It is then, as appears, the greatest of all lessons to know one’s self. For if one knows himself, he will know God; and knowing God, he will be made like God, not by wearing gold or long robes, but by well-doing, and by requiring as few things as possible.¹⁵⁷⁴

1574 [On this book, Kaye’s comments extend from p. 91 to p. 111 of his analysis.]

Now, God alone is in need of nothing, and rejoices most when He sees us bright with the ornament of intelligence; and then, too, rejoices in him who is arrayed in chastity, the sacred stole of the body. Since then the soul consists of three divisions;¹⁵⁷⁵

1575 [Note this psychological dissection. Compare Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, book vi. cap. 2, ἄισθησις, νοῦς, ὂρεξις, sense, intellect, appetition. Also, book i. cap. 11, or 13 in some editions.]

While he yet retained the ornament, the hair of the chin showed him to be a man.

Love of ornament has degenerated to wantonness. A man no longer appears like a strong wild beast,

Passions break out, pleasures overflow; beauty fades, and falls quicker than the leaf on the ground, when the amorous storms of lust blow on it before the coming of autumn, and is withered by destruction. For lust becomes and fabricates all things, and wishes to cheat, so as to conceal the man. But that man with whom the Word dwells does not alter himself, does not get himself up: he has the form which is of the Word; he is made like to God; he is beautiful; he does not ornament himself: his is beauty, the true beauty, for it is God; and that man becomes God, since God so wills. Heraclitus, then, rightly said, “Men are gods, and gods are men.” For the Word Himself is the manifest mystery: God in man, and man God. And the Mediator executes the Father’s will; for the Mediator is the Word, who is common to both—the Son of God, the Saviour of men; His Servant, our Teacher. And the flesh being a slave, as Paul testifies, how can one with any reason adorn the handmaid like a pimp? For that which is of flesh has the form of a servant. Paul says, speaking of the Lord, “Because He emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant,”¹⁵⁷⁷

1577 Phil. ii. 7.

There is, too, another beauty of men—love. “And love,” according to the apostle, “suffers long, and is kind; envieth not; vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up.”¹⁵⁷⁸

1578 1 Cor. xiii. 4.

And that the Lord Himself was uncomely in aspect, the Spirit testifies by Esaias: “And we saw Him, and He had no form nor comeliness but His form was mean, inferior to men.”¹⁵⁷⁹

1579 Isa. liii. 2, 3. [But see also Ps. xlv. 2, which was often cited by the ancients to prove the reverse. Both may be reconciled; he was a fair and comely child like his father David; but, as “the man of sorrows,” he became old in looks, and his countence was marred. For David’s beauty, see 1 Sam. xvi. 12. For our Lord’s at twelve years of age, when the virgin was seeking her child, Canticles, v. 7–16. For his appearance at three and thirty, when the Jews only ventured to credit him with less than fifty years, John viii. 57. See also Irenæus, Against Heresies, cap. xxii. note 12, p. 391, this series.]

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