which they were wanton, this deformity has been given back to them, as a closing exclamation.
Forerius, however, translates, burning instead of beauty, for the word means burning, from the root kavah, that is, he burned; as if to say: Their faces and bodies, once so beautiful, are now eaten away, consumed and as it were burnt. For so it is said in Lamentations 5:10: “Our skin was burnt like an oven”. Sackcloth was a mourning garment, like our sacks, made of coarse cloth, and having for sleeves openings through which the arms were put out. And Isaias 13:8: “Their countenances shall be as faces burnt.” Hence the Chaldee here translates clearly: This vengeance shall be taken of them, because they have committed fornication in their beauty.
26. And her gates shall lament and mourn.—“Her,” that is, Jerusalem’s, about which all this discourse of mine is most dear to me, as is my thought and care. So the bride says in Canticles, chapter 1: “Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth”: who? the bridegroom, whom I love and turn over in my mind. For as flowery meadows are said to smile, so burnt or desolate gates, emptied of citizens, and the city itself, are said to mourn and lament.
And she shall sit desolate on the ground.—It is a prosopopoeia: for he speaks of Jerusalem as of an afflicted matron: for she sits on the ground mourning, oppressed with grief. Hence Lamentations 1:1 says of her: “How doth the city sit solitary?” So there is extant a coin of Vespasian on which Judea is depicted like a woman sitting at the roots of a palm, with this inscription: “Judaea capta.”
This is a notable place against women’s adornment and luxury of dress: for if among the Jews it so displeased God, and was punished by the destruction of the whole nation, how will it not now displease and be punished in Christians? Hear and learn, first from St. Cyprian, in his book On the Dress of Virgins, teaching the same from this place of Isaias:
“Virgins,” he says, “adorned, have deserved shame and foulness; clothed in silk and purple, they cannot put on Christ; adorned with gold, pearls and necklaces, they have lost the ornaments of heart and breast.”