Modern scholarship has left us familiar with the idea that the standard presentations of Biblical statements on homoerotic relationships are frequently misrepresentations of the texts, and are certainly highly selective cherry picking. Well-known examples are the regular recourse to the story of Sodom, which quite clearly says nothing at all about homosexual relationships, and the constant quotation of males lying with males as an abomination, while totally disregarding the many other Levitical proscriptions that are equally described as “abominations” – but are routinely ignored. It is quite clear that rather than using the Bible to develop their theology, many people have simply formulated a repressive theology, and found the texts to support it.
For some time I have been wondering whether the same process of selective cherry-picking and misrepresentation might have taken place in the development, over many centuries, of the magisterium. Do modern statements of the “magisterium” misrepresent its early development ? At this stage I do not know one way or the other, but a quotation I came across today certainly suggest that some cherry picking and distortion has occurred. Read this quotation carefully:
Anyone who persuades a boy who has been abducted, either who by himself or by his corrupt accomplices to submit to lewdness, or anyone who attempts to seduce a woman or a girl, or who does anything to encourage her to debauchery by paying her money or giving her gifts in order to persuade her, and any of these crime is accomplished, shall be punished with death; and if it is not accomplished, he shall be deported to some island. Their corrupted accomplices shall suffer the same penalty.
This is from the writings of a third century jurist “Paulus”, whom I have not previously come across. I do not yet know how significant his writing has been on the later development of theology of homoerotic relationships, but Michael Goodich states that it was repeatedly cited in both canon and secular law to justify the most extreme punishment of sexual acts. and is a key element in the foundation of the influential “Decretum” of Gratian (1140)/ But who exactly are the offenders being condemned here? Let us read it again, breaking up the identification of offenders into two parts, for two clearly distinct classes of offenders, and adding emphasis to indicate the victims of the crimes:
Anyone who persuades a boy who has been either abducted by him or by his accomplices to submit to lewd acts.
That’s boys (not adult men) who have been abducted (not willing partners, still less regular and committed lovers). This is about child kidnap and rape, then. Yet, if Goodich is right, this has been used repeatedly in later years to justify the severest penalties against sodomites of all shades. In using a statement of a severe penalty against child abductors and rapists to support equally severe penalties against all loving male relationships, this is surely a clear case of distortion of the original text.
Now for the second part.
anyone who attempts to seduce a woman or a girl, or who does anything to encourage her to debauchery by paying her money or giving her gifts in order to persuade her.
A “woman or girl” quite clearly does not refer to homosexual love, but to the standard, heterosexual kind. There is also no question of force being at issue – just common or garden seduction, or payment for sexual favours – prostitution. I would want to know more, but superficially this would seem to prohibit sexual activity with any woman not under a man’s control – in Roman terms, usually his wife concubines and slaves. But has this text also been used to build a harsh and vengeful theology demanding death or banishment for any man having it off with a woman who is not his wife? Quite the contrary – there have been times when the Church has actively promoted the establishment of brothels, sponsoring one of the activities condemned by Paulus, in order to combat the temptation to do it with other adult men – which is not condemned in the text. This is a clear case of selective application, analogous to the routine ignoring of Leviticus’ horror at eating shellfish, or shaving one’s beard.
Are there other examples where the magisterium has distorted the texts it claims to rest on? Well, that nasty word “sodomy” is one more excellent example – and I am not, here, even referring to the inappropriate hijacking of the name of the city. Ignoring the etymology, the original use of the term to describe a class of sinful actions incorporated a wide range of offences. Various sexual activities were included under its umbrella, including acts with women or alone, but also ideas that today we would treat as entirely independently – heresy and even treason.
Is the misappropriation of the quotation by Paulus an isolated error, or part of a wider pattern? Have I myself misrepresented his meaning, is there perhaps a wider context, to show that his words did indeed have a broader application? Is there, indeed, a case that my initial hunch may have some merit: have the mainstream theologians of sex been reading the magisterium backwards? I really don’t know: but I hope to find out.
