And homosexuality didn't exist, man-on-man sodomy was likened to drunkenness, something men did as to "act the fool".
The term 'homosexuality' didn't exist until the mid-1800s. Prior to that the 'sins' were separately identified via the terms "sodomite" and "catamite". The "sodomite" being the 'active' partner and the "catamite" being the 'receptive' partner (someone who might identify themselves nowadays as 'a bottom'.) So, althought the catch-all phrase of 'homosexual' did not exist, the concept did, with it's origins in pagan societies (I'm looking at you, Rome...).
The Old Testament doesn't quite come out and say that homosexuality is a sin. It speaks of 'abomination' (defined as "that which causes disgust") and 'that which is detestable'. So the bad part of it, apparently, is the feelings it might engender in someone else. Which, if you think about it, is kinda different from a lot of other 'sins'. Mosaic law frames it, as far as I can parse, not as a crime of/or against nature, but a disrupter of community... Something that might introduce bad feelings and problematic emotions into what is supposed to be a tight knit community.
In the New Testament, the Apostle Paul takes an entirely different tack and frames it almost entirely in terms of natural and unnatural.
Personally, I think that if someone is heterosexual and the engage in homosexual acts they are 'un-natural'. I feel the same way about homosexuals: they are being 'un-natural' if they engage in heterosexual acts. In regards to the community aspect; My response is to simply not be disgusted. That's my choice.
15:10 Then he called the crowd to him and said to them, "Listen and understand:
15:11 it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles."
I'm not a Christian, but it sure sounds to me like homophobia is a bigger sin than giving some dude a blow job.
"So, althought the catch-all phrase of 'homosexual' did not exist, the concept did, with it's origins in pagan societies (I'm looking at you, Rome...)."
I must disagree on this point.
The point I was getting at was that in the time that the Bible was written, the notion of homosexuality as a orientation, making one exclusively attracted to the same sex, was totally foreign to just about anyone. The very notion of orientations didn’t exist until, yes, the late 19th century.
Heterosexuality, being attracted to the opposite gender, was a given for all creatures because it is part and parcel of biological reproduction. Thus those men who engaged in sodomy with other men did so for reasons relating to bad character or moral weakness.
Notice I connect homosexuality with male sodomy. That is because female sexuality was not a topic really worthy of discussion until the 20th century. Aside from Sappho, there is not much there. Female sexuality was either to be feared, (because it might cause women to cuckold their husbands), or to be doubted that it exists at all…or both.
What you are speaking of, the “sodomite" and "catamite", are realities in the Ancient world. But they refer to behaviors, not orientations. In Greek and Roman society, being a sodomite was fine. Being a Calamite was only fine if you were being sodomized by a man who was more prominent that you. To be sodomized by a lower-class man was a great shame. It was willingly adopting the role of a woman and no rational, decent man would ever want to be a woman.
The Old Testament preaches against actions, specifically pederasty. Pederasty was and is the sexual use of a younger man by an older man. This is basically what I speak of in the prior paragraph, only with class distinctions taken out of the equation.
I must say that I’m not sure where you are coming from with the reasoning that an abomination is a sin only because it causes disgust in others. I have never heard of such reasoning before. Abominations are sins because they are detestable, full stop. The Old Testament writers had no sense of natural law, (the New Testament writers had very little sense of it either), but you can liken the prohibitions as akin to natural law. Surely that’s what St. Thomas Aquinas and his followers do.
But all of Mosaic Law, looked at in retrospect, is law to further a stable community. A stable community, that is, in the tribal sense. Dietary restrictions, elaborate cleanliness rituals, condemnations against adultery, theft and lying in legal proceeding…..all of it, (not counting the laws regarding religious worship itself), are to help a close-knit, inward-looking, primitive culture survive. Why Mosaic Law spoke out against, well, let’s call them “non-heterosexual acts”? There are theories, from “it was too closely linked to pagan worship”, to, “it doesn’t help build up a population looking to get bigger”.
The New Testament is far less concerned with these non-heterosexual acts. There are only three sections that speak of them. Passages in 1st Corinthians and 1st Timothy speak of sodomites in the same exact way they speak of drunks and greedy people. Strictly in terms of behavior and no worse than a host of others.
Paul’s words in Romans again speak of men having intercourse with other men out of lust. But he puts this lust in the context of punishment for idolatry. As if the only reason why men would want other men is their lust is so great that women alone can sustain them and vice versa. So it’s hard to say what exactly Paul is condemning.
Of course, Fundamentalist Christians liken the actions of sodomy, the practice of pederasty and the homosexual orientation as all the same. But the entire process and purpose of fundamentalism, is to eliminate nuance.
To the moderate, learned eye, the problem with the Christian scriptures and homosexual behavior / non-heterosexual acts is that the scriptures just don’t focus on it. Jesus never speaks of it at all. And what little mention the New Testament does give it seems totally unconnected to the overwhelming level of disgust found in the Old Testament.
I must say that I’m not sure where you are coming from with the reasoning that an abomination is a sin only because it causes disgust in others.
I'm not sure where that comes from either, because that's not what I said. As I read it, the old testament makes a distinction between 'abomination' and/or 'detestable' and 'sin'. Or what we would consider 'sin'. (neither word, as I'm sure you're aware, was actually in use originally, so we're once removed from the argument already... In addition, the word 'abomination' derives from several different words in the original Masoretic texts, so in different places in the bible you'll see it used for demonstratively different reasons and contexts. Strike two...)
However, if you look at not just the laws but the justifications for them, most center around the harm, either individually or communally that can be done. Where this most often doesn't obtain is in specific exhortations not to engage in specifically pagan acts ("thou shalt not boil a kid in it's mothers milk" which was a specific practice of the cult of baal)
Some things adherents are specifically commanded to do and not doing them is a 'sin' because failure to follow through causes some distinct harm. Other things are commanded not to be done and doing them is a 'sin' because doing them brings harm; Whether it be distance from God by failing to worship properly, or the actual physical act of murder there is a definitive harm and a causative relation. For examples, we can all see where lying, stealing, coveting, etc, can lead to actual harm. There is right action, which produces good outcomes and deviance from these actions produces harm.
Other things are specifically labelled 'abomination' or 'detestable' and not specifically justified by harm caused, and thus we note a distinction between the things. They are actions that cause no harm other than making various third parties say 'Eeew... yuck'. So the only justification for the restriction is "thou shall not make other people say 'Eeew.. yuck'".
Regarding the terms 'catamite' and 'sodomite', we ought to remember that these words themselves derive from renaissance views of Biblical translations from the Latin and/or the Greek. 15th, 16th and 17th century translators reaching back to pagan Rome to contextualize the inchoate. The specific actions, as opposed to orientations, (as you note) were based more in class and socio-economic structures that obtained then... but not at the time of the translations. It's kinda like when Antonin Scalia uses 1950 mores to describe the thinking of late 1700's jurisprudential architecture: a tricky business, at best.
“I'm not sure where that comes from either, because that's not what I said. As I read it, the old testament makes a distinction between 'abomination' and/or 'detestable' and 'sin'. Or what we would consider 'sin'. (neither word, as I'm sure you're aware, was actually in use originally, so we're once removed from the argument already... In addition, the word 'abomination' derives from several different words in the original Masoretic texts, so in different places in the bible you'll see it used for demonstratively different reasons and contexts. )”
Let us take the intricacies of language, (what exactly sin means etc.), out of the equation. Sure, different words mean different things in different contexts. Now, you are trying to say is that there are sins and there are things that are abominations and the two are not the same? Is that right? Because if that was what you were trying to say, I am surprised that you are surprised that someone could misunderstand you.
As you read it? Is this the Jewish understanding of the terminology? Because as far as orthodox Christian understanding is concerned, you are in left field with this. You are still in the ball park but I can barely see you from the dugout.
Sometimes, for the Jews of the era, an abomination was something closer to a taboo than a sin. Sometimes. But my original point was Dreher’s Thomist view, not the view of Ancient Hebrews. Besides, I used the word sin because of the modern understanding of the word taboo. Taboo is a tricky word in our modern understanding, due to the great propensity of taboos to change, as to lessen over time.
(To be fair to you though, I should remind you that I am Catholic. It’s only been in recent years that Catholic Bibles translate the Old Testament from the Masoretic Text texts. Before then, different books have different texts as sources for translations, often the Septuagint. That and my interests lie more in Christian Theology than Biblical Scholarship. I can’t help but focus my arguments on that.)
“However, if you look at not just the laws but the justifications for them, most center around the harm, either individually or communally that can be done. Where this most often doesn't obtain is in specific exhortations not to engage in specifically pagan acts”
I don’t mean to be precious but the word “most” is a tricky word as well. To me, most often means at least 51%. I’m sure you don’t have notes or citations to illustrate your point to this degree. As I said, I don’t mean to be precious, I have been guilty of this in the past as well.
“Some things adherents are specifically commanded to do and not doing them is a 'sin' because failure to follow through causes some distinct harm. Other things are commanded not to be done and doing them is a 'sin' because doing them brings harm; Whether it be distance from God by failing to worship properly, or the actual physical act of murder there is a definitive harm and a causative relation. For examples, we can all see where lying, stealing, coveting, etc, can lead to actual harm. There is right action, which produces good outcomes and deviance from these actions produces harm.”
Yes, there are sins of omission and sins of commission, at least that’s what we “Fish-Eating Papists” call them. This basic stuff for us since we have sacramental Confession, so if Catholics get anything straight, it’s sin. I mean…wait a second!
“Other things are specifically labelled 'abomination' or 'detestable' and not specifically justified by harm caused, and thus we note a distinction between the things. They are actions that cause no harm other than making various third parties say 'Eeew... yuck'. So the only justification for the restriction is "thou shall not make other people say 'Eeew.. yuck'".”
Yeah, I’m sorry but this is where you are losing me. I do agree that some things are labeled detestable for the harm they can cause a community. But I can’t agree that the only justification is “ick” or “yuck”.
For example, I’m looking at Leviticus, Chapter 18, 19 & 20, where most of the sexual prohibitions for the Jews are listed and the corresponding punishments. Most laws/sins/prohibitions/abominations/what have you…..they have no justification at all. Most justifications that are given either have to do with dishonoring someone, (Chapter 18, 6-18), or promoting and spreading bad morals, (Chapter 19; 29), (Chapter 20; 14)
In fact, the only disgust I see is the disgust of God.
