The Meaning and Origin of Arsenokoitai in 1 Corinthians and 1 Timothy

A Corinthian Changes

April 18, a.d. 56

Gaius was troubled as he passed through the market gate into the city of Corinth. He could not help noticing the fertility symbols emblazoned on the gateposts and lintel. Such open sexuality had earned Corinth an infamous name. He was again facing intense desires.

“No!” his thoughts shouted as he wrenched his gaze from the decoration, “God, deliver me.”

John was coming through the crowded market. “Gaius, my brother,” John said in warm greeting. “Your public confession has encouraged me to live for Christ. I am on my way to pray with Stephanos. Do you wish to come?”

“Yes, I really do,” Gaius responded with a silent prayer of thanks. How long would he struggle so?

April 12

Gaius felt such relief! A weight of guilt was lifting from his shoulders. For the first time in his life he felt clean, forgiven—free. Brothers and sisters in Christ gathered around him.

He had crowded into the small dwelling with forty or so worshipers that morning. Standing at the front, he had shared what was on his heart:

For months I have been deeply wounded by guilt and fear. When Paul wrote his letter to us, I knew I had to stop living a double life, yet I could not give up my lover. 

He provided me with such support and affection. I felt trapped. I thought I could be a Christian, even while giving in to my sexual weakness. But Paul’s words made it clear that I cannot go on living this way. It has taken time to break with the past. I have begged the forgiveness of Claudia, and my wonderful wife has reaffirmed her love for me. Now I ask you: Please forgive the wrong I have done against you and pray that my sinful thoughts will go away.

April 11

Claudia sat on a low stool, piecing a linen tunic for her husband. She looked up in surprise when Gaius burst into the room and knelt at her side, painful doubt creasing his face.

“I must confess something,” he began in a strained voice, clutching one of her hands. “You know that I had a lover before I became a Christian. I promised that I would have nothing more to do with him, but I have continued to meet him secretly at the gymnasium. You told me to stop going there, but I did not want to give up my friendships. Now God has shown me that I have betrayed Jesus and you. I will never go to the gymnasium again, and I will confess before the church tomorrow. But you have reason to declare your divorcement. Will you forgive me?”

His heart leapt when he felt the reassuring squeeze of her hand. “Of course I forgive you,” Claudia whispered. “I know how hard it is for you to break with the sexual relationships you have always known. I knew you still saw him. I have so prayed for this day.” Tears of joy dampened her cheek as Claudia saw that she and her husband could have a new beginning.

March 27

Gaius lay awake, his mind churning.

“Is Pausanius’s death a sign?” Gaius kept thinking back to that letter from the apostle. Paul had barred adulterers, prostitutes, thieves, … and homosexuals, from heaven. “What if I died tonight?” he wondered.

Gaius had known that Pausanius was ill, but it was a shock to learn he had died—and in great mental and physical torment. Others had died in such a way. The disease seemed common among those who frequented the prostitutes or had homosexual liaisons. Is that how he would die, and without hope of going to be with the Lord?

March 20

Gaius went to the gymnasium to meet his lover, but Pausanius was nowhere to be seen. As usual, he was surrounded by the discreet competition among the men as they courted boys. Banners celebrated Zeus and Ganymede and their sexual acts. Phallic and other sexual symbols were painted in the wall frescoes. To exercise naked under these lurid symbols was hard enough. To hear his countrymen boisterously exalt the gods struck at the heart of his faith. Gaius hoped no one from church would see him leave this place.

September 17, a.d. 55

The elder had joyfully announced that this was a special occasion.

“I have something wonderful to share with you,” he said. “We have struggled with so many problems, and Paul has sent a letter to help us. We will use our time today to read it carefully.

The words of the letter pierced Gaius. Paul warned that homosexuals and other immoral people would not inherit the kingdom of God. “And this is what some of you were,” Paul continued, “but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”

The severest words came when Paul asserted that he had already rendered his judgment on their immorality. The church must expel sexual offenders and turn them over to Satan for the destruction of their bodies.

