[51] Even in the ninth century, however, when the monastic movement was rapidly developing, there were some who withstood the tendencies of the new ascetics. Thus, in 850, Ratramnus, the monk of Corbie, wrote a treatise (_Liber de eo quod Christus ex Virgine natus est_) to prove that Mary really gave birth to Jesus through her sexual organs, and not, as some high-strung persons were beginning to think could alone be possible, through the more conventionally decent breasts. The sexual organs were sanctified. "Spiritus sanctus ... et thalamum tanto dignum sponso sanctificavit et portam" (Achery, _Spicilegium_, vol. i, p. 55). [52] _Pædagogus_, lib. ii, cap. X. Elsewhere (id., lib. ii, Ch. VI) he makes a more detailed statement to the same effect. [53] See, e.g., Wilhelm Capitaine, _Die Moral des Clemens von Alexandrien_, pp. 112 et seq. [54] _De Civitate Dei_, lib. xxii, cap. XXIV. "There is no need," he says again (id., lib. xiv, cap. V) "that in our sins and vices we accuse the nature of the flesh to the injury of the Creator, for in its own kind and degree the flesh is good." [55] St. Augustine, _De Civitate Dei_, lib. xiv, cap. XXIII-XXVI. Chrysostom and Gregory, of Nyssa, thought that in Paradise human beings would have multiplied by special creation, but such is not the accepted Catholic doctrine. [56] W. Capitaine, _Die Moral des Clemens von Alexandrien_, pp. 112 et seq. Without the body, Tertullian declared, there could be no virginity and no salvation. The soul itself is corporeal. He carries, indeed, his idea of the omnipresence of the body to the absurd. [57] Rufinus, _Commentarius in Symbolum Apostolorum_, cap. XII. [58] Migne, _Patrologia Græca_, vol. xxvi, pp. 1170 et seq. [59] Even in physical conformation the human sexual organs, when compared with those of the lower animals, show marked differences (see "The Mechanism of Detumescence," in the fifth volume of these _Studies_). [60] It may perhaps be as well to point out, with Forel (_Die Sexuelle Frage_, p. 208), that the word "bestial" is generally used quite incorrectly in this connection. Indeed, not only for the higher, but also for the lower manifestation of the sexual impulse, it would usually be more correct to use instead the qualification "human." [61] _Loc. cit._, _Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle_, Jan., 1907. [62] It has, however, become colored and suspect from an early period in the history of Christianity. St. Augustine (_De Civitate Dei_, lib. xiv, cap. XV), while admitting that libido or lust is merely the generic name for all desire, adds that, as specially applied to the sexual appetite, it is justly and properly mixed up with ideas of shame.