of ascetic sentiment entered the Church and carried all before it.
The philosophic historian may indulge the reflection that the ascetic exaltation of virginity, and corresponding depreciation of all sexual relationships, were necessary phases of the difficult movement out of mere animalism into a worthier conception of the marriage covenant. He will point out the grossness of the current paganism, its inability to conceive of the moral and spiritual aspects of the sexual union, its frightful debasement of the female sex by the practice of concubinage and the facility of divorce. He will emphasise the extraordinary difficulties under which the infant Christian Church laboured in a society penetrated with the habits of sensuality, and built up on the debasing foundation of slavery. He will descend to details, and ask how a steady insistence on monogamy and marital faithfulness could have been possible in the case of communities largely composed of slaves, among whom the males were many
