Note 437 — Chapter VI · RELIGIOUS INFLUENCE (Continued)

Oliver Maillard declaims at St. Jean de Grêve, Paris: “O women, O flaunting wenches, bethink ye well. Why fill your time with amusements and vanities? You will have to answer, not for the conceptions of Aristotle, nor the learning of idealists or realists, of legists or physicians, but for your good or evil life.... Lift up your hearts, ladies; are you good theologians?” That is what he finds to say to women who patronise and cultivate learning, to platonists penetrated with the idea of the indulgent mercy of God, and convinced of the great number of the Elect. (Sermones de adventu). A preacher is describing the Virgin at the moment of the Annunciation: “What was she doing, ladies? Think you she was occupied in painting and powdering her face? No, at the foot of the Cross she was reading the Hours of Our Lady”!