Early Patristic Writers

After the age of the apostles, evidence concerning the sexual ethos of the early Church becomes scanty for several generations. Then, during the second and third centuries, Christian writers gradually began to elevate sexual problems to a position of greater prominence than these had possessed in the thought of either Jesus or Paul.

The great Biblical exegete, Origen (ca. a.d. 185-253/55), and the anony­mous author of the Gnostic Gospel according to the Egyptians, for example, believed that Adam and Eve had been innocent of sexual temptations or even sexual feelings in Paradise. When they committed the first sin by disobeying Gods command not to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, Adam and Eve introduced sex into the world and with it the evil of lust.^[297] With sex came death. Since the Fall from grace, according to the Gnostics, sex was tied to reproduc­tion and hence to the life-and-death cycle of human experience. Only a cessa­tion of sexual activity in the world, would bring about life without death. Thus so long as people marry and have sex, they will also die.^[298]

In response to these teachings, mainstream Christian spokesmen replied that sex was a natural human function, sanctioned by natural law; hence they defended the propriety of marriage for Christian believers. Their reaction to Gnostic denials of the morality of marital sex introduced the concept of natural law into Christian discourse about moral problems. In taking this step, the early patristic writers adopted as Christian teaching a problematic element from pagan philosophy.

Members of the Encratite sect were extreme partisans of the view that sex was a major source of sin and moral corruption. Encratites considered marital sex invariably sinful and held that Christ had intended to abolish marriage al­together. Perfect chastity, Encratites held, was essential for salvation. At the other extreme were the followers of Basilides and Carpocrates, together with the leaders of the obscure Nicolaite sect, who argued that Christianity implied free love and lack of sexual restraint and preached a doctrine that involved total sharing of resources, including sexual favors, among the faithful. Orthodox teachers rejected the extreme views of all these groups, but clearly found doc­trines involving sexual abstinence more palatable than those that favored sexual license.^[299]

Few early patristic writers bothered to account for the dislike and revulsion that characterized their treatment of sex. They plainly felt that no explanation was required, that sex was inherently so filthy and degrading that the reason for condemnation of it was self-evident.^[300] The negative attitude of patristic writers to sex has often been described as a reaction against the sexual license of pagan society and, indeed, against the legends of the pagan gods themselves.^[301] There is some basis for this. Lactantius (ca. a.d. 250-after 317), for example, de­nounced the incestuous practices and other sexual delinquencies of the pagan priesthoods and characterized paganism as a licentious and sexually perverted religion that polluted both mind and body.^[302]

Nevertheless, the conventional interpretation that links Patristic disgust with sex to revulsion at pagan debauchery seems historically misleading. Many early Church Fathers considered sex disgusting and obscene by its very nature. Arnobius (d. ca. λ.d. 317), whose obsessive fascination with carnal lust seems slightly bizarre, nonetheless reflected a not uncommon view when he declared that it would be blasphemous even to imagine that Jesus was “born of vile coitus and came into the light as a result of the spewing forth of senseless se­men, as a product of obscene gropings.”⁶⁷ Tertullian (ca.

Both Origen and Tertullian blamed women for luring Christian men into sex­ual indulgence that they might otherwise have been strong enough to resist. Women, Tertullian, declared, are the devil’s door: through them Satan creeps into men’s hearts and minds and works his wiles for their spiritual destruction.⁷⁰ Origen’s condemnation of women was equally severe. He believed that women are more lustful than men and that they are obsessed by sexual desire. Like Tertullian, Origen considered woman a primary source of carnal corruption in Christian society. “There are some women,” he wrote, “though not all of them, pagan cults advocated standards of sexual morality entirely comparable to those of the Christians; see Arthur Darby Nock, Early Gentile Christianity and its Hellenistic Background (New York: Harpers, 1964), pp. 20-21, for examples. See also J. H. W. G. Liebeschuetz₁ Continuity and Change in Roman Religion (Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1979), pp. 39-54, and more generally Ramsey MacMullen, Paganism in the Ro­man Empire (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982).

