After two thousand years of a clear understanding that Romans 1.26-27 and 1 Corinthians 6.9 understand homosexuality to be sinful, some revisionist interpreters in the late 20th century began to venture alternative—albeit contradictory—readings of Biblical texts in a vain attempt to dismiss Scripture’s testimony declaring homosexuality to be a sin. Some revisionist interpretations have even been proposed by Biblical and Classics scholars, who should know better but who, for one reason or another (sometimes even intentionally), have misled their readers.[1]
Some of the revisionist
readings, however, can be dismissed by considering just a few passages in
Plutarch (1st/2nd c. AD). This is helpful, since laity can become
confused amidst all the primary texts from antiquity that might be
considered. The following, brief study examines some of the conceptual
and linguistic parallels between Paul and Plutarch in just a few
passages. Plutarch undermines a number of the fanciful, revisionist
readings of the two texts in Paul. (There is, of course, no textual relation
between these two authors.)
In Plutarch’s Dialogue
on Love, two characters argue over whether homosexual or heterosexual love is
better. (Some other dialogues covered the same subject.)[2] Homosexual
love is discussed with respect to pedophilia, but the age of participants in
same-sex love is not at all the issue. Pederasty is handled as
same-sex relationships. The real issue being argued at this point in
the argument is the distinction between friendship and erotic love as expressed
in homosexual and heterosexual relations. In the
dialogue, Protogenes argues against mere sexual pleasure by arguing for
homosexual friendship. He rejects lust:
…
mere pleasure is base and unworthy of a free man. For this reason also it is not
gentlemanly or urbane to make love to slave boys: such a love is mere
copulation, like the love of women (Plutarch, Dialogue on Love 751b).[3]
Protogenes is not arguing
against sexual intercourse and is actually arguing for homosexuality. He argues
that homosexual love of boys (not the use of slave boys) is preferable when it
is voluntary as it is first friendship. He does not believe that
friendship is possible between men and women as the basis of the relationship
is sexual pleasure first and last:
genuine Love has no
connexion whatsoever with the women’s quarters. I deny that it is love that you
have felt for women and girls—any more than flies feel love for milk (Plutarch, Dialogue on Love 750c).
Daphnaeus, on the other
hand, argues that heterosexual love is natural love, being what nature intends
for the production of children and continuation of the human
race. (This is Paul’s position.) To counter Protogenes,
he says that friendship can develop even if sex is the initial attraction
between men and women. Of particular interest is a passage that allows comparison with
Paul's language:
But I count this as a great argument in favour of [men’s love of] women: if
[for argument’s sake][4] union
contrary to nature [παρὰ φύσιν] with males does not destroy or curtail a
lover’s tenderness, it stands to reason that the love between men and women,
being normal and natural [τῇ φύσει], will be conducive to friendship developing
in due course from favour [‘favour’ means freely giving sex]…. But to consort
with males (whether without consent, in which case it involves violence and
brigandage; or if with consent, there is still weakness [softness, μαλακίᾳ] and
effeminacy [θηλύτητι] on the part of those who, contrary to nature [παρὰ φύσιν],
allow themselves in Plato’s words’ to be covered and mounted like
cattle’)—this is a completely ill-favoured favour, indecent, an unlovely
affront to Aphroditê (Plutarch, Dialogue on Love 751c-e).
The comparison between a
few passages in Plutarch and Paul of ideas and language can be more
clearly seen in a table:
|
Plutarch |
Paul |
|
Homosexual sex is ‘ill-favoured’ and ‘indecent’ [ἀσχήμων]
and an affront to Aphrodite, the goddess of love |
Homosexual sex is ‘shameless’ [ἀσχημοσύνην] (Romans 1.27) |
|
Heterosexual love is normal and ‘natural’ [τῇ φύσει]. Homosexual
sex is ‘contrary to nature’ [παρὰ φύσιν]. |
Lesbians exchange ‘natural use’ [of sexual
organs; φυσικὴν χρῆσιν] for what is ‘against nature’ [τὴν παρὰ
φύσιν] (1.26). Homosexual male acts involve men forsaking the ‘natural
use’ [τὴν φυσικὴν χρῆσιν] of women (1.27) |
|
Daphnaeus sidelines the argument that homosexuality
might destroy or curtail a lover’s tenderness. However, whether
rape or consensual, homosexual sex involves softness [μαλακίᾳ] and effeminacy.[5] 'If you wish to distress the man who hates
you, do not revile him as lewd [κίναιδον][6],
effeminate [soft, μαλακὸν], licentious, vulgar, or illiberal, but be a man
yourself, show self-control, be truthful, and treat with kindness and justice
those who have to deal with you' (Plutarch, How
to Profit by One's Enemies 4).[7] Note that the word ‘soft’ [μαλακὸν] appears between
two other sexual terms and should be understood here to refer to
homosexuality, as it often does.[8]
It is here differentiated from the word for the active male giving sex in
a homosexual relationship (κίναιδον). |
Homosexuals receive ‘in themselves the due penalty
for their error’ (1.27) Homosexuals are ‘soft men’ [μαλακοὶ] (1 Cor. 6.9) |
Conclusions: Over against recent revisionist suggestions to read
Romans 1.26-27 differently, Paul is speaking about homosexuality and saying
that it is a sin. He does not mention pederasty because he is not talking
about it. Even when Plutarch has his characters focus on pederasty in the passage cited, the
discussion is really about homosexuality, not adult males having sex with
boys. The problem that Daphnaeus and Paul have with homosexuality is not
that it is not mutual love of adults but that it is unnatural love.
