Orthodoxy: pro-marriage?

[Kristos]

and he is clear that this means no carnal pleasure.

and what does that mean to you? Lust?

I am curious to know what word he actually used (I assume this is a translation).

And it's not "carnal pleasure" - it's "carnal desire" according to your original quote. So it's without carnal desire or self-indulgent pleasure.

 

[jckstraw72]

my understanding is that physical pleasure was not a factor at all. they came together solely for a child. this makes sense with what the Elder is saying -- only the Theotokos conceived in a virginal manner and so only she gave birth virginally - that is without pain, breaking the seal, blood, etc. meanwhile, Sts. Joachim and Anna conceived in the typical manner but did so dispassionately and so they brought forth the holiest child. this came up in our Patristics course and Dr. Christopher said it is consonant with Orthodox teaching (I think it was specifically when we were discussing St. Maximos)

 

[Kristos]

my understanding is that physical pleasure was not a factor at all. they came together solely for a child. this makes sense with what the Elder is saying -- only the Theotokos conceived in a virginal manner and so only she gave birth virginally - that is without pain, breaking the seal, blood, etc. meanwhile, Sts. Joachim and Anna conceived in the typical manner but did so dispassionately and so they brought forth the holiest child. this came up in our Patristics course and Dr. Christopher said it is consonant with Orthodox teaching (I think it was specifically when we were discussing St. Maximos)

Not a factor? Again what does that mean? That Joachim's penis somehow fell asleep and therefore did not feel a thing? How does that have implication on the Holy of the Theotokos? If Joachim felt any pleasure whatsoever that would mean that the Theotokos was not pure? What's the connection here? Pleasure itself is evil?

 

[jckstraw72]

Not a factor? Again what does that mean? That Joachim's penis somehow fell asleep and therefore did not feel a thing? How does that have implication on the Holy of the Theotokos? If Joachim felt any pleasure whatsoever that would mean that the Theotokos was not pure? What's the connection here? Pleasure itself is evil?

Adam and Eve ate of the tree for its physical pleasure alone, apart from God and against His will. as a result God allowed pain to enter our lives, as a reminder of what we have lost. and the Fathers see sexual reproduction as a foremost instance and sign of this. Fr. John Meyendorff speaks of this in his "Byzantine Theology." this whole pleasure-pain dialectic was overcome by the Theotokos and Christ in His virginal conceiving and birth - conceived without pleasure, born without pain. basically, Sts. Joachim and Anna were the closest to this apart from the miraculous conception of Christ.

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

Adam and Eve ate of the fruit for its physical pleasure alone? Genesis 3:4-6 tells us that Eve was looking at wisdom and knowledge in her consideration of what the fruit would yield. She also fears death as the consequence but is reassured by Satan that it will be otherwise. It seems like knowledge and wisdom is the goal over any physical pleasure? Didn't the concept of physical pleasure kick in after the Fall?

Adam and Eve ate of the tree for its physical pleasure alone, apart from God and against it's will. as a result God allowed pain to enter our lives, as a reminder of what we have lost. and the Fathers see sexual reproduction as a foremost instance and sign of this. Fr. John Meyendorff speaks of this in his "Byzantine Theology." this whole pleasure-pain dialectic was overcome by the Theotokos and Christ in His virginal conceiving and birth - conceived without pleasure, born without pain. basically, Sts. Joachim and Anna were the closest to this apart from the miraculous conception of Christ.

 

[Kristos]

Sorry, but I'm a bit skeptical of the connection between how Joachim might have felt - whether that be pleasure or pain or nothing and the purity of the Theotokos. I actually find the proposition that he felt nothing to be the most troublesome.

 

[rusmeister]

This is one of those things where I am REALLY skeptical that there is anything like a consensus that the holy thing to do is to engage in intercourse and not enjoy any pleasure from it. This is where it is obvious to me that the natural process rightly includes the pleasure and as with contraception, trying to separate it from the process is actually wrong. This looks to me like one of the times that 1% of the fathers are 1% wrong. Maybe I'm wrong and stupid on this one, but unlike contraception, where there is a CLEAR consensus, I see no consensus at all on this one, only what looks like an oddball opinion by an otherwise holy man.

