Come now, and let us reason together,
says the LORD:
though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
All Commentaries on Isaiah 1:18 Go To Isaiah 1
John Chrysostom
AD 407
Why do you deck out your body while you neglect your soul, enslaved as it is by impurity? Why do you not give as much thought to your soul as to your body? You ought, rather, to give it more care. Beloved, you ought at least to give it an equal amount of thought. Tell me, please, if someone should ask you which you would prefer: for your body to be glowing in health and to excel in beauty but to be clad in mean clothing, or for your body to be crippled and full of disease but adorned with gold and lavishly decked out—would you not choose by far to possess beauty as part of the very nature of your body rather than merely in the outward covering of your clothes? If so, will you make this choice with regard to your body but just the opposite one in the case of your soul? If it is foul and noxious and black, what fruit do you think you will enjoy from your golden ornaments? But what insanity is this?
Apply this adornment within yourself and place these necklaces around your soul. For the ornaments placed about the body do not contribute either to its health or its beauty, since they do not make what is white, black—or what is discreditable, beautiful or good-looking. If you place ornaments about your soul, on the contrary, they quickly make it white instead of black, beautiful and comely instead of foul and deformed.