August 6, a.d. 54

As Claudia stood joyfully at his side, Gaius was baptised. He had come to the point when he could no longer ignore the changes in his wife’s life. “She is like a new person. I need the Saviour she knows to deliver me. The Greek gods are impotent and corrupt. They are no model for living.”

February 14

Claudia tried to explain what had happened to her before daybreak that morning at the house of Stephanus. These “Christians” believed that the Jewish Messiah had come—Jesus, a teacher in far-away Judea. This rabbi, they said, was also a divine Saviour who had come from heaven so that God could forgive sins. He had died on a Roman cross, but the Christians were sure he had come back from the dead.

“Gaius, I believe it is true, and when I asked God to forgive my sins in the Saviour Jesus, I seemed to come alive. I feel clean and forgiven. So do the others, who come from all sorts of sins—thieves, prostitutes, … homosexuals.”

Gaius was surprised and confused. It was not proper for men and women to mix in public, let alone Jews and Greeks. He was annoyed that women attended with heads uncovered, publicly praying and prophesying. Still, he respected Claudia’s good judgment. And the change in her was remarkable.

July 11, a.d. 51

How Gaius loved the gymnasium. His body was hard from running and exercises and wrestling contests. Much business was conducted there. It was a school for young men and the library and lecture hall for philosophers. All Corinthian social life revolved around the gymnasium and the attached thermae. At these baths Gaius had met Pausanius, a young man of his age. They had enjoyed an exciting sexual encounter.

Tonight he would visit the father of a beautiful young woman who seemed gracious and carefree. This Claudia would make a fine wife and bear beautiful children for him. Life was very good.

April 3, a.d. 45

Fourteen-year-old Gaius felt trapped and embarrassed. He had known this day would come, as it did for many boys his age. His pedagogue had sheltered him from the men. But now he turned for strength, security, and support to an older lover. Gaius had found a wealthy patron who was kind and who promised to pay for his education.

“I suppose I’m finally becoming a man,” he thought to himself.

Chapter 4 considered the central witness of the New Testament to homosexuality in Romans 1 and Paul’s description of both lesbianism and male homosexuality as “against nature.” Paul presents homosexuality as a judgment on those who refuse to worship God.

Romans describes this sexual activity without naming it. In 1 Corinthians 6:9–10 and 1 Timothy 1:8–10, a term often translated “homosexuals” or “sodomites” does occur.1 The term is the plural noun arsenokoitai.2 These passages and this word have received intense scrutiny in recent years among those who deny that Scripture condemns modern homosexual behavior. As with Romans 1, certain writers interpret these passages so that they become irrelevant to the modern discussion.

The Texts at Issue

I quote here in full these two passages in the New International Version, followed by translation alternatives in a few other English versions. The translation for the Greek term arsenokoitai is in italics.

1 Corinthians 6:9–11

Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

• homosexuals (nasb, nlb)

• sodomites (nkjv)

• male prostitutes (nrsv)

1 Timothy 1:8–11

We know that the law is good if one uses it properly. We also know that law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious; for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, for adulterers and perverts [arsenokoitai], for slave traders and liars and perjurers—and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine that conforms to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which he entrusted to me.

• homosexuals (nasb, nlb)

• sodomites (nkjv)

• Sodomites (nrsv)3

Both of these passages contain lists of evil practices, which are known as “catalogues of vices.” The term arsenokoitai appears in the midst of both of these lists. We will see that the words in these lists help inform us of the meaning of this term, as does the literary form of the catalogue of vices itself.

Legal and Moral Questions

Modern discussion of these passages and of this term has coincided with the gay rights debate and movement. Increasing disagreement among various liberal and conservative positions, Western and Eastern, has split local churches and whole denominations. 

Special attention to the legal and the moral implications of the term seems especially pertinent. The legal aspect includes the question: Should special national, state, and local legislation protect homosexual behaviour as a protected minority, as was done about race, gender, national origin, and religious expression?