Pleasure is a good thing. God created it. In a Fallen or unFallen world, I think we will always find pleasure as a good thing, even if it is attained immorally in a Fallen world.

 

[jckstraw72]

do you believe this type of pleasure will continue to exist in the Heavenly Kingdom?

 

[jckstraw72]

and the connection between the pleasureless conception of Christ by the Theotokos and her painless childbearing is quite strong in Tradition. This is from a paper I wrote for my Christology course:

When discussing the ever-virginity of Panagia it is important to emphasize that she was truly a virgin during the birthing of Christ. This means, and the Church professes, that her childbearing was painless and did not open her womb, as Ezekiel 43:27-44:4 prophesies. The Church also sees a prophecy of her painless childbearing in Isaiah 66:7: “Before she travailed, she brought forth; before her pain came, she was delivered of a man child.” In Christian times the teaching is initially found in the apocryphal works of The Ascension of Isaiah (11:8-14; c. 150-200), the Odes of Solomon (19:6-10; c. 100-200), and the Protoevangelium of James (chapter 19-20; c. 145), but is also continually asserted by the Church Fathers[34] and is taught by Canon 79 of the Council of Trullo which states, “Confessing the divine childbirth to have resulted from the Virgin without confinement (i.e., childbed), as well as without its being induced by seed …” St. Nikodemos the Hagiorite says that childbed “consists in giving birth to an infant with the accompanying pangs of childbirth and is followed by a flux of blood, according to Zonaras.”[35]
Whereas the sin of Eve caused women to bring forth in travail (Gen. 3:15), the Archangel Gabriel cries to the Theotokos “rejoice!” indicating that the curse is to be overturned by the birth of Christ. Following this, several Fathers taught that her childbearing was painless because it was caused without the pleasure of intimacy. Commenting on the prophecy of Isaiah, St. Gregory of Nyssa writes:

You have already been told of the unmarried Mother, the fatherless flesh, and the painless childbirth, which was unlike the usual birth with its birthpangs. You should understand that the reason for such pain is quite natural, since any pleasure is linked with pain, and thus it is necessary to take into consideration the connection between the two. It must be understood that if the first does not exist then neither can the second. Whatever is not preceded by pleasure cannot be followed by pain. After all, this is the prophecy of the Prophet.[36]
​

Similarly, St. Hesychios states that the Theotokos did not experience the travails of childbirth because “the virginal vineyard was not tilled.”[37] St. John of Damascus also writes that Christ’s birth was both according to the laws of parturition and above the laws of generation “for, as pleasure did not precede it, pain did not follow it.”[38] This teaching is perhaps most forcefully and extensively treated by St. Maximus the Confessor for whom the Fall was a perversion of man’s capacity for spiritual pleasure into a hedonistic search for sensible pleasures, which introduces pain into the life of man and the cosmos. He sees the introduction of sexual passions and especially the rule of sexual procreation as a foremost sign of this law of pleasure and pain. Sexual intercourse is a result of sensible pleasure, and gives rise to birth through pain. Therefore, Christ broke the law of pleasure by being born without pleasure, and He broke the law of pain by His painless birth:

After the transgression pleasure naturally preconditioned the births of all human beings, and no one at all was by nature free from birth subject to the passion associated with this pleasure; rather everyone was requited with sufferings, and subsequent death, as the natural punishment. The way to freedom was hard for all who were tyrannized by unrighteous pleasure and naturally subject to just suffering and to the thoroughly just death accompanying them. In order for unrighteous pleasure, and the thoroughly just death which is its consequence, to be abolished (seeing as suffering humanity has been so pitiably torn asunder by them, with human beings deriving the beginning of their existence from the corruption associated with pleasure, and coming to the end of their life in the corruption of death), and in order for suffering human nature to be set right, it was necessary for an unjust and likewise uncaused suffering and death to be conceived – a death “unjust” in the sense that it by no means followed a life given to passions, and “uncaused” in the sense that it was in no way preceded by pleasure.[39]
​

