Law and Sex in Early Christianity

The Gospels have little to say about sex, and their silence implies that Jesus was relatively uninterested in the subject. He was apparently far more concerned with other matters and spoke at greater length on such topics as wealth and demonic possession.³⁸ While Jesus did not reject traditional Jewish beliefs about marriage and the family,^[280] he differed from most traditional teachers in the emphasis that he placed upon love as a paramount element in marriage.^[281] Both Jesus and his early followers anticipated that Christian married couples would live within the context of traditional Jewish culture, but encouraged them to pattern their personal relationship upon the mutual self-giving that lay at the heart of the notion of agape among his early followers.

A similar acceptance of the cultural context in which he lived characterized Jesus’ treatment of divorce. While he did not ban divorce entirely, Jesus viewed it as a last resort rather than a routine solution to marriage problems.^[283] He taught that grounds for divorce should be restricted, and here he was certainly at odds with the prevailing opinion among other rabbis. Adultery was the sole reason that Jesus would countenance for divorce; even when adultery occurred, he was loath to allow remarriage following divorce, although he apparently did not absolutely forbid it.^[284]

Several passages in the Gospels condemn porneia. This word carried a num­ber of different meanings. At times porneia means prostitution, at other times it refers to nonmarital sex in general.^[285] It is difficult to be certain, for example, whether the term applied to premarital intercourse between persons betrothed to one another or, indeed, to any type of noncommercial, heterosexual relations of the kind conventionally labeled “fornication.” Since neither the Torah nor most rabbinical teachers contemporary with Jesus prohibited intercourse be­tween unmarried partners as a moral offense, perhaps porneia referred pri­marily to sex with prostitutes, adultery, and other promiscuous relationships.^[286] Jesus clearly considered adultery a serious moral problem, but there too his teachings differed from traditional Jewish law, which prescribed the death pen­alty for the offense.

Jesus’ attitude toward prostitution was also atypical of conventional Jewish thought. Although he did not condone prostitution and showed no particular tolerance for it as an institution, Jesus did not condemn individual harlots. A well-known Gospel passage reports him as saying that publicans and prostitutes would enter heaven ahead of the religiously scrupulous pharisees.^{[287] [288] This pas­sage, of course, does not mean Jesus considered prostitutes somehow superior over others in their claim to salvation. Rather, he used the prostitute as a sym­bol for all sinners who, if genuinely repentant, were as worthy of divine mercy as scrupulous observers of the niceties of the law. Perhaps Jesus reasoned that the degraded nature of the harlot’s calling assured that she had learned humil­ity, which, in turn, predisposed her to receive the gift of salvation. In any event Jesus’ tolerance for prostitutes and other social outcasts aggravated the hostility of conventional religious authorities toward his teaching.[289]}

A few Gospel passages, particularly in Luke, give the impression that Jesus may have considered sex a barrier to salvation. In the parable of the invitation to the nuptial banquet, for example, Luke listed marriage among the unaccept­able excuses offered by those who wished to avoid attending the festivities. A few lines later, Luke represented Jesus as insisting that a man who wished to follow him must reject the love of his wife. In yet another passage, Luke as­cribed to Jesus a saying that appeared to mean that celibacy is necessary for salvation, a message that was bound to shock Jewish audiences. Luke’s account thus presents the most radical treatment of Jesus’ views on sex to be found among the evangelists, portraying him as sharply at odds with conventional rab­binical opinion on sexual matters.^[290]

The growth of Christian beliefs and practices perceptibly distinct from and sometimes directly opposed to traditional Jewish teachings continued during the decades that followed the death of Jesus.

