Falsehood, however, has another stratagem: a beauty that is deceptive and false, a dazzling beauty that does not bring human beings out of themselves into the ecstasy of starting off toward the heights but instead immures them completely within themselves. Such beauty does not awaken a longing for the ineffable, a willingness to sacrifice and to lose oneself, but instead stirs up the desire, the will for power, possession, and pleasure. It is that sort of experience of beauty that Genesis tells about in the account of the Fall. Eve sees that the fruit of the tree is “beautiful” to eat and is
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