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Difference Is Not A Sin

An Examination Of The Biblical Attitude To Homosexual Behaviour

Chapter 2: THE BIBLE AND THE HUMAN BODY

In both of the creation stories in Genesis the creation of human beings was the culmination of God's work. In that sense then the human body was seen as good and its functioning as being the design of God. The biblical view of human beings is always that there is total unity between the spirit and body and mind and consciousness.

They are all part of what it is to be human. D.H. Lawrence describes the biblical position perfectly. "Now I flatly deny that I am a soul, or a body, or a mind, or an intelligence, or a brain, or a nervous system, or a bunch of glands, or any of the rest of these bits of me. The whole is greater than the part. And therefore, I who am alive am greater than my soul, or spirit, or body or mind, or consciousness, or anything else that is merely a part of me. I am man and alive. ("Why the novel matters." Selected Literary Criticism ed. A. Beal pp104-5) There is not therefore a division between the body and the life lived by the body, its existence and its functioning. The body, the life it leads and the experience and assessment of that life are intimately linked together in one. This is a difficult thought to hold because we often divide the physical from the emotional and spiritual. The French philosopher Merleau-Ponty wrestled with the complicated and ambiguous experience of existence. "The body is not an object. For the same reason the awareness of it is not a `thought'. That is to say, it is not something I can take to pieces and put together again to form a clear idea of it. Its unity is always implicit and confused. Whatever it is it is always something other - always sexuality at the same time as liberty, deeply rooted in nature at the very moment of changing itself by culture, never closed in upon itself yet never transcended . . . I have no other means of knowing the human body except that of living its life." (M. Merleau-Ponty `Phenomenologie de la Perception p.231)

Sometimes St Paul seems to deny this unity by appearing to draw a distinction between flesh and spirit. "The works of the flesh are obvious, sexual immorality, impurity of mind, sensuality, worship of false gods, witchcraft, hatred, strife and jealousy . . . . The spirit however produces love, joy, peace patience, kindness . . . . " (Galatians 5:19ff). However this dichotomy is more apparent than real and a problem of translation as much as anything else. When Paul uses the word `flesh' he does not mean the physical body as we might understand it. The contrast between flesh and spirit is not the obvious one of something between material and spiritual. The kind of fleshiness that he is talking about is what we would call a state of mind; hatred and jealousy are not after all strictly bodily functions. "By body Paul means the organic principle that makes a man a self identical individual, persisting through all the changes in substance through which he realizes himself, whether material or non material." ( C.H. Dodd `The Epistle of Paul to the Romans' p125)

This biblical idea of the essential unity of everything it is to be alive, is the background against which we must see St Paul's idea of the body as the temple of the Holy Spirit. We are God's house and our bodies are holy and dedicated to him. "Do you not know that your body is the Temple of the Holy Spirit who lives in you and who was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourselves but to God. he bought you for a price. So use your bodies for God's glory." (1 Corinthians 6:19). Indeed Paul says that we are part of Christ's body, "You know that your bodies are part of the body of Christ." (1 Corinthians 6:15). In this union we will become all that we are capable of. United within ourselves, united with each other in the faith and united with Christ. "And so we shall all come together to the oneness in our faith and in our knowledge of the Son of God; we shall become mature people, reaching to the height of Christ's full stature." (Ephesians 4:13).

It is through living in and as a body that we come to know God. If we are to do this, all the different aspects of our being must be in harmony. The way we use our lives, the experiences we have, the way we develop our abilities, the way we treat our bodies are all things that develop or hinder our relationship with God. The possible conflict here is obvious. Our lives can brutalize us or elevate us. In the totality of our lives we rely on God to support us, "What else have I in heaven but you? Since I have you, what else could I want on earth? My mind and my body may grow weak; but God is my strength,. He is all I ever need." (Psalm 73:25-6)

An essential part of our creation as human beings is our sexuality. "Male and female he created them, blessed them and said, `Have many children, so that your descendants will live over all the earth.'" (Genesis 1:27-8). In the second, older creation story set in the Garden of Eden, men and women are designed to be companions and helpmates. Their relationship and union is the context in which children are born and brought up. "That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united with his wife, and they become one." (Genesis 2:24) It is perhaps in the experience of love for each other or for one other, that we can best experience and understand the love of God. It is also in the creation of other human beings in love that we can most obviously share in the creative work of God. For our purposes here the important question is can the love sexually expressed

between two people of the same sex be an expression of the love of God, will it be a way in which they are brought closer to him, or estranged from him?

