The period
discussed in detail in the foregoing chapter ushered in a new and, until
then, unknown feeling. In crude and conscious contrast to sexuality,
deprecated alike by classical Greece and primitive Christianity,
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.
Pages:
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202