The Biology and Spirituality of Human Sexuality
Class 5: Homoeroticism in the Ancient World and
Pre-Modern Church Views of Homosexuality
July 6, 2003
(Revised and Updated 18 July 2003)

Introduction

     Review of Last Class. In last week's class, we discussed what the Bible said about homosexuality, which was a follow up of the third class on sexuality in general. We discussed two kinds of Biblical texts. The first was from Leviticus, chapters 18 and 20 that speak directly to the prohibition of male homosexual behavior. We discussed this remembering that the main emphasis of these texts is about the concern of the Hebrews for purity (being clean and undefiled before God). It is important to note that to be unclean in this tradition does not imply immorality; instead it means "unpolluted." That is also why the Hebrews in the Holiness Code forbade the wearing of fabrics made of two different materials, sowing a field with two different kinds of seeds, or breeding different kinds of animals with each other.

     We next looked at 1 Cor 6:9-10 and 1 Tim 1:9-10. Use of key Greek words in those texts shows that the authors of these texts disapproved of homogenital contact between men (noting that nothing was said about women). But we cannot be sure that the authors were condemning all homogenital contact or were mostly concerned about male prostitution (pederasty and temple prostitution in particular).

     Finally, we looked at the principal text in the New Testament that deals specifically with male homosexual behavior, Romans 1:18-32, and we concentrated on the two verses that are the most important, 26-27. The principal issue for Paul in these verses was idolatry, and how we humans can make idols of nearly anything. And once we do make an idol of something, we put that idol above God. We concluded that Paul used male-male sexual relations as a paradigmatic example of idolatry and that the basis for his choice was based on what was culturally considered natural. We will need to keep this in mind for today's class because the time in which Paul wrote was the same time as the Rabbinic literature was being formed. Paul's writing are reflective of his times and his Jewish culture (and probably also his Pharisaic training).

     Based on the biblical views, we then discussed the patristic, early church, and modern church views on homosexuality, noting that the church added significantly to the Biblical record on sexual issues, and condemned lesbian relationships in addition to male-male relations. Homosexual activity was regarded by all of the denominations that arose from the Protestant reformation as sinful. The Roman Catholic stance against homosexuality strengthened even more after the Catholic counter-reformation. As nationalism spread throughout Europe and colonialization began in earnest, nations enacted legislation against homosexual activity. Puritanical New England, Geneva, England, France, and other countries enacted civil and/or religious laws against homosexual practices.

     In today's class we will take a closer look at homoeroticism in the Biblical world, and specifically at same-sex unions in premodern Europe. This is delicate material because as we will learn, the world's religions did not always behave like we might imagine.

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Homoeroticism in the Biblical World

     A major resource for this part of this class is the book by Martti Nissinen (Homoeroticism in the Biblical World: A Historical Perspective. Transl. Kiri Stjerna. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press. 1998.) This book discusses homoerotic behavior in the ancient world from the time of the Greeks, Romans, Persians, Hebrews, and early Christianity. Since we have already discussed, or will discuss, Christian perspectives elsewhere, here we will focus on the Greek, Roman, and the Jewish perspectives. (Slide 2; )

     Male Relationships in Ancient Greece. For many centuries erotic-social behavior between adult men and boys was a common custom. The reason for this was that masculinity was not seen as a birthright or a genetic predisposition, but something that was achieved by practice of the virtues. Pederasty flourished before and after Plato (ca 400 B.C.E.), but it occurred before that period and well into the first century C.E. During the classical period ( about 400 BCE to about 400 CE), pederasty was common in Athens, Elis, Boeotia, but was rejected as a social practice in other city-states. (Slide 3; ) The origin of pederasty is unknown, but scholars believe that the Greeks practiced it because they believed their gods practiced it; the love between Zeus and Ganymedes is an example.[1] In Greek society, homoerotic practices did not challenge the culture, they were a part of the community and the culture. Pederastic relationships were an essential part of the training of young men to become full adult members of the community. This is how young men learned what was necessary to be masculine.