We can both read the same passage and try to interpret what the justification is. If you want to go with the prohibition against things like having sex with a menstruating woman based on the “ick” factor that it might inspire in the community, more power to you. Myself, I’m going with the view that the Hebrews of the day were very afraid of disease and in this case, saw it spread by blood somehow. Chapter 17 talks about the problems with blood, Chapter 12 talks about the uncleanness of childbirth, Chapter 11 talks about proper and improper food and the proper and improper handling of it. And so on and so forth.
There are other things, prohibitions against pagan practices but that’s just about one religion protecting itself against another in a society where such a notion was valued.
“Regarding the terms 'catamite' and 'sodomite', we ought to remember that these words themselves derive from renaissance views of Biblical translations from the Latin and/or the Greek. 15th, 16th and 17th century translators reaching back to pagan Rome to contextualize the inchoate. The specific actions, as opposed to orientations, (as you note) were based more in class and socio-economic structures that obtained then... but not at the time of the translations. It's kinda like when Antonin Scalia uses 1950 mores to describe the thinking of late 1700's jurisprudential architecture: a tricky business, at best.”
We agree totally on this one. Now isn’t that wonderful?
Well, this largely describes the anachronism of Christianity in modern times, and it's damn well written, so kudos. It just makes me wonder how Christian writers went from Aquinas to Lewis to...Warren?
Yeah, that was kind of my point -- in neither case is there a real genealogy. Warren's not a successor to Aquinas or Lewis, and Bay's not a successor to Coppola or Welles. NT Wright, the Plantingas, or Alasdair MacIntyre would be much better contemporary comparisons than Warren (and I suspect you'd find them much more thoughtful and reflective).
If I were to guess, I’d venture that too many religious people have become obsessed with the state of religion in the world.
Science hasn’t disproved religion but for those Christians that hold to a literal interpretation of the scriptures, it’s proved them wrong on several points. In addition, theology was once referred to as “the mother” of all philosophies. With the rise of various schools of Enlightenment thought, theology wasn’t replaced but things did get more crowded in the universities, so to speak.
In Aquinas’ day, he could afford to be a little daring, religion dominated society. Even in Lewis day, some basic religious concepts were uniform. By being more of a free-thinker, albeit within the boundaries of a base Christian thought, they had a better chance of obtaining a greater insight on any given subject.
Today; about 90% of Americans express a belief in some sort of deity, about 80% described that deity in the sense of the Christian God but only about 30% of American go to church on a weekly basis. And I’m erring on the conservative side; all of those numbers could be about 5 percentage points lower. For the most part, a living religious faith is optional in America, and it’s even less important in Europe.
So people of faith are often hesitant to broaden their minds, least they encourage a theory that could be deemed unorthodox. And those theologians that do; Spong, Fox, Kung, Borg, etc., they get treated like pariahs by anyone to the right of them.
Of course, this is just a guess. Your theory might be just as valid if you have one.
That is an exceptionally good post from Nuada and I hope it finds its way to an even broader distribution.
I was Catholic too for many years, but I have mostly given up on it.
Even so, I become enraged whenever these politicians invoke the name of God. Who can forget George Bush saying that he took orders from "a higher power" to justify his warmongering?
I am convinced that if there is a God out there somewhere he totally disapproves of the use of cluster blombs, white phosphorous, nuclear weapons, etc... and I am absolutely certain that he doesn't give a fat rat's ass about what some horny, lying, hypocritical sack of shit governor from South Carolina does with his dick.
These people have so distorted the concept of God that it frightens me that anyone would take them seriously, but apparently some people do.
I just want to scream "LEAVE GOD ALONE" everytime I hear this. I may not go to Church anymore, and I do not believe in afterlife, but the concept of God has been a major part of my life.
I think it is interesting to consider how God in the Old Testiment regarded David. Now David actually sent a soldier into battle so he could fool around with the guy's wife--puts the Biblical into the meaning of Biblical--but what God had a problem with in David's personality was that he was a war monger.
One might argue that the Sermon on the Mount is Jesus' greatest spiritual expression. My problem with Christian moralists of all stripes is that few ever are willing to come to grips that the most warlike religion in the history of humanity has been Christianity, nowhere moreso than on the North American continent where the upshot of the Indian wars was the forced kidnapping of Native Americans and placing them in Christian schools and whose signal event, ironically, was the massacre at Wounded Knee.
Now David actually sent a soldier into battle so he could fool around with the guy's wife--puts the Biblical into the meaning of Biblical--but what God had a problem with in David's personality was that he was a war monger.
Hmmm, dunno. Didnt the prophet Nathan excoriate David for this sin?
Sort of suggests that God wasnt cool with it, as his rep was speaking for Him.
Hmmm, dunno. Didnt the prophet Nathan excoriate David for this sin?
Not only that, but the child from the union died. And Nathan told David it was because of him that the child died.. David and Bathsheba ended up having a second child, who became King Solomon and who was loved by God. He, too, went astray; allowing some of his wives to pray to other gods, and even joining them in doing so.
But what God himself calls David out on was his propensity towards war. What I am speaking in these posts to is how the issue of war, that is legalized and institutionalized mass murder and mayhem, is so readily accepted as a fact of life and argued for by an almost infinite number of Christian and Biblical moralists who are so quick to condemn sexual peccadillos when even the Bible, Old and New Testament, provides a clear condemnation of the former.
Citizen E. I don't know if I would say that Christianity is the most warlike religion in the history of humanity. There may be something in the human condition that makes war a part of human experience. Now if you said that war is a part of the human condition and because Christianity is among the largest of world religions and therefore plays a central part in how war plays out I would agree with you, but I don't necessarily think there is a causal link between any religion and war.
I was saving this for the open thread today I found it last night but there's a panal discussion on this very topic with our friend David blight.
If you can show me another religion with the track record of Christianity, I'll be willing to change my mind. But let's just start with the Americas. The Vatican stinks to high heaven with their looting. Africa also plundered and enslaved in Jesus' name. There have been 2 millenia of battle and violent oppression thus conducted. It's true warfare is human, but historically speaking insorar as religious war has been concerned Christians have taken the cake, and for me it gives pause to all the extreme moral postures taken by Christians inre other types of behavior: this unwillingness by so many--just look at those in Iraq from our own military who have viewed our situation there from a socalled Christian lens--to confront how clearly Jesus was on the issue of being a peacemaker, resisting not evil, and turning the other cheek.
I think we're arguing about two different things. I wasn't arguing that Christianity has a long and bloody history of warfare. I concede that point, but considering the global reach and scope of Christianity as a religion, I would say that the warfare that some see as symptomatic of Christianity is a facet of the bigness of the religion, not nessecarily anything inherent in the creed itself.
Christianity as we know it today grew up in a climate of small European states constantly contending with each other for land and resources. Advances in technology brought that same competition to other parts of the globe. It's true that Christianity grew by conquest but so have most religions. I think at base if we really look at this issue there is something about religion that helps people organize into groups. In terms of principles, not behavior, Christianity was among the most inclusive of the world's religions. I think, and this is a developing thought so please bear with me, that there may be a causal link between cooperation and warfare. It's possible that the more inclusive and assimalationist a religion or philosophy is the more willing people become to sacrifice and make war upon other people when the leader of a group decides to manipulate passions for his or her own ends.
Perhaps, because most generalizations require a good degree of stretching, cooperation and altruism can lead to warfare or intolerance. I'm not sure, but the idea is worth investigating. In a sense as TNC pointed out in an earlier thread the excessive patriotism of George Wallace was one of the keys to understanding segragation. I would argue that Patriotism, and nationalism, has the effect of fostering cooperation among people who are in the group directed against those who are outside of it.
You're entirely right about the disconect between the principle espoused in the sermon on the mount and the behavior of most Christians. The same is in a sense true of any idea in its relationship to humanity. We don't neccisarily always live up to our better impulses, and sometimes our better impulses are used for unjust purposes. As Thucidides said:
Indeed it is generally the case that men are readier to call rogues clever than simpletons honest, and are as ashamed of being the second as they are proud of being the first. The cause of all these evils was the lust for power arising from greed and ambition; and from these passions proceeded the violence of parties once engaged in contention. The leaders in the cities, each provided with the fairest professions, on the one side with the cry of political equality of the people, on the other of a moderate aristocracy, sought prizes for themselves in those public interests which they pretended to cherish, and, recoiling from no means in their struggles for ascendancy engaged in the direst excesses; in their acts of vengeance they went to even greater lengths, not stopping at what justice or the good of the state demanded, but making the party caprice of the moment their only standard, and invoking with equal readiness the condemnation of an unjust verdict or the authority of the strong arm to glut the animosities of the hour. Thus religion was in honour with neither party; but the use of fair phrases to arrive at guilty ends was in high reputation. Meanwhile the moderate part of the citizens perished between the two, either for not joining in the quarrel, or because envy would not suffer them to escape.
I don't necessarily think that religion is the cause of war. Human greed and ambition have more to do with the causes of injustice than any religious impulse. However, I do think that religion may provide the context in which war or exploitation may arise. Like I said before I don't think we're having a big disagreement in principle so much as a disagreement in emphasis.
I hate to oversimplify, but aren't most wars really about resources? As in, I need more land, water, oil, minerals, free/cheap labor, etc...
There are the real reasons for waging war (that will be known to historians), there is the propaganda that was fed to the citizens of the time/place, and there is also what is said to the soldiers so they can get down to the business of killing people who have not harmed them.
May I say to all those who countered--the idea that Christianity was not used as the basis for war, whatever other very real objectives were part of the issue--really, need to read their history. Maybe I can see this a bit more clearly as someone who is not Christian, but to analogize, since the civil war comes up so often here, there is very good reason to believe that the civil war was based on regional economics and loyalties as well as the long argued issue of states' vs. national rights, but who is kidding whom?
Let's begin with the destruction of the Mayan texts, okay? Let's go to Spain where even the Arabic lute was taboo in the wake of Castillian wars against Islam and Judiasm that led to the Inquisition. And then there are all the European inter-sect wars hundreds of years long--please go speak to the Irish. Now one can say it is not the religious creed that created those wars, but they have been liberally used in war's service. There is the case of a Belgian Massacre in the Congo--"An agent named Moray recounts the butchery of a village deemed insufficiently busy at work: 'Thereupon the officer ordered us to cut off the heads of the men and hang them on the village palisades, and to hang the women and children on the palisades in the form of a cross.' This was, after all, a Christian civilizing mission." http://sirocco.blogsome.com/2006/01/16/robbing-the-congo-part-ii-unspeakable-richness/. The KKK did not burn statues of Buddha meditating to get their point across.
