This philosophy of
pure spirituality was expressed by St. Bernard of Clairvaux in the
following words: "Oh, soul, stamped with the image of God, adorned with
His semblance, espoused to faith, endowed with His spirit, redeemed by
His blood, the compeer of angels, invested with reason--what hast thou
in common with the flesh, for which thou must suffer so much?... And yet
it is thy dearest companion! Behold, there will come a day when it shall
be a miserable, pallid corpse, food for worms! For however beautifully
it may be adorned, yet it is nothing but flesh!" The man of the later
Middle Ages, and especially the cleric, who was completely dominated by
the contrast of the ascetic and the sexual, feared the devil more than
he loved God, and regarded the sensual temptations which beset his
excited, superstitious and eternally unsatisfied imagination as sent by
the devil. The naivete of sensuality had passed away for ever; as
goodness was looked upon as divine and supernatural, nature and natural
instincts were condemned.
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