Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
Here's some quotes by the highly-reputed church fathers of the early christian church. Can you tell these guys had just a little problem with women? lol!
St. Clement of Alexandria (2nd Century, Greek Father of the Church) : "Every woman should be filled with shame by the thought that she is a woman...the consciousness of their own nature must evoke feelings of shame"
Tertullian (2nd Century, African Father of the Church) : Women are "the devil's gateway."
St. Jerome (4th and 5th Centuries, well known scholar) : "Woman is the root of all evil.
St. John Chrysostom (4th and 5th Centuries, Bishop of Constantinople) : "It does not profit a man to marry. For what is a woman but an enemy of friendship, an inescapable punishment, a necessary evil, a natural temptation, a domestic danger, delectable mischief, a fault in nature, painted with beautiful colors?...The whole of her body is nothing less than phlegm, blood, bile, rheum and the fluid of digested food ... If you consider what is stored up behind those lovely eyes, the angle of the nose, the mouth and the cheeks you will agree that the well-proportioned body is only a whitened sepulchre."
St. Augustine (5th Century, Doctor of the Church and Bishop of Hippo) : "I don't see what sort of help woman was created to provide man with, if one excludes procreation. If woman is not given to man for help in bearing children, for what help could she be? To till the earth together? If help were needed for that, man would have been a better help for man. The same goes for comfort in solitude. How much more pleasure is it for life and conversation when two friends live together than when a man and a woman cohabitate?"
Boethius (6th Century Christian Philosopher) : "Woman is a temple built upon a sewer."
St. Thomas Aquinas (13th Century) : "Good order would have been wanting in the human family if some were not governed by others wiser than themselves. So by such a kind of subjection woman is naturally subject to man, because in men the discretion of reason predominates."
St. Albertus Magnus (13th Century, Doctor of the Church) : "Woman is less qualified [than man] for moral behavior. For the woman contains more liquid than man, and it is a property of liquid to take things up easily and to hold unto them poorly. Liquids are easily moved, hence women are inconstant and curious. When a woman has relations with a man, she would like, as much as possible, to be lying with another man at the same time. Woman knows nothing about fidelity. Believe me, if you give her your trust, you will be disappointed. Trust an experience teacher. For this reason prudent men share their plans and actions least of all with their wives. Woman is a misbegotten man and has a faulty and defective nature in comparison to his. Therefore she is unsure in herself. What she cannot get, she seeks to obtain through lying and diabolical deceptions. And so, to put it briefly, one must be on one's guard with every woman, as if she were a poisonous snake and the horned devil. If I could say what I know about women, the world would be astonished ... Woman is strictly speaking not cleverer but slyer (more cunning) than man. Cleverness sounds like something good, slyness sounds like something evil. Thus in evil and perverse doings woman is cleverer, that is, slyer, than man. Her feelings drive woman toward every evil, just as reason impels man toward all good."
Inquisitors (also wrote Malleus Maleficarum) : "They [women] are only 'imperfect animals' and 'crooked' whereas man belongs to a privileged sex from whose midst Christ emerged."
St. Clement of Alexandria (2nd Century, Greek Father of the Church) : "Every woman should be filled with shame by the thought that she is a woman...the consciousness of their own nature must evoke feelings of shame"
Tertullian (2nd Century, African Father of the Church) : Women are "the devil's gateway."
St. Jerome (4th and 5th Centuries, well known scholar) : "Woman is the root of all evil.
St. John Chrysostom (4th and 5th Centuries, Bishop of Constantinople) : "It does not profit a man to marry. For what is a woman but an enemy of friendship, an inescapable punishment, a necessary evil, a natural temptation, a domestic danger, delectable mischief, a fault in nature, painted with beautiful colors?...The whole of her body is nothing less than phlegm, blood, bile, rheum and the fluid of digested food ... If you consider what is stored up behind those lovely eyes, the angle of the nose, the mouth and the cheeks you will agree that the well-proportioned body is only a whitened sepulchre."
St. Augustine (5th Century, Doctor of the Church and Bishop of Hippo) : "I don't see what sort of help woman was created to provide man with, if one excludes procreation. If woman is not given to man for help in bearing children, for what help could she be? To till the earth together? If help were needed for that, man would have been a better help for man. The same goes for comfort in solitude. How much more pleasure is it for life and conversation when two friends live together than when a man and a woman cohabitate?"
Boethius (6th Century Christian Philosopher) : "Woman is a temple built upon a sewer."
St. Thomas Aquinas (13th Century) : "Good order would have been wanting in the human family if some were not governed by others wiser than themselves. So by such a kind of subjection woman is naturally subject to man, because in men the discretion of reason predominates."
St. Albertus Magnus (13th Century, Doctor of the Church) : "Woman is less qualified [than man] for moral behavior. For the woman contains more liquid than man, and it is a property of liquid to take things up easily and to hold unto them poorly. Liquids are easily moved, hence women are inconstant and curious. When a woman has relations with a man, she would like, as much as possible, to be lying with another man at the same time. Woman knows nothing about fidelity. Believe me, if you give her your trust, you will be disappointed. Trust an experience teacher. For this reason prudent men share their plans and actions least of all with their wives. Woman is a misbegotten man and has a faulty and defective nature in comparison to his. Therefore she is unsure in herself. What she cannot get, she seeks to obtain through lying and diabolical deceptions. And so, to put it briefly, one must be on one's guard with every woman, as if she were a poisonous snake and the horned devil. If I could say what I know about women, the world would be astonished ... Woman is strictly speaking not cleverer but slyer (more cunning) than man. Cleverness sounds like something good, slyness sounds like something evil. Thus in evil and perverse doings woman is cleverer, that is, slyer, than man. Her feelings drive woman toward every evil, just as reason impels man toward all good."
Inquisitors (also wrote Malleus Maleficarum) : "They [women] are only 'imperfect animals' and 'crooked' whereas man belongs to a privileged sex from whose midst Christ emerged."