The Twelve Books on the Institutes of the Cœnobia, and the Remedies for the Eight Principal Faults

They wear also linen tunics which scarcely reach to the elbows, and for the rest leave their hands bare, that the cutting off of the sleeves may suggest that they have cut off all the deeds and works of this world, and the garment of linen teach that they are dead to all earthly conversation, and that hereby they may hear the Apostle saying day by day to them: “Mortify your members which are upon the earth;” their very dress also declaring this: “For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God;” and again: “And I live, yet now not I but Christ liveth in me. To me indeed the world is crucified, and I to the world.”