moral character. And know, beloved, that the reason why man must love beauty of form in his own species, and has an inclination to admire external beauty, is that God created the spirits of men out of a drop of his own light, as he says. "when I have breathed my spirit into him."[1] And as the spirit has thus been created out of the light of the Lord God, it is so essentially beautiful, that if man were capable of seeing the degree of its beauty, he would become bereft of reason and perhaps would perish from the effects of the impression.
This also should be known, that beauty of form belongs to the spirit, and not to the body. It is a proof that there is nothing agreeable in the body by itself, that when the spirit is separated from the body by death, no one has any inclination afterwards to look upon the face of the dead, but on the contrary his feelings repel him and he turns away from it. And however near a friend or relative the person may be, we have no disposition to approach his side again. The body of man is created of opaque earth, and the spirit by entering into the body is entirely veiled, so that it can neither be seen or known.
It is clear then that the beauty of form possessed by man and the beauty of many other things arise from their being created from the light of the Lord. Consider then, as far as human reason can reach, if such beauty and elegance exist in spirits formed out of one drop of the light of the blessed God, what must be the beauty and splendor of the Lord God himself. Since then the beauty of every beloved object is derived from his light, and that the beauty of every thing that is beautiful is from him, it follows that he who is wise, ought not to permit himself to be deceived by the soul which passes away, and to be attracted to that beauty which is fleeting, but that he should
