The Instructor 3.1.1–3.2.14

It was, then, it seems, the greatest of all lessons to know oneself. 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 doing good and needing as little as possible. God alone needs nothing, and he rejoices most to see us pure with the adornment of the mind, and then also of the body, clothed with a holy robe, self-control. The soul being threefold, the intellectual part, which is called the reasoning part, is the inner man, the ruler of this visible man; and another leads that one: God. The spirited part, being bestial, dwells near madness; and the desiring part, the third, is many-shaped, more varied than Proteus, the sea daemon, changing its shape now one way and now another, and eager for adulteries, lusts, and corruptions. “First he became a lion with a fine beard,” still keeping the adornment; the hair of the beard shows the man. “But then a serpent, or a leopard, or a great boar”: love of finery has slipped into licentiousness. No longer … does the man appear as a strong beast, but “he became flowing water and a tree with lofty leaves.” The passions pour out, the pleasures gush forth, beauty withers and falls to the ground faster than a leaf, when the erotic storms of insolence blow upon it, and it withers in corruption before autumn comes. For desire becomes and fashions everything and wishes to deceive, so as to hide the human being. But that man with whom the Word dwells does not change his shape, does not make himself up; he has the form of the Word; he is made like God; he is beautiful, he does not beautify himself; his is true beauty, for it is God; and that man becomes god,

because he wills what God wills. Rightly, then, Heraclitus said: “Men are gods, gods are men; for the reason is the same.” A manifest mystery: God in man, and man god; and the Mediator fulfills the will of the Father. For the Mediator is the Word, common to both, Son of God and Savior of human beings, servant of the one and Instructor of us. Since the flesh is a slave, as Paul too testifies, how could anyone reasonably adorn the handmaid like a procuress? For that the fleshly is the form of a slave, the apostle says of the Lord: “He emptied himself, taking the form of a slave,” calling the outer man a slave before the Lord became a slave and bore flesh.

But God, who suffers with us, himself set the flesh free from corruption, released it from deadly and bitter slavery, and clothed it with incorruption, putting on the flesh this holy adornment of eternity: immortality. There is another beauty of human beings: love. “Love,” according to the apostle, “is patient, kind, not jealous, does not brag, is not puffed up.” For adornment is bragging, conveying superfluity and uselessness. So he adds: “It does not behave unseemly”; for unseemly is a form that is foreign and not natural; and what is put on artificially is foreign, which he explains clearly by saying, “It does not seek what is not its own.” For truth calls what is proper one's own, while love of finery seeks what is another's, being outside God, the Word, and love. And the Spirit bears witness through Isaiah that the Lord himself was ugly in appearance: “And we saw him, and he had no form nor beauty, but his form was dishonored, falling short of men.” Yet who is better than the Lord? But he showed not the imaginary beauty of the flesh, but the true beauty both of soul and of body: of the soul, beneficence; of the flesh, immortality.

It is not, then, the appearance of the outer man but the soul that must be adorned with the ornament of goodness; and one might say the flesh too, with the adornment of self-control. Those women who adorn the surface and leave the depths barren unwittingly adorn themselves like the temples of the Egyptians. Among them, gateways and forecourts are elaborately built, and groves and sacred meadows; the courts are crowned with many columns; the walls gleam with foreign stones and lack nothing of artful painting; the temples glitter with gold and silver and electrum, and flash, varied with little stones from India and Ethiopia; and the inner shrines are shaded with gold-embroidered curtains. But if you go into the depth of the enclosure, hurrying to see the higher being, and look for the statue that dwells in the temple, a shrine-bearer or some other of those who perform the rites in the precinct, looking solemn and singing a paean in the Egyptian tongue, draws back the curtain a little as if to show the god, and gives us a broad laugh at the object of worship. For the god we hurried to will not be found within, but a cat or a crocodile or a native snake or some such beast, unworthy of the temple, fit rather for a hole or a den or mud. The god of the Egyptians appears on a purple couch

a beast rolling about. Such, it seems to me, are the women who wear gold, practicing the curling of their locks, rubbing ointments on their cheeks, painting their eyes, dyeing their hair, and contriving the rest of their effeminacy: adorning the fleshly enclosure, truly Egyptian-like, to attract superstitious lovers. But if one draws back the curtain of the temple, I mean the headdress, the dye, the clothing, the gold, the rouge, the cosmetics, that is, the web woven of them [the curtain], expecting to find true beauty within, he will be disgusted, I know well. For he will not find dwelling within the image of God, which is worthy of regard; instead a harlot and adulteress has occupied the inner shrine of the soul, and the true beast will be exposed, an ape smeared with white lead; and that deceitful serpent, eating through the intellectual part of the human being by vainglory, has the soul as its hole. Filling everything with deadly poisons and belching out the venom of its own error, this procurer, the dragon, has changed women into harlots (for love of finery belongs not to a wife but to a courtesan). They care little for keeping house with their husbands, but loosening their husband's purse they turn his means to their desires, so that they may have many witnesses to their seeming beautiful; and all day long, sitting by the dressing table,

