Vestments
In the Jerusalem Temple, the high priests wore a long vestment. It was called an ephod. Its design was given to Moses from God. “Make the ephod of gold,” he said, “of blue and purple and scarlet, and of fine twined linen, skillfully worked” (Ex 28:6). At each shoulder, there was an onyx stone engraved with the twelve tribes of Israel: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and so on. No one is now sure of its shape or precise length. No one is sure what its elements signified. No one is even sure what the word “ephod” meant.
Much of Christianity ― much of what Catholics do at Mass ― flows out of Judaism. But the vestments Catholic priests wear do not, at least historically, derive from the Jewish ephod. In the Church’s earliest days, a presiding priest dressed like everyone else. They said Mass wearing a tunic and flowing mantle like ordinary citizens of the Roman Empire, or like ordinary Greeks. There was no Christian ephod.
What we call “vestments” did not emerge until around the 5th century. In fact, vestments never really emerged at all. They were always there. Rome fell to the Visigoths in 410. Culture changed. Fashions changed. Ordinary people began dressing differently. But when priests presided, they alone continued wearing tunics and flowing mantles. These were the first vestments. But this meant priests were now dressed differently. They were once ordinary (“vestment” is from vestire, which is simply “to dress”), but they became distinct and extraordinary.
And that became the point. Priestly clothing was meant to be distinct and extraordinary. That is the sense in which Catholic vestments do share a lineage with the Jewish ephod.
In Hebrew, the word for “holy” is qadosh. It does not mean virtuous, as in “a holy person.” It means set apart, as in “the holy place” or “the holy scriptures.” The ephod was not like other clothing. It was distinct and extraordinary. It is the same with vestments. They communicate that what happens at Mass is distinct from what happens elsewhere. What happens at Mass is sacred. It’s set apart.
Now, when God instructed Moses, he gave the reason for the ephod. “For glory and for beauty” (Ex 28:2). God’s glory and God’s beauty make things holy. God’s glory sets things apart. The first Christians also knew the Mass was glorious and holy, that it was set apart. “Is it not a participation in the blood of Christ?” Saint Paul asked in the 1st century. “Is it not a participation in the body of Christ” (1 Cor 10:16)? As the Church journeyed through time, she devised new ways of conveying this. Even changes in fashion were an opportunity.
Vestments are “for glory and for beauty.” They indicate that, at Mass, there is something underneath the surface of the ordinary, that there is something glorious and beautiful coursing through it all. Vestments indicate that something qadosh is happening ― something holy, something set apart. What is happening, of course, is God is drawing near. It is distinct. Extraordinary. Mass is the place where we come to meet God. It is the place where God’s glory and God’s beauty comes to meet us.