Vain Adornment

Cum vestieris te coccino, et cum ornata fueris monili aureo, et pinxeris stibio oculos tuos, frustra componeris: contempserunt te amatores tui: animam tuam quaerent. Sub figura mulieris adulterae loquitur: cum semel offenderis Deum, et quasi virum tuum reliqueris Creatorem, frustra ornamenta perquiris. Contempserunt te daemones amatores tui, et nequaquam stupri immunditiam, sed animae tuae quaerent interitum. Hoc idem intelligendum spiritualiter contra eos, qui conjugales affectus et verae fidei pudicitiam perdiderunt. Si te, inquit, vestieris coccino, id est, sanguinis Christi assumpseris fidem: si monili ornaveris aureo, id est, meditationem habueris sensus et intelligentiae spiritualis: et pinxeris oculos tuos stibio, id est, habueris studium mysteriorum et Dei secreta noscendi, frustra componeris. Haec enim etiam tuis amatoribus praepararas; et idcirco lectus angustus utrumque capere non potest, nec recipit ornamenta Deus, quibus amatoribus tuis ante placuisti. Sanctus Hieronymus, Commentariorum In Jeremiam Propheta, Liber IV Cap XXX Source Migne PL 24.740a-b

When you dressed yourself in scarlet and you adorned yourself with a gold necklace and you painted your eyes with kohl, vainly you beautified yourself. Your lovers despise you, they seek your soul.1 By the figure of an adulterous woman it says: when you have offended God, and, as if He were your husband, you have abandoned your Creator, it is in vain for you to seek ornamentation. Your demon lovers despise you, they do not seek the filth of your shame but the ruin of your soul. This should also be understood spiritually as against those who have ruined the marital affection and the chastity of pure faith. He says: 'If you dress in scarlet, that is, you have accepted the faith of the blood of Christ, if you adorn yourself with a necklace of gold, that is, you have contemplated the spiritual sense and understanding, and if you enlarge your eyes with kohl, that is, you have a zeal for the mysteries and for the secrets of God, yet vainly you beautify yourself. For you have also prepared these things for your lovers and your narrow bed is not able to hold both them and God, and God will not accept your ornaments with which you previously pleased your lovers. Saint Jerome, from the Commentary on Jeremiah, Book 4, Chapter 30 1 Jerem 4.30