⁶⁷Arnobius₁ Adv. gentes 4.19, in PL 5:1039: "[Q]uod ex turpi concubitu creditis, atque ex seminis jactu ignorantem sibi ad lucem beneficiis Obscoenitatis exisse.” On Arnobius see also Liebeschuetz, Continuity and Change, pp. 252-60.

'^aTertuIlian₁ Ad uxorem 1.1.4₁ in his Opera omnia, ed. E. Dekkers et al.₁ in Corpus Christianorum, series Latina (cited hereafter as CCL)₁ vols. 1-2 (Turnhout: Brepols₁ 1954) ι = 373- 74∙

⁶⁹Tertullian₁ De exhortatione castitatis 11.1₁ in CCL 2:1030-31. This view may well owe something to Stoic beliefs, too; see Epictetus₁ Discourses 4.1.143₁ ed. Oldfather 2:292, and Michcl Spanneut₁ Le Stoicisme des peres, de Clement de Rome a Clement d’Alexandrie (Paris: Editions du Seuil₁ 1957)₁ pp. 212-13.

⁷⁰Tertullian₁ De Cultufeminarum 1₁ in CCL 1:343.

as we have noted, who are indiscriminate slaves to lust, like animals they rut Withoutdiscretion... ⁷¹ These sex-obsessed women, he continued, procured

the spiritual destruction of untold numbers of Christian men.

Denunciations of sexual feelings and activities in the writings of the early Fathers are often balanced against other passages that praise sexual abstinence as a peculiarly Christian virtue. St. Justin Martyr (ca. ιoo ~ no-ca. 165/66), for example, celebrated continence among Christians and found especially praiseworthy the example of one young man who asked to be castrated (pre­sumably on the strength of Matt, ιg: 12) in order to ensure safety from sexual temptations.⁷² Christian men did not commonly seek physical castration, but the early Fathers soon elevated virginity from the position of a rare, charismatic choice made by a few to a general virtue required of many.⁷³

Praise of virginity was, of course, not altogether novel and certainly not unique to exponents of the Christian faith.

The Fathers were quick to dissociate themselves from the long-standing Jew­ish tradition of polygyny and sharply criticized contemporary Jews for continu­ing to practice multiple marriage.⁷⁶ Yet Christian apologists felt bound to explain away the fact that polygyny had not only been practiced by the Old Testa­ment prophets, but had evidently been approved by Yahweh. Several second- century spokesmen dealt with this problem by arguing that polygyny among

⁷¹Origen, In Genesim homeliae 5.4, in PG 12:192.

⁷²Justin Martyr, Apologia 1.29, in PG 6:373-74. The second-century Stoic, Sextus, advised castration for those whose lust was otherwise incurable; The Sentences of Sex­tus: A Contribution to Early Christian Ethics, 13, 273, ed. Henry Chadwick, Texts and Studies, n.s., vol. 5 (Cambridge: At the University Press, 1959), pp. 12-13, 4²~43∙

⁷³Carolly Erickson, The Medieval Vision: Essays in History and Perception (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976), p. 190. The proof texts most commonly adduced to support this exaltation of chastity were, in addition to Matt. 19:12, Luke 20:34-35 and Matt. 24:19.

⁷⁴Epictetus, Encheiridion 33.8; Joyce E. Salisbury, “Fruitful in Singleness,” Journal of Medieval History (hereafter JMH) 8 (1982) 99, 105. It was a common belief in many ancient religions that certain sacred functions should be performed only by persons who practiced sexual abstinence or even total continence.

⁷⁵St. Athcnagoras (late 2d cent.), Legatio pro Christianis 32, in PG 6:963-64; Lac­tantius, Div. inst. 6.23, in CSEL 19:570-71.