The answer to the “big” legal question includes answers to equally important smaller questions: Should it be unlawful to discriminate against homosexuals in housing, in employment, or in the church? What place does the homosexual have in society? 

Should government recognise marriages of gays so that they have benefits and advantages belonging to marriage partners, including the adoption of children? Should society abolish laws that criminalise same-gender intercourse with young people under a certain age, say at seventeen?

The moral aspect raises another big question: Does Scripture present homosexuality as morally wrong, as sin? As an extension of this, we also must ask, Is there a place for the homosexual (practicing and/or celibate) in the church? 

This question involves religious and moral concerns and might involve legal rights infringement. Because biblical statements shape so much of modern ethics, the contribution of the meaning of arsenokoitai to the Christian response to these questions is crucial. 

In the providence of God, the two passages where arsenokoitai occurs directly address the legal (1 Timothy 1) and the moral (1 Corinthians 6) aspects of homosexuality. This study will survey the recent discussion of the meaning of arsenokoitai, evaluate the positions, and formulate a position that answers the questions that have been posed.

The writers central to the debate over the interpretation of arsenokoitai are once again D. Sherwin Bailey, John Boswell, Robin Scroggs, L. William Countryman, and Martti Nissinen, along with their followers. These writers have contributed significantly to the wider acceptance of the homosexual lifestyle in society and the church, even church ministry.4 They represent multiple approaches to redefining arsenokoitai, but each works to remove these passages from the modern debate about the legality and morality or ethics of homosexual behavior.5

Recent Interpretations of Arsenokoitai

Homosexual Acts

The first revisionist view of the passages involving the term arsenokoitai asserts that Paul has only homosexual acts in mind, not the homosexual condition. Bailey seems to be the trailblazer of the new assessments of the meaning of arsenokoitai. 

It is his view that the term in 1 Corinthians 6:9 denotes males who actively engage in homosexual acts, in contrast to malakoi (translated above as “male prostitutes”)—those who engage passively in such acts. However, he insists that Paul knew nothing of “inversion as an inherited trait, or an inherent condition due to psychological or glandular causes.” So Paul regards all homosexual practice as evidence of perversion.6 T

Therefore, Bailey limits the term to acts alone and laments the modern translation of the term as “homosexuals.” Bailey wants to distinguish between “the homosexual condition (which is morally neutral) and homosexual practices” (emphasis his). Paul is precise in his terminology and, in Bailey’s view, “sodomites” is the best rendering of the word.7 Bailey denies that biblical writers knew about the homosexual condition.

Active Male Prostitutes

One of the most influential studies of arsenokoitai among contemporary authors is that of Boswell.8 Whereas translators have usually given this term an active sense, explicitly or implicitly, Boswell gives it a passive sense.9

In an extended discussion, Boswell cites “linguistic evidence and common sense” that support his conclusion that arsenokoitai means “male sexual agents, or male prostitutes.” His argument is that the arseno- part of the word is adjectival, not the object of the koitai, which means “base sexual activity.” 

The term, according to Boswell, means a male prostitute who is the passive recipient of others’ advances. He acknowledges that most scholars would interpret the composite term as active: “those who sleep with, make their bed with, men.” Boswell bases his interpretation on linguistics and the historical setting. 

He argues that in other compounds, such as paidomathēs (“having learned in childhood”) the paido- is the subject; in others, such as paidoporos (“through which a child passes”) the paido- is neither subject nor object but simply a modifier without verbal significance. One must analyze each compound for its individual meaning. 

More directly, he maintains that compounds using the word for “male” in the Attic form arreno- employ it objectively, whereas those having the Hellenistic arseno- use it as an adjective. He admits that there are exceptions to this distinction regarding arreno.

Boswell next appeals to the Latin of the time, namely drauci or exoleti. These were male prostitutes having men or women as their objects. The Greek arsenokoitai is the equivalent of the Latin drauci; the corresponding passive would be parakoitai. 