And Jesus' teachings on the issue by contrast brings to light exactly what I thought this post was about--a response to conservative Christian, particularly Rod Dreher--moralizing about the behavior, particularly the sexual behavior, of others.
I am waiting for all those who today claim that the US is a Christian nation and wish to put their judgmental eyeballs into the bedrooms of others--to proclaim that we should render unto Caesar, resist not evil, turn the other cheek, become peacemakers, and remember that it is more difficult for a camel to pass through a needle's eye than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. I am waiting for them to denounce their own pharisees and the money lending practices of credit card companies. I am waiting.
Maybe this is something I can't see yet. Maybe this is a disagreement about paramount causes vs secondary causes. Maybe its a case of being so far removed from an age of faith that I have trouble putting myself into a mindset that honestly believes theistic explanations of the world. Maybe.
Take the Albegensian Crusade against the Cathars, or the intersectional violence in France after the revocation of the edict of Nantes. Were these issues entirely about religion? Was the issue entirely connected to the debate over the Cathars despising all earthly pleasures and seeing the physical world as evil? Was the revocation of the edict of Nantes really about the evils of a reformed creed or were there other more important causes? Which part of the un roi une loi une foi equation does one run with when discussing the evils of Christianity? What's the paramount cause? Is there a paramount cause?
Another question is Christianity to blame for the evils of Christians or does it provide the context that surrounds, supports, and justifies abuses that would find other rationalizations given another controlling ideology? How exactly do we separate the rational for a particular action from the rationalization for a particular action?
where does ideology end and human motivation begin? Can we seperate the two? You mentioned Wounded Knee earlier. Do we blame Wounded Knee, the Washita River, the necessity for the Fort Robinson Breakout, the Nez Perce war, The sorrow of the trail of tears, the rise of the ghost dance, a 95% decrease in Native American population and a coresponding 95% decrease in land occupancy, soley on Christianity?
Can we blame the Holocaust on Christianity? William L. Shrier linked Luther with Hitler. Do we blame the Irish Penal Laws, the establishment of the Homelands in South Africa, and the Reservation/manifest destiny/genocide of native peoples to a dogmatic calvinism, which is what all three situations had in common? Do we see the Catholic Church in the middle ages primarily as a religious institution or as a government? Can we hold christianity responsible for the actions of christians? Can we hold communism responsible for the actions of communists?
At a simple level yes. We can blame all of these things on ideology, just as we can blame them all on human weaknesses. At a more complex level the relationship isn't binary, but symbiotic. Our prejudices, misconceptions, preconceptions, rationalizations, morals, faith, reason, and human experience is universal in scope because all people possess these qualities, and yet particular to the individual's time and place. We are products both of our evolution and our environment. Judging which factor takes precedence at any point in time is extremely hard. Sometimes the answer is nature, and sometimes nuture. In relation to the discussion sometimes christians are to blame and sometimes christianity is to blame. However each situation needs to be judged on its merits. We can't say that X is always the reason Y happened. Sometimes our reason is linear, and yet sometimes we think we reason linearly only because we can't get out of our skin enough to realize that we are walking in circles.
Albert Camus put this argument in a much better light than I did in his essay on Sisyphus.
All Sisyphus' silent joy is contained therein. His fate belongs to him. His rock is his thing. Likewise, the absurd man, when he contemplates his torment, silences all the idols. In the universe suddenly restored to silence, the myriad wondering little voices of the earth rise up. Unconscious, secret calls, invitations from all the faces, they are the necessary reverse and price of victory. there is no sun without shadow, and it is essential to know the night. The absurd man says yes and his effort will henceforth be unceasing. If there is a personal fate, there is no higher destiny, or at least there is but one which he concludes is inevitable and despicable. For the rest, he knows himself to be the master of his days. At that subtle moment when man glances backward over his life, Sisyphus returning toward his rock, in that silent pivoting he contemplates that series of unrelated actions which becomes his fate, created by him, combined under his memory's eye and soon sealed by his death. Thus, convinced of the wholly human origin of all that is human, a blind man eager to see who knows that the night has no end, he is still on the go. The rock is still rolling.
For myself this whole question is much too big. I can't aquare this circle, and I am both humbled and learn new insights every time I try to answer. All I know for sure is that the world is a big perhaps.
Neither Sorn nor I disagree with much of what you say. But you seem to be talking past the point that Sorn keeps making and that I agree with.
Christianity might be connected to and therefore somewhat responsible for more warfare than any other religion. But that’s only because it is the most popular religion in history, in terms of numbers at least. Furthermore, those who adopted Christianity ended up being the most technologically advanced civilizations, up until the modern age. Thusly, those nations had the strongest militaries and fought the most wars because they won the most wars. That’s not to imply that religion had much of anything to do with technological advancement. It is a complex subject but things like geography and plan dumb luck ended up mattering far more.
Your point that many Christian are hypocrites is well-founded. But it only furthers the point that it’s actions of Christians that are to blame, not Christianity itself. Religion also bends to the will of those who believe in it, not just vice versa. Mahatma Gandhi once praised Jesus Christ solely by noting how different he was from his supposed followers.
I’ve read many of the “new atheists”; Hitchens, Harris, Dawkins, most of what they say about religion have numerous elements of facts in them. But they go too far in their refusal to recognize the relative benign natural of a faith with a liberal theological underpinning, constrained by a secular society awash in Enlightenment principles. The American Framers had it right; religion is not the problem as much as is unrestrained religion. Religion can motivate societal decisions but it can not decide them.
So, for example, Dreher can be opposed to same-sex marriage because he thinks the Bible tells him to be against it. But he can not push for a ban on same-sex marriage because he thinks the Bible says to be against it. Either come up with a reason why a ban would be good for society, completely free of any religious dogma, or go and live the “Benedict” option…by removing yourself from the society.
To be more specific, Dreher is a "Thomist". Thomist theological thought dates back to St. Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas's life goal, professional speaking, was to fuse all Pre-Christian intellectual thought into Christian thought. Aristotelianism, the biggest component, was of some worth but needed to brought into the Christian realm. What could be merged into accepted religious dogma was included, what could was thrown out entirely. It was this process that gave us natural law.
And frankly, we are still trying to reconcile this deeply problematic cornerstone of Western law with our asserted desire to separate church and state in our government.
It is one reason why we still have government in the business of marriage (inherently religious) vs. civil unions for all, straight or gay.
"[Dante] surmised, quite correctly, that pride was the worst of the seven because it alone could blind you to the fact that you might be committing it...or any of the other six. "
That applies to Sanford, and to a host of other sins. On right and left, but I immediately thought of Rush explaining that the blame for Sanford's actions rested on Barack Obama, and Clarence Thomas claiming that the strip-searched child had it coming because the adults didn't find any drugs in her backpack or clothing, clearly indicating she had hidden them in her underwear.
TNC, there's a following post to draw together your post on Sanford and Nuada's post on pride.
Nuada, thank you. You demonstrated in clear fashion why I remain a Roman Catholic.
TNC, strictly speaking, this was not Bible study. ;-) Nuada was giving an excellent theological and philosophical argument drawing from the intellectual history of the church.
I thank you and everyone else for their kind words.
I should say that while I was raised Roman Catholic, fell out during my teenage years and came back in my early 20’s, I’m treading water and looking to jump out of the…baptismal font.
I’m only 30, so I was not around during Vatican II to have my hopes dashed by how things played out over the last 40 years. But the ways in which many prominent Catholics, particularly those wearing the miters, wish to merge theology with politics, it sends me into spiritual turmoil. As if what happened in Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Italy and to a lesser extent, most of South America wasn’t a warning sign.
One issue especially gets to me. Even though I am a happily married heterosexual man, the incredible injustice of a ban on same-sex marriage troubles me deeply. I live in a state that has legalized same-sex marriage. So now I am encouraged to pray for a legal reversal, to pray with earnest hopes that homosexuals are stripped of the same civil rights I enjoy. It goes against any morality that dwells inside me. Yet as you know, being Catholic yourself, “the Church” is not just a church, it is a culture. Leaving, even to another Christian denomination, is not easy.
Yes, I know. We are kindred souls if our experiences and demographics are any indication.
The sex abuse, the disenfranchisement of women from ecclesiastical authority, the "Republicanization" of the Church has left me troubled. To be honest, had it not been for my parish family, I would be long gone.
One more thing, Nuada. I would like to stay in touch in some form. I'm going to pursue my CEM and I'd like to surround myself with folk such as yourself to keep the sword sharp, so to speak.
Well, I must confess that I am only a high school history teacher with a BS and a MA, both from state universities. I am not a professional theologian. While I do have other, less enriching leisure-time activates that I like to pursue, reading historical, political and theological non-fiction is my favorite.
I’m not on the internet much, aside from blogs like Mr. Sullivan’s and Mr. Coates’. So, I’m not sure how to keep in touch, aside from this very fashion here.
Again we are kindred souls. I have a BS in aero/astro engineering, an MSE in Systems Engineering, and an MBA from good schools, thus I have no formal training in the liberal arts. My historical interests are purely for my own personal edification.
My parish is sponsoring me to get my Certificate in Ecclesiastical Ministries. So I'm doubly motivated to see it thru. Hoping we can throw down sometime.
Best from a fellow relgious-history-Catholic-married-family-man nerd!
I'm late to this wicket party. There is one very important point that I would like to add. St. Thomas Aquinas, despite all his effort to merge Christian ideas with the Greeks - was very very selective of what he considered worthwhile Greek thought.
The reason why Christianity allowed Plato and Aristotle to exist - was the same reason they allowed for the Old Testament to continue living. It was all in line with their existing wold-view - namely our existing worldview today. Plato and Aristotle were not classics - they represented the end of Greece and not the beginning. They represent the modern West and modern Christianity and not classical Greece. Only because they were not destroyed and were integrated into Christianity and the West does not mean that they were epics.
Both Plato/Aristotle and Christianity - yes even the early secular peaceful Christians - couldn't bear somebody called Epicurus and his back then still strong following. It was the first and so far last sexual revolution. It was the first and and so far last truly equal equality. It was the first and so far last religious equality.