⁷⁶Justin Martyr, Dialogus cum Tryphone Judaeo 134.1, in PG 6:785-86. the prophets had been justified by the need during the early period of man­kind’s existence to fulfill the command to increase and multiply. Now, however, the argument continued, the duty to increase the human race is no longer pressing and, in any event, the new covenant of Jesus had outmoded the Old Testament injunctions.^[303] In any case, they argued, the multiple marriages of the prophets had never been motivated by lust; indeed their acceptance of circum­cision showed, according to Origen, that the prophets accepted the discipline of sexual restraint, since circumcision signified a commitment to cut off the lusts of the flesh.^[304]

Despite the reservations of a few extremists, most Christians in the second and third centuries accepted marriage as a legitimate social institution.^[305] St. Clement of Alexandria (ca. 150-ca. 200) enunciated the majority view when he taught that it was as wrong to condemn marriage as it was to seek indiscriminate sexual pleasure. Those who condemn sex within marriage, according to Clem­ent, set themselves against the teaching of the Gospels.^[306] Marriage, Clement maintained, was conducive to the spiritual well-being of faithful Christiaiis.^[307]

The early Church prescribed no specifically Christian wedding rites for be­lievers, but rather accepted and adopted the ceremonies and forms of marriage and betrothal that already existed in the Roman world.^[308] Yet as early as the time of St. Ignatius of Antioch (d. 107?) Christians had begun to supplement secular marriage rites with religious celebrations at which the bishop presided.^[309] The early Church expected its members to marry publicly and some writers held that secret marriages were little better than fornication. This resistance to hid­den unions rested in part on the belief that marriage in the Christian commu­nity was a concern of the whole membership, since it involved a change in the status of members of the group. It is also likely that disapproval of secret mar­riage reflected a belief that parents had the right and duty to select or at least approve the mates of their children.^[310]

Although the orthodox Fathers of the second and third centuries accepted marriage as a legitimate option, they believed also that Christians ought to re­strict the role of sex in their married lives. For St. Justin Martyr in the early second century, marital sex was designed to produce children: faithful Chris­tians either married in order to have offspring or else lived in complete conti­nence.^[311] His contemporaries and successors reiterated this theme time and time again: marital sex was legitimate when employed for procreation but not when indulged in for pleasure.^[312]

The most positive appraisal of marriage among the early patristic writers came from Clement of Alexandria, but even he took a narrow view of the place of marriage in Christian life. Moreover, Clements views about marital sex were markedly restrictive. Although he had words of praise for conjugal love and for the beauty of the marital relationship, Clement also maintained that “volup­tuous joy” had no proper place in Christian life. Sex for pleasure, according to Clement—who quoted the Stoic writer Musonius in support of his position—is contrary to justice, law, and reason. Christian couples will never have inter­course simply because they enjoy it and each other; they must make love only to beget a child.^[313]

Not only did the Fathers of the first three centuries teach that the purposes of marital sex ought to be restricted, but they also warned that the times for marital relations should be curtailed. None of the early writers was specific about the precise periods when couples should forego intercourse; they simply stated that it was inappropriate, even sinful, to indulge in sex on holy days and Church festivals.^[314]

Although most early patristic writers disparaged the physical pleasures of wedded life, several of them had high praise for marital love. The Didascalia, written in the latter part of the third century, probably in northern Syria, lauded affection between spouses. This early compilation of the rules of Chris­tian conduct maintained that reciprocal love between husband and wife was the constitutive element of Christian marriage. The Didascalia added that couples should strive to enhance their emotional ties to one another because through their love they would find salvation.^[315] Husbands should be faithful to their wives and treat them with consideration, not as servants or menials. The Di- dascalia admonished husbands and wives to remain sexually faithful to their mates; they should not seek to make themselves attractive to others, lest they fall into concupiscence and be tempted to sin.^β0 The author particularly warned married women not to wear provocative clothing, like prostitutes, or to adorn themselves extravagantly in ways that might entice men other than their hus­bands to flirt with them.⁹¹

The Fathers of the first three centuries countenanced divorce, although reluctantly, when one partner had committed adultery. Remarriage following divorce, however, was forbidden. Indeed, the husband of an adulteress was expected to forgive his wife and take her back, provided that she performed appropriate penance; failure to take back a repentant wife was considered sinful.⁹² Remarriage of widows and widowers was permitted though not en­couraged.⁹³ Justin Martyr, in fact, compared second marriages to adultery and considered them positively sinful, but in this he differed from most orthodox writers.⁹⁴

