MATHETΩN

The Mathetai, as I have implied before, mostly wear traditional work-clothes. Yet modesty is not their rule so much as expediency. If the Duke of Windsor had bequeathed a Mathetes a wardrobe, he likely would wear most of it.

Clothing is one of two material things the Mathetai allow concern them; as the Envoy has written: “Having food and raiment, let us be therewith content.” Yet that the Envoy has recognized clothing does not mean the Mathetai think much of them. They would wear free rags if these covered and warmed them. But this is not acseticism: again, it is expediency.

The hermits, from the anchorites to the Mennonites, have got small things right with a very great thing wrong. It is because the Mathetai war a great war and work a great work that they have not a second nor a cent for finery. If a Mathetes had leisure and spare wealth, he would spend it as the Epicurean with a Cynic’s mind, prescribed in the Ecclesiastes, would spend it.