Unnatural love is not, as some revisionist have ventured, acting against your
own inclinations (such as a heterosexual male having sex with another male) but
same-sex love. Daphnaeus says it is against the goddess, Aphrodite; Paul
says it is against God the creator. Nor is the issue having same-sex with
slaves—Daphnaeus ignores the point of Protogenes about sex with slave boys
because the issue is homosexual versus heterosexual sex. Both Plutarch and Paul note the diminishment of character among homosexuals--Paul with a vague reference ('in themselves the due penalty'), Plutarch (really Daphnaeus) more explicitly identifies the loss as softness and effeminacy.
The closeness of argument between Daphnaeus and Paul
extends to the Greek terminology used: indecent/shameful,’ ‘against nature,’ ‘natural,’ and
‘soft’ (bringing in 1 Corinthians 6.9 to the discussion of Romans
1.26-27). Moreover, ‘soft’ takes the argument beyond a
discussion of the act to a discussion of orientation or disposition, which both
Daphnaeus and Paul argue, against a number of ancient and modern writers, is
not natural.
So much has been written on homosexuality in recent
decades that distorts the issues and attempts to dart down some shadowy cul-de-sac of interpretation to undermine the
unchanging witness of both Scripture and the Church over centuries.
One of the problems with these recent challenges is that they have thrown up
alternative theses that confuse their readers and go nowhere under scrutiny, but they have done so without
proper attention to the relevant primary texts. Under closer examination of
primary sources, such as Plutarch, the revisionist readings are easily
dispelled. This brief essay considers a few texts from a near
contemporary of Paul's, a popular and prolific, pagan author, Plutarch. Paul, of course, is not dependent on non-Jewish contexts for his theology, but he easily uses language from his Graeco-Roman context to express himself to an audience that is also familiar with it. These passages from Plutarch demonstrate this.
[1] S.
Donald Fortson and Rollin G. Grams, Unchanging Witness: The Consistent
Christian Teaching on Homosexuality in Scripture and Tradition (Nashville:
B&H Press, 2016).
[2] Cf.
Xenophon, Symposium (4th c. BC) and
Lucian, Amores (4th c. AD).
[3] Plutarch, Moralia,
Vol. IX, trans. Edwin Minar, Jr., F. H. Sandrach, and W. C. Helmbold (Loeb
Classical Library; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1928).
[4] This
is the meaning of the first class conditional in Greek.
[5] For
example, Plutarch offers a few characteristics when he discusses false
accusations of homosexuality: ‘an unwarranted suspicion of unmanliness was
aroused against Lacydes, king of the Argives, by a certain arrangement of his
hair and a mincing gait, and Pompey suffered in the same way on account of
his habit of scratching his head with one finger [a signal for homosexuals],
although he was very far removed from effeminacy and licentiousness’ (Plutarch, How to profit by one's enemies 6). Homosexuality
is one example of softness in men. People who are soft are incapable
of self-control, too weak to withstand desires. Plutarch says, ‘But
for a man who is sick it is intolerable, nay, an aggravation of the sickness,
to be told, “See what comes of your intemperance [ἀκρασίας], your
soft living [μαλακίας], your gluttony and wenching” (How to Tell a Flatterer
from a Friend 28). Similarly, they like soft living, which is
characteristic of women, who are soft. Thus, homosexual men are soft
men in the senses that they (1) in to vice; (2) play the part of soft women;
and (3) like the soft life.
[6] That
is, the active partner in a male, same-sex relationship, over against the pathic.
[7] Plutarch, Moralia,
Vol. II, trans. Frank Cole Babbitt (Loeb Classical Library; Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1928).
[8] Cf. the extensive discussion in chapter 15 of Fortson and Grams, Unchanging Witness.
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