they spend their time with slaves bought with money. Like bad cooks seasoning a dish, they season the flesh; they waste the day at the dressing table, shut up in their rooms, lest they be caught dyeing their hair; and in the evening this counterfeit beauty creeps out, as from a den, into the lamplight; for drunkenness and the dim light help their scheme. The comic poet Menander drives the woman who dyes her hair blond out of the house: “Now creep out of this house; for a self-controlled wife should not make her hair blond,” nor rouge her cheeks, nor paint her eyes. The wretched women do not see that they destroy their own beauty by bringing in a foreign one. From daybreak they are torn, rubbed, and plastered with some concoctions; they chafe their skin, soften their flesh with drugs, and wither their natural bloom with elaborate washes. So they appear pale from plasters and are easily caught by diseases, having their flesh, painted with drugs, already wasted, dishonoring the Creator of human beings, as though he had not given them beauty as it deserved.

Naturally they become idle for housekeeping, sitting like painted pictures, made to be looked at, not for keeping house. That is why the thoughtful woman in the comic poet says: “What wise or splendid thing could we women do, who sit about all made up,” corrupting the character of free women, bringing about the overthrow of households, the ruin of marriages, and the substitution of children. Antiphanes the comic poet, in The Soft Woman, mocks this courtesan-like behavior of women, using words common to them all, invented for wasting time: “She comes, she goes again, she comes up again, she goes, she arrives, she is here, she washes, she comes up, she is soaped, she is combed, she steps out, she is rubbed, she bathes, she looks at herself, she is dressed, she is perfumed, she is adorned, she is anointed; † and if she has anything, she hangs herself.”

For they deserve to perish three times, not once, those who use crocodiles' dung and anoint themselves with the froth of rotting matter, smear soot on their eyebrows and rub white lead on their cheeks. If even the pagan poets are disgusted with them for their conduct, how could they not be rejected by the truth? Another comic poet, Alexis, exposes them; I will set out his words too, which shame the unabashed shamelessness by the elaborateness of the description (for he was not himself so elaborate). I am ashamed that the women's quarters are ridiculed so much in comedy, the woman who, having become a “helper,” then ruins her husband too. “First, for gain and for plundering their neighbors, everything else becomes secondary to them. One happens to be short: cork is stitched into her shoes. One is tall: she wears a thin sole, and goes out with her head leaning on her shoulder; that takes something off her height. One has no hips: she puts sewn padding under her dress, so that those who see her cry out at her fine figure. One has a big belly: they have breasts like the comic actors'; setting them upright, they draw the front of the dress away from the belly as if with poles. One has red eyebrows: they paint them with soot. One happens to be dark: she plasters herself with white lead. One is too fair: she rubs on rouge. One has a beautiful part of the body: she shows it bare. One has fine teeth: she must laugh, so that those present may see what a pretty mouth she has. And if she does not enjoy laughing, she spends the day with a thin stick of myrtle standing upright between her lips, so that in time she grins, whether she wants to or not.”

I set these things before you from worldly wisdom to turn you from the mischievous contrivance of love of finery, since the Word wishes to save us by every means; a little later I will also apply the astringent of the divine Scriptures. What is not hidden tends somehow to keep away from sins out of shame at being exposed. As a bandaged hand and an eye smeared with ointment suggest to the sight that the person is ill, so cosmetics and dyes hint at a soul sick in its depths. The divine Instructor advises us to pass by “a strange river,” speaking figuratively of the strange woman, the lewd one, as a strange river, flowing to all, pouring out to all in harlot's licentiousness for luxury: “Keep away from strange water,” he says, “and do not drink from a strange spring,” advising us to guard against the stream of voluptuousness, “that we may live a long time, and years of life be added to us,” whether by not hunting after strange pleasure or by turning away from heresies.

