Application. Service (cult) of the flesh.

A person should take care of his body in moderation (Ephesians 5:29). But the devil, who hinders man in every way, tries to spoil him here as well. Instead of what is necessary, he creates excess, instead of the apostolic: "Having food and clothing, we shall be content with them" (1 Tim. 6:3) – he inspires greed, the desire for much and luxury, instead of caring for the soul, he commands to groom and adorn every member of the body, including shame.

What things can come to here is shown by an example from the life of I. Turgenev, a famous writer.

Here is what Turgenev's admirer, the poet Polonsky1, says.

"Turgenev was very clean - every day he changed his sweatshirt, underwear and dried himself with a sponge - cologne with water or toilet vinegar. As for the hairstyle -54-

hair, it was quite a long story. More than once I happened to spend the night with Turguéneff, and more than once in my presence Turgenev made his morning toilet and combed his hair in my presence. Once he was very pleased that this procedure plunged me, as it were, into a certain amazement.

"You see," he said, "I'm taking this brush. Now I begin to scratch it to the right: one, two, three... and so on up to fifty times; Now I'll start scratching to the left, and also up to fifty... Well, now the brush is finished... I take this comb - I have to go through my hair with it up to a hundred times... Why are you surprised?.. Wait, that's not all... Wait, wait! Behind this comb there is another one with frequent teeth..."

And all this, Polonsky adds, "with gray hair and despite the fact that deep wrinkles were already furrowing his face."

It may also be added that in almost all his letters Turgenev informs his friends of his state of health, the condition of his gout, what his digestion was, and so on.

The enemy of the human race could not help noticing this weakness of our weakness towards his feeble body and elevated it to the universal cult of the flesh. Care for the body was legitimized, it was considered a necessity in a decent3, "cultured" society, and a form for its development was invented: hygiene, sports, fashion. Who will bite at what.

Those who love to trust science in everything and obey it tremble over their carnal health more than their spiritual health, according to the rules of medicine; the frivolous are left to diversify their attitude to the flesh according to the whim of public tastes and depending on the "spirit of the times." I shall here touch only on the latter, namely, fashion, as a highly unreasonable vice, which turns its male and female slaves into a herd of sheep. It is in vain for unbelieving science to try to discover any laws or meaning here.4

As long as it seeks the cause on the surface, in social, economic, and similar conditions, and not in the depths of the human spirit, redeemed by God our Saviour, it will not comprehend any "philosophy" or "psychology." The question will always remain unresolved: well, where do the socio-economic and other factors themselves come from? It's like the foundation of the earth: the earth on the whales, the whales on the elephants, the elephants on the turtles... Or, in today's terminology: the earth rotates because universal gravitation exists, and gravitation exists because all the luminaries rotate, and they rotate because... However, although Newton discovered universal gravitation, he did not discover what it is and where it comes from. And just think, all this whirling of brains and grasping at trifles, from which Basil the Great5 asked his listeners to move away, happens only because people do not want to humble themselves before the main Cause – God, and in their fall, in the service of the devil, to say a single word: "Alas, you have sinned, Lord, have mercy on us who have fallen!"

Fashion is an antediluvian phenomenon6 and ubiquitous7. Already the ancient Greeks loved agyn^OVSlV, to flaunt. And all that is the worst and best in modern costume and the customs of women has come down to us as a legacy from the ancient hetaerae, Roman public women. Thus, beginning with those artificial means which ladies use to make up for what nature has wronged them,8