Readers of the Book of Mormon recognize the “wearing of costly apparel”—and, surely, “very costly apparel”—as the sign, par excellence, of Nephite pride. “Very costly apparel” signals arrogance, the priestly cloth of Nehor. The Book of Mormon never sticks to a single note, so we also see “fine clothing,” “very fine clothing,” “fine apparel,” “precious clothing,” and “the costliness of your apparel.” Reference is made to fine silks and fine-twined linen, something approximating the wonderful cumbi cloth of the alpaca.
“Costly apparel” certainly is biblical idiom, as are so many
other Book of Mormon phrases. What surprises is the
appearance of the phrase in the Geneva rather than in the King James Bible that was read
by the young Joseph Smith. Given the small readership of the Geneva Bible today, readers of the Book of Mormon are
the only ones for whom the phrase remains in daily use! We all talk about “costly apparel.”
Was the phrase once common parlance already known to the
translator? or a coining? Because it also occurs in the marginal notes of the
Geneva Bible, it is surely the former, although its later appearance in Shakespeare or
Wesley came by way of the Geneva Bible. (The pertinent marginal notes can be
found via a Google search.) In other words, the Geneva Bible popularized and
magnified the phrase in the English-speaking world, the theological and the
literary, that is, until it sank out of sight for all but Book of
Mormon readers. (Evidence for its usage appears in the Google Books Ngram Viewer and includes Wesley and Shakespeare. The high point of usage
comes in 1827, and the Book of Mormon, as you know, was published in 1830.)
The source text for “costly apparel”, then, is 1 Timothy 2:9
(Geneva). Note also the use of “comely apparel” and of “pearls," which compares well to the association of costly apparel and pearls in 4th Nephi.
“Likewise also the women, that they array themselves in
comely apparel, with shamefastness and modesty, not with braided hair, or gold,
or pearls, or costly apparel" (1 Timothy 2:9, Geneva).
The Timothy of Tyndale, Coverdale, and James yields “costly
array.” Wycliffe gives us the following: Also wymmen in couenable abite, with
schamefastnesse and sobrenesse araiynge [arrange/array] hem silf, not in writhun
heeris, ethir in gold, ethir peerlis, ethir preciouse cloth”. “Preciouse
cloth”—that’s fascinating to read: The angel that appears to Nephi speaks of "precious clothing." Cloth to array to apparel. . .
And the Greek? Poluteles signifies “ ‘commanding a high price,’ [that is to say] very costly; metaph. very precious" (Frederick William Danker, The Concise Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament). The thing to note is “very” and “high”: highly costly, the extreme in luxury. Today the “extreme” of which the Book of Mormon warns might be understood as both the prohibitively costly—the designer masks of the pandemic—or the excessively sloppy that meets us in every airport, at every turn.
As Hugh Nibley used to tell us, costly apparel can be anything
that calls (undue) attention to the wearer. As an example of how to dress as
Alma might dress, he’d suggest that we consider Spencer W. Kimball, the neatly dressed man who
never called attention to himself. For Nibley, it was not
the simple and utilitarian, but the simple and the appropriate. “Simple dignity”
best describes President Kimball’s mode (see examples: https://www.dialoguejournal.com/articles/i-sustain-him-as-a-prophet-i-love-him-as-an-affectionate-father/).
As for Nibley’s famous mode of apparel, he spoke of it wryly
but never recommended it. Gordon B. Hinckley told family about the time—in the Fifties
or Sixties—when Brother Nibley showed up at his office in the Church Administration Building
only to be turned away by the secretary as a bum. Gordon Hinckley recognized
him just in time. The story was told with great humor--and much affection. And,
of course, Brother Nibley also complained (yes, complained bitterly) to a BYU
class in the late 80's about security descending on him as he walked, book in hand, in the
parking lot behind BYU’s administration building. Reading, he pointed out, was
cause for arrest at the Y.
We return now to our own arresting Bible readings:
Geneva Isaiah 3:22 also yields “costly apparel":
“the costly apparel and the veils.”
And the Hebrew original for “costly apparel”? The latest suggestion is that the Hebrew refers to an accessory item rather than a garment, likely a polished mirror (https://sahd-online.com/words/gillayon/#:~:text=Gen.%20R.%20XIX.6%20seems%20to,LXX.%20In%20Modern%20Hebrew%20%2C). So here we have both mirrors and masking among the Hebrews. The wearing of mirrors as clothing accessory merits study, and certainly mirrors were part of the costly apparel worn by Mesoamerican elites--something I throw in just for fun since I've been reading up on Mesoamerican mirrors, including the idea of the Aztec solar calendar as cosmic mirror (see articles by Karl Taube such as "The Iconography of Mirrors at Teotihuacan, 1992, on Mesoweb, and also this touch of magic: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/magic-mirror-used-by-queen-elizabeth-is-court-astrologer-has-aztec-origins-180978830/).
Marginal notes in the Geneva Bible also use the phrase “costly
apparel":
“I delighted to do justice, as
others did to wear costly apparel.”
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Job%2029%3A14&version=GNV
The marginal note comments on "a robe, and a crown" in Job 29:14:
I put on justice, and it covered me: my
judgment was as a robe, and a crown.
Did Shakespeare pick up the phrase from the air of parlance or from the Bible? Shakespeare read the Geneva Bible:
First, as you know, my house within the city
Is richly furnished with plate and gold,
Basins and ewers to lave her dainty hands;
My hangings all of Tyrian tapestry;
In ivory coffers I have stuff'd my crowns;
In cypress chests my arras counterpoints,
Costly apparel, tents, and canopies,
Fine linen, Turkey cushions boss'd with pearl,
Valance of Venice gold in needle-work;
Pewter and brass, and all things that belongs
To house or housekeeping.
Taming, II i.
