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A Great Cloud of Moral Witness
James S. Spiegel on the Solid Historical Consensus Regarding Homosexual Practice
During the last generation there has been a dramatic shift of perspective in the West regarding sexual morality—a shift away from the traditional Judeo-Christian ethic of sex as appropriate only within heterosexual marriage and in the direction of affirming any sexual relationship so long as it takes place between consenting adults. In the North American churches, many people are embracing one aspect of this movement, specifically, to be gay-affirming, in the sense that they believe homosexual activity is morally permissible so long as it involves two committed adults. Now, there are many reasons to be skeptical of this movement, but one reason rarely noted among traditionalists is that there appear to have been no gay-affirming Christian scholars (theologians, philosophers, ethicists, and the like) in history until the latter part of the twentieth century.
This is germane to the question of a Christian's skepticism about the gay-affirming position, and here's why. As Christians, we should take seriously the wealth of moral and theological wisdom that has preceded us historically, and where there is a strong consensus among our best thinkers about an issue, we should grant a strong presumption in favor of that view.
Historical Survey
It is clear that there is a historical consensus among Christian scholars regarding homosexual practice. Strong condemnations of it appear as early as the second century among the apostolic fathers, such as Athenagoras, who was outraged by "those who have set up a market for fornication, and established infamous resorts for the young for every kind of vile pleasure—who do not abstain even from males, males with males committing shocking abominations." Two decades later, Tertullian declared "the coupling of two males to be a very shameful thing," and Clement of Alexandria decried various forms of sexual immorality commonly practiced in his time, including when "men play the part of women, and women that of men, contrary to nature; women are at once wives and husbands: no passage is closed against libidinousness; and their promiscuous lechery is a public institution."
Such censures of homosexual practice were unexceptional among the early church fathers, including Origen, Cyprian, Hippolytus, Novatian, Basil of Caesarea, Ambrosiaster, and John Chrysostom. In the early fifth century this stance was reaffirmed repeatedly by Augustine in his Epistle 211, The City of God, and Confessions. In the latter he declared that such activities "are abominable and deserve punishment wherever and whenever they are committed." The view was also affirmed in the church councils of the period (e.g., Elvira in a.d. 306 and Ancyra in 314) and in imperial statutes (e.g., that of Constantinius and Constans in 342 and of Valentinian, Theodosius, and Arcadius in 390).
Moving ahead to the early Middle Ages, we find homosexual behavior firmly and repeatedly condemned, in the Welsh Synod (ca. 550) for instance, and in numerous penitential handbooks, including the Penitential of Columban (ca. 600), the Penitential of Cummean (ca. 650), the Burgundian Penitential (ca. 715), the Canons of Theodore (ca. 740), Ecgbert's Penitential (ca. 750), and the Roman Penitential (ca. 830).
In the late Medieval period we find the same uniformly condemnatory attitude, perhaps most stridently in the works of Gratian, who declared the "perverted lust" of those who commit such "acts against nature" to be "always illicit and, without a doubt, disgraceful and criminal." In the late twelfth century, the German mystic Hildegard of Bingen similarly declared that
a man who sins with another man as if with a woman sins bitterly against God and against the union with which God united male and female. . . . And a woman who takes up devilish ways and plays a male role in coupling with another woman is most vile.
This opinion was confirmed by other scholars in this period, such as Alan of Lille, Anselm of Laon, Nicholas of Lyre, Paul of Hungary, and Pope Innocent III, as well as in church councils, including the Council of Nablus (1120), the Third Lateran Council (1179), and the Fourth Lateran Council (1215). Later in the thirteenth century, Thomas Aquinas reinforced this Christian teaching in equally emphatic terms, asserting that among the "sins against nature," sodomy is, except for the sin of bestiality, the "most grievous."
During the Renaissance, Christian condemnations of homosexual practice remained as strong as ever, even in cities like Florence, where it was widespread. Bernardino of Siena, a Franciscan priest and missionary, bemoaned the "cursed sodomites who are so blind in this wickedness of theirs that no matter how beautiful a woman may be, to him she stinks and is displeasing." Bernardino's attitude toward the vice was sufficiently prevalent among the political leaders in Florence that stringent anti-sodomy laws were established throughout the fifteenth century, leading to thousands of convictions and harsh punishments.
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