Paul’s letters show far greater concern with sexual issues than the Gospel writers attributed to Jesus. Paul considered sex a major source of sin and a fre­qent impediment to the Christian life. Although he did not place sexual of­fenses at the top of his hierarchy of sins, they nonetheless occupied a promi­nent place in Paul’s thought. He considered illicit sex almost as serious as murder.⁵¹ In two different passages Paul sketched out a theory of sexual sins that distinguished among four types of offenders: prostitutes, adulterers, “the soft ones” (masturbators and others who use sex primarily for pleasure), and men (but apparently not women) who have sex with one another. All of these he considered sinful, and those who indulged in such practices were unworthy of Gods kingdom.⁵²

Paul’s treatment both of illicit sex outside of marriage ( porneia) and of marital sex itself was influenced by his conviction that the end of the world was immi­nent. Believing that the world would soon end, Paul took it as a corollary that all earthly concerns, including sex, should hold little interest for Christians. His strong disapproval of sexual misconduct did not necessarily represent a revul­sion at its moral enormity; rather Paul seemed to feel that those who spent their time and energy in pursuit of sexual pleasure had their priorities wrong and should be attending instead to preparations for the final judgment.⁵³

Although Paul considered sex a distraction from matters of greater impor­tance, he gave considerable attention to the institution of marriage and to the sexual relations of married persons.

Paul then continued, in the sequel to this passage, to discuss some problems of marital ethics. Christians, he told the Corinthians, should not divorce; those

^siPhilippe Aries, “Saint Paul et la chair, ” in Sexualites occidentales, pp. 35-36. This view was similar to ideas current among some Stoics. How much St. Paul knew about Stoicism is unclear, but since he was a native of Tarsus, the birthplace of two eminent Stoic teachers and a city famous for its schools, it is unlikely that he was completely ignorant of its main teachings. See Arthur Darby Nock, “Early Gentile Christianity and Its Hellenistic Background,” in his Essays on Religion and the Ancient World, 2 vols. (Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1972) 1:125-26; Frank BottomIey, Attitudes to the Body in Western Christendom (London: Lepus Books, 1979), pp. 31-32.

⁵²ι Cor. 6:9-10; 1 Tim. 1:10; cf. 1 Thess. 4:3-7. See also Aries, “St. Paul,” p. 34. ⁵³Rordorf, “Marriage in the New Testament,” p. 195; Boswell, CSTAH, p. 115; Kosnik et al., Human Sexuality, pp. 17, 29; Fuchs, Sexual Desire and Love, p. 76.

⁵⁴1 Cor. 7:9; Fuchs, Sexual Desire and Love, p. 75.

who nonetheless did divorce should not remarry. Even Christians whose spouses did not share their faith should remain married and seek to convert their unbelieving partners.^ss Paul, or more likely one of his followers, also took up questions of marital ethics in the letter to the Ephesians.

Still other passages in the Pauline letters dealt specifically with the role of sex in marriage. Sex united husband and wife both physically and spiritually and made them two persons in one flesh, just as the Christians spiritual union with Jesus joined two persons in one spirit. Because of the sacred character of marital sex, Paul continued, sex outside of marriage was forbidden. The pro­hibition applied particularly to sex with prostitutes, for this was a species of defilement. Sex was good only within marriage, and indeed, wedded sex might even be an aid to salvation. Christians who were spiritual giants might be able to do without marital sex; more ordinary folk needed sexual solace and had a right to seek it in marriage.^{[291] [292] [293]}

Marriage, in Paul’s view, was good, though less good than virginity, but he frowned on remarriage. Upon the death of first wife or husband, Paul grudgingly allowed the surviving spouse to remarry, but he made it clear that he con­sidered second marriages less than worthy of a committed Christian. Paul felt that remarriage of a widower disqualified him for high office in the Christian community.^[294]

Paul’s condemnation of extramarital sex was sweeping and unqualified. When he used the term porneia. Paul’s meaning was unequivocal—it embraced any and all sexual relationships outside of marriage.^[295] He singled out homosexual relations for special condemnation and declared that neither “the soft ones” (masturbators and other sensualists) nor men who have sexual relations with other men would enter the kingdom of God.^[296]