Lest anyone accuse me of 'promoting' homosexuality, I most definitely am not. I am a Christian and am merely sharing historical reality that any university student majoring in classical history would be well aware of, and historical reality that modern day Christians should keep in mind before desiring to take it upon themselves to judge others over their sins as same-sex marriage becomes the law of the land in more and more states, and more and more countries.
I begin with the birthplace of our own Western Civilization: Greek and Roman civilization, and then go into a detailed history of the Church. Homosexuality flourished for over 1,300 years within the Greek culture, and for almost 900 years of Roman culture without causing any downfall of civilization as some people today claim will happen if gay people are allowed to marry each other. Their sin is between God and themselves, but does not cause the sky to fall.
Yet, within a little over 100 years after Christians gained political dominance in Rome, the entire civilization collapsed, not because of a few barbarian incursions... but instead after those 'Christians' had forbade freedom of religion under pain of death, freedom of thought under pain of death, shut down the Olympics, the theaters, the gymnasiums, and schools of learning. Knowledge of realistic artwork and sculpture was lost, scientific knowledge and civic engineering withered and died.
They basically killed civic culture and classical civilization. The public libraries were either closed or abandoned since within only 2 generations the majority of the people had lost the ability to read.. after all, you were told the world was going to end at any moment, and that you only needed to know what your priest or pastor told you to believe, you were told that interest in secular knowledge was no longer necessary. The ancient world was a relatively tolerant place in the world of religion. There were occasional bursts of persecution of this or that sect but as a rule many religions existed side by side.
The consensus among modern historians is that republican Rome, like classical Greece, was tolerant of same-sex relationships. Moreover, the Romans accorded same-sex unions the legal or cultural status of marriages. To take one early example, Cicero, the great Roman lawyer and orator, persuaded Curio the Elder to honor the debts that Curio's son had incurred on behalf of Antonius, to whom the son was, in Cicero's words, "united in a stable and permanent marriage, just as if he had given him a matron's stola." (The stola was garb distinctively reserved for a married Roman woman. "Te a meretricio quaestu abduxit et, tamquam stolam dedisset, in matrimonio stabili et certo collocavit.")
Cicero's legalistic advice shows that same-sex relationships were not only socially accepted among Roman society, but that they also potentially carried with them legal obligations and consequences, and hence were marriages as we understand the term. Records describing Roman social customs during the imperial period survive in far greater number, at least in part because many, if not most, of the emperors enjoyed well-documented relationships, some of them legally sanctioned marriages-with other men. The evidence suggests that during the same general time frame when companionate long-term marriages were being institutionalized for different-sex couples, they were likewise becoming more common for same-sex couples, who were entering into relationships akin to those discussed in Plato's Symposium.
By the time of the early Empire the stereotyped roles of [sexually active] "lover" and [sexually passive] "beloved" no longer seem to be the only model for homosexual lovers. Many homosexual relationships were permanent and exclusive. Among the lower classes informal unions like that of Giton and Encolpius may have predominated, but marriages between males or between females were legal and familiar among the upper classes.... By the time of the early Empire references to gay marriages are commonplace. The biographer of Elagabalus maintains that after the emperor's marriage to an athlete from Smyrna, any male who wished to advance at the imperial court either had to have a husband or pretend that he did.
Martial and Juvenal both mention same-sex public ceremonies involving the families, dowries, and legal niceties. It is clear that not only aristocrats were involved: a cymbal player is mentioned by Juvenal. Martial points out that both men involved in one ceremony were thoroughly masculine ("The bearded Callistratus married the rugged Afer") and that the marriage took place under the same law that regulated marriage between men and women. Nero married two men in succession, both in public ceremonies with the ritual appropriate to legal marriage. At least one of these unions was recognized by Greeks and Romans, and the spouse was accorded the honors of an empress .... One of the men, Sporus, accompanied Nero to public functions, where the emperor would embrace him affectionately. He remained with Nero throughout his reign and stood by him as he died.
