FROM THE DAWN OF HISTORY: WOMAN AS SAINT AND WITCH
Taboos of first chapter indicate that in the early ages the fear of
contamination by woman predominated; Later, emphasis fell on her mystic
and uncanny power; Ancient fertility cults; Temple prostitution,
dedication of virgins, etc.; Ancient priestesses and prophetesses;
Medicine early developed by woman added to belief in her power; Woman's
psychic quality of intuition: its origin--theories--conclusion that this
quality is probably physiological in origin, but aggravated by taboo
repressions; Transformation in attitude toward woman in the early
Christian period; Psychological reasons for the persistence in religion
of a Mother Goddess; Development of the Christian concept; Preservation
of ancient women cults as demonology; Early Christian attitude toward
woman as unclean and in league with demons; Culmination of belief in
demonic power of woman in witchcraft persecutions; All women affected by
the belief in witches and in the uncleanness of woman; Gradual
development on the basis of the beliefs outlined of an ideally pure and
immaculate Model Woman.
From the data of the preceding chapter, it is clear that the early ages
of human life there was a dualistic attitude toward woman. On the one
hand she was regarded as the possessor of the mystic _mana_ force,
while on the other she was the source of "bad magic" and likely to
contaminate man with her weaknesses. Altogether, the study of primitive
taboos would indicate that the latter conception predominated in savage
life, and that until the dawn of history woman was more often regarded
as a thing unclean than as the seat of a divine power.
At the earliest beginnings of civilization man's emotions seem to have
swung to the opposite extreme, for emphasis fell on the mystic and
uncanny powers possessed by woman. Thus it was that in ancient nations
there was a deification of woman which found expression in the belief in
feminine deities and the establishment of priestess cults. Not until the
dawn of the Christian era was the emphasis once more focussed on woman
as a thing unclean. Then, her mystic power was ascribed to demon
communication, and stripped of her divinity, she became the witch to be
excommunicated and put to death.
All the ancient world saw something supernatural, something demoniacal,
in generation. Sometimes the act was deified, as in the phallic
ceremonials connected with nature worship, where the procreative
principle in man became identified with the creative energy pervading
all nature, and was used as a magic charm at the time of springtime
planting to insure the fertility of the fields and abundant harvest,[1]
It was also an important part of the ritual in the Phrygian cults, the
cult of the Phoenician Astarte, and the Aphrodite cults. These mystery
religions were widely current in the Græco-Roman world in pre-Christian
times. The cult of Demeter and Dionysius in Greece and Thrace; Cybele
and Attis in Phrygia; Atagartes in Cilicia; Aphrodite and Adonis in
Syria; Ashtart and Eshmun (Adon) in Phoenicia; Ishtar and Tammuz in
Babylonia; Isis, Osiris and Serapis in Egypt, and Mithra in Persia--all
were developed along the same lines.[2] The custom of the sacrifice of
virginity to the gods, and the institution of temple prostitution, also
bear witness to the sacred atmosphere with which the sex act was
surrounded among the early historic peoples.[3] It was this idea of the
mysterious sanctity of sex which did much to raise woman to her position
as divinity and fertility goddess.
The dedication of virgins to various deities, of which the classic
example is the institution of the Vestal Virgins at Rome, and the fact
that at Thebes and elsewhere even the male deities had their priestesses
as well as priests, are other indications that at this time woman was
regarded as divine or as capable of ministering to divinity. The
prophetic powers of woman were universally recognized. The oracles at
Delphi, Argos, Epirus, Thrace and Arcadia were feminine. Indeed the
Sibylline prophetesses were known throughout the Mediterranean basin.[A]
[Footnote A: Farnell[4] found such decided traces of feminine divinity
as to incline him to agree with Bachofen that there was at
one time an age of Mutterrecht which had left its impress on
religion as well as on other aspects of social life. As we have
said before, it is now fairly well established that in the transition
from metronymic to patronymic forms, authority did not pass
from women to men but from the brothers and maternal uncles
of the women of the group to husbands and sons. This fact
does not, however, invalidate the significance of Farnell's data
for the support of the view herein advanced, i.e., that woman
was at one time universally considered to partake of the divine.]
The widespread character of the woman-cult of priestesses and
prophetesses among the peoples from whom our culture is derived is
evidenced in literature and religion. That there had been cults of
ancient mothers who exerted moral influence and punished crime is shown
by the Eumenides and Erinyes of the Greeks. The power of old women as
law-givers survived in Rome in the legend of the Cumæan Sibyl.[5] An
index of the universality of the sibylline cult appears in the list of
races to which Varro and Lactantius say they belonged: Persian, Libyan,
Delphian, Cimmerian, Erythrian, Trojan, and Phrygian.[6] These sibyls
were believed to be inspired, and generations of Greek and Roman
philosophers never doubted their power. Their carmina were a court of
last resort, and their books were guarded by a sacred taboo.
