21 AUGUST 1964, Page 19

SIR,—Simon Raven in his review of Mr. Mont- gomery Hyde's

History of Pornography writes, 'As Mt'. Montgomery Hyde points out, it [an amiable attitude towards sex] was the standard attitude of all educated men until St. Paul and the Fathers started their dismal nagging.'

Catullus is not commonly thought of as an Early Christian Father, but if we turn to his sixty-third Ode we see his description of the rites of self- mutilation of the priests, of Attis and his prayer to the Great Mother to .be freed from the too great hate of love—nimium odium Veneris.

Dea magna, dea Cybele. dea domina Dindymi Procul a mea tuus sit furor omnis, era, dotno.

The extravagances of asceticism were as rife throughout the pre-Christian Oriental world as were the extravagances of indulgence. Indeed the two, as they always do, went very much together. As Shakespeare, also no Early Christian Father, ob- aervecl, lust is Enjoyed no sooner but despised straight; Past reason hunted and no sooner had, Past reason hated. Some of the Early Fathers were indeed extravagant

their opinion, but, if so, it was much more as the Inheritors of a tradition than as the starters of a dismal nagging. The achievement of the Early Church was on the whole much more to control asceticism than to invent it.

CHRISTOPHER HOLLIS