Just as our human sexuality can most powerfully be used to express our capacity for love, so also it can be the most obvious expression of our selfishness and tendency to use other people as objects for our own gratification. Because of the biblical emphasis on the unity of a person and that person is the dwelling place of the Spirit of God, literally a temple, then any human activity devoid of love is seen by the biblical writers as separating us from our true selves and from God while any activity undertaken in love unites us with God. "What he commands us is to believe in his son Jesus Christ and love one another just as Christ commanded us. Whoever obeys Christ's command lives in union with him." (1 John 3:24-5). Our physical bodies united with our faith and thought are the means by which we express and experience the love of God in our lives.

THE BIBLE, THE BODY AND NAKEDNESS

We can now look at specific attitudes to the human body and particularly to the sexual organs and their functions as they appear in the Bible, beginning with nakedness.

Part of the innocence of the relationship of Adam and Eve is that they are unaware and unconcerned by their nakedness. The story of Adam and Eve in the garden is the experience that we all have as we grow up. We all know that small children are unconcerned about their nakedness and will happily play on the beach. As we grow up we loose this innocence as we become increasingly self aware. The awareness of nakedness is part of the growing self awareness of ourselves as sexual beings. I think that some of the biblical attitudes to the human body and sexuality have had some unfortunate results and should now be questioned, in this story is the first of these attitudes which should cause us some unease. Why should an awareness of our nakedness, with its implication of ourselves as sexual beings, be associated with human rebellion against God?

In contrast to contemporary Graeco Roman and to an extent modern western society, nakedness was considered a shameful thing in Israelite culture. This shame is shown again in the story of Noah's drunkenness (Genesis 9:20-7). Noah the first vine grower, gets drunk on his own produce, and takes off his clothes. He is seen in this state by his son, Ham. Ham tells his brothers. "Then Shem and Japheth took a robe and held it behind them on their shoulders. They walked backwards into their father's tent and covered him, keeping their eyes away so as not to see him naked." For his presumption Ham's descendants are cursed! In a patriarchal society the dignity of the male head of the family must be protected at all costs.

Perhaps it is the supposed shame of nakedness that is behind the biblical instructions about the vesture of priests. Robes to be worn during sacrifices included shorts which would prevent the genitals of the priest being exposed to the altar as he climbed upon it. "And thou shalt make for them linen breeches to cover their nakedness; from the loins even unto the thighs . . . and they shall be upon Aaron and upon his sons when they come into the tabernacle or when they come near unto the altar to minister in the holy place; that they bear not iniquity and die." (Exodus 28:42-3). These shorts were to be worn even though the priests wore full length embroidered tunics, and it can only have been from underneath as it were, that any offence might have been given. We know that a priest or the person making the sacrifice actually climbed on the altar from descriptions of ritual activities in the Ras Shamra texts. In particular a description of a burnt offering made by King Keret ". . . . and he did go up on to the tower, he did mount the shoulder of the wall; he did lift up his hands to heaven, he did sacrifice to the bull El his father." (G.R. Driver, Canaanite Myths and Legends. p.33)

The latin word `genitalis' from which we get our word genital, is morally neutral. In contrast, the Hebrew equivalent `erchwah' means hideous flesh. To be naked and to be exposed to the gaze of others was deeply shaming, "The Lord Almighty said I will punish you Nineveh! I will strip you naked and let the nations see you in all your shame." (Nahum 3:5) So great was the idea of the shame of nakedness that it was used by Paul as an extreme example of what God's love could overcome. "Who then can separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecutions, or famine or nakedness or peril or sword?" (Romans 8:35)

After their conquest by Alexander the Great the Israelites were deeply shocked by the casual nudity of the Greeks. This among other things was viewed as a corrupting influence which was one of the causes of the Maccabean revolt. In the books of Maccabeas there are several references to the building of gymnasia even by the ruling high priest Jason who applied to the king if "he might have a licence to set up a place of exercise, and for the training up of youth in the fashions of the heathen." (Maccabees 2:9) The Greeks were thought to be shockingly immodest and corrupting. Even today public nakedness is viewed with great disapproval in traditional Jewish circles. This goes beyond a normal modesty which avoids provocative behaviour. The Jerusalem authorities recently refused the Italian governments offer of the loan of Michael Angelo's statue of David as part of the city's celebration of the three thousandth anniversary of its conquest by King David, citing its nakedness as the cause. In orthodox families it would be considered quite wrong even for married couples to appear naked in front of each other and elaborate arrangements are made to avoid this even during love making.