     Pederasty was a matter of initiation. Importantly, the initiation was not really sexually motivated, but rather spiritually and culturally inspired. In Sparta, for example, a man and a boy were placed in battle next to each other because the Spartans believed that lovers would really be willing to die for one another. Also, the adult men served as heroic role models for their boy lovers.

     The boys were passive partners who were taught and brought up by an adult partner. (Slide 4; ) The primary task of the adult partner was to provide inculturation of cultural and social norms. In Grecian culture, the community was more highly regarded than the family, so the adult partner in pederastic relationships (the erastes) was often more important than the biological father. These relationships were formative, designed to raise youths who would defend their community in a manly way. These relationships were not to replace heterosexual relationships. Boys were expected to mature, take wives, and becomes teachers of other young men. Husband-wife sexual relationships were for the purpose of procreation and for satisfaction of the male sexual appetite (if one was wealthy, concubines were means to achieve sexual satisfaction). Marriage did not end pederastic relationships; adult men often retained their boy lovers after marriage (e.g., Socrates, Pausanias, and Aeschines).

A vase painting showing male courtship of another male. The man (left) is offering a rooster as a symbol of his affection. The boy (right) does not seem to be impressed.

     Plato saw pederastic relationships as the noblest of all human relationships; it was the purest of loves. It was considered philosophical upbringing that if properly nurtured, would move "love" from a physical to a non-physical form, and eventually contemplation of love itself. (Slide 5; ) Nissinen summarized it thus:

Pederasty meant a homoerotic relationship in which the partners were not, at least in principle, homosexuals in the modern sense of the word. It would be more appropriate to speak of institutionalized bisexual behavior, in which the partners expressed their sexuality from quite a different basis and in ways different from modern concepts of homosexuality ... Pederasty was not a biological but a social, pedagogical, and ethical phenomenon, in which social identity was more central than sexual identity ... It also reflected patriarchal society's considerable mistrust of women's spiritual capacity ... Women were regarded both physically and spiritually weaker than the man. Whereas man was "dry," that is self-possessed and cool, woman was seen as "wet," that is fickle, superstitious, incapable of persistent reflection, susceptible to emotional outbursts ... [2]

Curiously, in his later works, Plato argued that homoerotic contact between men or between women was against nature, but the reason for this apparent contradiction lies in how Plato viewed the passions. Plato saw the passions as something to be overcome by reason, and felt that any sexual acts that resulted from physical desire as a failure of the reasoning capacity to control the passions. Plato believed that sexual acts were only natural when they led to procreation. (Slide 6; )

     The Greeks believed that men could not have a deep, all-encompassing relationship with a woman. it was the goal of pederastic relationships to accomplish this. The relationships between partners were not equal. Sexual satisfaction was the privilege of the active partner only. The passive partner was to "give" to the active partner, and not even aspire to sexual satisfaction; this is in keeping with the Platonic notion of controlling the passions, discussed above. In Greek society pederasty occurred only between freemen - not between a free person and a slave. The idea of including slaves and foreigners was introduced by Roman culture (see below). (Slide 7; )

     Pederastic relationships were fostered by the gymnasium where adult men could meet and court boys (see the Figure above). Although there was an active/passive partner relationship, it was not an aggressive-dominant/passive-subjugated relationship. Therefore, although anal intercourse was conducted, the more common form of contact was intercrural, in which the active partner rubbed himself between the thighs of the passive partner. The passive partner was not to aspire to sexual satisfaction; his role was to "render a service" or "grant a favor" to the older male. See the Figure immediately below.

This is an example from ancient Greece of two men enjoying each other's company at a banquet. The image is from a vase.

