"[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.
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