Clement of Alexandria: INSTRUCTOR (PAEDAGOGUS) - Part II, Complete

Translated by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson.

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Page 51

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] For the decking of one's self out--carrying, as it does, the look of superfluity and uselessness--is vaunting one's self. Wherefore he adds, "doth not behave itself unseemly:" for a figure which is not one's own, and is against nature, is unseemly; but what is artificial is not one's own, as is clearly explained: "seeketh not," it is said, "what is not her own." For truth calls that its own which belongs to it; but the love of finery seeks what is not its own, being apart from God, and the Word, from love.

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] Yet who was more admirable than the Lord? But it was not the beauty of the flesh visible to the eye, but the true beauty of both soul and body, which He exhibited, which in the former is beneficence; in the latter--that is, the flesh--immortality.

[1578] 1 Cor. xiii. 4.

[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 Irenaeus, Against Heresies, cap. xxii. note 12.]

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