     Male Relationships in Ancient Rome. (Slide 8; ) Homoerotic behavior was common in Rome, and several emperors were known to have had male lovers, including Nero and Hadrian. The active-passive partner arrangement as described in Grecian culture was also operative in Roman culture. But there were differences as compared to Greece. (Slide 9; )

• Pederastic relationships between freemen were uncommon, and may have been illegal. This was because one of the partners had to assume the passive role, and such a passive role was unbecoming the manly honor of a citizen of Rome. Male rape of a freeman carried severe penalties including loss of equestrian status (loss of full citizenship) or even death. Male rape of a slave, foreigner, or prostitute was not punishable.
• Pederastic relationships normally occurred between master and slave.
• The gymnasium concept where men and boys exercised naked did not cross into Rome; the Romans loathed nakedness.
• Male homosexual prostitution was common, legal, and tolerated in Rome (the prostitutes were often foreigners or slaves). Such prostitutes had no social respect.
• The Romans did not view pederasty as foundational or pedagogical, and did not hold any moral value as the practice held in ancient Greece. The sexual dimension was emphasized in Roman culture.
• A major difference between Greece and Rome was that in Rome, pederastic relationships were to stop after marriage to a woman. The poet Catullus wrote that "You are said to find it hard,/Perfumed bridegroom, to give up/Smooth-skinned boys, but give them up .../We realize you've only known/Permitted pleasures: husbands, though/Have no right to the same pleasures."[3]

     Female Homoeroticism. There are few references to lesbian relationships. (Slides 10 and 11; ) The most famous are from the woman poet Sappho who lived on the Greek island of Lesbos. In general, female-female sexual contacts in the ancient world differed from male-male interactions in that they did not involve a pederastic relationship between adults and young persons. Female-female relationships were apparently only between consenting adults.

Grecian views. There are probably two reasons why lesbian relationships were not widely discussed in Grecian literature. The first is the patriarchal nature of Greek society (this is not unlike what we discussed in Hebrew culture in the previous classes). The second is that the structure and function of lesbian relationships did not fit the pederastic mold of male-male relationships. There was no social hierarchy with respective active-passive roles. Sappho's poetry reveals a much more egalitarian world in which emotional intensity rather than sexual passion is privileged. Sappho did not polarize the genders by stating that women follow their passions and that men are guided by reason. Consequently, because male-dominated Greek culture was unable to comprehend the kind of social polity and personal interaction among lesbians, it dismissed lesbian homoerotic activity as "uninteresting."

     In one very rare text, Artemidorus of Daldis (second century C.E.) described "women penetrating women" as an act against nature. This is an example of the same kind of thinking that we have encountered in the Levitical texts and in the Church of the middle ages guided by Thomas Aquinas: some activities were considered "natural" (sacred, holy, pure) and others were considered "unnatural" (profane, unholy, impure). Artemidorus felt that sexual contact between women was unnatural because it broke convention, social status, and socially defined sexual hierarchy. He also felt that it was against nature to have sexual relations between a man and a woman in any position other than the "natural" face-to-face position with the man extended in full length upon the woman.

Roman views. Artemidorus would have been welcomed in Roman society for his views. Romans believed sexual relations between women to be against nature. It was criminal behavior, and if it involved a married woman, it was adulterous. A major problem for the Romans was the issue of dominance. Men were to be the active (and dominant) sexual partner, and women were to be the passive. If a woman took the dominant role, she ceased to be a woman, but at the same time did not succeed in becoming a real man either.

     The Influence of Stoicism. (Slide 12; ) The stoics were a philosophical school that originated about 300 BCE with the philosopher Zeno. Stoicism was especially popular in Rome (see the works of Epictetus, Marcus Arelius, and Seneca). Stoicism is philosophy for hard people, and stoics often put up with nearly anything. Several stoics were opposed to homoeroticism on the basis that it was linked to frivolity, moral decay, and other forms of "moral deprivation." By the first century CE, sex between men was viewed negatively. Although not necessarily condemned, several of its characteristics were criticized including homosexual prostitution, the effeminacy of the passive partner, the failure of homosexual relations to procreate, and the breakdown of the "natural" structure of male-female relationships.

     Jewish Perspectives. The Jewish aprocypha and pseudoepigraphica are writings that did not become part of the Jewish canon. (Slide 13; ) Written between 200 BCE and 100 CE, they contain informative material about how homoerotic behavior was viewed in the Jewish tradition. This is important, because this highly influenced early Christian thought.