The Montanist heretics, especially Tertullian, their most eloquent cham­pion, spoke out harshly against second marriages. Even in his treatise Ad ux­orem, which dates from his orthodox period, Tertullian had criticized second marriages and labeled them an obstacle to faith.⁹⁵ After his conversion to Mon- tanism, Tertullians vituperation of those who married for a second time became increasingly hysterical. He compared remarriage by a widow to fornication, adultery, and murder and asserted that morally there was little difference.⁹⁶ The only possible reason for remarriage was sexual desire, Tertullian shrilled, and those who remarried were nothing but filthy sensualists.⁹⁷ All Christians, he asserted, were absolutely required to refrain from second marriages. Al­though St. Paul had forbidden only bishops to remarry,⁹⁸ Tertullian claimed that this prohibition was binding upon all Christians.⁹⁹ In reaction against the ex­treme disapproval of second marriages voiced by Tertullian and other Mon- tanists, later patristic writers in the fourth and fifth centuries maintained that approval of second and subsequent marriages was an article of orthodox belief.

^lioDidascalia 1.3.1-9, ed. Funk 1:8-10; Montan, “Alie origini,” p. 162.

⁹¹ Didascalia 1.8.17-18, ed. Funk 1:24.

⁹²Visky, “Divorce,” p. 244; Charles Lefebvre, “Origines et evolution de faction en declaration de nullite de mariage,” Revue de droit Canonique [cited hereafter as RDC] 26 (1976) 24.

^a3Hennas, Pastor, mandatum 4.4, ed. and trans. Robert Jolly, Sources chretiennes, no. 53 (Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1958), pp. 162-63; Rordorf, “Marriage in the New Testa­ment,” p. 205.

⁹⁴Justin Martyr, Apologia 1.15, in PG 6:349-52.

^a5Tertullian, Ad uxorem 1.7.4, in CCL 1:381; Andre Rosambert, La veuve en droit Canonique Jusqu au XlVe siecle (Paris: DalIIoz, 1923), pp. 101-5.

⁹⁶Tertullian, De exhortatione castitatis 9.1 and De monogamia 4.3, 10.7, 15.1, in CCL 2:1027, 1233, 1243, 1250.

⁹⁷Tertullian, De monogamia 1.1. in CCL 2:1229.

⁹⁸1 Tim. 3:2.

⁹⁹Tertullian, De monogamia 12.1 — 5, in CCL 2:1247-48.

Even so, most leading Christian authors of this later period held that second marriage, although allowed, ought to be discouraged.™

Marriages of the clergy posed special problems for Christian authorities. Al­though a few early writers expressed a preference that clerics not marry at all, nearly every third-century Christian clergymen whose marital status is known seems to have been married.¹⁰¹ The first effort to prohibit clerical marriage ap­peared in the canons of Elvira in the early fourth century.¹⁰² Nearly half of the Elvira canons dealt with sexual problems.¹⁰³ This legislation required a far stricter standard of sexual behavior from the clergy than from the laity. Trans­gressions that were lightly punished when committed by a layman were subject to severe penalties when a cleric was the culprit.¹⁰⁴ The Elvira canons deprived bishops, priests, and deacons who committed fornication of the right to receive communion, save on their deathbeds; the canons also required the higher clergy to divorce their wives and demanded that they cease marital relations if the wife had committed adultery. The canons forbade female servants to live in the same dwelling with a clergyman, unless the woman was a close blood relative.¹⁰⁵

The most radical of the Elvira canons required that married clerics abstain permanently from sexual intercourse with their wives. Those who contravened this provision were to be deposed from office.¹⁰⁶ The Elvira celibacy canon be-

¹⁰⁰Rosambert, Veuve, pp. 105-8; Lecky, Hist, of European Morals 2:326-27; Coun­cil of Elvira, c. 72, in Concilios Visigoticos e Hispano-Romanos, ed. Jose Vives, Tomas Marin Martinez, and Gonzalo Martinez Diez, Espana cristiana, vol. 1 (Barcelona and Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, 1963), p. 14.