Same-sex unions were noted in popular Roman culture and literature as well. The novel Babylonica, an early version of the pulp romance, had a subplot involving the passion of Egypt's Queen Berenice for the beautiful Mesopotamia, who was snatched from her. After one of the Queen's servants rescued Mesopotamia from her abductors, "'Berenice married Mesopotamia, and there was war between [the abductor] and Berenice on her account.' " Of even greater renown, the Emperor Hadrian's love for Antinous attained the status of legend, acclaimed for generations in sculpture, architecture, painting, coins, and literature.
The popularity of Hadrian and Antinous as a couple, was likely due to the prevalence of same-sex couples in popular romantic literature of the time. Everywhere in the fiction of the Empire-from lyric poetry to popular novels-gay couples and their love appear on a completely equal footing with their heterosexual counterparts.
During the years 342 CE to 395 CE all this changed when Christianity established itself as the only religion in the Roman Empire and launched an all out campaign of religious terror against all other beliefs. Even though Christians had suffered from persecution from time to time, this does not justify what they did upon coming to political dominance, and had gained the ear of an emperor, whose word was law.
It was not until the Roman world was forcibly converted, and succumbed to an unforgiving and dictatorship-like form of Christianity (completely unlike the first 3 centuries of a peaceful and loving form of Christianity), that we began to embark upon the Dark Ages.
PERSECUTION OF HOMOSEXUALS BEGINS:
On December 16, 342 AD, the Christian emperors Constantius II and Constans, under advice from their bishops, issued the following edict.. a law specifically outlawing marriages between men, which had previously been allowed, and reads as follows:
"When a man marries in the manner of a woman, a woman about to renounce men, what does he wish, when sex has lost its significance; when the crime is one which it is not profitable to know; when Venus is changed into another form; when love is sought and not found? We order the statutes to arise, the laws to be armed with an avenging sword, that those infamous persons who are now, or who hereafter may be guilty, shall be subjected to exquisite punishment." (Theodosian Code 9.7.3)
Then, 48 years later, Christian emperors Theodosius and Arcadius on Aug 6, 390, under the advice of their bishops, issued the following edict.. an edict that would begin an evil persecution towards gay people that would last until very recently: "All persons who have the shameful custom of condemning a man's body, acting the part of a woman's to the sufferance of alien sex (for they appear not to be different from women), shall expiate a crime of this kind by being burned to death in the public sight of the people." -Codex Theodosius IX. Vii. 6
I begin with the birthplace of our own Western Civilization: Greek and Roman civilization, and then go into a detailed history of the Church. Homosexuality flourished for over 1,300 years within the Greek culture, and for almost 900 years of Roman culture without causing any downfall of civilization as some people today claim will happen if gay people are allowed to marry each other. Their sin is between God and themselves, but does not cause the sky to fall.
Yet, within a little over 100 years after Christians gained political dominance in Rome, the entire civilization collapsed, not because of a few barbarian incursions... but instead after those 'Christians' had forbade freedom of religion under pain of death, freedom of thought under pain of death, shut down the Olympics, the theaters, the gymnasiums, and schools of learning. Knowledge of realistic artwork and sculpture was lost, scientific knowledge and civic engineering withered and died.
They basically killed civic culture and classical civilization. The public libraries were either closed or abandoned since within only 2 generations the majority of the people had lost the ability to read.. after all, you were told the world was going to end at any moment, and that you only needed to know what your priest or pastor told you to believe, you were told that interest in secular knowledge was no longer necessary. The ancient world was a relatively tolerant place in the world of religion. There were occasional bursts of persecution of this or that sect but as a rule many religions existed side by side.
The consensus among modern historians is that republican Rome, like classical Greece, was tolerant of same-sex relationships. Moreover, the Romans accorded same-sex unions the legal or cultural status of marriages. To take one early example, Cicero, the great Roman lawyer and orator, persuaded Curio the Elder to honor the debts that Curio's son had incurred on behalf of Antonius, to whom the son was, in Cicero's words, "united in a stable and permanent marriage, just as if he had given him a matron's stola." (The stola was garb distinctively reserved for a married Roman woman. "Te a meretricio quaestu abduxit et, tamquam stolam dedisset, in matrimonio stabili et certo collocavit.")