     As we have already discussed in Class 3, early Jewish thought was that corrupt sexual practices were thought to arise from idolatry. Idolatry was at the root of evil, and idolatry was the blight that laid at the root of immorality. A Jewish perspective on homoeroticism was that it was unnatural - it changed the ordinary way things are supposed to be, into something "un-ordinary," and this caused a change in the divinely ordered way things were supposed to be. (Slide 14; )

     It is instructive to compare the story of Sodom, where Lot guests were angelic creatures (see Gen 19), with the story of the angelic creatures that coupled with human women to create the Nephilim (giants) (see Gen 6). The apocryphal Jewish literature that links these two stories together in a closer way than the Torah does, suggesting that the major fault in both stories is sexual transgression. The nature of the transgression is unnatural sexual contact between mortals and immortal beings, not homogenital contact between men. Nissinen summarized the Jewish perspective on same-gender sexual behavior as "one way to 'change' the ordinary into the unordinary, to change divinely based life orders to illicit ones. Ultimately all this is regarded as paganism, an expression and result of idolatry."[4]

     Later Jewish views on homoeroticism consist of interpretations of the idolatry of their own times. This is an example of the kind of hermeneutical interpretive process we discussed in Class 3. What first century CE Jews did was to read into their understanding of their religion what was going on in their culture at the time. Josephus and Philo, for example, read into the story of Sodom the kind of Greek- and Roman-influenced, pederastic homoerotic behavior they saw in their own time being conducted by Gentiles. They saw that homosexual behavior was a Gentile vice. In Against Apion (2:273-275), Josephus argues that the Greeks found an excuse for their unnatural behavior from their belief that their gods behaved that way too (Read the Works of Josephus). Philo saw homoerotic behavior as a severe form of covetousness, and condemned all homoerotic relations because they converted men to women, and distorted the sex life - the sole purpose of which was procreation. Reading from his current culture into the Levitical texts, Philo refers to the passive partner "as a perfumed boy prostitute with a feminine hairdo and makeup that deserves the appellation androgynous. These boys ... gained considerable status in Greek societies. Greek society considered the alteration of a masculine form into a feminine as an art form. [This was intolerable to Philo because] ... the Torah prescribes the death penalty for both the boys and their lovers."[5]

     The rabbinic literature consists of the halaka, the folkloric haggada, the Mishnah and Talmud, and the Midrash that complemented and interpreted the pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible). These were all interpretive works and teachings that supplemented the Torah (Jewish canon). (Slide 15; ) They developed during the early part of the common era, about contemporary with development of the New Testament. The cultural influences of the first few centuries of the common era are reflected in both the rabbinic literature and the New Testament. In terms of homosexual acts, the principle focus of these texts is on male-male sexuality and pederasty (Also reflect back on Class 4, and the emphasis of the patristic church on pederasty). Homoerotic behavior was regarded by first century rabbis as a pagan vice. The concern for purity (and fear of pagan activity) was profound. Jews were warned not to leave their animals with Gentile (pagan) inns for fear that the animals might be used for illicit sexual purposes.

     The rabbinic literature has no term for "homosexuality" as we would define it; the emphasis remains only on penetrative male sex (in other words sexuality is not the focus, just the act of penetrative sex). It is interesting that the Talmud made a distinction between the active and the passive partner (the passive partner being the more guilty one), although the punishment of stoning was applied to both partners. It is believed that the Talmudic view of homosexuality was greatly influenced by Roman homoerotic practices (see above). The Rabbis saw the passive sexual role that of a woman, and therefore humiliating for a male. Unlike the Romans, who did not condemn the active partner, the Rabbis condemned the active partner for performing an act of hedonism and bestiality. Therefore, the Talmud condemns both partners because of transgressing gender boundaries. It is important to note that the rabbinic literature is quite silent about lesbian relations, probably because they were not considered threatening, and because genital penetration could not take place. There is only one condemning reference to a woman using an artificial penis in the Talmud.  

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Premodern Church Views of Homosexuality

     This part of the class makes considerable use of the work of John Boswell. See Boswell, John. Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe. New York, NY: Vintage Books/Random House, Inc. 1994.     