This embarrassment about nakedness, particularly male nudity, passed into the christian culture which took over the classical world. Classical statues were mutilated by having their genitals knocked off. (It is said that the genitals from many of the statues in the British Museum are actually in the museum, and that they are sometimes used as paper weights in the offices!). It is now a joke, though a sad one, that one of the first tasks of missionaries was to clothe `the natives' after their conversion. This absurd neurosis has thus passed around the world.

I am of the opinion for instance that the `chador' that black, sleeved and hooded over garment, worn by strict Moslem women is not an expression of moral strength and correctness on the part of the men who enforce these rules (and these rules are almost always enforced by men) but in fact is the same kind of prurient narrow mindedness which prompted Christians to mutilate classical statues. It is prurient because it sees sin and shame where there is none. Female sexuality and individuality has always been suppressed and feared by heterosexual men.

This is a strange way to celebrate the bodies that God has given us. In fact this neurotic, embarrassed self loathing is a form of blasphemy.

THE BIBLE THE BODY AND UNCLEANNESS

Given this sensitivity about nudity it is not surprising that bodily functions were also hedged around with taboos. Clearly many biblical attitudes and laws stem from a great concern for cleanliness but this does not entirely explain their rigour, or the terms in which they are written. Purity, is expressed in the Old Testament by several words that range in meaning from `cleanliness', `freedom from foreign bodies', or `salted' to `innocent'. Israel was God's chosen people; their land was His Holy Land, and anything that made a person unclean unfitted them to approach God or His dwelling place. As part of this, physical cleanliness had a high priority. People bathed on returning from a public place, on entering a house and before meals. Certain foods, animals, and physical processes were considered unclean and made the person involved unclean.

"When a man has an emission of semen, he must bathe his whole body, and he remains unclean until evening. Anything made of cloth or leather on which the semen falls must be washed and it remains unclean until evening." (Leviticus 15:16). Considering the prohibitions on masturbation and premarital sex, involuntary night emissions of semen must have been a common experience. More understandable, but still an extreme reaction by our standards and in the light of modern medical knowledge, is the attitude to a discharge from an infected penis. "When a man has a discharge from his penis the discharge is unclean . . . any bed on which he sits or lies is unclean. Anyone who touches his bed or sits on anything that the man has sat on must wash his clothes and have a bath, and he remains unclean until evening." Leviticus 15:2-7.) "Any clay pot that he touches must be broken." (Leviticus 15:12). Certainly clay pots cannot easily be sterilised and great care had to be taken to ensure that infections were not needlessly be passed on.

Similar rules apply to menstrual blood which is not only unclean in itself but makes the woman ritually unclean, that is, unable to take part in the worship and public life of the community. "When a woman has her monthly period she remains unclean for seven days." (Leviticus 15:19) Similar rules apply to the woman and all she touches as for the man and the emission of semen. However there are particularly strict rules about having sexual relations during this period. "If a man has sexual intercourse with her during her period he is contaminated by her impurity and remains unclean for seven days." The significant word here is "impurity". We may consider the menstrual cycle as inconvenient or at times uncomfortable but certainly not impure. This was again condemned in Leviticus 18, the chapter on forbidden sexual practices, part of what is known as the Holiness Code (see the Bible study on Leviticus later in this book), where homosexuality is specifically condemned. "Do not have intercourse with a woman during her monthly period because she is unclean." (Leviticus 18:19). This could have tragic consequences for some women. The story in Luke and Matthew of Jesus healing the woman suffering from haemorrhages for twelve years, is a case in point. Here is a woman who would have been unclean for all that time, unable to join in the life of the community. She was unable to even approach let alone touch Jesus for fear that he would be made unclean as well. (Luke 8:42-end) There are feint echoes of this today when people suggest that it would inappropriate for a woman priest to celebrate the mass during her period.

The physical processes were not of course properly understood at this time. Blood was seen as being extremely significant because it was associated directly with life itself. Whether this was the reason or whether it was to do with the Israelite concern with cleanliness is hard to say. Certainly people were not averse to covering themselves in the blood of animals. (Exodus 24:8) which in this context had a purifying role.

