What did history say about homosexuality?
Homosexuality seems to have existed more widely among the ancient Greeks than among any other ancient people. Excursuses 3 and 4 provide substantial quotations of Greek sources relating to the place and forms of homosexual behaviour. From those sources it is apparent that the predominant form of homosexuality was pederasty between men and boys.
The ethics of Greek love for boys was based upon “an aesthetic and religious foundation,” and it was sanctioned by the state. It was a supplement to marriage and an important factor in education, so it was decidedly bisexual.
Not surprisingly, women objected to such sexual diversions. Pederasty goes back forty-five hundred years in ancient Egypt and occurs in Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. Solon issued laws to prevent slaves from having connections with free-born boys. The rape of boys was an established “custom.” The Greeks even used boys for paying tribute.54
However, the Greeks knew and practised additional forms of same-gender behaviour. Plato, in his last work (c. 348 b.c.), both implies and speaks openly about the ubiquity of homosexuality. Plato advocates legislation to regulate it (Laws 636a–c; 835c; 836a–e; 838b–839b; 840de; 841de). There were laws against homosexuality as early as Plato’s lifetime in Greece; some prescribed the death penalty for certain behaviours.55
However, the Greeks knew and practised additional forms of same-gender behaviour. Plato, in his last work (c. 348 b.c.), both implies and speaks openly about the ubiquity of homosexuality. Plato advocates legislation to regulate it (Laws 636a–c; 835c; 836a–e; 838b–839b; 840de; 841de). There were laws against homosexuality as early as Plato’s lifetime in Greece; some prescribed the death penalty for certain behaviours.55
Hans Licht asserts that Christian church fathers, such as Clement of Alexandria, cite Greek poetry to “prove the immorality of paganism.” Lyric poetry had its “origin in homosexual love.” Licht finds references in Greek culture to such forms of sexual perversion as mixoscopy, transvestitism, exhibitionism, pygmalionism, flagellation, sadism and masochism (although Licht discounts these forms), necrophilia, and sodomy. Licht defines sodomy as sex with animals.56
Plato treated homosexual love from a philosophical perspective, which suggests that such a thing as a homosexual orientation was known.57 Examples of lesbianism or female homosexuality58 and mutual adult-adult homosexuality occur.59 Plato differentiated between the “natural” and the “unnatural” (esp. Laws 636a–c, 836a–c; 838; 841de).60 In addition, it is significant to discover that Greek religion supported homosexual expression (see pp. 252–57).61
What was the situation in Rome and elsewhere at the time of Paul? As in Greece, homosexual pederasty and prostitution were widespread. We have seen that Philo and Josephus condemned homosexuality in general, in the Roman context, in the strongest of terms. Their comments cannot be restricted to pederasty.62
Moral philosophers in Paul’s day questioned the merits of homosexuality.63 Seneca (c. 4 b.c.–a.d. 65), the statesman and tutor to Nero, condemns homosexual exploitation (Moral Epistles 47.7–8) that forces an adult slave to dress, shave his beard, and behave as a woman.
Plato treated homosexual love from a philosophical perspective, which suggests that such a thing as a homosexual orientation was known.57 Examples of lesbianism or female homosexuality58 and mutual adult-adult homosexuality occur.59 Plato differentiated between the “natural” and the “unnatural” (esp. Laws 636a–c, 836a–c; 838; 841de).60 In addition, it is significant to discover that Greek religion supported homosexual expression (see pp. 252–57).61
What was the situation in Rome and elsewhere at the time of Paul? As in Greece, homosexual pederasty and prostitution were widespread. We have seen that Philo and Josephus condemned homosexuality in general, in the Roman context, in the strongest of terms. Their comments cannot be restricted to pederasty.62
Moral philosophers in Paul’s day questioned the merits of homosexuality.63 Seneca (c. 4 b.c.–a.d. 65), the statesman and tutor to Nero, condemns homosexual exploitation (Moral Epistles 47.7–8) that forces an adult slave to dress, shave his beard, and behave as a woman.