Cicero's legalistic advice shows that same-sex relationships were not only socially accepted among Roman society, but that they also potentially carried with them legal obligations and consequences, and hence were marriages as we understand the term. Records describing Roman social customs during the imperial period survive in far greater number, at least in part because many, if not most, of the emperors enjoyed well-documented relationships, some of them legally sanctioned marriages-with other men. The evidence suggests that during the same general time frame when companionate long-term marriages were being institutionalized for different-sex couples, they were likewise becoming more common for same-sex couples, who were entering into relationships akin to those discussed in Plato's Symposium.
By the time of the early Empire the stereotyped roles of [sexually active] "lover" and [sexually passive] "beloved" no longer seem to be the only model for homosexual lovers. Many homosexual relationships were permanent and exclusive. Among the lower classes informal unions like that of Giton and Encolpius may have predominated, but marriages between males or between females were legal and familiar among the upper classes.... By the time of the early Empire references to gay marriages are commonplace. The biographer of Elagabalus maintains that after the emperor's marriage to an athlete from Smyrna, any male who wished to advance at the imperial court either had to have a husband or pretend that he did.
Martial and Juvenal both mention same-sex public ceremonies involving the families, dowries, and legal niceties. It is clear that not only aristocrats were involved: a cymbal player is mentioned by Juvenal. Martial points out that both men involved in one ceremony were thoroughly masculine ("The bearded Callistratus married the rugged Afer") and that the marriage took place under the same law that regulated marriage between men and women. Nero married two men in succession, both in public ceremonies with the ritual appropriate to legal marriage. At least one of these unions was recognized by Greeks and Romans, and the spouse was accorded the honors of an empress .... One of the men, Sporus, accompanied Nero to public functions, where the emperor would embrace him affectionately. He remained with Nero throughout his reign and stood by him as he died.
Same-sex unions were noted in popular Roman culture and literature as well. The novel Babylonica, an early version of the pulp romance, had a subplot involving the passion of Egypt's Queen Berenice for the beautiful Mesopotamia, who was snatched from her. After one of the Queen's servants rescued Mesopotamia from her abductors, "'Berenice married Mesopotamia, and there was war between [the abductor] and Berenice on her account.' " Of even greater renown, the Emperor Hadrian's love for Antinous attained the status of legend, acclaimed for generations in sculpture, architecture, painting, coins, and literature.
The popularity of Hadrian and Antinous as a couple, was likely due to the prevalence of same-sex couples in popular romantic literature of the time. Everywhere in the fiction of the Empire-from lyric poetry to popular novels-gay couples and their love appear on a completely equal footing with their heterosexual counterparts.
During the years 342 CE to 395 CE all this changed when Christianity established itself as the only religion in the Roman Empire and launched an all out campaign of religious terror against all other beliefs. Even though Christians had suffered from persecution from time to time, this does not justify what they did upon coming to political dominance, and had gained the ear of an emperor, whose word was law.
It was not until the Roman world was forcibly converted, and succumbed to an unforgiving and dictatorship-like form of Christianity (completely unlike the first 3 centuries of a peaceful and loving form of Christianity), that we began to embark upon the Dark Ages.
PERSECUTION OF HOMOSEXUALS BEGINS:
On December 16, 342 AD, the Christian emperors Constantius II and Constans, under advice from their bishops, issued the following edict.. a law specifically outlawing marriages between men, which had previously been allowed, and reads as follows:
"When a man marries in the manner of a woman, a woman about to renounce men, what does he wish, when sex has lost its significance; when the crime is one which it is not profitable to know; when Venus is changed into another form; when love is sought and not found? We order the statutes to arise, the laws to be armed with an avenging sword, that those infamous persons who are now, or who hereafter may be guilty, shall be subjected to exquisite punishment." (Theodosian Code 9.7.3)
Then, 48 years later, Christian emperors Theodosius and Arcadius on Aug 6, 390, under the advice of their bishops, issued the following edict.. an edict that would begin an evil persecution towards gay people that would last until very recently: "All persons who have the shameful custom of condemning a man's body, acting the part of a woman's to the sufferance of alien sex (for they appear not to be different from women), shall expiate a crime of this kind by being burned to death in the public sight of the people." -Codex Theodosius IX. Vii. 6
