TABOO AND GENETICS 155 



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 Gnosti- 

 cism 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 god- 

 desses 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 explana- 

 tion 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 weak- 

 ness ; or from a religion obsessed with hatred 

 of woman as unclean by men who made the 

 suppression of bodily passions the central notion 