This truth is also represented in icons of the Nativity which do not depict the Mother of God lying fatigued in childbed, but rather kneeling in worship of her Son. Furthermore, because the Theotokos gave birth as a virgin and without pain and afterbirth, the Church prays to Christ, “By Thy nativity, Thou didst sanctify the Virgin’s womb” in the Kontakion for the feast of the Meeting of the Lord. Not only was she preserved inviolate, but she was even sanctified. The Church upholds and proclaims her painless childbearing as witness to her virginity and the Divinity of her Son, and the freeing of the world from the dialectic of pleasure and pain.

[34] Besides those who will be addressed, see also Venantius Fortunatus, Carmina miscellanea 8.6, PL 88, 268; St. Leo the Great, Sermo 22.2, PL 54, 195-196; St. Peter Chrysologus, Sermo 117.3, PL 52, 521; Theodotus of Ancyra, Homily 5.1, PG 77, 1413A –B; St. Proclus of Constantinople, Homily 4.1, PG 65, 708C – 709B; St. Gregory of Nyssa, On the Birth of Christ, PG 46, 1133D – 1136B; St. Andrew of Crete, Sermon on the Annunciation, PG 97, 897; John Geometris, An Address on the Annunciation 12, PG 106, 821; Pseudo-Chrysostom, Sermon on the Theotokos 3, PG 69, 713.

[35] Pedalion, p. 384

[36] Sermon on Easter, PG 46, 601-604, quoted in Callinicos, Constantine. Our Lady the Theotokos. Trans. Fr. George Dimopoulos. Christian Orthodox Editions, 1987, p. 49.

[37] Sermon on the Presentation, PG 93, 1469 as quoted in Ibid., p. 50

[38] Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith 4.14

[39] Ad Thalassium 61, in St. Maximus the Confessor, Paul M. Blowers, and Robert Louis Wilken. On the Cosmic Mystery of Jesus Christ: Selected Writings from St. Maximus the Confessor. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary, 2003, p. 131.

 

[ArmyMatt]

Pleasure is a good thing. God created it. In a Fallen or unFallen world, I think we will always find pleasure as a good thing, even if it is attained immorally in a Fallen world.

I dunno. pleasure in the sense that we are talking has a lot to do with chemistry and nerve impulses, in other words, our fallen biology. I don't think it existed in the Garden and I don't think it will exist after the second coming.

 

[rusmeister]

do you believe this type of pleasure will continue to exist in the Heavenly Kingdom?

I think that everything good will BE, in a perfected form. God didn't make mistakes in His Creation. It was good.

It makes no sense to say prayers that say things like "where the voice of those who feast is unceasing, and the gladness of those who behold Thy countenance is unending" if there will be no feasting or enjoyment of feasting. I do NOT believe in a purely Platonic Kingdom where there is no material. I think matter is good, and pleasure in matter is good. We may get pleasure from hugging a loved one. I think that will BE, in a perfected form.

 

[jckstraw72]

I think that everything good will BE, in a perfected form. God didn't make mistakes in His Creation. It was good.

It makes no sense to say prayers that say things like "where the voice of those who feast is unceasing, and the gladness of those who behold Thy countenance is unending" if there will be no feasting or enjoyment of feasting. I do NOT believe in a purely Platonic Kingdom where there is no material. I think matter is good, and pleasure in matter is good. We may get pleasure from hugging a loved one. I think that will BE, in a perfected form.

sure, i agree with this. we will remain material, but a more spiritualized material. but we know that in the Kingdom there will be no sex, but rather we will live as angels.

 

[Dorothea]

This is one of those things where I am REALLY skeptical that there is anything like a consensus that the holy thing to do is to engage in intercourse and not enjoy any pleasure from it. This is where it is obvious to me that the natural process rightly includes the pleasure and as with contraception, trying to separate it from the process is actually wrong. This looks to me like one of the times that 1% of the fathers are 1% wrong. Maybe I'm wrong and stupid on this one, but unlike contraception, where there is a CLEAR consensus, I see no consensus at all on this one, only what looks like an oddball opinion by an otherwise holy man.

