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.