Among the Greeks and neighbouring nations the women of Thessaly had a
great reputation for their charms and incantations.[7] Among the writers
who speak of a belief in their power are: Plato, Aristophanes, Horace,
Ovid, Virgil, Tibullus, Seneca, Lucan, Menander, and Euripides.
All of the northern European tribes believed in the foresight of future
events by women. Strabo says of the Cimbri that when they took the field
they were accompanied by venerable, hoary-headed prophetesses, clothed
in long, white robes. Scandinavians, Gauls, Germans, Danes and Britons
obeyed, esteemed and venerated females who dealt in charms and
incantations. These sacred women claimed to foretell the future and to
interpret dreams, and among Germans, Celts and Gauls they were the only
physicians and surgeons. The druidesses cured disease and were believed
to have power superior to that of the priests.[8] The Germans never
undertook any adventure without consulting their prophetesses.[9] The
Scandinavian name for women endowed with the gift of prophecy was
_fanae_, _fanes_. The English form is _fay_. The ceremonies of fays or
fairies, like those of the druidesses, were performed in secluded
woods.[A]
[Footnote A: Joan of Arc was asked during her trial if she were a fay.]
Magic and medicine went hand in hand in ancient times, and remained
together down to the middle ages. Old herbals largely compiled from the
lore of ancient women form a link in the chain of tradition, the first
ring of which may have been formed in Egypt or in Greece. There is no
doubt that women from an early date tried to cure disease. Homer makes
mention of Hecamede and her healing potions. There seems little doubt
that there were Greek women who applied themselves to a complete study
of medicine and contributed to the advance of medical science. This
traditional belief in the power of women to cure disease survives in the
folk to-day.[10]
In view of the widespread veneration of a peculiar psychic quality of
woman, a power of prophecy and a property of divinity which has made her
an object of fear and worship, it may be well to review the modern
explanations of the origin of this unique feminine power. Herbert
Spencer was of the opinion that feminine penetration was an ability to
distinguish quickly the passing feelings of those around and was the
result of long ages of barbarism during which woman as the weaker sex
was obliged to resort to the arts of divination and to cunning to make
up for her lack of physical force and to protect herself and her
offspring.[11] In like vein Käthe Schirmacher, a German feminist, says:
"The celebrated intuition of woman is nothing but an astonishing
refinement of the senses through fear.... Waiting in fear was made the
life task of the sex."[12]
Lester F. Ward had a somewhat different view.[13] He thought that
woman's psychic power came from the sympathy based on the maternal
instinct, which "though in itself an entirely different faculty, early
blended with or helped to create, the derivative reason-born faculty of
altruism." With Ward's view Olive Schreiner agrees, saying: "We have no
certain proof that it is so at present, but woman's long years of
servitude and physical subjection, and her experience as childbearer and
protector of infancy, may be found in the future to have endowed her ...
with an exceptional width of human sympathy and instinctive
comprehension."[14]
In all probability Lombroso came nearer to the truth in his explanation
of feminine penetration. "That woman is more subject to hysteria is a
known fact," he says, "but few know how liable she is to hypnotic
phenomena, which easily opens up the unfoldment of spiritual
faculties.... The history of observation proves that hysteria and
hypnotism take the form of magic, sorcery, and divination or prophecy,
among savage peoples. 'Women,' say the Pishawar peoples, 'are all
witches; for several reasons they may not exert their inborn powers.'
... In the Slave Coast hysterical women are believed to be possessed
with spirits. The Fuegians believed that there had been a time when
women wielded the empire through her possession of the secrets of
sorcery."[8, pp.85f.]
The history of modern spiritualism has so well confirmed this view of
Lombroso's that we are safe in accepting it as the partial explanation
of the attribute of a mysterious and uncanny power which man has always
given to the feminine nature. The power of prophecy and divination which
was possessed by women at the dawn of history and for some time
thereafter was probably not different in its essentials from the
manifestations of hysterical girls who have puzzled the wisest
physicians or the strange phenomena of those spiritualistic mediums who
have been the subject of research well into our own times.[15]
If we wish to push our inquiry still further and ask why woman should be
so much more subject than man to hysterical seizures and to hypnotic
suggestion, we shall probably find that it is an essential part of her
femininity. Modern psychology and physiology have pointed out that the
menstrual cycle of woman has a vast influence not only on her emotional
nature but on her whole psychic life, so that there are times when she
is more nervously tense, more apt to become hysterical or to yield to
the influence of suggestion. Moreover, because of the emphasis on
chastity and the taboos with which she was surrounded, any neurotic
tendencies which might be inherent in her nature were sure to be
developed to the utmost.