Plutarch, the Greek biographer and priest, born a.d. 46, speaks of homosexuality as “contrary to nature” (Dialogue on Love 751c, d, e; 752b, c). Dio Chrysostom (a.d. 40) exposes the exploitative and lustful nature of homosexuality and commends “natural intercourse” and “union of the male and female” (Discourse 7.133, 135; 151–152; 21.6–10; 77/78.36).
Bailey also gives evidence from Roman legislation of the prevalence and form of homosexuality during Paul’s day. As early as 226 B.C. the Lex Scantinia penalised homosexual practices.64 Cicero refers to subsequent application in 50 b.c., and other references are made to it by Suetonius (applied under Domitian), Juvenal, and others, including Tertullian. Lex Julia de adulteriis coercendis (about 17 b.c.), initially concerned with sexual offences against a virgin or widow (stuprum), came to be applied to sexual acts committed with boys (a.d. 3d century) then to homosexual acts between adults (4th century). Justinian’s Codex (6th century) applied Lex Julia to homosexuality with specificity,65 setting the legal tradition in Western civilisation (see pp. 257, 258).
Further evidence of homosexuality comes from the poets, satirists, and historians of the day. Juvenal (c. 60–140) and Martial (c. 40–102) wrote of formal marriage unions of homosexuals. Historians and others viewed the second century b.c. as the turning point in Roman social morality. With military conquests achieved, Rome underwent, in the words of historian D. Earl, “a moral crisis from which she never recovered.”66 It came about from the direct influx into Rome of “Asiatic luxury and Greek manners,” including homosexuality and other sorts of debauchery.67
Jewish and Christian Sources
The Old Testament witness to adult homosexual behaviour cannot reasonably be doubted, as is apparent in the record of Sodom (Genesis 19), Gibeah (Judges 19), and the condemnations of Deuteronomy 23:17–18 and Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13. The level of understanding in intertestamental literature has also been documented. On the other hand, only in the Testament of Levi 17:11 does pederasty occur.
Throughout Scripture, condemnation of homosexuality is consistent, universal, and absolute.68 The text never suggests that it condemns some specific form of homosexuality while it tolerates or accepts other forms. For example, it was not for homosexual rape alone that Sodom was judged; the attempt on the angels confirmed God’s decision to deal with the larger pattern of degradation.
Bailey also gives evidence from Roman legislation of the prevalence and form of homosexuality during Paul’s day. As early as 226 B.C. the Lex Scantinia penalised homosexual practices.64 Cicero refers to subsequent application in 50 b.c., and other references are made to it by Suetonius (applied under Domitian), Juvenal, and others, including Tertullian. Lex Julia de adulteriis coercendis (about 17 b.c.), initially concerned with sexual offences against a virgin or widow (stuprum), came to be applied to sexual acts committed with boys (a.d. 3d century) then to homosexual acts between adults (4th century). Justinian’s Codex (6th century) applied Lex Julia to homosexuality with specificity,65 setting the legal tradition in Western civilisation (see pp. 257, 258).
Further evidence of homosexuality comes from the poets, satirists, and historians of the day. Juvenal (c. 60–140) and Martial (c. 40–102) wrote of formal marriage unions of homosexuals. Historians and others viewed the second century b.c. as the turning point in Roman social morality. With military conquests achieved, Rome underwent, in the words of historian D. Earl, “a moral crisis from which she never recovered.”66 It came about from the direct influx into Rome of “Asiatic luxury and Greek manners,” including homosexuality and other sorts of debauchery.67
Jewish and Christian Sources
The Old Testament witness to adult homosexual behaviour cannot reasonably be doubted, as is apparent in the record of Sodom (Genesis 19), Gibeah (Judges 19), and the condemnations of Deuteronomy 23:17–18 and Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13. The level of understanding in intertestamental literature has also been documented. On the other hand, only in the Testament of Levi 17:11 does pederasty occur.
