8. The information on this snb;^ to be oUaiBid ttom tradition is embodied — (L) In tiie dresNi d monks and pilgrims, which may be traced to an uaai date, and which are an intended imitation of the dies- es supposed to have been worn by the firrt ^sofki
Christian Costomes of Oriental Monks and FQgrinis> and apostles of Christ (2.) The garb conventiaiiBT assigned by painters to scriptural charactefs, whak were equally intended to embody the dress of the sjw- tolical period, and is corrected in some degree by tk notions of Oriental costume which were coUocted *ff- ing the Crusades.
To judge of the value of these costumes, we mfft compare them, first, with the scanty materials abes^ produced, and then with Ae modem costumes of SfW and Arabia. The result of this examination will pio^ ably be that these traditional garbs are by no taeof bad reminiscences of Hebrew costume; andtbitft* dresses which the painters have introduced into Btrip tural subjects are far more near to correctness thia» has latterly been the fashion to suppose. It ii F^*
eOSTJCME
531
COSTUME
Fancy Skotchea of Oriental Coetame liy early Painters.
ftps as nearly as possible a Just xnedinxn between the cclesiastical tradition and tiie practical observation. lo dress more suitable to the dignity of the subjects oald possibly be devised ; and, sanctioned as it has een by long use, and rendered venerable by scriptural 88ociation8,we should be reluctant to see it exchanged ar the existing Oriental costumes, which the French rtists have begun to prefer. But this is only with egard to pictorial associations and effects ; for, in an aquiry into the costume actually worn by the Israel- tes, modem sources of information must be by no leans overlooked.
4. The value of the modem OrieiUaX costumes for the lurpoees of scriptural illustration arises from the fact hat the dress, like the usages, of the people is un- lerstood to be the same, or nearly the same, as that £ed in very ancient times. But this must be under- tood with some limitations. The dress of the Turks ) distinctive and peculiar to themselves, and has no onnection with the aboriginal costumes of Western Lsia. The dress of the Persians has also been changed Imost within the memory of man, that of the ruling 'artar tribe having been almost invariably adopted ; 0 that the present costume is altogether different from hat which is figured by Sir Thomas Herbert, Chardin, A. Bniyn, Niebuhr, and other travellers of the 17th ind 18th centuries. But with the exceptions of the oreign Turkish costume and its modifications, and rith certain local exceptions, chiefly in mountainous egions, it may be said that there is one prevailing cos- ume in all the countries of Asia between the Tigris md Mediterranean, and throughout Northern Africa, rom the NQe to Morocco and the banks of the Sene- ^. This costume is essentially Arabian, and owes ts extension to the wide conquests under the first »liphs; and it is through the Arabians — the least :hanged of ancient nations, and almost the only one which has remained as a nation from ancient times — hat the antiquity of this costume may be proved, rhisis undoubtedly the most ancient costume of West- ern Asia ; and while one set of proofs would carry it ip to scriptural times, another set of strong probabil- ties and satisfactory analogies will take it back to the nost remote peric^s of scriptural history, and will (oggest that the dress of the Jews themselves was rery similar, without being strictly identicaL
We may here remark, (1.) That the usages of the Vrabians in Syria and Palestine are more in agree- nent with those of Scripture than those of any other nhabitants of those countries. (2.) That their cos- ume throws more light on the scriptural intimations ban any other now existing, while it agrees more than my other with the materials supplied by antiquity and ry tradition. (3.) That the dress which the Arabian ^bs gradually superseded in Syria and Palestine was lot the same as that of scriptural times, excepting, lerhape, among the peasantry, whose dress appears to unre then differed little from that of the Arabian con-
querors. The Jews had for above five centuries ceased to be inhabitants of Palestine ; and it is certain that dur- ing the intermediate period the dress of the upper class- es—the military and the townspeople — ^had become as- similated to that of the Greeks of the Eastern empire. Arabia had meanwhile been subjected to no such influ- ences, and the dress which it brought into Syria may be regarded as a restoration of the more ancient cos- tume, rather than (as it was in many countries) the introduction of- one previously unknown.
It is to be observed, however, that there are two very different sorts of dresses among the Arabians. One is that of the Bedoidn tribes, and the other that of the inhabitants of towns. The distinction between these is seldom clearly understood or correctly stated, but b of the utmost importance for the purpose of the present notice. Instead, therefore, of speaking of the Arabian costume as one thing, we must regard it as two things — ^the desert costume and the town costume. If, then, our views of Hebrew costume were based on the actual costume of the Arabians, we should be led to conclude that the desert costume represented that which was worn during the patriarchal period, and until the Israelites had been some time settled in Ca- naan ; and the town costume that which was adopted from their neighbors when they became a settled peo- ple.