As Lombroso suggests, hysteria and other neurotic phenomena are classed
as evidence of spirit possession by the untutored mind. Thus it happened
that observing the strange psychic manifestations to which woman was
periodically subject, the ancient peoples endowed her with
spiritualistic forces which were sometimes held to be beneficent and at
other times malefic in character. Whatever the attitude at any time
whether her _mana_ were regarded as evil or benignant, the savage and
primitive felt that it was well to be on his guard in the presence of
power; so that the taboos previously outlined would hold through the
swing of man's mind from one extreme to the other.
As goddess, priestess and prophetess, woman continued to play her rôle
in human affairs until the Christian period, when a remarkable
transformation took place. The philosophy of dualism that emanated from
Persia had affected all the religions of the Mediterranean Basin and had
worked its way into Christian beliefs by way of Gnosticism,
Manicheanism, and Neo-Platonism. Much of the writing of the church
fathers is concerned with the effort to harmonize conflicting beliefs
or to avoid the current heresies. To one who reads the fathers it
becomes evident to what extent the relation of man to woman figures in
these controversies.[16]
The Manicheanism which held in essence Persian Mithraism and which had
so profound an influence on the writings of St. Augustine gave body and
soul to two distinct worlds and finally identified woman with the body.
But probably as a result of the teachings of Gnosticism with its
Neo-Platonic philosophy which never entirely rejected feminine
influence, some of this influence survived in the restatement of
religion for the folk. When the restatement was completed and was
spreading throughout Europe in the form which held for the next
millennium, it was found that the early goddesses had been accepted
among the saints, the priestesses and prophetesses were rejected as
witches, while the needs of men later raised the Blessed Virgin to a
place beside her son.
Modern psychology has given us an explanation of the difficulty of
eradicating the worship of such a goddess as the Great Mother of Asia
Minor from the religion of even martial peoples who fear the
contamination of woman's weakness; or from a religion obsessed with
hatred of woman as unclean by men who made the suppression of bodily
passions the central notion of sanctity. The most persistent human
relationship, the one charged with a constant emotional value, is not
that of sex, which takes manifold forms, but that of the mother and
child. It is to the mother that the child looks for food, love, and
protection. It is to the child that the mother often turns from the
mate, either because of the predominance of mother love over sex or in
consolation for the loss of the love of the male. We have only recently
learned to evaluate the infantile patterns engraved in the neural tissue
during the years of childhood when the mother is the central figure of
the child's life. Whatever disillusionments may come about other women
later in life, the mother ideal thus established remains a constant part
of man's unconscious motivations. It is perhaps possible that this
infantile picture of a being all-wise, all-tender, all-sacrificing, has
within it enough emotional force to create the demand for a
mother-goddess in any religion.
To arrive at the concept of the Madonna, a far-reaching process of
synthesis and reinterpretation must have been carried out before the
Bible could be brought into harmony with the demands made by a cult of a
mother goddess. Just as the views brought into the church by celibate
ideals spread among heathen people, so the church must have been in its
turn influenced by the heathen way of looking at things.[17] One of the
great difficulties was the reconciliation of the biological process of
procreation with divinity. But there had for ages been among primitive
peoples the belief that impregnation was caused by spirit possession or
by sorcery. This explanation had survived in a but slightly altered form
in the ancient mythologies, all of which contained traditions of heroes
and demi-gods who were born supernaturally of a divine father and a
human mother. In the myths of Buddha, Zoroaster, Pythagoras and Plato,
it was intimated that the father had been a god or spirit, and that the
mother had been, and moreover remained after the birth, an earthly
virgin. These old and precious notions of the supernatural origin of
great men were not willingly renounced by those who accepted the new
religion; nor was it necessary to make such a sacrifice, because men
thought that they could recognize in the Jewish traditions something
corresponding to the heathen legends.[18]
The proper conditions for the development of a mother cult within
Christianity existed within the church by the end of the second century.