¹⁰¹ Roger Gryson, Les origines du celibat ecclesiastique du premiere au septieme sie- cle, Recherches et syntheses, section d’histoire, vol. 2 (Geinbloux: J. Duclot, 1970), pp. 32-36.

¹⁰²The date of the council is disputed. The editors of Concilios Visigoticos placed it between 300 and 306, while Samuel Laeuchli, Power and Sexuality: The Emergence of Canon Law at the Synod of Elvira (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1972), pp. 86-87, placed it in 309. Maurice Meigne, “Concile ou collection d’Elvire?” Revue d’histoire ecclesiastique 70 (1975) 361-87, argues that the received text of the Elvira canons is a composite of genuine conciliar enactments and two sets of earlier canons. Whether Meigne is correct or not, these canons circulated as a conciliar text in the early Middle Ages and were believed to represent an authoritative body of regulations con­cerning sexual problems. Without prejudice to Meignes views, I shall continue to em­ploy conventional usage and refer to the text as the canons of the Council of Elvira. See also Roger Gryson, “Dix ans de recherches sur les origines du celibat ecclesiastique: Reflexions sur les publications des annees 1970-1979,” Revue theologique de Louvain 11 (1980) 162-63.

^1a1Laeuchli, Power and Sexuality, p. 61, table 4, presents a topical analysis of the legislation.

^l04Lacuchli, Power and Sexuality, p. 94.

¹⁰⁵Council of Elvira, c. 18, 27, 65, in Vives, Concilios Visigoticos, pp. 5, 6, 13; Mon­tan, “Alie origini,” p. 165.

¹⁰⁶Council of Elvira, c. 33, in Vives, Concilios Visigoticos, p. 7; Gryson, Origines du gan a controversy that has troubled the Western Church down to the present. Although there is little evidence that the regulation had any immediate effect or that there was any serious or widespread effort to enforce it, the canon stated an ideal that a great many Christians ever since have seen as laudable, even sublime. Others, however, have denounced mandatory clerical celibacy as iniq­uitous and contrary to both human nature and the Scriptures.

The Elvira canons seem to represent an attempt to define a Christian self­identity. What made a Christian different from a pagan? Part of the answer, according to the Elvira canons, was that Christians observed a strict code of sexual ethics. Some writers have argued that the authors of the Elvira canons were also interested in asserting the power of the clergy as an elite group within the Christian community.^{[316] [317] The celibacy canon identified complete sex­ual abstinence as a central characteristic of this new clerical elite. By requiring the clergy to abstain entirely from sex and by ousting those who failed to live up to that standard, the Elvira canons implicitly proclaimed the moral superiority of the clergy to the common run of the laity, who were by implication too weak- willed and too lacking in discipline to measure up to the moral standards re­quired of their clerical leaders. The requirement of clerical celibacy strongly implied, in addition, that marriage was undesirable for churchmen because the sexual relations of clerics with their wives created a ritual impurity incompati­ble with the performance of Christian rites, especially the eucharistic liturgy.[318] The celibacy canon thus rejected sex as unworthy of the most dedicated and disciplined Christians, although it also implicitly acknowledged the importance of sex for the majority of humans.}

Concubinage seems to have been common among Christians during the sec­ond and third centuries. St. Hippolytus (ca. 170 ~ 75-ca. 235) advised men who kept concubines to relinquish them and to marry, but he stopped short of condemning concubinage as sinful.^[319] By the early third century the Church had not yet developed either a coherent marriage doctrine or a comprehensive mat­rimonial law and continued to treat concubinage as a normal social practice.^[320] Concubinage was in any case part of Christianity’s heritage from its Jewish past, and no strong moral imperative required Christians to reject this feature of the societies in which they lived.^[321] Pope St. Calixtus I (217-22) ruled that the Church should accept as marriages all unions in which the parties were forbid­den by civil law to marry one another—such as, for example, cohabitation be­tween a free woman and a slave. Although civil law made it impossible for these persons to marry each other, the Church would nonetheless accept them as a married couple and would not penalize them for remaining together.¹¹² Thus the Church in the early third century had begun to assimilate concubinage to marriage, at least in some situations.¹¹³