     Heterosexual Unions. (Slide 16; ) Before looking at homosexual unions, it is worthwhile to set the stage by looking at heterosexual relationships during the classical period (400 B.C.E to 400 C.E.). Heterosexual couplings took four forms: use, concubinage, marriage, and romance.[6]

• Use. Women were used by men to possessed or controlled them. There was no conference of property, and no commitment. But there was legal standing in that the woman "in use" was property, and like all property, was subject to legal protection (like a mule or ox).
• Concubinage. Concubines were of inferior status, but not owned, and kept in long-term arrangements for the purpose of male sexual satisfaction. Although technically free to terminate a relationship, they were usually economically dependent on the man.
• Marriage. This was most often a monogamous, one-male, one-female relationship with legal standing. Rich males could be polygamous in some Mediterranean peoples. In marriage, there is a legal standing conferred to the spouse and offspring. There were often special ceremonies to arrange the business transaction(s) necessary to the marriage. The marriage ceremony was a transfer of power over the woman from the father of the bride to the husband. This kept the paterfamilias in total control of his household. By about 100 B.C.E., marriage was regarded as a union of households, and the woman was regarded as someone "adopted" into the husband's family (hence the taking of the man's surname). Three things accompanied this view of marriage: consent of the woman (and not just of her parents), wives could divorce their husbands, and the right of the paterfamilias to have sexual relations with anyone in his household was restricted.
        It is curious that what eventually became embedded in western marriage custom was a virgin marriage in which the wife was bound to the husband as a subservient adopted person under threat of religious and legal penalties. This is in contrast to an early Roman Egyptian model of marriage which existed for about 1500 years. The early Roman Egyptian form involved egalitarian partnership between man and woman, in which the partners called each other "brother" and "sister." No-fault divorce was the norm, with significant compensation for the woman, and significant property considerations.
• Romance. These were relationships that involved what we would today call "lovers." Neither property nor household relationships were major considerations. Most of these arrangements were among relatively equal partners.

     Homosexual Unions. (Slide 17; ) There were also four categories of homosexual unions, but the distinctions between them were a little more blurry, and there were less legalisms involved. The reason for the lack of legalisms in homosexual unions was because there was usually no disposition of property or offspring to consider. Prior to 131 BCE, homosexual concubinage was less common but no means rare. Boswell claims that homosexual lover relationships were prominent throughout ancient history, and were the most common and typical relationship among homosexual unions.[7] However, publicly acknowledged, same sex marriages were also performed.[8]

     Sexuality in the Early Christian Era. (Slides 18 and 19; ) In the Roman Empire, during the first and second centuries C.E., there was an increasing emphasis on love as the cause, effect, or something that occurred concomitantly with marriage. It was at this time that a degree of similarity between heterosexual and homosexual unions developed. In addition, in areas of the empire where egalitarian concepts of marriage were more common, homosexual unions were less encumbered by worries about property or dependents. Homosexuals could form partnerships similar to the Egyptian marriage contracts described above. However, by the third century, there was a resurgence of asceticism and public morality, and by the fourth century (when Christianity became the state religion), Roman law code prescribed death for men marrying as women as well as adulterers (adulterers were to be sewn into a leather sack and burned alive!). However, Boswell points out that the penalty for such crimes was not enforced.[9] However, as the Roman Empire waned, same-sex unions waned.

     The most celebrated homosexual marriage of the early church period was between two high standing Roman soldiers, Serge and Bacchus (see picture immediately below). The patristic father, Tertullian, wrote of these men, "Being as one in their love for Christ, they were also undivided from each other in the army of the world." Their popularity with the emperor, however, caused jealousy among their comrades. Serge and Bacchus were Christians (just before the reign of Constantine), and their religion was used as an excuse to accuse them before the emperor. The emperor required them to sacrifice to his idols, which they refused to do. They were exiled to a province run by a governor named Antiochus. Serge and Bacchus did not repent, and the emperor ordered their executions. In about 309 CE, Antiochus had Bacchus flogged to death. Later, Serge was tortured by being made to run 10 miles in shoes into which nails had been driven. His feet were miraculously healed overnight, and so Antiochus repeated the torture the next day. Still steadfast in his Christian belief, Serge was then beheaded. Both men were made saints by the church. For a more detailed description, see pages 146-151 of the book by Boswell.

