Watercolor, charcoal and plaster on paper

The Church denied women’s spiritual significance and forbade Goddess worship. It alienated both male and females from their pagan sense of unity with the divine through each other. They also saw “the spread of knowledge” as a sign of the oncoming end of the world so they had book-burnings, destroyed libraries and schools, and opposed education of laymen. Pope Gregory the Great forbade laymen to read the Bible and even burned the Library of Palantine Apollo so its literature wouldn’t distract the faithful from the contemplation of heaven.

-- Walker, Barbara G., The Women’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, HarperCollins, San Francisco, 1983. Page 208.