Pleasure is a good thing. God created it. In a Fallen or unFallen world, I think we will always find pleasure as a good thing, even if it is attained immorally in a Fallen world.

I tend to agree with Rus on this one. I think there is pleasure felt purposely for the encouragement of procreating.

 

[Dorothea]

do you believe this type of pleasure will continue to exist in the Heavenly Kingdom?

I don't think so. I personally don't believe we all will be procreating in heaven, but I obviously don't know for sure. Just how I view His Kingdom.

 

[Dorothea]

I dunno. pleasure in the sense that we are talking has a lot to do with chemistry and nerve impulses, in other words, our fallen biology. I don't think it existed in the Garden and I don't think it will exist after the second coming.

I agree with you. I don't think how we are in marital relations is how it was before the Fall or how it will be once He returns. I think we have these "feelings" and "sensations" for the purpose of offspring, personally. So that the married man and woman would come together and enjoy being together so that the would "be fruitful and multiply," after the Fall, if that makes sense.

 

[jckstraw72]

I tend to agree with Rus on this one. I think there is pleasure felt purposely for the encouragement of procreating.

yes, this is definitely true. i think St. John Chrysostom says this specifically. but we know from the Fathers that man was called to procreate another way before the Fall.

 

[Dorothea]

yes, this is definitely true. i think St. John Chrysostom says this specifically. but we know from the Fathers that man was called to procreate another way before the Fall.

Yes, I agree with that.

 

[Kristos]

and the connection between the pleasureless conception of Christ by the Theotokos and her painless childbearing is quite strong in Tradition. This is from a paper I wrote for my Christology course:

When discussing the ever-virginity of Panagia it is important to emphasize that she was truly a virgin during the birthing of Christ. This means, and the Church professes, that her childbearing was painless and did not open her womb, as Ezekiel 43:27-44:4 prophesies. The Church also sees a prophecy of her painless childbearing in Isaiah 66:7: “Before she travailed, she brought forth; before her pain came, she was delivered of a man child.” In Christian times the teaching is initially found in the apocryphal works of The Ascension of Isaiah (11:8-14; c. 150-200), the Odes of Solomon (19:6-10; c. 100-200), and the Protoevangelium of James (chapter 19-20; c. 145), but is also continually asserted by the Church Fathers[34] and is taught by Canon 79 of the Council of Trullo which states, “Confessing the divine childbirth to have resulted from the Virgin without confinement (i.e., childbed), as well as without its being induced by seed …” St. Nikodemos the Hagiorite says that childbed “consists in giving birth to an infant with the accompanying pangs of childbirth and is followed by a flux of blood, according to Zonaras.”[35]
Whereas the sin of Eve caused women to bring forth in travail (Gen. 3:15), the Archangel Gabriel cries to the Theotokos “rejoice!” indicating that the curse is to be overturned by the birth of Christ. Following this, several Fathers taught that her childbearing was painless because it was caused without the pleasure of intimacy. Commenting on the prophecy of Isaiah, St. Gregory of Nyssa writes:

You have already been told of the unmarried Mother, the fatherless flesh, and the painless childbirth, which was unlike the usual birth with its birthpangs. You should understand that the reason for such pain is quite natural, since any pleasure is linked with pain, and thus it is necessary to take into consideration the connection between the two. It must be understood that if the first does not exist then neither can the second. Whatever is not preceded by pleasure cannot be followed by pain. After all, this is the prophecy of the Prophet.[36]
​