He claims that arsenokoitai was the “most explicit word available to Paul to refer to a male prostitute” because by Paul’s time writers had adopted the Attic words pornos and porneuōn, found also in the LXX, “to refer to men who resorted to female prostitutes or simply committed fornication.”10

Boswell claims to have even more convincing support for his claim that arsenokoitai “did not connote ‘homosexual’ or even ‘sodomite’ in the time of Paul.”11 His argument asserts the total lack of similar uses of the term in such pagan writers as Herodotus, Plato, Aristotle, and Plutarch or in the Jewish writers Philo and Josephus. 

The argument from silence extends to Pseudo-Lucian, Sextus Empiricus, and Libanius. He subsequently finds it lacking in “all discussions of homosexual relations”12 among Christian sources in Greek, including the Didache, Tatian, Justin Martyr, Eusebius, Clement of Alexandria, Gregory of Nyssa, and John Chrysostom.13 He particularly singles out Chrysostom and his omission as “final proof” that arsenokoitai could not mean homosexuality.14

Boswell next appeals to the omission of the texts of 1 Corinthians and 1 Timothy from discussions of homosexuality among Latin church fathers.15 Boswell cites Tertullian, Arnobius, Lactantius, and Augustine. Augustine uses “circumlocutions.” 

Other Latin writers include Ausonius, Cyprian, and Minucius Felix. The term is also lacking in state or church legislation. By the sixth century, writers use the term in a confused manner and apply it to a variety of sexual activities from child molesting to anal intercourse between a husband and wife.

Boswell concludes, “There is no reason to believe that either arsenokoitai or malakoi connoted homosexuality in the time of Paul or for centuries thereafter, and every reason to suppose that, whatever they came to mean, they were not determinative of Christian opinion on the morality of homosexual acts.”16

Throughout his work, Boswell defines arsenokoitai as male prostitutes. Indeed, he believes that Paul would probably not disapprove of “gay inclination,” “gay relationships,” “enduring love between persons of the same gender” or “same-sex eroticism.”17

Pederasty

Scroggs represents another view of arsenokoitai. He has built upon the discussion of his predecessors to suggest that arsenokoitai is a “Hellenistic Jewish coinage, perhaps influenced by awareness of rabbinic terminology.” 

The term comes from Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13, where the LXX juxtaposes the two words arsenos and koitēn and represents the Hebrew as mišekab zākār “sexual intercourse or lying with a male.”18 However, Scroggs believes that Paul did not originate the term but borrowed it from “circles of Hellenistic Jews acquainted with rabbinic discussions.” 

The Jews invented the word to avoid “contact with the usual Greek terminology.”19 If this situation is true, Scroggs observes, then it explains why the word does not appear in Greco-Roman discussions of pederasty and why later patristic writers avoid it. It would be meaningless to a native-speaking Greek.

Scroggs takes the second part of arsenokoitai as the active word and the first part as the object of the second part, so he differs from Boswell.20 However, Scroggs thinks that the term does not have the broad idea of “one who lies with a male” but instead has a narrow reference. 

With the preceding malakoi, which Scroggs takes as meaning “the effeminate call-boy,” arsenokoitai refers to the active partner who keeps the malakos as a mistress or hires him to satisfy sexual desires.21 The term arsenokoitai does not refer to homosexuality in general, or to lesbian relations, or to the generic model of pederasty. It certainly cannot refer to the modern same-gender adult mutuality model.22

Scroggs interprets the term in 1 Timothy 1:10 similarly. The fact that arsenokoitai comes between pornoi and andrapodistai tells Scroggs that the three terms in serial refer to “male prostitutes, males who lie [with them], and slave dealers [who procure them].”23 

It again refers to that specific form of pederasty “which consisted of the enslaving of boys as youths for sexual purposes, and the use of these boys by adult males.”24 This form of pederasty even “serious minded pagan authors” condemned. 

