Silk. The only undoubted notice of this material in the canonical Bible occurs in Kev. xviii, 12, where it is mentioned (crj/pitfor) among the treasures of the tj'pical Babylon. S(» also in 1 Mace, iv, 23, in the enumeration of the spoil obtained from the Syrians by Judas. It is, however, in the highest degree probable that the text- ure was known to the Hebrews from the time that their commercial relations were extended bj' Solomon. For, though we have no historical evidence of the im- portation of the raw material to the shores of the Med- iterranean earlier than that of Aristotle {Hist. Aniin. v, 19) in the 4th century B.C., yet that notice, referring as it does to the island of Cos, would justify the assumption that it had been known at a far earlier period in West- ern Asia. The commercial routes of that continent are of the highest antiquity, and an indirect testimony to the existence of a trade with China in the age of Isai- ah is probably afforded us in his reference to the Sinim (q. v.). The well-known classical name of the sub- stance {arjpiKov, sericuni) does not occur in the Hebrew language, although Calmet conjectured that mp'^"iD, serikoth (Isa. xix, 9, A. V. " fine") was connected with serienm. But the absence of the mention of silk in the Old Test, may be accounted for partly on the ground that the Hebrews were acquainted only with the text- ure, and not with the raw material, and partly on the supposition that the name sericum reached the Greeks b}' another channel, viz. through Armenia. The He- brew terms which have been supposed to refer to silk are '''ii'Ci,meshi, and p'O'C'^, demeshek. The former oc- curs only in Ezek. xvi, 10, 13 (A.V. "silk"), and is prob- ably connected with the root mashah, "to draw out," as if it were made of the finest drawn silk in the man- ner described by Pliny (vi, 20 ; xi, 26) ; the equivalent term in the Sept. (rpi'xa tttoj'), though connected in point of etymology with hair as its material, is, never- theless, explained by Hesychius and Suidas as referring to silk, which may well have been described as resem- bling hair (see Fuller, Miseell. ii, 11; Schroder, Vestit. Mulier. p. 824 sq.). The other term, demeshek, occurs in Amos iii, 12 (A. V. "Damascus"), and has been sup- posed to refer to silk from the resemblance of the word to our " damask," and of this again to " Damascus," as the place where the manufacture of silken textures was carried on. It appears, however, that "damask" is a corruption of dimukso, a term applied by the Arabs to the raw material alone, and not to the manufactured article (Pusey, ]\fin. Proph. p. 183). The A. V. con- founds ^12J, shesh, hyssus, with " silk" in Prov. xxxi, 22. We must therefore consider the reference to silk as ex- tremely dubious. (See Hartmann, Hebrderinn, ii, 126 sq. ; iii, 406 sq.). We have notice of silk under its classical name (D''"^"id) in the Mishna {Kil. ix, 2), where Chinese silk is distinguished from floss-silk. The value set upon silk by the Romans, as implied in liev. xviii, 12, is noticed by Josephus ( War, vii, 5, 4), as well as by classical writers ( e. g. Sueton. Caliy. 52 ; Mart, xi, 9).— Smith. Aristotle {Hist. A nim. v, 19) gave the first correct account of its nature by describing it as un- wound from a large homed caterpillar. Notwithstand- ing this information, however, the most erroneous no- tions continued to be entertained respecting its origin ; for Pliny {Hht. Nat. xi, 22) attributed it to a worm that built nests of clay and collected wax ; while Vir- gil {Georg. ii, 121) and other authors supposed that the Seres carded the down from the leaves of plants and from flowers.
There can scarcely be a doubt that silk, the most beautiful of all the fabrics of the loom, was known and employed by the Assyrians long before the captivity of the prophet by the river Chebar. The Medes were no- torious for the luxuriance and effeminacy of their cos- tume, as is well shown in Xenophon's copious details
SILK
740
SILLA
{Cyrnp. passim). After the conquest of Babylon and the possession by the Persians of universal empire, the very quintessence of inaj^nilicence was " the Meilian robe," wliich thenceforward became the ilress of lionur. "Cyrus distributed robes to hisj;reat men, most beauti- ful and noble, all of the Median sort." These were made of silk; for I'rocopius, writing long afterwards, wlien tlie silii-worm had become known in Europe, says, '•Tlie robes which the Greeks used to call Median we now call silken." The author of The I'eriphis of tlie Krythrean Sea speaks of silk in Malabar as an article iraporteil from countries farther east, which, however, can iiuly apply to the raw material; for in tlie Statutes of Jlenu, of an antiquity far more remote, we read of "silk and woollen stufls" and "silken clothes" {Menu, V, 120; xii, G-1) ; and "woollen cloth, deer-skins, jewels, soft silks, variously colored garments, and beautiful or- naments" are enumerated as presents in the Ramuijana (i, Gl). Pliny, commenting on the passage in Aristotle above cited, states that silk came to (ireece from Assyria and was worked up by the Grecian women ; and we may fairly conclude that the rich and curi- ous products of China, her silk and porcelain, reached the marts of Egj'pt, of Pha-nicia, and of (ireece by va- rious routes — one from the south of China through In- dia, and thence either by sea up the Persian and Arabi- an gulfs or across the Indus through Persia by the great Syrian and Arabian caravans; and another by the grand mute of Central Asia, by Bactra. "^ituate on the highway of the confluence of nations," whence the op- ulence of Thibet, Tartary, and China was poured in a ceaseless and splendid tide of traffic through the Caspi- an Gates (see Heeren, lli.tt. Eesearclies, passim ; and Wilkinson. Anc. Eijypt. iii, 107). "As the dress de- scribed [in Ezek. xvi] is intended to be of the richest materials, it might well be supposed that the prophet would mention silk if silk were known to him. Silk continued to bear an astonishingly high price down to a comiiaratively late period. Thus we tind that silk was forbidden to be worn by men under Tiberius. When they did wear it, silk formed only part of the fabric, robes entirely of silk being left to the women. It is numbered among the most extravagant luxuries or effeminacies of Ileliogabaliis that he was the first man who wore a robe of entire silk; and the anecdotes are well known of the emperor M. Antoninus, who caused a silk robe which had become his property to be sold, and of the emperor Aurelian, who refused, on the ground of its extravagant cost, a silk dress which his consort earnestly requested from him. Such anec- dotes have an emphasis here, where, by a figurative reference to the most rich and costly articles of dress then known, God describes the precious and glorious things with which he had invested the people he re- deemed from the bondage and misery of Egypt" (Kitto, Pict. liihle, ad loc).