Beauty & the Vice

by Peter J. Leithart

As a ring of gold in a swine's snout, so is a beautiful woman who lacks discretion" (Proverbs 11:22).

During his courtship with his future wife, a friend wrote a note and cited a Proverb at the end. He meant Proverbs 22:11. He put "Proverbs 11:22." They laugh about it when they tell the story, after some decades of marriage.

The Proverb is not merely about incongruence. The direction of the comparison is critical. Solomon doesn't say that a beautiful woman without discretion is like a painting with a slight blemish, or a statue with a crack.

The flaw is more fundamental. It affects the woman's nature, as it were. Her piggish lack of discretion makes her a pig, and turns her beauty into an unsuitable, grotesquely comic ornament.

Vices, at least some of them, become so basic as to determine what sort of animal we are.

Peter J. Leithart is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and the president of Trinity House Institute for Biblical, Liturgical & Cultural Studies in Birmingham, Alabama. His many books include Defending Constantine (InterVarsity), Between Babel and Beast (Cascade), and, most recently, Gratitude: An Intellectual History (Baylor University Press). His weblog can be found at www.leithart.com. He is a contributing editor of Touchstone.

• Not a subscriber or wish to renew your subscription? Subscribe to Touchstone today for full online access. Over 30 years of publishing!

personal subscriptions

Purchase Print &
Online Subscription

Get six issues (one year) of Touchstone PLUS full online access including pdf downloads for only $39.95. That's only $3.34 per month!

RENEW your print/online
subscription

Purchase
Online Subscription

Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives including pdf downloads for only $19.95. That's only $1.66 per month!

RENEW your online subscription

gift subscriptions

GIVE Print &
Online Subscription

Give six issues (one year) of Touchstone PLUS full online access including pdf downloads for the reduced rate of $29.95. That's only $2.50 per month!

RENEW your gift subscription

Transactions will be processed on a secure server.

bulk subscriptions

Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.

kindle subscription

OR get a subscription to Touchstone to read on your Kindle for only $1.99 per month! (This option is KINDLE ONLY and does not include either print or online.)

Your subscription goes a long way to ensure that Touchstone is able to continue its mission of publishing quality Christian articles and commentary.