There was no drama between the Epicureans and the Christians like Islam and Galilee later knew. Why? Because there was no discussion - everything Epicurus must be killed and destroyed. Period. Epicurus was too dangerous for everybody. He made heroes out of villains and turned love into something evil and sex into something good. He turned friendship into the highest good and put marriage last.
Here is Epicurus, ca 2,300 BC, on the issue of love and marriage. Via the most important poem that has ever been written and survived - De Rerum Natura by Lucreticus. Gods bless him for hiding the wolf in sheep's clothing. Please - if you read only one poem or book in your entire life - read De Rerum Natura.
NOTE by Hugo: Despite the claim by many that Epicurus was against marriage - the final Coda me think proves otherwise. His famous quote - "depending on circumstances" is spot on in my experience. That way - nobody who is not married feels like a sinner. Socrates was thinking along these lines but it is hard to hear him via Plato's fantasies. Anyway - it is important to note that based on equality - a complete end to marriage was being discussed in earnest about 2,300 years ago. Where? In a city that gave us the majority of all rational, psychological and hence emotional thought that exists to date.
After Epicurus and Socrates - there has never been a serious discussion about marriage. These days we discuss gay marriage - but not the very concept itself. And what about the rumor that our father Solon has not only thought and given us first freedom and democracy but that he also first introduced... state-sponsored brothels so that people could live in peace? And more in line with our nature? Tell me - what is worse - betraying your partner or torturing intelligent, emotional beings like yourself for life?
Here it is - long as it is. Like bittersweet medicine. Epicurus on love:
What powerful movements the human mind may have:
Often in sleep the same things harry us still.
Men throw down kings; themselves are taken in battle;
They raise a shout as if their throats were cut.
Many will struggle, emitting horrible groans
and just as if a panther or lion had bitten them
fill the place with the loudest possible cries.
Many will talk in sleep of important affairs;
It is not unknown for a man to speak of his crimes;
Many encounter death: and from high mountains
have the impression of falling to sea-level;
They are terrified, and when they awake their minds
are still so caught they hardly know what they are doing.
A man many feel thirsty and stop at the bank of a river
or at a spring and offer to drink the lot.
Children often, when they are fast asleep,
think they are on their pots or in the lavatory
and lift up their clothes and let out a whole bladderful,
making a mess on a fine Babylonian carpet.
.
The adolescent, boiling for the first time
with seed inside him, ripened that very day,
is met by images from some body or other
suggesting a lovely face and a beautiful color.
They rouse the parts which are swollen already with semen
until, as if the whole thing was really happening,
he pours out a river which spills all over his tunic.
.
The seed is excited in us as I have explained,
as soon as our first maturity gives us the strength.
Different things are excited by different causes;
It needs a human creature to call up the seed.
As soon as it has been elicited from its recesses,
it is drained away from every part of the body
and, collecting in the appropriate nerve centers,
it stirs up the genital organs without delay.
Provoked by the seed, these places swell; and the impulse
is to eject it towards the ominous object;
So the whole mind seeks the body with is causing the damage.
Men usually fall on the side on which they are wounded;
The blood flows in the direction the blow comes from,
and straight at the enemy if he stands in the way.
.
It is the same with a man wounded by Venus' arrows,
whether they come at him from a girlish boy
or from a woman whose whole body hurls love at him;
He runs at the person who shot him and wants to copulate
and to plant in that body the fluid from his own body;
His dumb desire suggests it will give him pleasure.
That is Venus for you, it is that which we call love
which is the source of sweetness which Venus pours
drop by drop in our hearts: and then we are worried.
If what you want isn't there, there are always images
of her, and her sweet name will ring in your ears.
.
Keep off imagination and frighten away
whatever encourages love; turn your mind elsewhere,
get rid of the fluid in any body you can
instead of keeping it for a single person
which is bound to lead to trouble and end in grief.
If you have an ulcer there is no point in feeding it,
the madness gets worse every day and the burden intolerable
if you do not confuse the first wound with several others
and wander and lose yourself in the genial Venus:
Unless you can turn your mind to another subject.
.
No need to do without sex if you keep off love;
You simply have it without the disadvantages.
For surely those who are perfectly well have more pleasure
than the afflicted: even in the moment of triumph
lovers drift in all kinds of doubts and confusions,
not knowing whether to start with the eye or the hands.
They squash the body they sought until it squeals
and often their teeth make a gash on the lips
in the course of affixing a kiss, which is hardly pure pleasure.
They are indeed rather provoked to injure the object,
whatever it is, which causes this onset of lunacy.
But Venus mitigates pains such as these for the lover
and a gentle admixture of pleasure will soften the bite.
.
For the hope is always that the body which causes this ardor
will prove the best instrument for quenching the flame,
which is quite contrary to the order of nature.
This is the one case in which the more we have
the more we burn with furious desire for more.
Food and drink are taken into the body,
they fill up certain spaces and that is that,
the craving for solitude and liquids is easily satisfied
but with human faces and beautiful complexions
there is nothing to take in and enjoy but a pack of images,
a wretched hope which the wind can blow away:
just as when a thirsty man tries to drink in a dream
He cannot get a drop which will really slake his limbs,
he goes after imaginary liquid and labors in vain
and is thirsty even while drinking a raging river.
So in love Venus plays with her lovers in images;
They cannot be satisfied by looking at bodies
nor can they scrape off bits of delicious limbs
But think they might and roam all over the body.
.
When with limbs together they enjoy the flower of their age
and the body has a premonition of pleasure,
with Venus ready to sow the feminine fields,
They catch at each other greedily, exchanging spittle,
and sigh in pressing each other's mouth with their teeth.
It is no good; they cannot get anything off;
they cannot get into the body with the whole body.
They seem to want to, however, and make immense efforts
to the point that they stick in the embraces of Venus
until their limbs melt with the force of the pleasure.
When the desire in their sinews has made its eruption
there is a little pause in the violence of their ardor:
Then the lunacy breaks out again and the frenzy comes back
when they ask what it is they should like to obtain for themselves
and cannot find any device which will make them feel better,
so not knowing they pine away with a blind disease.
.
Besides, they use up their strength by overdoing it;
Not only that, they live at the whim of another.
Their money turns into Babylonian embroideries;
They neglect their business and their good name becomes shaky;
There are perfumes; her feet must be shod in beautiful slippers;
Enormous emeralds gleam on her, set in gold,
Yet the sea-colored gown will wear out quickly enough
with all the amorous sweat that it has to mop up.
The patrimony turns into ribbons and headgear,
dresses which come all the way from Alinda or Cos.
It all goes in dinners with clothes and expensive food,
shows, lots of drink, and bath-salts and head-bands and garlands.
Quite useless, for out of the source of so many attractions
something bitter comes up, and the flowers are a pain.
Either the mind will reflect and become remorseful
at so much waste of time in pursuit of debauchery
or else the girl lets drop some ambiguous expression
which sticks in the heart and burns away like a fire,
or possibly turns her eyes in the wrong direction
and lets fall the trace of a smile at somebody else.
.
These evils are found in the most prosperous love:
As to the ills of those who simply get nowhere
you can close your eyes and imagine how many they are:
They are innumerable—so better watch out
and take good care, as I said, that you don't get caught.
To avoid falling into an amorous entanglement
is not so hard as to get out once you are in
for the knots Venus makes are very hard to untie.
.
But even if you are caught in the entanglement
you can avoid the worst if you don't stand in your own way
by blinding yourself to the faults of mind and body
there are in the person you are so keen to follow.
Yet this is exactly what men generally do;
They attribute qualities which are simply not there.
We often see misshapen, disgusting women
regarded as charming, indeed, you might say worshipped.
Men will mutually give ironic advice
about horrible passions they notice in one another
without the least regard to their own misfortunes.
A dark girl looks like honey; an unwashed one is natural;
The cat-eyed bitch is a goddess; the stringy one is a sylph;
The undersized, under-grown one, a minute gem;
The overgrown monster has an extraordinary dignity;
The girl with a stammer has a bit of a lisp;
The dumb girl is just diffident; while the screaming,
big-mouthed harpy is bubbling over with life;
A girl is slim when she is at death's door,
she is so thin; or sensitive, when she's consumptive;
If she has a mountainous bosom she is jolly;
If her nose is flat she's puckish; thick lips give a lovely kiss:
Really one can't go on with the recitation.
.
Even supposing the girl you love is beautiful
and her body has every kind of amorous attraction:
Still, there are others, and you did without her before;
And she does all the things the most unpleasant ones do
and chokes herself with the horrible smells she gives off
while her maids run away or snigger behind her back.
.
The tearful lover, shut out, will cover the entrance
with flowers and even garlands, while the splendid doorposts
he plasters with oil of marjoram, adding his kisses.
Yet, if he were let in, one whiff from the boudoir
would make him think of excuses for getting away;
His long-thought-out campaign would be forgotten;
He would curse the stupidity which made him think of her
as somebody who wasn't actually mortal.
Our Venuses know all this and go to great pains
to keep such matters hidden behind the scenes:
It is hardly worth it; a little reflection will tell us
just what is happening and why the servants are giggling.
If the girl is sensible and not full of pretenses,
be sensible too and allow her human functions.
.
Coda
Yet sometimes without the intervention of Venus,
a rather sub-average woman may come to be loved.
She manages by herself and by what she does,
by compliant ways and keeping her body clean
to get a man used to sharing her existence.
For the rest, what you get used to you tend to love;
However light the blows, if they are repeated
they will end by bringing down whatever it is.
It has long been a matter of ordinary observation
that constant dripping wears away the stone.
Nuada - I have some questions for you because you bring up some philisophical dilemmas I have been struggling with for quite awhile.
You said:
'And homosexuality didn't exist, man-on-man sodomy was likened to drunkenness, something men did as to "act the fool."'
I just find this hard to believe on a visceral level. I have always been aware of my sexual orientation towards other men, even before I had a word for it. I imagine that there have been others like me throughout human history, and it also appears that other species of mammals have the same "orientation," without a language to socially construct it.
Can you imagine that there were men and women in ancient times who loved alcohol and drank it every day? They weren't alcoholics because that wasn't a word, but nonetheless, they still had a compulsion to drink it every day. So perhaps the modern era gave us the homosexual as a pathological subspecies, but I just can't buy the fact that this labeling somehow shaped the actual sexual desires of homosexuals.
