30) that, in opposition to the pagan world which worshipped naked gods, Christianity developed the idea that nakedness was merely sexual, and therefore immoral, he proceeds: "But over all glimmered on the heavenly heights of the Cross, the naked body of the Saviour.
Under that protection there has gradually disengaged itself from the confusion of ideas a new transfigured form of nakedness made free after long struggle.

I would call this _artistic nakedness_, for as it was immortalized by the old Greeks through art, so also among us it has been awakened to new life by art.

Artistic nakedness is, in its nature, much higher than either the natural or the sensual conception of nakedness.

The simple child of Nature sees in nakedness nothing at all; the clothed man sees in the uncovered body only a sensual irritation.

But at the highest standpoint man consciously returns to Nature, and recognizes that under the manifold coverings of human fabrication there is hidden the most splendid creature that God has created.