Concubinage itself was undergoing change in this period. Civil rules requir­ing that concubines be chosen only from the ranks of lower-class women were becoming obsolete by the early third century; in that period a woman of the matron class might become the concubine of a lower-class man if she made her intention a matter of record.¹¹⁴ Likewise contubernium, the nonmatrimonial coupling of slaves, came to be treated in the third century as concubinage though still not as marriage.¹¹⁵ As the numbers of those involved in concubinage relationships increased because of changes in the legal definition of the institu­tion, the Church found it appropriate to treat concubinage with tolerance and to accept it for ecclesiastical purposes as an alternative kind of marriage, rather than as a nonmatrimonial union.

The Church in the second and third centuries was not prepared to tolerate most other kinds of nonmarital sexual liaisons. Unchastity ranked with homi­cide and idolatry as the most serious offenses in the early Church’s penal law.¹¹⁶ Among the sins of the flesh, the Church’s attention centered primarily on three: fornication, adultery, and the sexual corruption of young boys.¹¹⁷

Of these sexual sins, fornication was treated with the least severity, particu­larly fornication by young people, which counted as a fairly minor offense.¹¹⁸ Fornication by older persons, particularly after baptism, ranked as a more rep­rehensible infraction and might constitute grounds for refusing to ordain a pro­spective clergyman.¹¹⁹ Women who allowed themselves to be persuaded to have premarital intercourse with the men whom they later married were treated comparatively leniently, but those who had sex with other men incurred harsh punishment.¹²⁰ Christians who fornicated with non-Christians were likewise subject to severe penalties.¹²¹ Clement of Alexandria, moreover, advised Chris­tians to be cautious in their use of the public baths, since bathing in mixed com-

¹¹²Gaudemet, “Decision de Callixte," pp. 335, 343.

" ⁱEsmein, Mariage 2:109-10.

¹¹⁴Gide, “De la condition de Γenfant natural,” pp. 558-59.

¹¹⁵Gaudemet, “Decision de Callixte," p. 340; Lowenstein, Bekdmpfung, p. 16

¹¹⁶Didache 2.1-2 and 3.3, in The Apostolic Fathers, ed. Kirsopp Lake (Loeb); Henry Charles Lea, History of Auricular Confession and Indulgences in the Latin Church, 3 vols. (Philadelphia: Lea Brothers, 1896; repr. NewYork: Greenwood Press, 1968) 1:16.

¹¹⁷Michel Foucault, “Le combat de la chastete,” in Sexualites occidentales, p. 18.

�“Council of Elvira, c. 31, in Vives, Concilios Visigdticos, p. 7.

â€?“Council of Elvira, c. 30, in Vives, Concilios Visigdticos, p. 7. ¹²⁰Council of Elvira, c. 14, in Vives, Concilios Visigdticos, p. 4. ¹²¹Council of Elvira, c. 78, in Vives, Concilios Visigdticos, p. 15. pany might easily lead to more intimate contacts. Clement refrained, however, from prescribing abstinence from the bath altogether as a moral prophylactic.¹²²

Adultery was a far more serious offense than fornication in the eyes of pa­tristic writers and often counted on a par with murder in the scale of wicked­ness.¹²³ The Didascalia apostolorum forbade married men and women to dress or adorn themselves in ways that might attract lustful admiration and thus lead to adulterous temptations.¹²⁴ St. Athenagoras (late second century) character­ized adulterers, together with pederasts, as enemies of Christianity and sub­jected both groups to the harshest penalties available to the pre-Constantinian Church, namely exclusion from its membership.¹²⁵ Women who persisted in adulterous relationships were excommunicated without hope of readmission; those who ended their adulterous unions were subject to a ten-year penance before readmission to communion.¹²⁶ The adulterous wife of a cleric, as noted earlier, was treated with particular severity. Her husband was required to expel her immediately and forever from their home and never to associate with her again; she was also permanently excommunicated from the Church.¹²⁷ The cleric who delayed action against his spouse and tried to shield her from the consequences of her folly was also excommunicated. Even a brief delay might result in a ten-year exclusion from the Church’s fellowship.¹²⁸