One could say that asians weren't "asian" until they were defined in opposition to "white." Similarly, one could say that homosexuals didn't exist the way they do now because they weren't defined in opposition to anything. But just because homosexuals weren't part of the ancient lexicon, are you saying there weren't men and women that existed who were biologically attracted to their own sex?
How can the words used to define one's sexuality BE the sexuality? I just don't get it. Sexuality is a primal feeling. Words are words. That's what I don't understand about the post-structuralists. It seems like they forget nature exists and it is all words, words, words.
Here's a piece no one cared about. Meh, whatever, probably the most enjoyable article I did during my stint at TIME. Premiered a month before I got laid-off. The nail in the coffin? Ya think?
Here's me going after Al. I didn't so much have a problem with him, as I had a problem with media acting like this dude was the go-to guy for everything black.
This was my first real story at time. I was writing for the Business section, a real change of direction for me. At any rate, it's about Wal-Mart's attempts to colonize the inner-city. As much as I enjoyed this piece, I mostly enjoyed going out to Chicago, which is a beautiful, beautiful city.
This a piece I did about the cops just outside our nation capitol, in Prince George's County, a few years back. I wanted to offer a counter to the dumb, conventional wisdom that if you paint your police force black, you could eradicate police brutality. In fact, Prince George's--one of the richest, blackest counties in the country--also had one of the most brutal police force's in the country.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
From Nuada:
The term 'homosexuality' didn't exist until the mid-1800s. Prior to that the 'sins' were separately identified via the terms "sodomite" and "catamite". The "sodomite" being the 'active' partner and the "catamite" being the 'receptive' partner (someone who might identify themselves nowadays as 'a bottom'.) So, althought the catch-all phrase of 'homosexual' did not exist, the concept did, with it's origins in pagan societies (I'm looking at you, Rome...).
The Old Testament doesn't quite come out and say that homosexuality is a sin. It speaks of 'abomination' (defined as "that which causes disgust") and 'that which is detestable'. So the bad part of it, apparently, is the feelings it might engender in someone else. Which, if you think about it, is kinda different from a lot of other 'sins'. Mosaic law frames it, as far as I can parse, not as a crime of/or against nature, but a disrupter of community... Something that might introduce bad feelings and problematic emotions into what is supposed to be a tight knit community.
In the New Testament, the Apostle Paul takes an entirely different tack and frames it almost entirely in terms of natural and unnatural.
Personally, I think that if someone is heterosexual and the engage in homosexual acts they are 'un-natural'. I feel the same way about homosexuals: they are being 'un-natural' if they engage in heterosexual acts. In regards to the community aspect; My response is to simply not be disgusted. That's my choice.
Here's Jesus, quoted in Matthew 15:10-11
I'm not a Christian, but it sure sounds to me like homophobia is a bigger sin than giving some dude a blow job.
"So, althought the catch-all phrase of 'homosexual' did not exist, the concept did, with it's origins in pagan societies (I'm looking at you, Rome...)."
I must disagree on this point.
The point I was getting at was that in the time that the Bible was written, the notion of homosexuality as a orientation, making one exclusively attracted to the same sex, was totally foreign to just about anyone. The very notion of orientations didn’t exist until, yes, the late 19th century.
Heterosexuality, being attracted to the opposite gender, was a given for all creatures because it is part and parcel of biological reproduction. Thus those men who engaged in sodomy with other men did so for reasons relating to bad character or moral weakness.
Notice I connect homosexuality with male sodomy. That is because female sexuality was not a topic really worthy of discussion until the 20th century. Aside from Sappho, there is not much there. Female sexuality was either to be feared, (because it might cause women to cuckold their husbands), or to be doubted that it exists at all…or both.
What you are speaking of, the “sodomite" and "catamite", are realities in the Ancient world. But they refer to behaviors, not orientations. In Greek and Roman society, being a sodomite was fine. Being a Calamite was only fine if you were being sodomized by a man who was more prominent that you. To be sodomized by a lower-class man was a great shame. It was willingly adopting the role of a woman and no rational, decent man would ever want to be a woman.
The Old Testament preaches against actions, specifically pederasty. Pederasty was and is the sexual use of a younger man by an older man. This is basically what I speak of in the prior paragraph, only with class distinctions taken out of the equation.
I must say that I’m not sure where you are coming from with the reasoning that an abomination is a sin only because it causes disgust in others. I have never heard of such reasoning before. Abominations are sins because they are detestable, full stop. The Old Testament writers had no sense of natural law, (the New Testament writers had very little sense of it either), but you can liken the prohibitions as akin to natural law. Surely that’s what St. Thomas Aquinas and his followers do.
But all of Mosaic Law, looked at in retrospect, is law to further a stable community. A stable community, that is, in the tribal sense. Dietary restrictions, elaborate cleanliness rituals, condemnations against adultery, theft and lying in legal proceeding…..all of it, (not counting the laws regarding religious worship itself), are to help a close-knit, inward-looking, primitive culture survive. Why Mosaic Law spoke out against, well, let’s call them “non-heterosexual acts”? There are theories, from “it was too closely linked to pagan worship”, to, “it doesn’t help build up a population looking to get bigger”.
The New Testament is far less concerned with these non-heterosexual acts. There are only three sections that speak of them. Passages in 1st Corinthians and 1st Timothy speak of sodomites in the same exact way they speak of drunks and greedy people. Strictly in terms of behavior and no worse than a host of others.
Paul’s words in Romans again speak of men having intercourse with other men out of lust. But he puts this lust in the context of punishment for idolatry. As if the only reason why men would want other men is their lust is so great that women alone can sustain them and vice versa. So it’s hard to say what exactly Paul is condemning.
Of course, Fundamentalist Christians liken the actions of sodomy, the practice of pederasty and the homosexual orientation as all the same. But the entire process and purpose of fundamentalism, is to eliminate nuance.
To the moderate, learned eye, the problem with the Christian scriptures and homosexual behavior / non-heterosexual acts is that the scriptures just don’t focus on it. Jesus never speaks of it at all. And what little mention the New Testament does give it seems totally unconnected to the overwhelming level of disgust found in the Old Testament.
I'm not sure where that comes from either, because that's not what I said. As I read it, the old testament makes a distinction between 'abomination' and/or 'detestable' and 'sin'. Or what we would consider 'sin'. (neither word, as I'm sure you're aware, was actually in use originally, so we're once removed from the argument already... In addition, the word 'abomination' derives from several different words in the original Masoretic texts, so in different places in the bible you'll see it used for demonstratively different reasons and contexts. Strike two...)
However, if you look at not just the laws but the justifications for them, most center around the harm, either individually or communally that can be done. Where this most often doesn't obtain is in specific exhortations not to engage in specifically pagan acts ("thou shalt not boil a kid in it's mothers milk" which was a specific practice of the cult of baal)
Some things adherents are specifically commanded to do and not doing them is a 'sin' because failure to follow through causes some distinct harm. Other things are commanded not to be done and doing them is a 'sin' because doing them brings harm; Whether it be distance from God by failing to worship properly, or the actual physical act of murder there is a definitive harm and a causative relation. For examples, we can all see where lying, stealing, coveting, etc, can lead to actual harm. There is right action, which produces good outcomes and deviance from these actions produces harm.
Other things are specifically labelled 'abomination' or 'detestable' and not specifically justified by harm caused, and thus we note a distinction between the things. They are actions that cause no harm other than making various third parties say 'Eeew... yuck'. So the only justification for the restriction is "thou shall not make other people say 'Eeew.. yuck'".
Regarding the terms 'catamite' and 'sodomite', we ought to remember that these words themselves derive from renaissance views of Biblical translations from the Latin and/or the Greek. 15th, 16th and 17th century translators reaching back to pagan Rome to contextualize the inchoate. The specific actions, as opposed to orientations, (as you note) were based more in class and socio-economic structures that obtained then... but not at the time of the translations. It's kinda like when Antonin Scalia uses 1950 mores to describe the thinking of late 1700's jurisprudential architecture: a tricky business, at best.
“I'm not sure where that comes from either, because that's not what I said. As I read it, the old testament makes a distinction between 'abomination' and/or 'detestable' and 'sin'. Or what we would consider 'sin'. (neither word, as I'm sure you're aware, was actually in use originally, so we're once removed from the argument already... In addition, the word 'abomination' derives from several different words in the original Masoretic texts, so in different places in the bible you'll see it used for demonstratively different reasons and contexts. )”
Let us take the intricacies of language, (what exactly sin means etc.), out of the equation. Sure, different words mean different things in different contexts. Now, you are trying to say is that there are sins and there are things that are abominations and the two are not the same? Is that right? Because if that was what you were trying to say, I am surprised that you are surprised that someone could misunderstand you.
As you read it? Is this the Jewish understanding of the terminology? Because as far as orthodox Christian understanding is concerned, you are in left field with this. You are still in the ball park but I can barely see you from the dugout.
Sometimes, for the Jews of the era, an abomination was something closer to a taboo than a sin. Sometimes. But my original point was Dreher’s Thomist view, not the view of Ancient Hebrews. Besides, I used the word sin because of the modern understanding of the word taboo. Taboo is a tricky word in our modern understanding, due to the great propensity of taboos to change, as to lessen over time.
(To be fair to you though, I should remind you that I am Catholic. It’s only been in recent years that Catholic Bibles translate the Old Testament from the Masoretic Text texts. Before then, different books have different texts as sources for translations, often the Septuagint. That and my interests lie more in Christian Theology than Biblical Scholarship. I can’t help but focus my arguments on that.)
“However, if you look at not just the laws but the justifications for them, most center around the harm, either individually or communally that can be done. Where this most often doesn't obtain is in specific exhortations not to engage in specifically pagan acts”
I don’t mean to be precious but the word “most” is a tricky word as well. To me, most often means at least 51%. I’m sure you don’t have notes or citations to illustrate your point to this degree. As I said, I don’t mean to be precious, I have been guilty of this in the past as well.
“Some things adherents are specifically commanded to do and not doing them is a 'sin' because failure to follow through causes some distinct harm. Other things are commanded not to be done and doing them is a 'sin' because doing them brings harm; Whether it be distance from God by failing to worship properly, or the actual physical act of murder there is a definitive harm and a causative relation. For examples, we can all see where lying, stealing, coveting, etc, can lead to actual harm. There is right action, which produces good outcomes and deviance from these actions produces harm.”
