In setting up a law on sex for his
proposed colony, the Athenian in Plato’s Laws forbids sex outside
marriage between a man and a woman, mentioning in the course of his discourse breaches
of this law in the form of adultery, incest, uncontrolled passion, pederasty, same-sex
acts and orientations, and transgenderism.
The reason for such a law is to keep people from ‘those desires which
frequently plunge many into ruin’ (8.835).[1] His concern in having a law governing sex is
not only that, without it, people will ruin themselves but also that they will injure
the state. What a state allows regarding
sex is not a private matter as sexual practices have many consequences (8.836).
Regarding same-sex sexual acts, he
says that they are not natural (8.836).
The Law should ‘follow in nature’s steps’ in opposing males having sex
with males as with women.[2] In Romans 1.26-28, Paul is concerned with
what is natural and what is against nature, that is, lesbian (Romans 1.26); cf.
Plato, Laws 8.839d: ‘as applied to women, the practice is regarded as
non-natural’) and gay (Romans 1.27) sex.
The concept of ‘Nature’ is common between Plato (and many other writers)
and Paul. As we shall see, Plato turns
to the way animals behave as an example of what is ‘natural’, and Paul
understands what is natural to be the way God created us. Thus, homosexual sex is an unnatural use
of the genitals (Paul has the word ‘use’, which is better than the ESV’s ‘relations’
in 1.26 and 1.27). Plato says that sex of
a depraved nature (tous tas physeis diephtharmenous) (same sex acts) is
called ‘self-inferior’ (hēttous autōn) (8.841). Both of these expressions of interesting for
Paul’s words in Romans 1.26-28.
The word translated ‘depraved’ in
Laws 8.841 means something that is destroyed or corrupted. Paul uses a different word but makes the same
point in Romans 1.28: ‘God gave them up to a debased mind (adokimon noun)
to do what ought not to be done’ (ESV), that is, homosexual acts of women and
men (vv. 26-27). He means by this that such
a mind is unable to test things (adokimazein means ‘unable to test’),
even things that one should be able to say are ‘natural’ or ‘unnatural’. The debased mind will consider unnatural
(homosexual) sex to be natural. Paul’s teaching
in Romans on the justification and sanctification of sinners that comes through
Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit restores the mind, and it can therefore, once
again, test what is God’s will—what is good, acceptable, and perfect
(Romans 12.2).
Of further interest is Plato’s
term for same sex persons whose nature is considered depraved: they are called ‘self-inferior’
persons (hēttous autōn). Plato
also applies the notion of inflicting a punishment on oneself when he discusses
incest (8.838). Paul also has the
thought of self-infliction in mind when he says that men committing sexual acts
with other men receive ‘in themselves’ (en autois) the due penalty of
their digression (planēs), that is, their wandering from what is according
to nature (v. 27).
The Athenian then suggests a law
forbidding sex with any freeborn woman other than a man with own wife, and he
specifically identifies forbidding sex with anyone purchased or otherwise in
his own house, thus including slave women and men (8.840). Earlier describing this law, he says that it
would forbid a man sowing seed that cannot take root (homosexual sex) or where
the seed should not take root (i.e., produce children outside of wedlock, such
as sex with a sibling or parent) (8.838-839).
The law ‘follows the dictates of nature’. It also ‘serves to keep men from sexual rage
and frenzy and all kinds of fornication’ (8.839).
He calls same-sex love ‘irregular
love’ (atakton Aphroditēn) (8.840), which persons might see and hear is
a very great power (megiston dynamēn).
Yet, animals do not conduct themselves this way. Fowl and many animals are chaste and celibate
until it is time to mate, and then they pair off male with female. If it is so with animals, how much more ought
it to be so with citizens? (8.840, also 8.836).
He further says that all people
will consider the person who ‘always yields to pleasures and is never able to
hold out against them’ to be a coward (8.836).
Note that Paul addresses the containment of sexual desire in 1 Corinthians
7. First, the proper place for sex is
between a husband and wife, who should not deprive each other of sex (vv. 2-5). Second, if a young man over marriageable age
acts shamefully toward his virgin (girlfriend), they should marry (v. 36).
The Athenian also mentions transgenderism,
the malakos or ‘soft man’. He
says everyone will
reproach that
man who plays the woman's part with the resemblance he bears to his model? Is
there any man, then, who will ordain by law a practice like that? Not one, I
should say, if he has a notion of what true law is (8.836).
Likewise, Paul considers malakoi
to be sinners, along with men who have sex with other men. Yet he says that these, and other sinners, can
be converted through the work of washing, making righteous, and sanctification
of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6.9-11).
The Athenian recommends exercise
as a way to divert and gain victory over sexual pleasure. Also, society should encourage a culture of
shamefulness on wrongful sexuality, such as public sexual expression. This might be done by advocating godly fear,
love of honour (rather than shameful acts), and a desire for fair forms of
souls (the virtues) rather than bodies (8.841).
For Part One, go to: https://bibleandmission.blogspot.com/2026/06/plato-and-paul-on-how-same-sex-acts-and.html
[1]
Plato, Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vols. 10 & 11, trans. R.G. Bury (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1967 & 1968).
[2]
The actual wording is ‘males and young males as with women’, but the point is not
limited to pederasty, as the discourse continues. The mention of young males (neon) is
due to the mention of Laius of Thebes, who raped the king’s son, thereby
introducing, allegedly, pederasty to Greece.
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