At the Council of Nicæa (325 A.D.) it was settled that the Son was of
the same nature as the Father. The question of the nature of Mary then
came to the fore. The eastern fathers, Athanasius, Ephraim Syrus,
Eusebius and Chrysostom, made frequent use in their writings of the
term Theotokos, Mother of God. When Nestorius attacked those who
worshipped the infant Christ as a god and Mary as the mother of God
rather than as the mother of Christ, a duel began between Cyril of
Alexandria and Nestorius "which in fierceness and importance can only be
compared with that between Arius and Athanasius."[19]
In 431 A.D. the Universal Church Council at Ephesus assented to the
doctrine that Mary was the Mother of God. Thus Ephesus, home of the
great Diana, from primitive times the centre of the worship of a goddess
who united in herself the virtues of virginity and motherhood, could
boast of being the birthplace of the Madonna cult. And thus Mary, our
Lady of Sorrows, pure and undefiled, "the church's paradox," became the
ideal of man. She was "a woman, virgin and mother, sufficiently high to
be worshipped, yet sufficiently near to be reached by affection. ... If
we judge myths as artistic creations we must recognize that no god or
goddess has given its worshippers such an ideal as the Mary of Christian
art and poetry."[19: p.183] [20: v. ii., pp.220f.]
Although Christianity thus took over and embodied in its doctrines the
cult of the mother-goddess, at the same time it condemned all the rites
which had accompanied the worship of the fertility goddesses in all the
pagan religions. The power of these rites was still believed in, but
they were supposed to be the work of demons, and we find them strictly
forbidden in the early ecclesiastical laws. The phallic ceremonials
which formed so large a part of heathen ritual became marks of the
devil, and the deities in whose honour they were performed, although
losing none of their power, were regarded as demonic rather than divine
in nature. Diana, goddess of the moon, for example, became identified
with Hecate of evil repute, chief of the witches. "In such a fashion the
religion of Greece, that of Egypt, of Phoenicia and Asia Minor, of
Assyria and of Persia, became mingled and confused in a simple
demonology."[21]
In addition to the condemnation of Pagan deities and their ritualistic
worship, there was a force inherent in the very nature of Christianity
which worked toward the degradation of the sex life. After the death of
Christ, his followers had divorced their thoughts from all things
earthly and set about fitting themselves for their places in the other
world. The thought of the early Christian sects was obsessed by the idea
of the second coming of the Messiah. The end of the world was incipient,
therefore it behooved each and every one to purge himself from sin. This
emphasis on the spiritual as opposed to the fleshly became fixated
especially on the sex relationship, which came to be the symbol of the
lusts of the body which must be conquered by the high desires of the
soul. Consequently the feelings concerning this relation became
surcharged with all the emotion which modern psychology has taught us
always attaches to the conscious symbol of deeply underlying unconscious
complexes. In such a situation man, who had come to look with horror on
the being who reminded him that he was flesh as well as spirit saw in
her "the Devil's gateway," or "a fireship continually striving to get
along side the male man-of-war to blow him up into pieces."[22][A]
[Footnote A: Dr Donaldson, translator of the Ante-Nicene Fathers, says:
"I used to believe ... that woman owes her present position to
Christianity ... but in the first three centuries I have not been able
to see that Christianity had any favourable effect on the position of
woman."]
With the rejection of the idea of the sanctity of sex as embodied in the
phallic rituals of the pagan cults, the psychic power of woman became
once more a thing of fear rather than of worship, and her uncleanness
was emphasized again more than her holiness, even as in primitive times.
The power of woman to tell the course of future events which in other
days had made her revered as priestess and prophetess now made her hated
as a witch who had control of what the Middle Ages knew as the Black
Art.[23] The knowledge of medicine which she had acquired through the
ages was now thought to be utilized in the making of "witch's brew," and
the "ceremonies and charms whereby the influence of the gods might be
obtained to preserve or injure"[21: v.1, p.12] became incantations to the
evil one. In addition to her natural erotic attraction for the male,
woman was now accused of using charms to lure him to his destruction.
The asceticism of the church made it shameful to yield to her
allurements, and as a result woman came to be feared and loathed as the
arch-temptress who would destroy man's attempt to conform to celibate
ideals. This sex antagonism culminated in the witchcraft persecutions
which make so horrible a page of the world's history.
