nale of this
connection. To dispatch all such cases under the mere term "religious
prostitution" is no explanation. The term suggests, of course, that the
plea of religion was used simply as an excuse and a cover for sexual
familiarities; but though this kind of explanation commends itself,
no doubt, to the modern man--whose religion is as commercial as his
sex-relationships are--and though in CASES no doubt it was a true
explanation--yet it is obvious that among people who took religion
seriously, as a matter of life and death and who did not need
hypocritical excuses or covers for sex-relationships, it cannot be
accepted as in general the RIGHT explanation. No, the real explanation
is--and I will return to this presently--that sexual relationships are
so deep and intimate a part of human nature that from the first it has
been simply impossible to keep them OUT of religion--it being of
course the object of religion to bring the whole human being into
some intelligible relation with the physical, moral, and if you like
supernatural order of the great world around him. Sex was felt from the
first to be part, and a foundational part, of the great order of the
world and of human nature; and therefore to separate it from Religion
was unthinkable and a kind of contradiction in terms. (1)

(1) For further development of this subject see ch. xv.

If that is true--it will be asked--how was it that that divorce DID take
place--that the taboo did arise? How was it that the Jews, under the
influence of Josiah and the Hebrew prophets, turned their faces away
from sex and strenuously opposed the Syrian cults? How was it that this
reaction extended into Christianity and became even more definite in the
Christian Church--that monks went by thousands into the deserts of the
Thebaid, and that the early Fathers and Christian apologists could
not find terms foul enough to hurl at Woman as the symbol (to them) of
nothing but sex-corruption and delusion? How was it that this contempt
of the body and degradation of sex-things went on far into the Middle
Ages of Europe, and ultimately created an organized system of hypocrisy,
and concealment and suppression of sex-instincts, which, acting as cover
to a vile commercial Prostitution and as a breeding ground for horrible
Disease, has lasted on even to the edge of the present day?

This is a fair question, and one which demands an answer. There must
have been a reason, and a deep-rooted one,