Throughout Scripture, condemnation of homosexuality is consistent, universal, and absolute.68 The text never suggests that it condemns some specific form of homosexuality while it tolerates or accepts other forms. For example, it was not for homosexual rape alone that Sodom was judged; the attempt on the angels confirmed God’s decision to deal with the larger pattern of degradation.
We have seen (pp. 43–47, 73–101) that homosexual acts generally were later described as part of Sodom’s pattern. The parallels to Genesis 19 in Judges 19 obviously mean that hideous “Sodom” had infected the children of Israel. Whatever applied to Sodom now applied to Benjamin—including God’s condemnation of them for homosexual acts other than rape.
Nor does any other text restrict the condemnation. The prohibition of Deuteronomy 23 applies beyond male cult prostitution (as does Leviticus 18 and 20; 1 Kings 14:24; 15:12; 22:46; 2 Kings 23:7; 1 Cor. 6:9–11; and 1 Tim. 1:8–10).
Nor does any other text restrict the condemnation. The prohibition of Deuteronomy 23 applies beyond male cult prostitution (as does Leviticus 18 and 20; 1 Kings 14:24; 15:12; 22:46; 2 Kings 23:7; 1 Cor. 6:9–11; and 1 Tim. 1:8–10).
New Testament teaching in Romans 1:26–27 cannot be made to fit only pederasty or any other specific perverse act, such as the abandoning of one’s “natural” sexual orientation. In Paul’s thinking, both the passive (malakoi) and active (arsenokoitai) homosexual partners are outside the kingdom of God (1 Cor. 6:9; see pp. 196–201).
54 According to P. E. Slater, The Glory of Hera (Boston: Beacon, 1968), 11, homosexuality was widespread and generally accepted among Greeks, though restricted by law. It rested on narcissism and took the forms of pederasty and male prostitution (34, 56–60, 74). Homosexuality related to religion; the gods practised pederasty (61). It receded in popularity after the 5th century b.c. (71).
Hans Licht, Sexual Life in Ancient Greece, trans. J. H. Freese, ed. L. H. Dawson (New York: 1993), 411–525, gives a glimpse at Greek homosexuality. After age sixteen, the ephebos (young man) demanded the return of love (418). In their love for boys, men imitated the gods, including Zeus, Poseidon, Apollo, and Hermes (426). Love was not only longing for the beautiful in boys, but involved sensual love and intercourse (434). Male temple prostitutes serviced men (436). Aristophanes, in Plutus 153 (437), called the boys who serviced men for money “sodomites.” Boys, including free youths, were also hired by contracts (438). The cinaedus (kinaidos) was a “lover of boys, with obscene significance” (488).
55 K. J. Dover, Greek Homosexuality (Cambridge: Harvard University, 1978), 13–27. Aeschines, “Against Timarchus” 12, refers to three laws regulating pederasty and homosexual prostitution in Athens, even calling for the death penalty and prohibition from holding office. Plato, Symposium, 182a–84c, records how certain regions legally restricted pederasty. See Scroggs, Homosexuality, 49–52.
56 Sexual Life, 464, 468, 485, 499–505. It was said: “To a lover’s mind a short time is as a thousand years.” Licht concludes: (1) Greek culture had its root in sexuality (523); (2) the erotic was the center of Hellenic life; (3) the concept sin was foreign to the Greeks; (4) sexual morality was concerned only with what was unjust to others, with violence, with offenses against the state, and with crime (524); (5) pederasty was not consider a vice (524). For citations from Greek sources, see excursuses 3 and 4, pp. 205–13; 265–75.
57 As Dover, Greek Homosexuality, 12, seems to admit. Note “inclination” in Plato (Laws, 840d, e) and the support for such in selections from Symposium (see pp. 205–9, 254–55). See also D. J. Atkinson, Homosexuals in the Christian Fellowship (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979), 92–95. Scroggs, New Testament and Homosexuality, 52–53, dismisses Platonic love, the philosophical ideal, as a cover-up, yet he admits that inversion and perversion (if a valid distinction today) must have existed in the past (28, 32–34). See Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality, 81–87.
