BOOK III.
CHAPTER I.
ON THE TRUE BEAUTY.
T 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.
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; the intellect, which is called the reasoning faculty, is the inner man, which is the ruler of this man that is seen. And that one, in another respect, God guides. But the irascible part, being brutal, dwells near to insanity. And appetite, which is the third department, is many-shaped above Proteus, the varying sea-god, who changed himself now into one shape, now into another; and it allures to adulteries, to licentiousness, to seductions.
"At first he was a lion with ample beard."[1]
While he yet retained the ornament, the hair of the chin showed him to be a man.
"But after that a serpent, a pard, or a big sow."
Love of ornament has degenerated to wantonness. A man no longer appears like a strong wild beast,
"But he became moist water, and a tree of lofty branches."
Passions break out, pleasures overflow; beauty fades, and
- ↑ Odyss. iv. 457.