This is a seventh century icon of St. Serge and Bacchus with Christ between and above them. The positions of the three is consistent with a Roman wedding ceremony. This photograph is from the cover of the book by Boswell.

     Between 400 and 1000 CE, during the early period of Christendom, eroticism of all kinds became deeply suspect, and passionate sexual love was simply not discussed. It was a subject that did not appear in the literature (remember though, that literature was in the hands of the few who could read and write, and these people were probably mostly ascetics). Devout Christians, nonetheless, practiced celibacy; celibacy was morally questioned by Jews and completely rejected by pagans. Boswell writes the following about sexuality in the early Christian Era:

The vast majority of Christians continued throughout the Christian Era to form heterosexual marriages. As an institution, Christianity remained overwhelmingly ambivalent about most forms of heterosexual marriage during the first millennium of its existence. This is hardly surprising for a religion whose founder was supposed to have had no biological father, whose parents were not married at the time of His conception, who was believed to have had no siblings,11 who Himself never married, and whose followers-in direct opposition to those of Judaism and most pagan religions-considered celibacy the most virtuous lifestyle. Jesus had suggested that the "dead" (i.e., those still involved in the sublunary world) bury their own dead (Mart. 8:22); presumably the church felt they should also regulate and celebrate matrimony.

Heterosexual marriage was regarded as a compromise with the material world-a world Christians struggled, with varying degrees of commitment and success, to abandon-and its celebration and regulation were left almost entirely to the habits, customs, and peoples of that world. Obviously, fervent Christians, who had blessings said over their fields and meals and births and deaths and houses, might well have asked a priest to bless their nuptial ceremonies and celebrations, but in the West the church made very little effort to regulate marriage before the tenth century, and only declared it a sacrament and required ecclesiastical involvement in 1215.

Although a thousand years after its inception Christianity would begin to emphasize the biological family as the central unit of Christian society (including, by a somewhat strained analogy, the Holy Family), for half of its existence it was most notable for its insistence on the preferability of lifestyles other than family units-priestly celibacy, voluntary virginity (even for the married), monastic community life.[10]

     Development of Nuptial Rites and Offices. (Slide 20; ) It is important to note that before 1000 CE, the Church blessed a marriage contracted by the laity as a favor. For the first 1000 years of Church history, only priests were required to obtain nuptial blessings; for the laity a church ceremony was an honor, permitted only to those being married to members of their own free class for the first time.[11]

     (Slide 21; ) The Leonine sacramentary (ca 450) contained a nuptial rite for heterosexual marriage in which there was a blessing prayer for the bride only. The Gelasian sacramentary (ca 600-700 CE) had a connubial rite. The 8th century Barberini manuscript contains four ceremonies for sacramental union: one for heterosexual betrothal, two for heterosexual marriage, and a single rite for uniting two men (the "prayer for making brothers").[12] There are seven other known ceremonial that predate the 12th C (the monastery of St. Catherine on Mt. Sinai, Paris, Petersburg, Grotaferrata). During the 12th C these manuscripts were copied, and there are 17 known copies including one from the Vatican. Manuscripts were copied repeatedly all over Christendom throughout the centuries until the 16th century when the printing press was developed. Most of these ceremonies are written in Greek or Slavic languages; none in Latin survive. Appendix 1 of Boswell's book contains translations of 11 of these rites. Below is a 'generic' description of the contents of a homosexual nuptial rite (Slides 22 and 23; )

Initially the ceremony of same-sex union was, like the heterosexual ceremony in the Barberini manuscript, merely a set of prayers, but by the time of the flowering of liturgical marriage ceremonies in the twelfth century it had become a full office, involving the burning of candles, the placing of the two parties' hands on the Gospel, the joining of their right hands, the binding of their hands (or covering their heads) with the priest's stole, an introductory litany (like that in Barberini No. 1), crowning, the Lord's Prayer, Communion, a kiss, and sometimes circling around the altar.[13]