Among the pagans, witches had shared with prophetesses and priestesses a
degree of reverence and veneration. Medea had taught Jason to tame the
brazen-footed bulls and dragons which guarded the Golden Fleece. Hecate
was skilled in spells and incantations. Horace frequently mentions with
respect Canidia, who was a powerful enchantress. Gauls, Britons and
Germans had obeyed and venerated women who dealt in charms and
incantations. The doctrines of Christianity had changed the veneration
into hatred and detestation without eradicating the belief in the power
of the witch. It was with the hosts of evil that she was now believed to
have her dealings, however. When this notion of the alliance between
demons and women had become a commonplace, "the whole tradition was
directed against woman as the Devil's instrument, basely seductive,
passionate and licentious by nature."[24] Man's fear of woman found a
frantic and absurd expression in her supposed devil-worship. As a
result, the superstitions about witchcraft became for centuries not only
a craze, but a theory held by intelligent people.
Among the female demons who were especially feared were: Nahemah, the
princess of the Succubi; Lilith, queen of the Stryges; and the Lamiæ or
Vampires, who fed on the living flesh of men. Belief in the Vampires
still persists as a part of the folklore of Europe. Lilith tempted to
debauchery, and was variously known as child-strangler, child-stealer,
and a witch who changed true offspring for fairy or phantom children.[A]
The figure of the child-stealing witch occurs in an extremely ancient
apocryphal book called the Testament of Soloman, and dates probably from
the first or second century of the Christian Era.[25]
[Footnote A: The name of Lilith carries us as far back as Babylon, and
in her charms and conjurations we have revived in Europe the reflection
of old Babylonian charms.]
Laws against the malefici (witches) were passed by Constantine. In the
Theodosian Code (_Lib. 9. Tit. 16. Leg. 3._) they are charged with
making attempts by their wicked arts upon the lives of innocent men, and
drawing others by magical potions (philtra et pharmaca) to commit
misdemeanours. They are further charged with disturbing the elements,
raising tempests, and practising abominable arts. The Council of
Laodicea (343-381. _Can_. 36) condemned them. The Council of Ancyra
forbade the use of medicine to work mischief. St. Basil's canons
condemned witchcraft. The fourth Council of Carthage censured
enchantment.[26] John of Salisbury tells of their feasts, to which they
took unbaptized children. William of Auverne describes the charms and
incantations which they used to turn a cane into a horse. William of
Malmesbury gives an account of two old women who transformed the
travellers who passed their door into horses, swine or other animals
which they sold. From some of the old Teuton laws we learn that it was
believed that witches could take a man's heart out of his body and fill
the cavity with straw or wood so that he would go on living.
One of the famous witchcraft trials was that of the Lady Alice
Kyteler,[27] whose high rank could not save her from the accusation. It
was claimed that she used the ceremonies of the church, but with some
wicked changes. She extinguished the candles with the exclamation, "Fi!
Fi! Fi! Amen!" She was also accused of securing the love of her
husbands, who left much property to her, by magic charms. These claims
were typical of the accusations against witches in the trials which took
place.
By the sixteenth century, the cumulative notion of witches had
penetrated both cultivated and uncultivated classes, and was embodied in
a great and increasing literature. "No comprehensive work on theology,
philosophy, history, law, medicine, or natural science could wholly
ignore it," says Burr, "and to lighter literature it afforded the most
telling illustrations for the pulpit, the most absorbing gossip for the
news-letter, the most edifying tales for the fireside."[28]
As a result of this belief in the diabolic power of woman, judicial
murder of helpless women became an institution, which is thus
characterized by Sumner: "After the refined torture of the body and
nameless mental sufferings, women were executed in the most cruel
manner. These facts are so monstrous that all other aberrations of the
human race are small in comparison.... He who studies the witch trials
believes himself transferred into the midst of a race which has
smothered all its own nobler instincts, reason, justice, benevolence and
sympathy."[24]
Any woman was suspect. Michelet, after a thirty years' study, wrote:
"Witches they are by nature. It is a gift peculiar to woman and her
temperament. By birth a fay, by the regular recurrence of her ecstasy
she becomes a sibyl. By her love she grows into an enchantress. By her
subtlety ... she becomes a witch and works her spells."[29]
Just how many victims there were of the belief in the power of women as
witches will never be known. Scherr thinks that the persecutions cost
100,000 lives in Germany alone.[30] Lord Avebury quotes the estimate of
the inquisitor Sprenger, joint author of the "Witch Hammer," that during
the Christian period some 9,000,000 persons, mostly women, were burned
as witches.[31] Seven thousand victims are said to have been burned at
Treves, 600 by a single bishop of Bamburg, 800 in a single year in the
bishopric of Wurtzburg. At Toulouse 400 persons perished at a single
burning.[29: ch.1] [20: v.1. ch.1] One witch judge boasted that he