It is in this chapter that the table of affinity is to be found. This lists the family members between whom it is forbidden to have sexual relationships. It is basically the same list that we have today, though it amounted to a total rejection of the accepted behaviour in the peoples around the infant nation, where sexual relations between people of the same family seem to have been more common.

The sexual act itself too incurred impurity. "After sexual intercourse both the man and the woman must have a bath and they remain unclean until evening." (Leviticus 15:17) Such baths are still a feature of orthodox Jewish households today. This is perhaps the most extraordinary verse in the whole of the book. "There are undoubtedly sanitary reasons for all these restrictions, but at the root there are the taboos which have to do with the things that contain life, i.e. blood and semen." (Peak's Commentary. Leviticus. p.248 article by N.H.Snaith.)

It is these primitive, beliefs which may lie behind the Christian belief that Jesus was born of a `pure virgin' that is, without the necessity for sexual intercourse. If sexual intercourse is unclean and makes the participants unclean, then it is possible to see why the Messiah should be born in some other way. In some strands of Christian tradition the sexual act was seen as the mechanism by which original sin was passed on from one generation to the next. For this reason too, it was important to ensure that the Messiah was untainted in this way.

Certainly the idea that Mary was `ever virgin' and had no other children apart from Jesus is not supported by such biblical texts as Mark 3.31. "While Jesus was teaching his Mother and his Brothers arrived. They stood outside and sent a message asking him to come out to them." This same story is told in Luke 8:20-21. More telling still is the passage also in Mark "Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James and Joses, and of Juda and Simon? and are not his sisters here with us? And they were offended at him." (Mark 6:3). How then has this tradition developed; in Matthew and Luke where the story of Jesus' birth is told, the emphasis in the story is on the uniqueness of Jesus, and that the power of God was involved in his birth, his death and resurrection and ultimately in his ascension. I am certain that the interpretation of these stories, particularly in Roman Catholic doctrine, which denies the evidence of the Bible that Jesus had brothers and sisters, comes from the belief that it was somehow inappropriate for the Mother of the Messiah to have had a normal sexual relationship.

It is not surprising given the preceding evidence, that the act of giving birth also brought impurity. "For seven days after a woman gives birth to a son, she is ritually unclean, as she is during her monthly period. On the eighth day the child shall be circumcised. Then it shall be thirty three more days before she is ritually clean from her loss of blood; she must not touch anything that is holy or enter the sacred tent until the time of her purification is over." (Leviticus 12:2-4). (`Holy' was anything belonging to God.) If a woman gave birth to a girl the period for purification was twice as long because it was believed that giving birth to a girl was twice as dangerous. A hangover of this type of thinking could be seen until quite recently in the rituals of the churching of women and the superstitions that accompanied them.

In this context uncleanness has partly to do with the preservation of society and partly with the other world of spirits and taboos. The Hebrews believed that God was concerned with the whole of life and it is perhaps this that made them bring in these much more primitive beliefs, the hangover from an earlier nature religion into their own belief systems. So rules about sanitary matters that meant that a person was separated from the community also involved being excluded from worshipping God. Being cut off from the community also meant being cut off from God. Matters which we consider to be purely to do with sanitation were in Jewish society to take on ritual significance. Jesus got into trouble with the religious authorities of his day because he had a rather cavalier attitude to the conventions of washing of his own time. "The Pharisee was surprised when he noticed that Jesus had not washed before eating." (Luke 11:38) Jesus was harsh in his reply, "Now then you Pharisees clean the outside of your plates and cups but inside you are full of violence and evil." (ibid. v.39).

MARRIAGE, FIDELITY AND THE ATTITUDE TO HOMOSEXUAL ACTIVITY

Whereas the Bible has a well developed understanding of the place and importance of marriage it does not have a similar understanding of human sexuality. For biblical writers of all periods this would have seemed a strange comment because while human sexual activity outside marriage was acknowledged, it was never condoned. The primary purpose of sex was to produce children and this should always be done in the context of marriage. Marriage and stable family relationships were seen as the best guarantee of a stable and prosperous society. This is true today, but it was even more important for a primitive, agrarian and partly nomadic people who lived on the margins, and were surrounded by hostile nations who practised alien religions which threatened its unity and security. (A caveat has to be entered here; a lot more tolerance was shown for male rather than female promiscuity, as witnessed by the adulation accorded to Samson and his sexual adventures, and in Old Testament times for a man to have more than one wife and one or more concubines).