Scroggs uses these instances of arsenokoitai in 1 Corinthians and 1 Timothy to interpret the apparently general condemnation of both female homosexuality and male homosexuality in Romans 1. Consequently, Paul “must have had, could only have had pederasty in mind” (emphasis his). We cannot know what Paul would have said about the contemporary model, Scroggs affirms.25

In relating these terms to the context and to contemporary ethical concerns, Scroggs makes much of the point that the specific items in the list of vices in 1 Corinthians 6 have no deliberate, intended meaning in Paul. Both the form and the function of the catalog of vices are traditional and stereotyped. He sees no relationship between any individual item in the list and the context. He concludes that Paul “does not care about any specific item in the lists.”26

Because of the meaning of the terms and the presence of the literary phenomenon of a “catalog of vices,” Scroggs can make some sweeping assertions. He argues that the Scriptures are “irrelevant and provide no help in the heated debate today.”27 

The “model in today’s Christian homosexual community is so different from the model attacked by the New Testament” that “Biblical judgments against homosexuality are not relevant to today’s debate. They should no longer be used in denominational discussions about homosexuality, should in no way be a weapon to justify refusal of ordination” (italics his).28

For Scroggs the Scriptures have nothing to contribute to the moral decision-making processes of society and the church.

Ritual Impurity

Still another view of arsenokoitai maintains that this and similar terms merely reflect the impurity that the Jews in their ritual or religion attached to homosexuality and other sexual activity. The prohibitions of homosexuality in the Old and New Testaments extend from Israel’s moral rules and purity system; they are not universal principles, nor were they ever meant to be observed by Gentiles. Therefore, Countryman concludes that homosexuality does not constitute sin.29

This approach to arsenokoitai pleads ignorance as to the meaning of the term. Its meaning is beyond us. Regarding 1 Corinthians 6:9–10, Countryman claims that the word is of “uncertain meaning,” either alone or in proximity to malakoi. 

It would be “unwise to imagine that we can know clearly or definitively what the terms meant to Paul.”30 He argues the relative merits of the views of Boswell, that malakoi refers to masturbators and arsenokoitai to passive male prostitutes, and the views of Scroggs, that malakoi refers to the passive child or teen object of lust and arsenokoitai to the active adult in homosexual pederasty. 

Countryman prefers the view of Boswell, but he stresses that this is an educated guess. The reference to arsenokoitai in 1 Corinthians is “regrettably, not very helpful to us” because our understanding of Paul’s view of homosexuality must come from Romans 1, and Countryman has already interpreted that text to mean that Paul regards homosexuality as “unclean, but not therefore sinful” (see pp. 143–44).31 It merely violates Israel’s purity code.

As a basis for his position of ignorance, Countryman appeals to the obscurity of the word arsenokoitai and the types of same-gender behavior that existed in Paul’s day. 

He notes that the word never occurs before the writing of the New Testament, and only twice there (1 Cor. 6:9; 1 Tim. 1:10). He rejects etymology (“a man who has intercourse with another man”) as a “notoriously bad guide” to meaning. 

He also asserts that the ancient Greeks never thought of a homosexual person “as one who is exclusively or predominantly attracted to members of the same sex.” A text written in ancient Greek, therefore, cannot be expected to “address the modern concept of homosexuality in so many words.” 

He asserts that ancient terms narrowly referred to pederasty, an adult male lover (erastēs) of a youth (eromenos), freeborn in Greece or a young slave in Rome. He believes that a partial reference might also be to male prostitutes who serviced both sexes.32

In this approach, Countryman incorporates arguments of Bailey, Boswell, and Scroggs, adding his own twist that homosexuality is part of Israel’s purity code. It is not applicable to Gentiles, and it is not sin.




1 This discussion assumes Pauline authorship of the Pastoral Epistles, as has been shown by studies of the internal and external evidence. See Donald Guthrie, New Testament Introduction, 4th ed. (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1990), 621–49, for an extensive discussion and citation of support for Pauline authorship.