executed 900 witches in fifteen years. The last mass burning in Germany
was said to have taken place in 1678, when 97 persons were burned
together. The earliest recorded burning of a witch in England is in
Walter Mapes' _De Nugis Curialium_, in the reign of Henry II. An old
black letter tract gloats over the execution at Northampton, 1612, of a
number of persons convicted of witchcraft.[32] The last judicial
sentence was in 1736, when one Jane Wenham was found guilty of
conversing familiarly with the devil in the form of a cat.[33]
The connection between the witchcraft delusion and the attitude toward
all women has already been implied.[34] The dualistic teaching of the
early church fathers, with its severance of matter and spirit and its
insistence on the ascetic ideal of life, had focussed on sexuality as
the outstanding manifestation of fleshly desires. The contact of the
sexes came to be looked upon as the supreme sin. Celibacy taught that
through the observance of the taboo on woman the man of God was to be
saved from pollution. Woman was the arch temptress who by the natural
forces of sex attraction, reinforced by her evil charms and
incantations, made it so difficult to attain the celibate ideal. From
her ancestress Eve woman was believed to inherit the natural propensity
to lure man to his undoing. Thus the old belief in the uncleanness of
woman was renewed in the minds of men with even greater intensity than
ever before, and in addition to a dangerous adventure, even within the
sanction of wedlock the sex act became a deed of shame. The following
quotations from the church fathers will illustrate this view:
Jerome said, "Marriage is always a vice; all we can do is to excuse and
cleanse it. ... In Paradise Eve was a virgin. Virginity is natural
while wedlock only follows guilt."[35]
Tertullian addressed women in these words: "Do you not know that you are
each an Eve? The sentence of God on this sex of yours lives in this age.
... You are the devil's gateway. ... You destroy God's image,
Man."[35: Bk.1.]
Thus woman became degraded beyond all previous thought in the teaching
of the early church. The child was looked upon as the result of an act
of sin, and came into the world tainted through its mother with sin. At
best marriage was a vice. All the church could do was to cleanse it as
much as possible by sacred rites, an attempt which harked back to the
origin of marriage as the ceremonial breaking of taboo. Peter Lombard's
Sentences affirmed marriage a sacrament. This was reaffirmed at Florence
in 1439. In 1565, the Council of Trent made the final declaration. But
not even this could wholly purify woman, and intercourse with her was
still regarded as a necessary evil, a concession that had to be
unwillingly made to the lusts of the flesh.
Such accounts as we have of the lives of holy women indicate that they
shared in the beliefs of their times. In the account of the life of a
saint known as the Blessed Eugenia preserved in an old palimpsest[36] we
read that she adopted the costume of a monk,--"Being a woman by nature
in order that I might gain everlasting life." The same account tells of
another holy woman who passed as a eunuch, because she had been warned
that it was easier for the devil to tempt a woman. In another collection
of lives of saints is the story[37] of a holy woman who never allowed
herself to see the face of a man, even that of her own brother, lest
through her he might go in among women. Another holy virgin shut herself
up in a tomb because she did not wish to cause the spiritual downfall of
a young man who loved her.
This long period of religious hatred of and contempt for woman included
the Crusades, the Age of Chivalry,[38] and lasted well into the
Renaissance.[39] Students of the first thousand years of the Christian
era like Donaldson,[22] McCabe,[40] and Benecke argue that the social
and intellectual position of women was probably lower than at any time
since the creation of the world. It was while the position of woman as
wife and mother was thus descending into the slough which has been
termed the Dark Age of Woman that the Apotheosis of the Blessed Virgin
was accomplished. The attitude toward human love, generation, the
relation of the earthly mother to the human child because of Eve's sin,
all made the Immaculate Conception a logical necessity. The doctrine of
the virgin birth disposed of sin through the paternal line. But if Mary
was conceived in sin or was not purified from sin, even that of the
first parent, how could she conceive in her body him who was without
sin? The controversy over the Immaculate Conception which began as early
as the seventh century lasted until Pius IX declared it to be an article
of Catholic belief in 1854. Thus not only Christ, but also his mother
became purged of the sin of conception by natural biological processes,
and the same immaculacy and freedom from contamination was accorded to
both. In this way the final step in the differentiation between earthly
motherhood and divine motherhood was completed.
The worship of the virgin by men and women who looked upon the celibate
life as the perfect life, and upon the relationship of earthly
fatherhood and motherhood as contaminating, gave the world an ideal of
woman as "superhuman, immaculate, bowing in frightened awe before the
angel with the lily, standing mute and with downcast eyes before her
Divine Son."[41] With all its admitted beauty, this ideal represented
not the institution of the family, but the institution of the church.
