The evolution of love had obviously arrived at a stage when respect was
considered due to women--though not perhaps to all women. I will not go
to the courts of the great for evidence, but merely relate an episode
from the life of the Dominican friar Suso: "In crossing a field, Suso
met on a narrow path a poor, respectable woman. When he was close to
her, he stepped off the dry path and stood in the mud, waiting for her
to pass. The woman, who knew him, was astonished. 'How is it, Sir,' she
said, 'that you, a venerable priest, are humbly standing aside to allow
me, a poor woman, to pass, when it were far more meet that I should
stand aside and make room for you?' 'Why, my good woman,' replied Suso,
'I like to honour all women for the sake of the gentle Mother of God in
Heaven.'"
It may seem extraordinary, but this absolutely unphilosophical, and
really paradoxical emotion, found an appreciator in the German
philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach, the enemy of Christianity. In his _Essence
of Christianity_, as well as in his treatise _On the Cult of Mary_, he
refers to it more than once.
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