Yes, there are sins of omission and sins of commission, at least that’s what we “Fish-Eating Papists” call them. This basic stuff for us since we have sacramental Confession, so if Catholics get anything straight, it’s sin. I mean…wait a second!
“Other things are specifically labelled 'abomination' or 'detestable' and not specifically justified by harm caused, and thus we note a distinction between the things. They are actions that cause no harm other than making various third parties say 'Eeew... yuck'. So the only justification for the restriction is "thou shall not make other people say 'Eeew.. yuck'".”
Yeah, I’m sorry but this is where you are losing me. I do agree that some things are labeled detestable for the harm they can cause a community. But I can’t agree that the only justification is “ick” or “yuck”.
For example, I’m looking at Leviticus, Chapter 18, 19 & 20, where most of the sexual prohibitions for the Jews are listed and the corresponding punishments. Most laws/sins/prohibitions/abominations/what have you…..they have no justification at all. Most justifications that are given either have to do with dishonoring someone, (Chapter 18, 6-18), or promoting and spreading bad morals, (Chapter 19; 29), (Chapter 20; 14)
In fact, the only disgust I see is the disgust of God.
We can both read the same passage and try to interpret what the justification is. If you want to go with the prohibition against things like having sex with a menstruating woman based on the “ick” factor that it might inspire in the community, more power to you. Myself, I’m going with the view that the Hebrews of the day were very afraid of disease and in this case, saw it spread by blood somehow. Chapter 17 talks about the problems with blood, Chapter 12 talks about the uncleanness of childbirth, Chapter 11 talks about proper and improper food and the proper and improper handling of it. And so on and so forth.
There are other things, prohibitions against pagan practices but that’s just about one religion protecting itself against another in a society where such a notion was valued.
“Regarding the terms 'catamite' and 'sodomite', we ought to remember that these words themselves derive from renaissance views of Biblical translations from the Latin and/or the Greek. 15th, 16th and 17th century translators reaching back to pagan Rome to contextualize the inchoate. The specific actions, as opposed to orientations, (as you note) were based more in class and socio-economic structures that obtained then... but not at the time of the translations. It's kinda like when Antonin Scalia uses 1950 mores to describe the thinking of late 1700's jurisprudential architecture: a tricky business, at best.”
We agree totally on this one. Now isn’t that wonderful?
Well, this largely describes the anachronism of Christianity in modern times, and it's damn well written, so kudos. It just makes me wonder how Christian writers went from Aquinas to Lewis to...Warren?
This is like wondering how movie directors went from Orson Welles to Francis Ford Coppola to Michael Bay.
hehe, well Warren and Bay both have a lot of money, that's probably a good comparison
Yeah, that was kind of my point -- in neither case is there a real genealogy. Warren's not a successor to Aquinas or Lewis, and Bay's not a successor to Coppola or Welles. NT Wright, the Plantingas, or Alasdair MacIntyre would be much better contemporary comparisons than Warren (and I suspect you'd find them much more thoughtful and reflective).
That’s a good question.
If I were to guess, I’d venture that too many religious people have become obsessed with the state of religion in the world.
Science hasn’t disproved religion but for those Christians that hold to a literal interpretation of the scriptures, it’s proved them wrong on several points. In addition, theology was once referred to as “the mother” of all philosophies. With the rise of various schools of Enlightenment thought, theology wasn’t replaced but things did get more crowded in the universities, so to speak.
In Aquinas’ day, he could afford to be a little daring, religion dominated society. Even in Lewis day, some basic religious concepts were uniform. By being more of a free-thinker, albeit within the boundaries of a base Christian thought, they had a better chance of obtaining a greater insight on any given subject.
Today; about 90% of Americans express a belief in some sort of deity, about 80% described that deity in the sense of the Christian God but only about 30% of American go to church on a weekly basis. And I’m erring on the conservative side; all of those numbers could be about 5 percentage points lower. For the most part, a living religious faith is optional in America, and it’s even less important in Europe.
So people of faith are often hesitant to broaden their minds, least they encourage a theory that could be deemed unorthodox. And those theologians that do; Spong, Fox, Kung, Borg, etc., they get treated like pariahs by anyone to the right of them.
Of course, this is just a guess. Your theory might be just as valid if you have one.
That is an exceptionally good post from Nuada and I hope it finds its way to an even broader distribution.
I was Catholic too for many years, but I have mostly given up on it.
Even so, I become enraged whenever these politicians invoke the name of God. Who can forget George Bush saying that he took orders from "a higher power" to justify his warmongering?
I am convinced that if there is a God out there somewhere he totally disapproves of the use of cluster blombs, white phosphorous, nuclear weapons, etc... and I am absolutely certain that he doesn't give a fat rat's ass about what some horny, lying, hypocritical sack of shit governor from South Carolina does with his dick.
These people have so distorted the concept of God that it frightens me that anyone would take them seriously, but apparently some people do.
I just want to scream "LEAVE GOD ALONE" everytime I hear this. I may not go to Church anymore, and I do not believe in afterlife, but the concept of God has been a major part of my life.
Wonderful exposition.
I think it is interesting to consider how God in the Old Testiment regarded David. Now David actually sent a soldier into battle so he could fool around with the guy's wife--puts the Biblical into the meaning of Biblical--but what God had a problem with in David's personality was that he was a war monger.
One might argue that the Sermon on the Mount is Jesus' greatest spiritual expression. My problem with Christian moralists of all stripes is that few ever are willing to come to grips that the most warlike religion in the history of humanity has been Christianity, nowhere moreso than on the North American continent where the upshot of the Indian wars was the forced kidnapping of Native Americans and placing them in Christian schools and whose signal event, ironically, was the massacre at Wounded Knee.
Hmmm, dunno. Didnt the prophet Nathan excoriate David for this sin?
Sort of suggests that God wasnt cool with it, as his rep was speaking for Him.
Not only that, but the child from the union died. And Nathan told David it was because of him that the child died.. David and Bathsheba ended up having a second child, who became King Solomon and who was loved by God. He, too, went astray; allowing some of his wives to pray to other gods, and even joining them in doing so.
But what God himself calls David out on was his propensity towards war. What I am speaking in these posts to is how the issue of war, that is legalized and institutionalized mass murder and mayhem, is so readily accepted as a fact of life and argued for by an almost infinite number of Christian and Biblical moralists who are so quick to condemn sexual peccadillos when even the Bible, Old and New Testament, provides a clear condemnation of the former.
Citizen E. I don't know if I would say that Christianity is the most warlike religion in the history of humanity. There may be something in the human condition that makes war a part of human experience. Now if you said that war is a part of the human condition and because Christianity is among the largest of world religions and therefore plays a central part in how war plays out I would agree with you, but I don't necessarily think there is a causal link between any religion and war.
I was saving this for the open thread today I found it last night but there's a panal discussion on this very topic with our friend David blight.
If you can show me another religion with the track record of Christianity, I'll be willing to change my mind. But let's just start with the Americas. The Vatican stinks to high heaven with their looting. Africa also plundered and enslaved in Jesus' name. There have been 2 millenia of battle and violent oppression thus conducted. It's true warfare is human, but historically speaking insorar as religious war has been concerned Christians have taken the cake, and for me it gives pause to all the extreme moral postures taken by Christians inre other types of behavior: this unwillingness by so many--just look at those in Iraq from our own military who have viewed our situation there from a socalled Christian lens--to confront how clearly Jesus was on the issue of being a peacemaker, resisting not evil, and turning the other cheek.
I think we're arguing about two different things. I wasn't arguing that Christianity has a long and bloody history of warfare. I concede that point, but considering the global reach and scope of Christianity as a religion, I would say that the warfare that some see as symptomatic of Christianity is a facet of the bigness of the religion, not nessecarily anything inherent in the creed itself.
Christianity as we know it today grew up in a climate of small European states constantly contending with each other for land and resources. Advances in technology brought that same competition to other parts of the globe. It's true that Christianity grew by conquest but so have most religions. I think at base if we really look at this issue there is something about religion that helps people organize into groups. In terms of principles, not behavior, Christianity was among the most inclusive of the world's religions. I think, and this is a developing thought so please bear with me, that there may be a causal link between cooperation and warfare. It's possible that the more inclusive and assimalationist a religion or philosophy is the more willing people become to sacrifice and make war upon other people when the leader of a group decides to manipulate passions for his or her own ends.
Perhaps, because most generalizations require a good degree of stretching, cooperation and altruism can lead to warfare or intolerance. I'm not sure, but the idea is worth investigating. In a sense as TNC pointed out in an earlier thread the excessive patriotism of George Wallace was one of the keys to understanding segragation. I would argue that Patriotism, and nationalism, has the effect of fostering cooperation among people who are in the group directed against those who are outside of it.
You're entirely right about the disconect between the principle espoused in the sermon on the mount and the behavior of most Christians. The same is in a sense true of any idea in its relationship to humanity. We don't neccisarily always live up to our better impulses, and sometimes our better impulses are used for unjust purposes. As Thucidides said:
The blockquote should end after escape. Sorry about that.
I hate to oversimplify, but aren't most wars really about resources? As in, I need more land, water, oil, minerals, free/cheap labor, etc...
There are the real reasons for waging war (that will be known to historians), there is the propaganda that was fed to the citizens of the time/place, and there is also what is said to the soldiers so they can get down to the business of killing people who have not harmed them.
May I say to all those who countered--the idea that Christianity was not used as the basis for war, whatever other very real objectives were part of the issue--really, need to read their history. Maybe I can see this a bit more clearly as someone who is not Christian, but to analogize, since the civil war comes up so often here, there is very good reason to believe that the civil war was based on regional economics and loyalties as well as the long argued issue of states' vs. national rights, but who is kidding whom?
Let's begin with the destruction of the Mayan texts, okay? Let's go to Spain where even the Arabic lute was taboo in the wake of Castillian wars against Islam and Judiasm that led to the Inquisition. And then there are all the European inter-sect wars hundreds of years long--please go speak to the Irish. Now one can say it is not the religious creed that created those wars, but they have been liberally used in war's service. There is the case of a Belgian Massacre in the Congo--"An agent named Moray recounts the butchery of a village deemed insufficiently busy at work: 'Thereupon the officer ordered us to cut off the heads of the men and hang them on the village palisades, and to hang the women and children on the palisades in the form of a cross.' This was, after all, a Christian civilizing mission." http://sirocco.blogsome.com/2006/01/16/robbing-the-congo-part-ii-unspeakable-richness/. The KKK did not burn statues of Buddha meditating to get their point across.