Chivalry carried over from the church to the castle this concept of
womanhood and set it to the shaping of The Lady,[42] who was finally
given a rank in the ideals of knighthood only a little below that to
which Mary had been elevated by the ecclesiastical authorities. This
concept of the lady was the result of the necessity for a new social
standardization which must combine beauty, purity, meekness and angelic
goodness. Only by such a combination could religion and family life be
finally reconciled. By such a combination, earthly motherhood could be
made to approximate the divine motherhood.
With the decline of the influence of chivalry, probably as the result of
industrial changes, The Lady was replaced by a feminine ideal which may
well be termed the "Model Woman." Although less ethereal than her
predecessor, The Lady, the Model Woman is quite as much an attempt to
reconcile the dualistic attitude, with its Divine Mother cult on the one
hand, and its belief in the essential evil of the procreative process
and the uncleanness of woman on the other, to human needs. The
characteristics of the Model Woman must approximate those of the Holy
Virgin as closely as possible. Her chastity before marriage is
imperative. Her calling must be the high art of motherhood. She must be
the incarnation of the maternal spirit of womanhood, but her purity must
remain unsullied by any trace of erotic passion.
A voluminous literature which stated the virtues and duties of the
Model Woman blossomed out in the latter part of the eighteenth and first
half of the nineteenth century.[43] The Puritan ideals also embodied
this concept. It was by this attempt to make woman conform to a
standardized ideal that man sought to solve the conflict between his
natural human instincts and desires and the early Christian teaching
concerning the sex life and womanhood.
BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR CHAPTER II
1. Frazer, J.G. The Golden Bough. A Study in Magic and Religion. Part I.
The Magic Art. 2 vols. Macmillan. London, 1911. Part V. Spirits of the
Corn and of the Wild. 2 vols. London, 1912.
2. Farnell, L.R. Evolution of Religion. 235 pp. Williams and Norgate.
London, 1905. Crown Theological Library, Vol 12.
3. Frazer, J.G. Part IV. of The Golden Bough; Adonis, Attis, and Osiris.
Chaps. III and IV. Macmillan. London, 1907.
---- Sumner, W.G. Folkways. 692 pp. Ginn & Co. Boston, 1907. Chap. XVI,
Sacral Harlotry.
---- Lombroso, Cesare, and Lombroso-Ferrero, G. La donna delinquente. 508
pp. Fratelli Bocca. Milano, 1915.
4. Farnell, L.R. Sociological Hypotheses Concerning the Position of
Woman in Ancient Religion. Archiv für Religionswissenschaft. Siebenter
Band, 1904.
5. Fowler, W. Warde. The Religious Experiences of the Roman People. 504
pp. Macmillan. London, 1911.
6. For a description of these sibyls with a list of the works in which
they are mentioned, see:
---- Fullom, Steven Watson. The History of Woman. Third Ed. London, 1855.
---- Rohmer, Sax. (Ward, A.S.) The Romance of Sorcery. 320 pp. E.P.
Dutton & Co., New York, 1914.
7. Maury, L.F. La Magie et L'Astrologie dans l'Antiquité et au Moyen
Age. Quatrieme éd. 484 pp. Paris, 1877.
8. Lombroso, Cesare. Priests and Women's Clothes. North American Review.
Vol. 192, 1910.
9. For an extensive compilation of facts from ancient literature and
history concerning sacred women, see:
---- Alexander, W. History of Women from the Earliest Antiquity to the
Present Time. 2 vols. W. Strahan. London, 1779.
10. Mason, Otis T. Woman's Share in Primitive Culture. 295 pp. Appleton.
New York, 1894.
---- Dyer, T.F.S. Plants in Witchcraft. Popular Science Monthly. Vol. 34,
1889, pp. 826-833.
---- Donaldson, Rev. James. Woman, Her Position and Influence in Ancient
Greece and Rome. 278 pp. Longmans, Green. London, 1907.
11. Spencer, Herbert. Study of Sociology. 431 pp. Appleton. N.Y., 1880.
12. Schirmacher, Käthe. Das Rätsel: Weib. 160 pp. A Duncker. Weimar,
1911.
13. Ward, Lester F. Psychic Factors in Civilization. 369 pp. Ginn & Co.,
Boston and New York, 1906. Chap. XXVI.
---- Pure Sociology. 607 pp. Macmillan. N.Y., 1903.
14. Schreiner, Olive. Woman and Labour. 299 pp. Frederick A. Stokes Co.
N.Y., 1911.
