Caput IX
The Skin-Deep Beauty of the Body
God set limits on bodily beauty but left the soul's beauty free, yet people obsess over adorning the skin while neglecting the soul, not realizing that beneath the surface lies only filth and decay.
God has indeed set fixed, natural limits on the body's beauty, but he left the soul's beauty free, placing it under no necessity at all. Even if the Lord had given us the power to enhance bodily beauty however we choose, we would still be plagued by pointless anxiety and spend our whole lives on things that profit us nothing. From that, the soul's cultivation would inevitably be neglected. After all, even now, when we have no power to add anything to the body's beauty, we still act this way — striving to adorn the body's appearance in every way, using dyes for color, arranging the hair, rolling the eyes, wearing a variety of garments, and adding other refined and elaborate touches to contribute, as I said, to the body's beauty. How much more fitting it would be to give our effort to the cultivation of the soul. Bodily beauty is only skin deep. If people could see what lies beneath the skin — just as they say lynxes in Boeotia perceive things within — they would be disgusted to look. This beauty consists of phlegm, blood, fluid, and bile. If anyone considers what hides within the nostrils, what hides within the throat, and what hides within the belly, they will certainly find filth.
The Corruption Beneath the Surface
If we recoil from touching filth with our fingertips, how much more absurd to embrace the body that contains it, and our natural disgust at creatures born from our own flesh reveals the lowliness God permits to humble us.
And if we cannot bear to touch phlegm or excrement even with the tips of our fingers, how can we desire to embrace the very sack of it? The Lord, who is the Author of all natures, although he created man with great dignity, nevertheless permits us to suffer many things in this corruptible life, through which he may beat down the pride of the flesh. This is why a human hair found in food or drink is more disgusting to us, and we shrink less from seeing fleas that emerge from dust on our bodies than from lice, which come forth from the moisture of our own flesh.
Where True Beauty Dwells
A corpse proves that the body's beauty comes entirely from the soul, and those who lack discernment savor only fleshly things rather than the things of the Spirit of God.
But so that we may know that whatever beauty the body has comes not from the flesh but from the soul, let us consider how delightful a human corpse is — or rather, how much horror it strikes into those who see it.1 For when the soul, which is most beautiful, departs, the beauty it had given to the flesh departs entirely. But those people — or that person — who by their pride submit themselves to the author of baseness distinguish nothing according to the religious life of faith, and nothing according to the integrity of reason; and so they savor only the things of the flesh, not the things of the Spirit of God.✦23
Read the original Latin
Etenim pulchritudinem corporis certis quibusdam et naturalibus terminis Deus clausit; animae autem pulchritudinem liberam fecit, et nulla sub necessitate conclusit. Nam etsi etiam corporei decoris potestatem Dominus in nostro permisisset arbitrio, sollicitudo nobis immineret superflua, atque in his quae nihil prodessent omne vitae nostrae tempus occuparemus. Ex quo cultus animae necessario negligeretur. Quippe qui etiam nunc, ubi nulla nobis potestas est conferendi aliquid corporis decori, hoc tamen agimus, et hoc studemus, ut speciem corporis omnimodis excolamus, dum colorum fucis, vel compositione crinium, vel oculorum rotatu, vel varietate vestium, diversisque aliis et exquisitis conferre aliquid, ut dixi, decori corporis cupimus; sed quanto magis conveniebat nobis, ut ad cultum animae operam daremus? Nam corporea pulchritudo in pelle solummodo constat. Nam si viderent homines hoc quod subtus pellem est, sicut lynces in Boetia cernere interiora feruntur, mulieres videre nausearent. Iste decor in flegmate, et sanguine, et humore, ac felle, consistit. Si quis enim considerat quae intra nares, et quae intra fauces, et quae intra ventrem lateant, sordes utique reperiet.
Et si nec extremis digitis flegma vel stercus tangere patimur, quomodo ipsum stercoris saccum amplecti desideramus? Auctor quippe naturarum Dominus, licet multa dignitate hominem condiderit, tamen in hac corruptibili vita plura nos pati permittit, per quae superbiam carnis retundat. Inde est quod pilus hominis in cibo vel potu repertus magis fastiditur; et pulices de pulvere emergentes, minus quam pediculos, qui ex humore corporis nostri prodeunt, super nos videri abhorremus. Ut autem noverimus quod ipsa qualiscunque sit pulchritudo corporis, non de carne, sed de anima est, pensemus quam delectabile sit cadaver hominis, quin potius quantum horrorem videntibus se incutiat. Anima quippe pulcherrima recedente, pulchritudo quam carni dederat tota recedit. Sed isti vel iste qui auctori turpitudinis se superbiendo submittunt, nihil secundum religionem fidei nihilque secundum rationis honestatem discernunt, et idcirco sola quae carnis sunt sapiunt, non quae spiritus Dei.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Rom.8.5 — For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.
Notes
- 1 ↩pensemus: lemma uncertain (possibly penso/pensum); rendered as 'let us consider/weigh' per candidate gloss.
- 2 ↩auctori turpitudinis rendered 'author of baseness' — i.e., the devil or the principle of shameful pride.
- 3 ↩non quae spiritus Dei echoes the Pauline contrast between flesh and Spirit (cf. Rom. 8:5, Gal. 5:16–17); final resolution deferred to Moses stage.
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