Further, the feeling of disgust itself is merely the result of habit and sentiment, however useful it may be, and according to Scripture everything is clean and good.

The ascetic feeling of repulsion, if we go back to origin, is due to other than Christian influence.

Christianity came out of Judaism which had no sense of the impurity of marriage, for 'unclean' in the Old Testament simply means 'sacred.' The ascetic side of the religion of Christianity is no part of the religion of Christ as it came from the hands of its Founder, and the modern feeling on this matter is a lingering remnant of the heresy of the Manichaeans." I may add, however, that, as Northcote points out (_Christianity and Sex Problems_, p.

14), side by side in the Old Testament with the frank recognition of sexuality, there is a circle of ideas revealing the feeling of impurity in sex and of shame in connection with it.

Christianity inherited this mixed feeling.