"My most valuable days are those
when I give up the pursuit of sensuous beauty,
when I desert the elegant and severe cult of Hellenism,
with its over-riding devotion
to perfectly shaped, corruptible white limbs,
and become the man I would want to remain forever:
son of the Jews, the holy Jews."
A most fervent declaration on his part: ". . . to remain
forever
a son of the Jews, the holy Jews."
But he didn't remain anything of the kind.
The Hedonism and Art of Alexandria
kept him as their dedicated son.
Constantine P. Cavafy