ristianity,
spiritual love of man for woman came into existence. It was composed of
three clearly distinguishable elements: the Platonic thought,
maintaining that the greatest virtue lies in the striving for absolute
perfection; the entirely spiritual love of the divine, sufficient in
itself, and representing the final purpose of life, as developed by
Christianity; and the dawning knowledge of the value of personality.
From these three elements: the noblest inheritance of antiquity, the
central creation of Christianity, and the pivot of the new-born European
spirit, sprang the new value which is the subject of the second stage of
eroticism. The position of woman had changed; she was no longer the
medium for the satisfaction of the male impulse, or the rearing of
children, as in antiquity; no longer the silent drudge or devout sister
of the first Christian millenary; no longer the she-devil of monkish
conception; transcending humanity, she had been exalted to the heavens
and had become a goddess. She was loved and adored with a devotion not
of this earth, a devotion which was the sole source of all things lofty
and good; she had become the saviour of humanity and queen of the
universe.

The rejection of sensuality is an inherent part of the Christian
religion; only he who had overcome his sinful desires was a hero.
Spiritual love was as yet unknown, only the sexual impulse was realised,
and that was looked upon as a sin; there was but one way of escape:
renunciation. This view is very clearly expressed in the legends of
Alexius, and in Barlaam and Josaphat (which although of Indian origin,
had found a German interpreter and were known all over Europe). The
latter legend tells how Prince Josaphat, a devout Christian, married a
beautiful princess. On his wedding night he had a vision of the
celestial paradise, the dominion of chastity, and the earthly pool of
sin. Recognising in his bride a devil who had come to tempt him, he left
her and fled into the desert. Many legends illustrate the incapacity of
the first millenary to realise the relationship between the sexes in any
other sense. Woman was evil; the struggle against her a laudable effort.

Very probably the stigmatising of all eroticism during that long spell
of a thousand years was necessary. Only the unnatural condemnation of
love in its widest sense, a hatred of sex and woman such as was felt by
Tertullian and Origen, could result in the reverse of sexuality--pur