The change in love from the barbarian and ancient attitude to the
modern conception of it as a refining, purifying feeling is closely
connected with the growth of the altruistic ingredients of
love--sympathy, gallantry, self-sacrifice, affection, and especially
adoration. It is one of the points where religion and love meet.
Mariolatry greatly affected men's attitude toward women in general,
including their notions about love. There is a curious passage in
Burton worth citing here (III., 2):
"Christ himself, and the Virgin Mary, had most
beautiful eyes, as amiable eyes as any persons, saith
Baradius, that ever lived, yet withal so modest, so
chaste, that whosoever looked on them was freed from
that passion of burning lust, if we may believe Gerson
and Bonaventure; there was no such antidote against it
as the Virgin Mary's face."
Mediaeval theologians had a special name for this faculty--Penetrative
Virginity--which McClintock and Strong's _Cyclopedia of Biblical
Literature_ defines as
"such an extraordinary or perfect gift of chastity, to
which some have pretended that it overpowered those by
whom they have been surrounded, and created in them an
insensibility to the pleasures of the flesh. The Virgin
Mary, according to some Romanists, was possessed of
this gift, which made those who beheld her,
notwithstanding her beauty, to have no sentiments but
such as were consistent with chastity."
In the eyes of refined modern lovers, every spotless maiden has that
gift of penetrative virginity. The beauty of her face, or the charm of
her character, inspires in him an affection which is as pure, as
chaste, as the love of flowers. But it was only very gradually and
slowly that human beauty gained the power to inspire such a pure love;
the proof of which assertion is to be unfolded in our next section.