True
virtue is the outcome of profound knowledge; it transforms men into
gods. The purely spiritual woman-worship of the Middle Ages was only
another aspect of this yearning to attain to virtue and perfection
through the love of an individual. We must not lose sight of the fact
that it was already strongly emphasised and upheld in the Platonic ideal
of love.
In the dark excesses of the Mysteries the beauty of the human form
counted for nothing; voluptuousness and intoxication ruled. In the
Asiatic cult of the sexes there was no room for beauty, no time for
selection. The Greeks were the discoverers of the beauty of the human
form. Beauty kindled the flame of love in their souls, beauty was the
gauge which determined their erotic values. Their ideal was a
_kalokagathos_, a youth beautiful in body and soul.
In "Phaedros" Plato contrasts with far greater force than in the
"Symposium" him "who craves for sensual pleasure like the beasts in the
fields" with him "who strives after beauty and perfection.
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