And Jesus' teachings on the issue by contrast brings to light exactly what I thought this post was about--a response to conservative Christian, particularly Rod Dreher--moralizing about the behavior, particularly the sexual behavior, of others.
I am waiting for all those who today claim that the US is a Christian nation and wish to put their judgmental eyeballs into the bedrooms of others--to proclaim that we should render unto Caesar, resist not evil, turn the other cheek, become peacemakers, and remember that it is more difficult for a camel to pass through a needle's eye than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. I am waiting for them to denounce their own pharisees and the money lending practices of credit card companies. I am waiting.
Maybe this is something I can't see yet. Maybe this is a disagreement about paramount causes vs secondary causes. Maybe its a case of being so far removed from an age of faith that I have trouble putting myself into a mindset that honestly believes theistic explanations of the world. Maybe.
Take the Albegensian Crusade against the Cathars, or the intersectional violence in France after the revocation of the edict of Nantes. Were these issues entirely about religion? Was the issue entirely connected to the debate over the Cathars despising all earthly pleasures and seeing the physical world as evil? Was the revocation of the edict of Nantes really about the evils of a reformed creed or were there other more important causes? Which part of the un roi une loi une foi equation does one run with when discussing the evils of Christianity? What's the paramount cause? Is there a paramount cause?
Another question is Christianity to blame for the evils of Christians or does it provide the context that surrounds, supports, and justifies abuses that would find other rationalizations given another controlling ideology? How exactly do we separate the rational for a particular action from the rationalization for a particular action?
where does ideology end and human motivation begin? Can we seperate the two? You mentioned Wounded Knee earlier. Do we blame Wounded Knee, the Washita River, the necessity for the Fort Robinson Breakout, the Nez Perce war, The sorrow of the trail of tears, the rise of the ghost dance, a 95% decrease in Native American population and a coresponding 95% decrease in land occupancy, soley on Christianity?
Can we blame the Holocaust on Christianity? William L. Shrier linked Luther with Hitler. Do we blame the Irish Penal Laws, the establishment of the Homelands in South Africa, and the Reservation/manifest destiny/genocide of native peoples to a dogmatic calvinism, which is what all three situations had in common? Do we see the Catholic Church in the middle ages primarily as a religious institution or as a government? Can we hold christianity responsible for the actions of christians? Can we hold communism responsible for the actions of communists?
At a simple level yes. We can blame all of these things on ideology, just as we can blame them all on human weaknesses. At a more complex level the relationship isn't binary, but symbiotic. Our prejudices, misconceptions, preconceptions, rationalizations, morals, faith, reason, and human experience is universal in scope because all people possess these qualities, and yet particular to the individual's time and place. We are products both of our evolution and our environment. Judging which factor takes precedence at any point in time is extremely hard. Sometimes the answer is nature, and sometimes nuture. In relation to the discussion sometimes christians are to blame and sometimes christianity is to blame. However each situation needs to be judged on its merits. We can't say that X is always the reason Y happened. Sometimes our reason is linear, and yet sometimes we think we reason linearly only because we can't get out of our skin enough to realize that we are walking in circles.
Albert Camus put this argument in a much better light than I did in his essay on Sisyphus.
All Sisyphus' silent joy is contained therein. His fate belongs to him. His rock is his thing. Likewise, the absurd man, when he contemplates his torment, silences all the idols. In the universe suddenly restored to silence, the myriad wondering little voices of the earth rise up. Unconscious, secret calls, invitations from all the faces, they are the necessary reverse and price of victory. there is no sun without shadow, and it is essential to know the night. The absurd man says yes and his effort will henceforth be unceasing. If there is a personal fate, there is no higher destiny, or at least there is but one which he concludes is inevitable and despicable. For the rest, he knows himself to be the master of his days. At that subtle moment when man glances backward over his life, Sisyphus returning toward his rock, in that silent pivoting he contemplates that series of unrelated actions which becomes his fate, created by him, combined under his memory's eye and soon sealed by his death. Thus, convinced of the wholly human origin of all that is human, a blind man eager to see who knows that the night has no end, he is still on the go. The rock is still rolling.
For myself this whole question is much too big. I can't aquare this circle, and I am both humbled and learn new insights every time I try to answer. All I know for sure is that the world is a big perhaps.
Odd that I must put my reply here but okay…
Neither Sorn nor I disagree with much of what you say. But you seem to be talking past the point that Sorn keeps making and that I agree with.
Christianity might be connected to and therefore somewhat responsible for more warfare than any other religion. But that’s only because it is the most popular religion in history, in terms of numbers at least. Furthermore, those who adopted Christianity ended up being the most technologically advanced civilizations, up until the modern age. Thusly, those nations had the strongest militaries and fought the most wars because they won the most wars. That’s not to imply that religion had much of anything to do with technological advancement. It is a complex subject but things like geography and plan dumb luck ended up mattering far more.
Your point that many Christian are hypocrites is well-founded. But it only furthers the point that it’s actions of Christians that are to blame, not Christianity itself. Religion also bends to the will of those who believe in it, not just vice versa. Mahatma Gandhi once praised Jesus Christ solely by noting how different he was from his supposed followers.
I’ve read many of the “new atheists”; Hitchens, Harris, Dawkins, most of what they say about religion have numerous elements of facts in them. But they go too far in their refusal to recognize the relative benign natural of a faith with a liberal theological underpinning, constrained by a secular society awash in Enlightenment principles. The American Framers had it right; religion is not the problem as much as is unrestrained religion. Religion can motivate societal decisions but it can not decide them.
So, for example, Dreher can be opposed to same-sex marriage because he thinks the Bible tells him to be against it. But he can not push for a ban on same-sex marriage because he thinks the Bible says to be against it. Either come up with a reason why a ban would be good for society, completely free of any religious dogma, or go and live the “Benedict” option…by removing yourself from the society.
And frankly, we are still trying to reconcile this deeply problematic cornerstone of Western law with our asserted desire to separate church and state in our government.
It is one reason why we still have government in the business of marriage (inherently religious) vs. civil unions for all, straight or gay.
Great explanation. I particularly liked this bit:
"[Dante] surmised, quite correctly, that pride was the worst of the seven because it alone could blind you to the fact that you might be committing it...or any of the other six. "
That applies to Sanford, and to a host of other sins. On right and left, but I immediately thought of Rush explaining that the blame for Sanford's actions rested on Barack Obama, and Clarence Thomas claiming that the strip-searched child had it coming because the adults didn't find any drugs in her backpack or clothing, clearly indicating she had hidden them in her underwear.
TNC, there's a following post to draw together your post on Sanford and Nuada's post on pride.
Nuada, thank you. You demonstrated in clear fashion why I remain a Roman Catholic.
TNC, strictly speaking, this was not Bible study. ;-) Nuada was giving an excellent theological and philosophical argument drawing from the intellectual history of the church.
I thank you and everyone else for their kind words.
I should say that while I was raised Roman Catholic, fell out during my teenage years and came back in my early 20’s, I’m treading water and looking to jump out of the…baptismal font.
I’m only 30, so I was not around during Vatican II to have my hopes dashed by how things played out over the last 40 years. But the ways in which many prominent Catholics, particularly those wearing the miters, wish to merge theology with politics, it sends me into spiritual turmoil. As if what happened in Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Italy and to a lesser extent, most of South America wasn’t a warning sign.
One issue especially gets to me. Even though I am a happily married heterosexual man, the incredible injustice of a ban on same-sex marriage troubles me deeply. I live in a state that has legalized same-sex marriage. So now I am encouraged to pray for a legal reversal, to pray with earnest hopes that homosexuals are stripped of the same civil rights I enjoy. It goes against any morality that dwells inside me. Yet as you know, being Catholic yourself, “the Church” is not just a church, it is a culture. Leaving, even to another Christian denomination, is not easy.
Yes, I know. We are kindred souls if our experiences and demographics are any indication.
The sex abuse, the disenfranchisement of women from ecclesiastical authority, the "Republicanization" of the Church has left me troubled. To be honest, had it not been for my parish family, I would be long gone.
One more thing, Nuada. I would like to stay in touch in some form. I'm going to pursue my CEM and I'd like to surround myself with folk such as yourself to keep the sword sharp, so to speak.
Well, I must confess that I am only a high school history teacher with a BS and a MA, both from state universities. I am not a professional theologian. While I do have other, less enriching leisure-time activates that I like to pursue, reading historical, political and theological non-fiction is my favorite.
I’m not on the internet much, aside from blogs like Mr. Sullivan’s and Mr. Coates’. So, I’m not sure how to keep in touch, aside from this very fashion here.
Again we are kindred souls. I have a BS in aero/astro engineering, an MSE in Systems Engineering, and an MBA from good schools, thus I have no formal training in the liberal arts. My historical interests are purely for my own personal edification.
My parish is sponsoring me to get my Certificate in Ecclesiastical Ministries. So I'm doubly motivated to see it thru. Hoping we can throw down sometime.
Best from a fellow relgious-history-Catholic-married-family-man nerd!
Nuada,
Send an email when you can. I'll do my best.
I'm late to this wicket party. There is one very important point that I would like to add. St. Thomas Aquinas, despite all his effort to merge Christian ideas with the Greeks - was very very selective of what he considered worthwhile Greek thought.
The reason why Christianity allowed Plato and Aristotle to exist - was the same reason they allowed for the Old Testament to continue living. It was all in line with their existing wold-view - namely our existing worldview today. Plato and Aristotle were not classics - they represented the end of Greece and not the beginning. They represent the modern West and modern Christianity and not classical Greece. Only because they were not destroyed and were integrated into Christianity and the West does not mean that they were epics.
Both Plato/Aristotle and Christianity - yes even the early secular peaceful Christians - couldn't bear somebody called Epicurus and his back then still strong following. It was the first and so far last sexual revolution. It was the first and and so far last truly equal equality. It was the first and so far last religious equality.
There was no drama between the Epicureans and the Christians like Islam and Galilee later knew. Why? Because there was no discussion - everything Epicurus must be killed and destroyed. Period. Epicurus was too dangerous for everybody. He made heroes out of villains and turned love into something evil and sex into something good. He turned friendship into the highest good and put marriage last.
Here is Epicurus, ca 2,300 BC, on the issue of love and marriage. Via the most important poem that has ever been written and survived - De Rerum Natura by Lucreticus. Gods bless him for hiding the wolf in sheep's clothing. Please - if you read only one poem or book in your entire life - read De Rerum Natura.
