Clement of Alexandria: “Every woman should be filled with shame by the thought that she is a woman.”
Tertullian: “Woman is a temple built over a sewer, the gateway to the devil. Woman, you are the devil’s doorway. You led astray one whom the devil would not dare attack directly. It was your fault that the Son of God had to die; you should always go in mourning and rags.”
Augustine: “Woman was merely man’s helpmate, a function which pertains to her alone. She is not the image of God but as far as man is concerned, he is by himself the image of God.”
Pope Gregory I: “Woman is slow in understanding and her unstable and naive mind renders her by way of natural weakness to the necessity of a strong hand in her husband. Her ‘use’ is two fold; animal sex and motherhood.”
Thomas Aquinas: “Woman is [a] defective and misbegotten male [probably defected due to] some external influence, such as that of a south wind, which is moist.”
Martin Luther: “Women should stay at home, keep house and bear children. If a woman dies from childbearing, let her die. That is all she is here for.”
Tertullian: “Woman is a temple built over a sewer, the gateway to the devil. Woman, you are the devil’s doorway. You led astray one whom the devil would not dare attack directly. It was your fault that the Son of God had to die; you should always go in mourning and rags.”
Augustine: “Woman was merely man’s helpmate, a function which pertains to her alone. She is not the image of God but as far as man is concerned, he is by himself the image of God.”
Pope Gregory I: “Woman is slow in understanding and her unstable and naive mind renders her by way of natural weakness to the necessity of a strong hand in her husband. Her ‘use’ is two fold; animal sex and motherhood.”
Thomas Aquinas: “Woman is [a] defective and misbegotten male [probably defected due to] some external influence, such as that of a south wind, which is moist.”
Martin Luther: “Women should stay at home, keep house and bear children. If a woman dies from childbearing, let her die. That is all she is here for.”
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