58 Greek Homosexuality, 171–73. See Plato, Laws, 636c; 839d. Scroggs, The New Testament and Homosexuality, 140–44, admits examples during Paul’s time, as does Boswell in Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality, 82–84, and Nissinen in Homoeroticism, 131–34 (after saying repeatedly that Paul did not know of orientation; cf. 111, 113).
59 Greek Homosexuality, 19–31, 37, 99. Plato, Laws, 636a–c; 836a–c (“with men and boys as with women”). Even Scroggs, New Testament and Homosexuality, 32–34, 130, has difficulty finding no other activities than pederasty. See examples of adult mutuality and permanency in Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality, 82–87, and in the selections from Symposium and from Phaedrus, excursus 3, 205–13.
60 Dover, Greek Homosexuality, 67–68, believes that the active partner acts naturally and the passive one unnaturally. This may be true from the Greek-Roman perspective. It was shameful for the adult male to play the passive role. However, Paul’s use of nature and natural in Romans 1:26–27 condemns active and passive roles as unnatural, since he refers to lesbianism and uses the phrases, “males with males” receiving the due penalty “in themselves for their perversion.”
Paul Veyne, “Homosexuality in Ancient Rome,” in P. Aries and A. Bejin, eds., Western Sexuality: Practice and Precept in Past and Present Times, trans. A. Forster (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1985), 26–28, writes that “unnatural” to the ancient did not mean disgraceful; rather, it meant not conform with the rules of society, or was perverted and artificial. Nature meant “either society or a sort of ecological ideal.” For Plato, it was not the homosexual who was unnatural but the act. Homosexuality was against nature because animals never did it, and it was excessive and distracting. People should reserve sex for reproduction (27). The following selections from Laws include some of these references.
(636b–d) This institution (gymnasia) … is thought to have corrupted the pleasures of love which are natural not to men only but also natural to beasts.… One certainly should not fail to observe that when male unites with female for procreation the pleasure experienced is held to be due to nature, but contrary to nature when male mates with male or female with female, and that those first guilty of such enormities were impelled by their slavery to pleasure.
54 According to P. E. Slater, The Glory of Hera (Boston: Beacon, 1968), 11, homosexuality was widespread and generally accepted among Greeks, though restricted by law. It rested on narcissism and took the forms of pederasty and male prostitution (34, 56–60, 74). Homosexuality related to religion; the gods practised pederasty (61). It receded in popularity after the 5th century b.c. (71).
Hans Licht, Sexual Life in Ancient Greece, trans. J. H. Freese, ed. L. H. Dawson (New York: 1993), 411–525, gives a glimpse at Greek homosexuality. After age sixteen, the ephebos (young man) demanded the return of love (418). In their love for boys, men imitated the gods, including Zeus, Poseidon, Apollo, and Hermes (426). Love was not only longing for the beautiful in boys, but involved sensual love and intercourse (434). Male temple prostitutes serviced men (436). Aristophanes, in Plutus 153 (437), called the boys who serviced men for money “sodomites.” Boys, including free youths, were also hired by contracts (438). The cinaedus (kinaidos) was a “lover of boys, with obscene significance” (488).
55 K. J. Dover, Greek Homosexuality (Cambridge: Harvard University, 1978), 13–27. Aeschines, “Against Timarchus” 12, refers to three laws regulating pederasty and homosexual prostitution in Athens, even calling for the death penalty and prohibition from holding office. Plato, Symposium, 182a–84c, records how certain regions legally restricted pederasty. See Scroggs, Homosexuality, 49–52.
56 Sexual Life, 464, 468, 485, 499–505. It was said: “To a lover’s mind a short time is as a thousand years.” Licht concludes: (1) Greek culture had its root in sexuality (523); (2) the erotic was the center of Hellenic life; (3) the concept sin was foreign to the Greeks; (4) sexual morality was concerned only with what was unjust to others, with violence, with offenses against the state, and with crime (524); (5) pederasty was not consider a vice (524). For citations from Greek sources, see excursuses 3 and 4, pp. 205–13; 265–75.
