ISLAM

THE EAST AND THE WEST 207
mind; they corrupted the evidence of history, and
superstition gradually extinguished the hostile light
of
philosophy and science."
In an earlier chapter, the position of women in
Christianity was shown to some extent. The Bible
has not assigned a high place to women. Eve, the
first woman, introduced sin into a world which was
free from all evil. She thereby incurred the displeasure
of Jehovah who thus spoke to her. "I will
greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception ;
in
sorrow thou shall bring forth children ;
and thy desire
shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee."
The Biblical idea was that women "was the first in
The
transgression, therefore, keep her in subjection."
idea is bound up with the very root of the origin of
sin. The old pagans appear to have entertained more
enlightened notions regarding the position of women.
The Christian Fathers denounced woman with the
full wealth of their vocabulary, and thus increased
the ascetic spirit which looked upon her as essentially
evil, and made the suppression of natural instinctseven
of every vestige of family affection the principal
and hardest duty of every devotee. Augti&tine, we
are further told, emphatically taught woman's inferiority,
and in recommending a spirit of asceticism urged
a young man to thrust his mother aside and embrace
the Cross. Chrysostom looked upon a woman as a
"necessary evil," "a domestic peril," a "deadly fascnia;
tion and calamity." Lecky tells us that "in the whole
feudal legislation women were placed in a much