I say 'the
Christian Church,' on the whole took quite the opposite line--ignored
sex, condemned it, and did much despite to the perfectly natural
instincts connected with it. I say 'the Christian Church,' because
there is nothing to show that Jesus himself (if we admit his figure as
historical) adopted any such extreme or doctrinaire attitude; and the
quite early Christian teachers (with the chief exception of Paul) do not
exhibit this bias to any great degree. In fact, as is well known, strong
currents of pagan usage and belief ran through the Christian assemblies
of the first three or four centuries. "The Christian art of this period
remained delightfully pagan. In the catacombs we see the Saviour as a
beardless youth, like a young Greek god; sometimes represented, like
Hermes the guardian of the flocks, bearing a ram or lamb round his neck;
sometimes as Orpheus tuning his lute among the wild animals." (1)
The followers of Jesus were at times even accused--whether rightly
or wrongly I know not--of celebrating sexual mysteries at their
love-feasts. But as the Church through the centuries grew in power and
scope--with its monks and their mutilations and asceticisms, and its
celibate clergy, and its absolute refusal to recognize the sexual
meaning of its own acclaimed symbols (like the Cross, the three fingers
of Benediction, the Fleur de Lys and so forth)--it more and more
consistently defined itself as anti-sexual in its outlook, and stood out
in that way in marked contrast to the earlier Nature-religions.

(1) Angels' Wings, by E. Carpenter, p. 104.

It may be said of course that this anti-sexual tendency can be traced in
other of the pre-Christian Churches, especially the later ones, like the
Buddhist, the Egyptian, and so forth; and this is perfectly true; but it
would seem that in many ways the Christian Church marked the culmination
of the tendency; and the fact that other cults participated in the taboo
makes us all the more ready and anxious to inquire into its real cause.

To go into a disquisition on the Sex-rites of the various pre-Christian
religions would be 'a large order'--larger than I could attempt to fill;
but the general facts in this connection are fairly patent. We know,
of course, from the Bible that the Syrians in Palestine were given to
sexual worships. There were erect images (phallic) and "groves" (sexual
symbols) on every high hill and under every green tree; (1) and these
same images an