57 As Dover, Greek Homosexuality, 12, seems to admit. Note “inclination” in Plato (Laws, 840d, e) and the support for such in selections from Symposium (see pp. 205–9, 254–55). See also D. J. Atkinson, Homosexuals in the Christian Fellowship (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979), 92–95. Scroggs, New Testament and Homosexuality, 52–53, dismisses Platonic love, the philosophical ideal, as a cover-up, yet he admits that inversion and perversion (if a valid distinction today) must have existed in the past (28, 32–34). See Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality, 81–87.
58 Greek Homosexuality, 171–73. See Plato, Laws, 636c; 839d. Scroggs, The New Testament and Homosexuality, 140–44, admits examples during Paul’s time, as does Boswell in Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality, 82–84, and Nissinen in Homoeroticism, 131–34 (after saying repeatedly that Paul did not know of orientation; cf. 111, 113).
59 Greek Homosexuality, 19–31, 37, 99. Plato, Laws, 636a–c; 836a–c (“with men and boys as with women”). Even Scroggs, New Testament and Homosexuality, 32–34, 130, has difficulty finding no other activities than pederasty. See examples of adult mutuality and permanency in Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality, 82–87, and in the selections from Symposium and from Phaedrus, excursus 3, 205–13.
60 Dover, Greek Homosexuality, 67–68, believes that the active partner acts naturally and the passive one unnaturally. This may be true from the Greek-Roman perspective. It was shameful for the adult male to play the passive role. However, Paul’s use of nature and natural in Romans 1:26–27 condemns active and passive roles as unnatural, since he refers to lesbianism and uses the phrases, “males with males” receiving the due penalty “in themselves for their perversion.”
Paul Veyne, “Homosexuality in Ancient Rome,” in P. Aries and A. Bejin, eds., Western Sexuality: Practice and Precept in Past and Present Times, trans. A. Forster (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1985), 26–28, writes that “unnatural” to the ancient did not mean disgraceful; rather, it meant not conform with the rules of society, or was perverted and artificial. Nature meant “either society or a sort of ecological ideal.” For Plato, it was not the homosexual who was unnatural but the act. Homosexuality was against nature because animals never did it, and it was excessive and distracting. People should reserve sex for reproduction (27). The following selections from Laws include some of these references.
(636b–d) This institution (gymnasia) … is thought to have corrupted the pleasures of love which are natural not to men only but also natural to beasts.… One certainly should not fail to observe that when male unites with female for procreation the pleasure experienced is held to be due to nature, but contrary to nature when male mates with male or female with female, and that those first guilty of such enormities were impelled by their slavery to pleasure.
And we all accuse the Cretans of concocting the story about Ganymede. Because it was the belief that they derived their laws from Zeus, they added on this story about Zeus in order that they might be following his example in enjoying this pleasure as well.
(836c–d) If we were to follow in nature’s steps and enact that law which held good before the days of Laius, declaring that it is right to refrain from indulging in the same kind of intercourse with men and boys as with women, and adducing as evidence thereof the nature of wild beasts, and pointing out how male does not touch male for this purpose, since it is unnatural—in all this we would probably be using an argument neither convincing nor in any way consonant with your States.
(838e–839a) I know of a device for making a natural use of reproductive intercourse—on the one hand, by abstaining from the male and not slaying of set purpose the human stock.… This law, when it has become permanent and prevails … is the cause of countless blessings. For, in the first place, it follows the dictates of nature, and it serves to keep men from sexual rage and frenzy and all kinds of fornication.
(841d) Possibly, should God so grant, we might forcibly effect one of two things in this matter of sex-relations—either that no one should venture to touch any of the noble and freeborn save his own wedded wife, nor sow any unholy and bastard seed in fornication, nor any unnatural and barren seed in sodomy—or else we should entirely abolish love for males.
