Question 26. Why do women wear for mourning white mantles and white kerchiefs? Solution. What if they do this in conformity to the Magi, who, as they say, standing in defiance of death and darkness, do fortify themselves with bright and splendid robes? Or, as the dead corpse is wrapped in white, so do they judge it meet that the relations should be conformable thereto? For they beautify the body so, since they cannot the soul; wherefore they wish to follow it as having gone before, pure and white, being dismissed after it hath fought a great and various warfare. Or is it that what is very mean and plain is most becoming in these things? For garments dyed of a color argue either luxury or vanity. Neither may we say less of black than of sea-green or purple, Verily garments are deceitful, and so are colors. And a thing that is naturally black is not dyed by art but by nature, and is blended with an intermixed shade. It is white only therefore that is sincere, unmixed, free from the impurity of a dye, and inimitable; therefore most proper to those that are buried. For one that is dead is become simple, unmixed, and pure, freed from the body no otherwise than from a tingeing poison. In Argos they wear white in mourning, as Socrates saith, vestments rinsed in water.