We are aware that the man of antiquity (and also the Eastern nations of
to-day) recognised between man and woman only the sexual bond,
uninfluenced by personal and psychological motives, and leading in
Greece to the institution of monogamy on purely economical and political
grounds. In addition to this bond there existed a very distinct
spiritual love, evolved by Plato and his circle and projected by one man
on another member of his own sex. In the true Hellenic spirit this love
aspired to guide the individual to the ideal of perfection, the beauty
and wisdom of the friend serving as stepping-stones in the upward climb.
In Christianity the spiritual love of the divine became the greatest
value and the pivot on which the emotions turned. The primitive
Christian scorned the body, his own as well as that of his fellow; he
despised beauty of form, and regarded only the divine as worthy of love.
Woman was disparaged and suspected; all thinkers, down to Thomas and
Anselm, looking upon her merely as a snare and a pitfall.
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