61 Even Dover, Greek Homosexuality, acknowledges the critical role of religion in Greek homosexuality. Greek gods (Eros) engaged in homosexual relations. Plato, Laws, 838e–839b, called for religious sanctions to sexual legislation. Dover says that homosexuality developed more extensively among the Greeks than other peoples because the “Greeks neither inherited nor developed a belief that a divine power had revealed to mankind a code of laws for the regulation of sexual behaviour; they had no religious institutions possessed of the authority to enforce sexual prohibitions” (63, 166, 203). This is a significant implicit acknowledgement of the distinctiveness of Jewish and Christian belief.
62 Philo, On the Life of Abraham 26.133–36, cites homosexuality as unnatural and associated with the “curse of a female disease” at Sodom. It seems difficult to limit him to pederasty (in contrast to New Testament and Homosexuality, 88–91). Josephus refers to Sodom (Antiq. 1.200–1; cf. 1.194–95) and reflects on the danger of homosexuality (15.28–29). See also Against Apion (2.199). See excursus 4, pp. 265–75.
63 See Furnish, Moral Teaching of Paul, 60–63, for this information.
64 According to Bailey, Homosexuality and the Western Christian Tradition, 65–67. Also see Vern L. Bullough, Homosexuality: A History (New York: Meridian, 1979), 31–32. Scroggs, New Testament and Homosexuality, 52, sides with Boswell’s negative assessment of this and other early legislation (65–71), but Bailey argues well for its application to homosexuality. Veyne, “Homosexuality in Ancient Rome,” 29, argues that the main purpose of the legislation was to protect free-born youths and other citizens from homosexual acts that would treat them as passive slaves. This seems to be the original purpose of such legislation (see Sexual Life, 452), which the Romans later expanded. Greenberg, Construction, 156, asserts that the law’s provisions are unknown.
65 Other legislation came under the emperors Constantius and Constans (a.d. 342) against the passive sodomite. The Theodosian Code (a.d. 390) called for the death of the active sodomite; see quotations of these laws, pp. 273–75. See also Bailey, Homosexuality and the Western Christian Tradition, 70–81.
66 D. Earl, The Moral and Political Tradition of Rome (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1967), 17. See Homosexuality and the Western Christian Tradition, 82–86, for examples of the homosexual literature of the era.
67 Moral and Political Tradition of Rome, 18, 36. This was a time of tremendous social and religious upheaval. Livy, The History of Rome, 39.6.7, placed the turning point of Roman history at 187 b.c.; Polybius, The Histories, 31.25.3–5 (cf. 6.57.5; Diodorus, 31.26), placed it at 168 b.c.; L. Calpurnis Piso put it at 154 b.c. The historian Sallust concurred in these assessments, as did the senators Cato the Censor and Scipio Aemilianus, who made strong speeches against the decline. At the same time (168 b.c.), Antiochus IV was seeking to Hellenize Palestine. His arrogant violence sparked the Maccabean revolt, which cleansed the temple of idolatry in 165 b.c.—a date still observed in Judaism at the Feast of Hanukkah. While the Romans were not able to resist Greek influence, the Jews did, because their faith was in a transcendent God who had revealed a code of laws regulating sexual behaviour, among other things.
68 Even Pronk, Against Nature? 279, affirms that “wherever homosexual intercourse is mentioned in Scripture, it is condemned.” He includes Romans 1. The NT adds no new arguments to the OT.
De Young, J. B. (2000). Homosexuality: Contemporary Claims Examined in Light of the Bible and Other Ancient Literature and Law (pp. 152–154). Kregel Publications.
(836c–d) If we were to follow in nature’s steps and enact that law which held good before the days of Laius, declaring that it is right to refrain from indulging in the same kind of intercourse with men and boys as with women, and adducing as evidence thereof the nature of wild beasts, and pointing out how male does not touch male for this purpose, since it is unnatural—in all this we would probably be using an argument neither convincing nor in any way consonant with your States.
(838e–839a) I know of a device for making a natural use of reproductive intercourse—on the one hand, by abstaining from the male and not slaying of set purpose the human stock.… This law, when it has become permanent and prevails … is the cause of countless blessings. For, in the first place, it follows the dictates of nature, and it serves to keep men from sexual rage and frenzy and all kinds of fornication.