15. Hall, G. Stanley. Adolescence. 2 vols. Appleton. N.Y., 1904.
---- Dupouy, Edmund. Psychologie morbide. Librairie des Sciences
Psychiques, 1907.
16. The Ante-Nicene Fathers. Translation by the Rev. Alexander Roberts
and James Donaldson, LL.D., and others. American Reprint of the
Edinburgh Edition. Buffalo, 1889.
17. Hatch, Edwin. Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages upon the Christian
Church. Ed. by A.M. Fairbairn. 4th ed. London, 1892. Hibbert Lectures,
1888.
18. Gilbert, George Holley. The Greek Strain in Our Oldest Gospels.
North American Review. Vol. 192, 1910.
19. Hirn, Yrjo. The Sacred Shrine. 574 pp. Macmillan. London, 1912.
20. Lecky, W.E.H. Rationalism in Europe. 2 vols. Appleton. N.Y. and
London, 1910. Vol. II, pp. 220 f.
21. Wright, Thomas. Narratives of Sorcery and Magic. 2 vols. R. Bentley.
London, 1851.
22. Donaldson, Rev. James. The Position of Woman Among the Early
Christians. Contemporary Review. Vol. 56, 1889.
23. Bingham, Joseph. Antiquities of the Christian Church. 2 vols.
London, 1846.
24. Sumner, W.G. Witchcraft. Forum. Vol. 41, 1909, pp. 410-423.
25. Gaster, M. Two Thousand Years of a Charm Against the Child-stealing
Witch. Folklore. Vol. XI, No. 2, June, 1900.
26. For discussion of the dates of the Church Councils see Rev. Charles
J. Hefele, Councils of the Church. Trans, fr. the German by C.W. Bush,
1883.
27. Alice Kyteler. A contemporary narrative of the Proceedings against
Dame Alice Kyteler, prosecuted for sorcery by Richard de Ledrede, Bishop
of Ossory, 1324. Edited by Thomas Wright. London, 1843.
28. Burr, George L. The Literature of Witchcraft. Papers of the American
Historical Association. Vol IV, pp. 37-66. G.P. Putnam's Sons. N.Y.,
1890.
29. Michelet, J. La Sorcière. 488 pp. Paris, 1878. Trans. of
Introduction by L.J. Trotter.
30. Scherr, Johannes. Deutsche Frauenwelt. Band II.
31. Avebury, Right Hon. Lord (Sir John Lubbock). Marriage, Totemism and
Religion. 243 pp. Longmans, Green. London, 1911. Footnote, p. 127.
32. Wood, Wm. Witchcraft. Cornhill Magazine. Vol. V, 1898.
---- Lea, H.C. Superstition and Force. 407 pp. Philadelphia, 1866.
33. Bragge, F. Jane Wenham. 36 pp. E. Curll. London 1712.
34. Paulus, Nikolaus. Die Rolle der Frau in der Geschichte des
Hexenwahns. Historisches Jahrbuch. XXIX Band. München. Jahrgang 1918.
35. Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian
Church. 2d. series. Vol. 6, Letter xxii, Ad Eustachium.
36. Studia Sinaitica No. IX. Select Narratives of Holy Women from the
Syro-Antiochene or Sinai Palimpsest as written above the old Syriac
Gospels by John the Stylite, of Beth-Mari Ianun in A.D. 778. Edited by
Agnes Smith Lewis, M.R.A.S. London, 1900.
37. Lady Meux Mss. No. VI. British Museum. The Book of Paradise, being
the Histories and Sayings of the Monks and Ascetics of the Egyptian
Desert by Palladius, Hieronymus and others. English Trans. by E.A.
Wallis Budge. (From the Syriac.) Vol. I.
38. Gautier, Emile Théodore Léon. La Chevalerie. 850 pp. C. Delagrave.
Paris, 1890.
39. Maulde la Clavière, R. de. The Women of the Renaissance. Trans. by
G.H. Ely. 510 pp. Swan Sonnenschein, 1900.
40. McCabe, Joseph. Woman in Political Evolution. Watts & Co. London,
1909.
41. Barnes, Earl. Woman in Modern Society. 257 pp. B.W. Huebsch. N.Y.,
1913.
42. Putnam, Emily James. The Lady. 323 pp. Sturgis & Walton Co. N.Y.,
1910.
43. Excellent examples of this literature are Kenrick's "The Whole Duty
of a Woman, or A Guide to the Female Sex," published some time in the
eighteenth century (a copy in the Galatea Collection, Boston Public
Library); and Duties of Young Women, by E.H. Chapin. 218 pp. G.W.
Briggs. Boston, 1848.