2 The term homosexual will be used here to encompass same-gender orientation and same-gender behavior among both sexes, although defining this term is one of the pursuits of this chapter. This is a different age than when Patrick Fairbairn in Pastoral Epistles (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1874), 89, could write that arsenokoitai is a “term for which fortunately our language has no proper equivalent.” He thereby touched upon the basis for the contemporary debate and discussion.

nasb New American Standard Bible, © the Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977.

nkjv New King James Bible Version. © 1979, 1980, 1982. Used by permission of Thomas Nelson, Inc., Publishers. All rights reserved.

nrsv New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA. Used by permission.

nasb New American Standard Bible, © the Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977.

nkjv New King James Bible Version. © 1979, 1980, 1982. Used by permission of Thomas Nelson, Inc., Publishers. All rights reserved.

nrsv New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA. Used by permission.

3 Translations used for 1 Tim. 1:10 are kjv: “them that defile themselves with mankind”; av: “abusers of themselves with men”; nasb: “homosexuals”; rsv, nkjv, nrsv: “sodomites”; neb, niv: “perverts”; gnb, “sexual perverts.” In 1 Cor. 6:9 translations are kjv: “abusers of themselves with mankind”; av: “abusers of themselves with men”; nasb, rsv: “homosexuals”; nkjv: “sodomites”; neb: “homosexual perversion.” The rsv and neb derive their translation from the two Greek words (malakoi and arsenokoitai) occurring in sequence, which gnb has as “homosexual perverts.” nrsv has the two words as “male prostitutes” in the text, and “sodomites” in the footnote.

4 For example, see the influence of Robin Scroggs, The New Testament and Homosexuality (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983), on M. Olson, “Untangling the Web,” The Other Side (April, 1984), 24–29. For a study suggesting a further prohibition of homosexuality in the OT see A. Phillips, “Uncovering the Father’s Skirt,” VT 30:1 (January 1980): 38–43. For a bibliography of other sources dealing with arsenokoitai, see Wilsondisc Religion Indexes (New York: H. W. Wilson, 1987).

5 Thomas E. Schmidt, Straight & Narrow? Compassion and Clarity in the Homosexuality Debate (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1995), 34–37, 56–59, helpfully categorizes the various ways whereby people qualify the Bible’s statements on homosexuality. He identifies the implication approach, which holds that the Bible sows seeds of liberation by replacing a morality of purity with a morality of love; the expansion approach, which affirms homosexuality by removing sexuality from matters of reproduction and male-female complementarity; and the correction approach, which overrules the biblical prohibitions of homosexuality by appeal to the biblical message of liberation.

6 D. Sherwin Bailey, Homosexuality and the Western Christian Tradition (London: Longmans, Green, 1975), 38.

7 Ibid., 39. Bailey follows Moffatt’s translation here.

8 John Boswell, Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980). Boswell has influenced many, including George R. Edwards, Gay/Lesbian Liberation: A Biblical Perspective (New York: Pilgrim, 1984), 81ff. Edwards adopts Boswell’s view of 1 Corinthians 6:9, though he acknowledges that Boswell has flaws, omissions, and outright errors in his discussion of arsenokoitai and malakoi. He acknowledges that the list of vices in 1 Corinthians 6:9ff. is parenetic (moral education), but Edwards insists that Romans 1 is rhetorical, not parenetic. He asserts that the “theology of gay/lesbian liberation” must “correct” Paul’s parenesis in Romans 1. It is discontinuous with the Levitical Holiness Code (99).

9 Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality, 341–53. The active idea predominates in translations and commentators.

LXX Septuagint.

10 Ibid., 344. Yet this was not a word “available to Paul for a male prostitute,” for it does not occur at all in literature prior to Paul (as a search in the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae confirms). If Paul coined the term, there was no prior history for it and all discussion of its lack of usage in other literature is meaningless.