NOTE by Hugo: Despite the claim by many that Epicurus was against marriage - the final Coda me think proves otherwise. His famous quote - "depending on circumstances" is spot on in my experience. That way - nobody who is not married feels like a sinner. Socrates was thinking along these lines but it is hard to hear him via Plato's fantasies. Anyway - it is important to note that based on equality - a complete end to marriage was being discussed in earnest about 2,300 years ago. Where? In a city that gave us the majority of all rational, psychological and hence emotional thought that exists to date.
After Epicurus and Socrates - there has never been a serious discussion about marriage. These days we discuss gay marriage - but not the very concept itself. And what about the rumor that our father Solon has not only thought and given us first freedom and democracy but that he also first introduced... state-sponsored brothels so that people could live in peace? And more in line with our nature? Tell me - what is worse - betraying your partner or torturing intelligent, emotional beings like yourself for life?
Here it is - long as it is. Like bittersweet medicine. Epicurus on love:
What powerful movements the human mind may have:
Often in sleep the same things harry us still.
Men throw down kings; themselves are taken in battle;
They raise a shout as if their throats were cut.
Many will struggle, emitting horrible groans
and just as if a panther or lion had bitten them
fill the place with the loudest possible cries.
Many will talk in sleep of important affairs;
It is not unknown for a man to speak of his crimes;
Many encounter death: and from high mountains
have the impression of falling to sea-level;
They are terrified, and when they awake their minds
are still so caught they hardly know what they are doing.
A man many feel thirsty and stop at the bank of a river
or at a spring and offer to drink the lot.
Children often, when they are fast asleep,
think they are on their pots or in the lavatory
and lift up their clothes and let out a whole bladderful,
making a mess on a fine Babylonian carpet.
.
The adolescent, boiling for the first time
with seed inside him, ripened that very day,
is met by images from some body or other
suggesting a lovely face and a beautiful color.
They rouse the parts which are swollen already with semen
until, as if the whole thing was really happening,
he pours out a river which spills all over his tunic.
.
The seed is excited in us as I have explained,
as soon as our first maturity gives us the strength.
Different things are excited by different causes;
It needs a human creature to call up the seed.
As soon as it has been elicited from its recesses,
it is drained away from every part of the body
and, collecting in the appropriate nerve centers,
it stirs up the genital organs without delay.
Provoked by the seed, these places swell; and the impulse
is to eject it towards the ominous object;
So the whole mind seeks the body with is causing the damage.
Men usually fall on the side on which they are wounded;
The blood flows in the direction the blow comes from,
and straight at the enemy if he stands in the way.
.
It is the same with a man wounded by Venus' arrows,
whether they come at him from a girlish boy
or from a woman whose whole body hurls love at him;
He runs at the person who shot him and wants to copulate
and to plant in that body the fluid from his own body;
His dumb desire suggests it will give him pleasure.
That is Venus for you, it is that which we call love
which is the source of sweetness which Venus pours
drop by drop in our hearts: and then we are worried.
If what you want isn't there, there are always images
of her, and her sweet name will ring in your ears.
.
Keep off imagination and frighten away
whatever encourages love; turn your mind elsewhere,
get rid of the fluid in any body you can
instead of keeping it for a single person
which is bound to lead to trouble and end in grief.
If you have an ulcer there is no point in feeding it,
the madness gets worse every day and the burden intolerable
if you do not confuse the first wound with several others
and wander and lose yourself in the genial Venus:
Unless you can turn your mind to another subject.
.
No need to do without sex if you keep off love;
You simply have it without the disadvantages.
For surely those who are perfectly well have more pleasure
than the afflicted: even in the moment of triumph
lovers drift in all kinds of doubts and confusions,
not knowing whether to start with the eye or the hands.
They squash the body they sought until it squeals
and often their teeth make a gash on the lips
in the course of affixing a kiss, which is hardly pure pleasure.
They are indeed rather provoked to injure the object,
whatever it is, which causes this onset of lunacy.
But Venus mitigates pains such as these for the lover
and a gentle admixture of pleasure will soften the bite.
.
For the hope is always that the body which causes this ardor
will prove the best instrument for quenching the flame,
which is quite contrary to the order of nature.
This is the one case in which the more we have
the more we burn with furious desire for more.
Food and drink are taken into the body,
they fill up certain spaces and that is that,
the craving for solitude and liquids is easily satisfied
but with human faces and beautiful complexions
there is nothing to take in and enjoy but a pack of images,
a wretched hope which the wind can blow away:
just as when a thirsty man tries to drink in a dream
He cannot get a drop which will really slake his limbs,
he goes after imaginary liquid and labors in vain
and is thirsty even while drinking a raging river.
So in love Venus plays with her lovers in images;
They cannot be satisfied by looking at bodies
nor can they scrape off bits of delicious limbs
But think they might and roam all over the body.
.
When with limbs together they enjoy the flower of their age
and the body has a premonition of pleasure,
with Venus ready to sow the feminine fields,
They catch at each other greedily, exchanging spittle,
and sigh in pressing each other's mouth with their teeth.
It is no good; they cannot get anything off;
they cannot get into the body with the whole body.
They seem to want to, however, and make immense efforts
to the point that they stick in the embraces of Venus
until their limbs melt with the force of the pleasure.
When the desire in their sinews has made its eruption
there is a little pause in the violence of their ardor:
Then the lunacy breaks out again and the frenzy comes back
when they ask what it is they should like to obtain for themselves
and cannot find any device which will make them feel better,
so not knowing they pine away with a blind disease.
.
Besides, they use up their strength by overdoing it;
Not only that, they live at the whim of another.
Their money turns into Babylonian embroideries;
They neglect their business and their good name becomes shaky;
There are perfumes; her feet must be shod in beautiful slippers;
Enormous emeralds gleam on her, set in gold,
Yet the sea-colored gown will wear out quickly enough
with all the amorous sweat that it has to mop up.
The patrimony turns into ribbons and headgear,
dresses which come all the way from Alinda or Cos.
It all goes in dinners with clothes and expensive food,
shows, lots of drink, and bath-salts and head-bands and garlands.
Quite useless, for out of the source of so many attractions
something bitter comes up, and the flowers are a pain.
Either the mind will reflect and become remorseful
at so much waste of time in pursuit of debauchery
or else the girl lets drop some ambiguous expression
which sticks in the heart and burns away like a fire,
or possibly turns her eyes in the wrong direction
and lets fall the trace of a smile at somebody else.
.
These evils are found in the most prosperous love:
As to the ills of those who simply get nowhere
you can close your eyes and imagine how many they are:
They are innumerable—so better watch out
and take good care, as I said, that you don't get caught.
To avoid falling into an amorous entanglement
is not so hard as to get out once you are in
for the knots Venus makes are very hard to untie.
.
But even if you are caught in the entanglement
you can avoid the worst if you don't stand in your own way
by blinding yourself to the faults of mind and body
there are in the person you are so keen to follow.
Yet this is exactly what men generally do;
They attribute qualities which are simply not there.
We often see misshapen, disgusting women
regarded as charming, indeed, you might say worshipped.
Men will mutually give ironic advice
about horrible passions they notice in one another
without the least regard to their own misfortunes.
A dark girl looks like honey; an unwashed one is natural;
The cat-eyed bitch is a goddess; the stringy one is a sylph;
The undersized, under-grown one, a minute gem;
The overgrown monster has an extraordinary dignity;
The girl with a stammer has a bit of a lisp;
The dumb girl is just diffident; while the screaming,
big-mouthed harpy is bubbling over with life;
A girl is slim when she is at death's door,
she is so thin; or sensitive, when she's consumptive;
If she has a mountainous bosom she is jolly;
If her nose is flat she's puckish; thick lips give a lovely kiss:
Really one can't go on with the recitation.
.
Even supposing the girl you love is beautiful
and her body has every kind of amorous attraction:
Still, there are others, and you did without her before;
And she does all the things the most unpleasant ones do
and chokes herself with the horrible smells she gives off
while her maids run away or snigger behind her back.
.
The tearful lover, shut out, will cover the entrance
with flowers and even garlands, while the splendid doorposts
he plasters with oil of marjoram, adding his kisses.
Yet, if he were let in, one whiff from the boudoir
would make him think of excuses for getting away;
His long-thought-out campaign would be forgotten;
He would curse the stupidity which made him think of her
as somebody who wasn't actually mortal.
Our Venuses know all this and go to great pains
to keep such matters hidden behind the scenes:
It is hardly worth it; a little reflection will tell us
just what is happening and why the servants are giggling.
If the girl is sensible and not full of pretenses,
be sensible too and allow her human functions.
.
Coda
Yet sometimes without the intervention of Venus,
a rather sub-average woman may come to be loved.
She manages by herself and by what she does,
by compliant ways and keeping her body clean
to get a man used to sharing her existence.
For the rest, what you get used to you tend to love;
However light the blows, if they are repeated
they will end by bringing down whatever it is.
It has long been a matter of ordinary observation
that constant dripping wears away the stone.
Nuada - I have some questions for you because you bring up some philisophical dilemmas I have been struggling with for quite awhile.
You said:
'And homosexuality didn't exist, man-on-man sodomy was likened to drunkenness, something men did as to "act the fool."'
I just find this hard to believe on a visceral level. I have always been aware of my sexual orientation towards other men, even before I had a word for it. I imagine that there have been others like me throughout human history, and it also appears that other species of mammals have the same "orientation," without a language to socially construct it.
Can you imagine that there were men and women in ancient times who loved alcohol and drank it every day? They weren't alcoholics because that wasn't a word, but nonetheless, they still had a compulsion to drink it every day. So perhaps the modern era gave us the homosexual as a pathological subspecies, but I just can't buy the fact that this labeling somehow shaped the actual sexual desires of homosexuals.
One could say that asians weren't "asian" until they were defined in opposition to "white." Similarly, one could say that homosexuals didn't exist the way they do now because they weren't defined in opposition to anything. But just because homosexuals weren't part of the ancient lexicon, are you saying there weren't men and women that existed who were biologically attracted to their own sex?
How can the words used to define one's sexuality BE the sexuality? I just don't get it. Sexuality is a primal feeling. Words are words. That's what I don't understand about the post-structuralists. It seems like they forget nature exists and it is all words, words, words.