Love of dainties and love of wine, though great passions, are not as great as love of finery. A full table and cup after cup are enough to satisfy gluttony; but for those who love gold, purple, and precious stones, neither the gold above and below the earth is enough, nor the sea of Tyre, nor the cargo from India and Ethiopia, nor even the Pactolus flowing with wealth. Even if one of them became a Midas, she would not be satisfied, but would still be poor, longing for more wealth; and these are ready to die with their gold. And if Wealth is blind, as he is, how can the women who are excited about him and share his passion not be blind? Having no limit to their desire, they run aground on shamelessness; for they need the theater, the procession, a crowd of spectators, wandering in the temples, and lingering in the streets, so as to be seen by all. For those who glory in appearance, not in heart, adorn themselves to please others; as brands show the runaway slave, so gaudy clothes show the adulteress. “And if you clothe yourself in scarlet and adorn yourself with golden ornament, and if you paint your eyes with antimony, your beautifying is in vain,” the Word says through Jeremiah.

Is it not absurd, then, that horses and birds and the other animals should spring from the grass and the meadows, and fly up, rejoicing in their own adornment, the horse's mane, natural color, and varied plumage, while woman, as if more deficient even than the nature of beasts, thinks herself so lacking in beauty that she needs a foreign beauty, bought and painted on? Headdresses, varieties of headdresses, elaborate plaits, countless styles of hair, and costly mirrors, by which they arrange themselves to hunt those who, like foolish children, are excited by appearances, belong to women who have lost all shame; one would not be wrong to call them courtesans, since they make their faces into masks. But the Word advises us “not to look at what is seen, but at what is not seen; for what is seen is temporary, but what is not seen is eternal.” And going beyond absurdity, they have invented mirrors for their artificial form, as if it were some brave deed or accomplishment, when they should rather put a veil over the deception. For not even Narcissus, as the Greek myth has it, profited from becoming a spectator of his own image.

If Moses commands human beings to make no image to rival God, how can these women reasonably make images of themselves by reflection, imitating them for the falsification of the face? When Samuel the prophet was sent to anoint one of the sons of Jesse as king, and saw the eldest of his sons, handsome and tall, and was pleased with him and brought out the anointing oil, “the Lord said to him,” it says, “Do not look on his appearance or the height of his stature, for I have rejected him. For man looks on the eyes, but the Lord on the heart”; and he did not anoint the one beautiful in body, but the one beautiful in soul. If, then, the Lord considers the natural beauty of the body less than that of the soul, what does he think of counterfeit beauty, he who casts out all falsehood entirely? “For we walk by faith, not by sight.” Most clearly the Lord teaches through Abraham that the one who follows God must despise fatherland, kindred, possessions, and all wealth, making him a sojourner; and for this he called him “friend,” since he despised his wealth at home; for he was of noble birth and very rich. With three hundred and eighteen of his own servants he overcame the four kings who had taken Lot captive. We find Esther alone rightly adorned. The woman beautified herself mystically for her king; but that beauty of hers proved to be the ransom of a people being slaughtered.

That adornment makes women courtesans and men effeminate and adulterous, the tragic poet is our witness, telling the story thus: “This judge of the goddesses, coming from Phrygia, as the myth of the Argives has it, to Lacedaemon, flowery in the robe of his garments and gleaming with gold, in barbarian luxury, loving and loved, went off, snatching Helen away to the cattle stalls of Ida, having found Menelaus abroad.” O adulterous beauty! Barbarian love of finery and effeminate luxury overturned Greece; clothing, luxury, and youthful beauty corrupted Spartan self-control; barbarian finery exposed the daughter of Zeus as a courtesan. They had no Instructor to check their desires, nor one who said, “Do not commit adultery,” nor one who said, “Do not covet,” nor “Do not go to adultery through desire,” nor “Do not inflame your appetites through love of finery.” What an end followed for them, and how many evils those enjoyed who would not restrain their self-love! Two continents were stirred by uneducated pleasures, and all was shaken by a barbarian youth. All Greece put to sea, the sea was cramped carrying continents; a long war was fanned into flame, fierce battles broke out, and the plains were filled with corpses; the barbarian insulted the naval station; injustice prevailed, and the eye of that poetic Zeus looked at the Thracians; barbarian plains drank noble blood, and the streams of rivers were dammed by dead bodies; breasts were beaten in lamentation, and mourning spread over the earth; “all the feet of many-fountained Ida were shaken, and its peaks, and the city of the Trojans and the ships of the Achaeans.” Where shall we flee, Homer, and stand? Show us a land that has not been shaken.

… Do not touch the reins, child, being inexperienced, nor mount the chariot to drive without having learned. Heaven rejoices in two charioteers, by whom alone the fire is driven and led. For the mind is carried away by pleasure, and the purity of reasoning, not instructed by the Word, slides into licentiousness and receives the fall as the wage of its transgression. An example of this for you is the angels of God, who abandoned the beauty of God for a fading beauty and fell so far from heaven to the ground. The Shechemites too were punished, falling because they outraged the holy virgin; their tomb is their punishment, and the memory of the penalty instructs us toward salvation.