The Tunics of the Egyptian Monks

They also wear linen tunics that barely reach the elbows and leave the rest of the arm and the hands bare. The cut-off sleeves are meant to remind them that they have cut off all the deeds and works of this world, and the linen garment is meant to teach them that they are dead to every earthly way of life. So day after day they may hear the apostle saying to them, “Put to death your members that are on the earth,” while their very dress declares, “For you are dead, and your life is hidden with Christ in God,” and again, “And I live, yet now not I, but Christ lives in me. To me indeed the world is crucified, and I to the world.” [a]