Similarly, St. Hesychios states that the Theotokos did not experience the travails of childbirth because “the virginal vineyard was not tilled.”[37] St. John of Damascus also writes that Christ’s birth was both according to the laws of parturition and above the laws of generation “for, as pleasure did not precede it, pain did not follow it.”[38] This teaching is perhaps most forcefully and extensively treated by St. Maximus the Confessor for whom the Fall was a perversion of man’s capacity for spiritual pleasure into a hedonistic search for sensible pleasures, which introduces pain into the life of man and the cosmos. He sees the introduction of sexual passions and especially the rule of sexual procreation as a foremost sign of this law of pleasure and pain. Sexual intercourse is a result of sensible pleasure, and gives rise to birth through pain. Therefore, Christ broke the law of pleasure by being born without pleasure, and He broke the law of pain by His painless birth:

After the transgression pleasure naturally preconditioned the births of all human beings, and no one at all was by nature free from birth subject to the passion associated with this pleasure; rather everyone was requited with sufferings, and subsequent death, as the natural punishment. The way to freedom was hard for all who were tyrannized by unrighteous pleasure and naturally subject to just suffering and to the thoroughly just death accompanying them. In order for unrighteous pleasure, and the thoroughly just death which is its consequence, to be abolished (seeing as suffering humanity has been so pitiably torn asunder by them, with human beings deriving the beginning of their existence from the corruption associated with pleasure, and coming to the end of their life in the corruption of death), and in order for suffering human nature to be set right, it was necessary for an unjust and likewise uncaused suffering and death to be conceived – a death “unjust” in the sense that it by no means followed a life given to passions, and “uncaused” in the sense that it was in no way preceded by pleasure.[39]
​

This truth is also represented in icons of the Nativity which do not depict the Mother of God lying fatigued in childbed, but rather kneeling in worship of her Son. Furthermore, because the Theotokos gave birth as a virgin and without pain and afterbirth, the Church prays to Christ, “By Thy nativity, Thou didst sanctify the Virgin’s womb” in the Kontakion for the feast of the Meeting of the Lord. Not only was she preserved inviolate, but she was even sanctified. The Church upholds and proclaims her painless childbearing as witness to her virginity and the Divinity of her Son, and the freeing of the world from the dialectic of pleasure and pain.

[34] Besides those who will be addressed, see also Venantius Fortunatus, Carmina miscellanea 8.6, PL 88, 268; St. Leo the Great, Sermo 22.2, PL 54, 195-196; St. Peter Chrysologus, Sermo 117.3, PL 52, 521; Theodotus of Ancyra, Homily 5.1, PG 77, 1413A –B; St. Proclus of Constantinople, Homily 4.1, PG 65, 708C – 709B; St. Gregory of Nyssa, On the Birth of Christ, PG 46, 1133D – 1136B; St. Andrew of Crete, Sermon on the Annunciation, PG 97, 897; John Geometris, An Address on the Annunciation 12, PG 106, 821; Pseudo-Chrysostom, Sermon on the Theotokos 3, PG 69, 713.

[35] Pedalion, p. 384

[36] Sermon on Easter, PG 46, 601-604, quoted in Callinicos, Constantine. Our Lady the Theotokos. Trans. Fr. George Dimopoulos. Christian Orthodox Editions, 1987, p. 49.

[37] Sermon on the Presentation, PG 93, 1469 as quoted in Ibid., p. 50

[38] Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith 4.14

[39] Ad Thalassium 61, in St. Maximus the Confessor, Paul M. Blowers, and Robert Louis Wilken. On the Cosmic Mystery of Jesus Christ: Selected Writings from St. Maximus the Confessor. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary, 2003, p. 131.

I fail to see the connection to the subject of Joachim and Anna and the conception of the Theotokos, who was conceived by natural intercourse not by the Holy Spirit.

 

[jckstraw72]

re-read the vision of Elder Paisios. he speaks of both.

 

[FireDragon76]

Sts. Joachim and Anna conceived in the typical manner but did so dispassionately and so they brought forth the holiest child. this came up in our Patristics course and Dr. Christopher said it is consonant with Orthodox teaching (I think it was specifically when we were discussing St. Maximos)

Dispassionate sex sounds like an oxymoron. There has to be some kind of eros, or the male organ will not function (and in some cases, it's difficult for women too).