Epstein considers the masculinist foundational texts of Western music from Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, Boethius, Augustine, John Chrysostrom, Aquinas, et al. to find them wanting. How? The erotic or even fleshy aspect of music has been suppressed whereas music as an expression of transcendent harmony and restraint has been extolled. This all changed with Hildegard of Bingen, ca. 12 c., a great mystic, herbalist, and all-around genius. This feminist-Christian tradition, with its restoration of what music in a religious setting might be, is traced through figures like Rosetta Tharpe and the writings of Michael Eric Dyson.