Male adulterers were also subject to stringent penalties. The Elvira canons distinguished between married men who were guilty of a single extramarital adventure and those who were habitually unfaithful. A single offense merited five years of penance, at the end of which the offender might be readmitted to communion. The man who repeatedly committed adultery, however, was con­demned to lifelong penance and his restoration to communion had to wait until he was on his deathbed.¹²⁹

¹²²CIcment of Alexandria, Paedagogus 3.31.1-3.33.¹> 3.46.1-3.48.3, ed. Stahlin 12:254-55, 263-64; likewise Cyprian, De habitu virginum 19, in his Opera omnia, cd. Wilhelm Hartel, 3 vols., CSEL, vol. 3 (Vienna: C. Gerold, 1868-71) 3/1:200-201; Broudehoux, Mariage etfamille, ρ. 192; Spanneut, Stoicisme des peres, ρ. 199.

¹²¹Rordorf, “Marriage,” p. 204.

¹²⁴The Didascalia apostolorum 2.1.3, 3∙i∙8, Syriac version, trans. Margaret Dunlop Gibson, in Horae semiticae, vol. 2 (London: C.J. Clay and Sons, 1903), pp. 3-4, 9-10.

¹²⁵Athenagoras, Legatio 34, in PG 6:967-68; Spanneut, Stoicisme desperes, p. 111, demonstrates that Clement of Alexandria’s treatment of adultery in Paedagogus 2.100.1 was borrowed directly from the Stoic writer Musonius.

^12eCouncil of Elvira, c. 64, in Vives, Concilios Visigoticos, pp. 12-13.

¹²⁷Council of Elvira, c. 65, in Vives, Concilios Visigdticos, p. 13; but as early as the mid-second century the Pastor of Hermas, mand. 4.1.4-8, had recommended im­mediate repudiation of an adulterous wife, even by a layman; see Apostolic Fathers, ed. Lake 2:79.

¹²⁸Council of Elvira, c. 70, in Vives, Concilios Visigoticos, pp. 13-14; this parallels prescriptions in an earlier rescript of the Emperors Valerian and Galienus (257) in Cod. 9.9.17.1.

¹²⁹Council of Elvira, c. 47 and c. 69, in Vives, Concilios Visigoticos, pp. 10, 13.

Ecclesiastics during the Church’s first three centuries had little to say about rape. From the fourth century onward, however, Church authorities joined the efforts of the imperial government to repress sexual assault.^[322] The Council of Ancyra (314) required that a betrothed woman who had been forcibly abducted and assaulted be restored to her fiance;^[323] the Council of Chalcedon (451) pre­scribed that clerics guilty of rape be deposed from office; laymen who com­mitted this offense were subject to anathema or excommunication.^{[324] [325] These provisions were reiterated in the sixth century by Pope Symmachus (498-5M)∙,33}

The early Church also banned prostitutes from the Christian community. Hippolytus, writing early in the third century, noted that those who practiced certain trades and professions were ineligible for reception into the Church un­less they renounced their occupations; among those excluded were prostitutes, along with pagan priests, magicians, astrologers, gladiators, and soldiers.^[326] The Elvira canons likewise stipulated that prostitutes might be admitted to the Church only if they had renounced their trade and married.^[327] Pimps and pan­ders were similarly ineligible for Church membership. If they took up these occupations after baptism, they were excommunicated.^[328] Lactantius, more than any other Christian writer of his generation, showed some empathy for the prostitutes situation. Brothels, he declared, are diabolical establishments, and no one in them escapes the snare of sin. Both the client who yields to lustful abandon and the unfortunate women who suffer his odious attentions are mired in wickedness.^[329]

Few Christian writers of the first three centuries had much to say about ho­mosexual activities on the part of the Church’s members, but St. Paul’s condem­nation of both active and passive gay sex apparently continued to represent the Christian norm.^[330] Sex with young boys was particularly disapproved, and the Elvira canons penalized such conduct severely.^[331]