Over this the priest, robing for mass, puts on the amice, alb, girdle (cingulum), stole, maniple and chasuble.
This depicts the journey of the soul from heaven to earth, its life in the body, and its final return to the heavenly home, under the figure of a Parthian prince who is sent from the court of his parents to the land of Egypt to fetch the serpent-guarded pearl; after a time of sloth and forgetfulness he fulfils his quest, and returns triumphant and again puts on the heavenly robe.
At his consecration the bishop-elect is, according to the rubric, presented to the consecrating bishops vested in a rochet only; after the "laying on of hands" he retires and puts on "the rest of the episcopal habit," i.e.
Dressing himself in the armour of the slain knight, which he has great difficulty in handling and eventually puts on over his peasant's garb, he sets out on a series of adventures which differ greatly in the various versions, but the outcome of which is that he becomes a skilful and valiant knight and regains the heritage of his father.
The interpretation which Isaiah puts on this fact depends on the circumstance that at that date religion had never been conceived as a relation between God and individuals, or as a relation between God and a purely spiritual society, but always as a relation between a deity and some natural social group - a stock, a tribe, a nation.