11 Ibid., 346.

12 Yet if Paul coins the word, it would be expected that the word would not be found elsewhere. The key term in Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality, 346, is discussions, for Boswell admits (350 n 42) that it occurs in quotes of Paul, but there is no discussion in the context. The implication is that we cannot tell what Polycarp (Pol. Phil. 5.3), Theophilus (Ad Autolycum 1.2, 2.14), Nilus (Epistularum libri quattuor 2.282), Cyril of Alexandria (Homiliae diversae 14), and Sibylline Oracles (2.13) meant. Yet Polycarp, who was a disciple of John the apostle and died about a.d. 155, argues in context that young men should be pure. He uses only the three terms, pornoi, malakoi, and arsenokoitai, from Paul’s list. This does not include the references in Clement of Alexandria (Paedagogus 3.11; Stromata 3.18). Boswell’s use of “all” is subjective.

13 Yet Eusebius uses it in Demonstrationis evangelicae 1.

14 Either Boswell is misrepresenting the facts about Chrysostom’s use of arsenokoitai and its forms (about twenty) in the vice lists of 1 Corinthians 6 or 1 Timothy 1, or he is begging the question by denying that arsenokoitai can mean homosexual when Chrysostom uses it. Yet the meaning of arsenokoitai is the goal of his study, and mine, whether in the lists or other discussions. Boswell later admits (351) that Chrysostom uses the almost identical form arsenokoitos (singular form instead of the plural) in his commentary on 1 Corinthians. Although Boswell suggests that the passage is strange, it may be that the commentary is seeking to make a refinement in arsenokoitai.

15 Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality, 348. Apparently Jerome is a significant omission here, since he renders arsenokoitai as masculorum concubitores, corresponding “almost exactly to the Greek” (348 n 36).

16 Ibid., 353.

17 Ibid., 112, 116–17.

LXX Septuagint.

18 Scroggs, Homosexuality, 86, 107–8. I came independently to the same observation regarding the source of arsenokoitai. Apparently the connection is made in E. A. Sophocles’s, Greek Lexicon of the Roman and Byzantine Periods, memorial edition (New York: n.p., 1887), 253. This lexicon covers the period from 146 b.c. to a.d. 1100.

19 Ibid., 108, including n 14.

20 Ibid., 107.

21 Ibid., 108.

22 Ibid., 109.

23 Ibid., 120.

24 Ibid., 121.

25 Ibid., 122.

26 Ibid., 104. See discussion, 101–4. Scroggs says the same thing about Paul’s language in Romans 1:26–27 (128). Yet it is doubtful that Paul does not see a connection between terms in his lists and the context. See the more cautious words of P. Zaas, “1 Corinthians 6:9ff.: Was Homosexuality Condoned in the Corinthian Church?” Society of Biblical Literature seminar papers, 17 (1979): 205–12. Zaas observes that the words moichai, malakoi, and arsenokoitai were part of Jewish anti-Gentile polemic. Yet Paul’s words at the end of the vice list, “and such were some of you,” indicate that “Paul is addressing real or potential abuses of his ethical message, not citing primitive tradition by rote” (210). These were real problems existing within the Corinthian church. Zaas has made a good point.

27 Scroggs, Homosexuality, 129.

28 Ibid., 127.

29 L. William Countryman, Dirt, Greed, and Sex: Sexual Ethics in the New Testament and Their Implications for Today (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988), 117–20, 127–29, 201–2, 243ff.

30 Ibid., 117, 119.

31 Ibid., 118–20. Obviously, if Countryman is mistaken about Romans 1, as argued in chapter 4 (pp. 143–44), then he is mistaken about arsenokoitai. Strangely, Countryman does not have such difficulty in defining any other terms in Paul’s text.

32 Ibid., 118.

De Young, J. B. (2000). Homosexuality: Contemporary Claims Examined in Light of the Bible and Other Ancient Literature and Law (pp. 175–184). Kregel Publications.