     It was not until the high middle ages and the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 C.E. that the church developed a systematic canon law of marriage. Perhaps surprisingly, concubinage survived into the middle ages, because 12th C marriage was not connected by law or theology to erotic fulfillment. Indeed marriage was viewed as something that was not to be based on sexual attraction. Marriage was supposed to be based upon beauty, good character, and honorable parents for the bride, and wealth, reason, heritage, virtue, and health in the husband.[14]

     Same-Sex Unions in Medieval Europe. (Slide 24; ) During the medieval period, the Church became increasingly ascetic. Eventually a code was adopted (the Theodosian Code) that contained a penalty against same-sex unions. It is believed that the adoption of this policy is related to the increasing ascetic influence throughout the church as opposed to Christians trying to ban a specific homosexual practice seen as immoral. The code also included a mechanism for dissolution of same-sex unions. However, despite the adoption of the Code, it was apparently not enforced, because existing 9th century same-sex ceremonies have survived, and they are very parallel to 9th century heterosexual marriages. Also, 11th century Byzantine law makes shows that legal same-sex unions were relatively common, although sometimes technically disputed in some ways.[15] As we discussed in last week's class, by this time in Church history, considerable attention was being paid to the morality of the clergy - especially during the monastic period. Consequently, monks were prohibited from heterosexual and homosexual relationships in both the western and eastern churches (see St. Basil's Rule for the eastern church and St. Benedict's Rule for the western church). A good deal of the concern about unions was not just moral, it was also about inheritance of position within the monastic orders.

     Same-Sex Unions in the Pre-Reformation Period. (Slide 25; ) By the 14th C, western Europe was "gripped by a rabid and obsessive preoccupation with homosexuality as the most horrible of sins."[16] Indeed Dante puts homosexuals on the highest rung of purgatory, just outside heaven along with heterosexuals guilty of too much passion. The situation was pretty much the same in Eastern Europe; homosexuality was listed in the category with bestiality. In the fifteenth century, the Venetian government had homosexuals burned.

     Curiously, same-sex unions were performed increasingly in eastern Europe between Christians and non-Christians. The Dominican Jacques Goar (1601-1653) published a book of Greek prayers, and included a rite for same-sex marriage along with a page of notes about laws that he supposed prohibited the ceremony. Missals of the 16th and 17th centuries also included prayers to be read by the priest to the "elective brothers."

Photograph by Erich Schlegel-Dallas Morning news-Corbis as published in the 7 July 2003 issue of Newsweek © 2003 Newsweek

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Questions Raised by the Rites

     The same-sex ceremonies raise three questions (Slide 26; ):

• Does the ceremony solemnize a personal commitment, or a religious, political, or family union? Boswell argues that the ceremonies speak mostly to a personal commitment. They are not simply about acknowledgment of friendship, and they are definitely not about adoption.
• Does the ceremony speak specifically to homosexuality as in erotic passion, or the union of people of the same sex?
• Was it a marriage? The answer to this depends on how "marriage" is defined. The definition is culture and time-dependent. How do we define marriage today?

Cover photograph by Grant Delin from the 7 July 2003 issue of Newsweek © 2003 Newsweek

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Next Class (July 13): Current scientific and medical understandings of the biology of sexuality

[1] Nissinen, Martti. Homoeroticism in the Biblical World: A Historical Perspective. Transl. Kiri Stjerna. (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press. 1998), 57-58.

[2] Nissinen, 60-68.

[3] Nissinen, 71.

[4] Nissinen, 93.

[5] Nissinen, 95.

[6] Boswell, John. Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe. (New York, NY: Vintage Books/Random House, Inc. 1994), 28-52.

[7] Boswell, 56.

[8] Boswell, 80-85.

[9] Boswell, 87.

[10] Boswell, 111.

[11] Boswell, 164.

[12] Boswell, 178-192.

[13] Boswell, 185.

[14] Boswell, 175.

[15] Boswell, 240.

[16] Boswell, 262.

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