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THE last article of their dress is the goat-skin, which is called
melotes, or pera, and a staff, which they carry in imitation of those
who foreshadowed the lines of the monastic life in the Old Testament, of
whom the Apostle says: "They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins,
being in want, distressed, afflicted; of whom the world was not worthy;
wandering in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens, and in caves of the
earth." And this garment of goatskin signifies that having destroyed
all wantonness of carnal passions they ought to continue in the utmost
sobriety of virtue, and that nothing of the wantonness or heat of youth, or
of their old lightmindedness, should remain in their bodies.
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