Two
clerics, the court-chaplain Andreas, and the prolific rhymester Matfre
Ermengau, actually elaborated the theory of spiritual love contrary to
the spirit of the Church, but both men hastened to utter a timely
recantation and recommendation of orthodoxy as the only means of
salvation. After establishing all the desirable details of love
according to substance and accidents, Andreas deduced that every love
not dedicated to God was bound to offend Him, and advanced eighteen
points against the love of woman, starting with the well-known argument
that woman was naturally of a base disposition, covetous, envious,
greedy, fickle, garrulous, stubborn, proud, vain, sensual, deceitful,
etc. "He who serves love, cannot serve God," he declared, "and God will
punish every man who, apart from matrimony, serves Venus. What good
could come from acting against the will of God?" Here we are face to
face with a grotesque position: the official Church favouring sexuality,
that is matrimony, as against the newer and higher standard of ascetic,
spiritual love.
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