(841d) Possibly, should God so grant, we might forcibly effect one of two things in this matter of sex-relations—either that no one should venture to touch any of the noble and freeborn save his own wedded wife, nor sow any unholy and bastard seed in fornication, nor any unnatural and barren seed in sodomy—or else we should entirely abolish love for males.
61 Even Dover, Greek Homosexuality, acknowledges the critical role of religion in Greek homosexuality. Greek gods (Eros) engaged in homosexual relations. Plato, Laws, 838e–839b, called for religious sanctions to sexual legislation. Dover says that homosexuality developed more extensively among the Greeks than other peoples because the “Greeks neither inherited nor developed a belief that a divine power had revealed to mankind a code of laws for the regulation of sexual behaviour; they had no religious institutions possessed of the authority to enforce sexual prohibitions” (63, 166, 203). This is a significant implicit acknowledgement of the distinctiveness of Jewish and Christian belief.
62 Philo, On the Life of Abraham 26.133–36, cites homosexuality as unnatural and associated with the “curse of a female disease” at Sodom. It seems difficult to limit him to pederasty (in contrast to New Testament and Homosexuality, 88–91). Josephus refers to Sodom (Antiq. 1.200–1; cf. 1.194–95) and reflects on the danger of homosexuality (15.28–29). See also Against Apion (2.199). See excursus 4, pp. 265–75.
63 See Furnish, Moral Teaching of Paul, 60–63, for this information.
64 According to Bailey, Homosexuality and the Western Christian Tradition, 65–67. Also see Vern L. Bullough, Homosexuality: A History (New York: Meridian, 1979), 31–32. Scroggs, New Testament and Homosexuality, 52, sides with Boswell’s negative assessment of this and other early legislation (65–71), but Bailey argues well for its application to homosexuality. Veyne, “Homosexuality in Ancient Rome,” 29, argues that the main purpose of the legislation was to protect free-born youths and other citizens from homosexual acts that would treat them as passive slaves. This seems to be the original purpose of such legislation (see Sexual Life, 452), which the Romans later expanded. Greenberg, Construction, 156, asserts that the law’s provisions are unknown.
65 Other legislation came under the emperors Constantius and Constans (a.d. 342) against the passive sodomite. The Theodosian Code (a.d. 390) called for the death of the active sodomite; see quotations of these laws, pp. 273–75. See also Bailey, Homosexuality and the Western Christian Tradition, 70–81.
66 D. Earl, The Moral and Political Tradition of Rome (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1967), 17. See Homosexuality and the Western Christian Tradition, 82–86, for examples of the homosexual literature of the era.
67 Moral and Political Tradition of Rome, 18, 36. This was a time of tremendous social and religious upheaval. Livy, The History of Rome, 39.6.7, placed the turning point of Roman history at 187 b.c.; Polybius, The Histories, 31.25.3–5 (cf. 6.57.5; Diodorus, 31.26), placed it at 168 b.c.; L. Calpurnis Piso put it at 154 b.c. The historian Sallust concurred in these assessments, as did the senators Cato the Censor and Scipio Aemilianus, who made strong speeches against the decline. At the same time (168 b.c.), Antiochus IV was seeking to Hellenize Palestine. His arrogant violence sparked the Maccabean revolt, which cleansed the temple of idolatry in 165 b.c.—a date still observed in Judaism at the Feast of Hanukkah. While the Romans were not able to resist Greek influence, the Jews did, because their faith was in a transcendent God who had revealed a code of laws regulating sexual behaviour, among other things.
68 Even Pronk, Against Nature? 279, affirms that “wherever homosexual intercourse is mentioned in Scripture, it is condemned.” He includes Romans 1. The NT adds no new arguments to the OT.
De Young, J. B. (2000). Homosexuality: Contemporary Claims Examined in Light of the Bible and Other Ancient Literature and Law (pp. 152–154). Kregel Publications.
