Theorema de sacramentorum nucleo

the eyes of the mind, and imbues breasts with a snowy whiteness, truly making them great, round—or integral—alien to all roughness, and in no way vain or light.

Pliny rightly rebukes Lollia Paulina, the matron of Prince Gaius, whom he says he saw at a mediocre betrothal dinner covered with emeralds and pearls, shining in alternating arrangement, over her whole head, hair, braids, ears, neck, hands, and fingers, which gathered a total of forty million sesterces. He adds: Nor were these the gifts of a prodigal Prince, but ancestral riches, acquired, of course, FROM THE SPOILS OF THE PROVINCES.

Would that Christian matrons and noble and rich virgins might be most approved by an adornment that is not that external one of knots of hair and gold placed around, or the covering of cloaks, but that hidden man of the heart, located in the incorruption of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious before God (1 Peter 3:3-4).

The same author rightly rebukes Cleopatra, the last of the queens of Egypt, because when Antony the Triumvir was dining most magnificently, and she was asked what could be added to such magnificence, she replied that she would consume one hundred million sesterces in a single dinner; and she swallowed a pearl dissolved in vinegar, and won, with L. Plancus as judge. Was it necessary for a pearl valued at the price of 250,000 crowns to serve the vanity of such an impure woman?

Let us, aroused by examples of the vanity of others, flee from it: and let us congratulate ourselves on the eating of the BREAD OF LIFE, which God the Father offers to his elect, and which he wishes to be made greater than all the pearls, gems, and treasures of the whole world.

With my whole heart, I give thanks to the eternal, omnipotent, and truthful Son of God, Jesus Christ, because it pleased him to instruct your heart, noble and dear to me, IOHANN PETER, with the Pearl of the Gospel, as the most precious and wholesome treasure of all; to make your excellent and most praiseworthy brothers partakers of such a treasure with you; to add, to the honor of your ancestors and yourselves, most distinguished man, the long-desired arrival of your brother, Lord Iohann Heinrich, to your temptations; and finally, because he willed that Caspar Uaser—a learned young man whom I hope, σὺν Θεῷ with God, will soon be of great use and ornament to the most laudable Church and School of Zurich, like another Marcus Beumler—should be the overseer and a faithful and skillful shaper of your intellect (which I observe is indeed οὐφυὲς well-endowed by nature and well-disposed toward doctrine and virtues).