As long as He was with them they loved Him much, but it was fleshly according to His humanity, and therefore it was necessary that He should withdraw His bodily presence, that the Holy Ghost might come to them and teach them how to love Him and know Him more spiritually, as He did at Pentecost. Right so, it is expedient for some that our Lord withdraw a little the fleshly and bodily image from the eye of their soul, that their heart may be set and fixed more busily in spiritual desire and seeking of His divinity. (John Climacus)

In the Symposium Plato writes of a Ladder of Love. We begin our ascent by "falling in love with the beauty of one individual body, so that passion may give life to noble discourse." Climacus also begins with the body of Christ.

Climacus is writing a Ladder of Divine Ascent, but it's steps are similar to those of Plato's ladder. After several more steps, Plato writes,

Nor will his vision of the beautiful take the form of a face, or of hands, or of anything that is of the flesh. It will be neither words, nor knowledge, nor a something that exists in something else, such as a living creature, or the earth, or the heavens, or anything that is--but subsisting of itself and by itself in an eternal oneness, while every lovely thing partakes of it in such sort that, however much the parts may wax and wane, it will be neither more nor less, but still the same inviolable whole.

What begins with flesh ends in spirit.