Great importance was attached to relationships. "The two become one." (Genesis 2:24) This view of marriage was picked up in the New Testament, (with the caution, that, as the early Christian community believed they were living in the last days before the end of the world, they had more important things to think about than getting married.) "He that loves his wife loves himself." (Ephesians 5:28). "Rejoice in the wife of thy youth . . . and be thou ravished always with her love." (Proverbs 5:18-19). "Whoever finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favour of the Lord." (ibid. 18:22) Marriage therefor was something in itself which would bring the approval of God and his blessings on the couple. Marriage was an institution that should be supported by the community; "When a man takes a new wife, he shall not go out to war, neither shall he be charged with any business, but he shall be free at home for one year, and he shall cheer up the wife that he has taken." (Deuteronomy 24:5).

So sacred was the institution that it was taken as the symbol of Christ's relationship with the church. "Husbands love your wives even as Christ loved the church and gave himself for it." (Ephesians 5:25).

The penalties for breaking the marriage vows were severe. "Let none deal treacherously with the wife of his youth." (Malachi 2:15). It was the subject of the seventh commandment, "Do not commit adultery." (Exodus 20:14) "If a man commits adultery with the wife of a fellow Israelite both he and the woman shall be put to death." (Leviticus 20:10) In a hostile world the family was the most important guarantee of survival. You had to be sure that you could trust those immediately around you and the penalties for betraying that trust were harsh.

Of course in this as in so many things the position of men and women was very different. As I have already said polygamy for those who could afford it, was the norm until New Testament times. "Solomon married seven hundred princesses and also had three hundred concubines." (1 Kings 11:3) When David was rebuked by Nathan for arranging the death of Urriah so he could marry his widow Bath Sheba, Nathan says that God has given him Saul's wives. "I made you King of Israel, and rescued you from Saul. I gave you his kingdom and his wives." (11 Samuel 12:7-8). As I will show later in this book in the section on the status of women, too often the woman was seen as a convenience with few rights. This was not acceptable for Christians and monogamy was required from new converts and church leaders. "A church helper must have only one wife." (1 Timothy 3:12) The status of wives was greatly enhanced in the gentile world by the Christian church. Jesus's Jewish emphasis on the importance of the family and his own strong disapproval of divorce changed the culture of marriage. "What therefore God has joined together, let no man put asunder." (Matthew 19:6) and, "Moses because of the hardness of your hearts allowed you to put away your wives; but from the beginning it was not so." (Matthew 19:8).

The biblical attitude to marriage beginning with the creation narratives is seen by many biblical commentators to be the portrayal of God's intention for human beings. "This is the positive statement about heterosexuality in scripture which puts into perspective the biblical injunctions against any deviation from that intent." (`The New Testament and Homosexuality' p.9 Robin Scrooges).

It is against this background then that we must see the biblical attitude to homosexual behaviour. First and above all, it does not produce children to strengthen the tribe. While Philo, the great Jewish Hellenistic philosopher of first century Alexandria, thought that homosexual behaviour was unnatural it was its denial of procreation which most concerned him. "Certainly had Greeks and barbarians joined together in affecting such unions , city after city would have become a desert, as though depopulated by a pestilential sickness." (Philo. On Abraham 136.) Second, it is deviant behaviour, in a society which greatly valued conformity. Third, it appeared to challenge the accepted order which had been laid down by God and therefore put the participants outside the community of faith. Fourth, it was associated with pagan religious rites and prostitution and therefore threatened the purity of the Jewish faith.

GRAECO ROMAN ATTITUDES TO NAKEDNESS AND THE HUMAN BODY

"You have conquered O Galilean" the Emperor Julian is reported to have said with his dying breath ("Vicisti Galilae". recorded by Theodoret `Eccles. Hist' iii20). And the poet Swinburn added "and the world has grown grey at the touch of your breath." When the Emperor Julian, known to Christian historians as Julian the Apostate tried to throw the christianization of the empire into reverse it was more to do with what he saw as the terrible cultural cost that the new religion and its cultural baggage had placed on the proud heritage of Greece Roman society, than a genuine attachment to paganism. Temples were reopened , the theatre was revived, games and sporting activities revitalised. The Christian establishment was outraged and Julian's doomed reforms were short lived.

At the heart of the Greek artistic endeavour which Julian wanted to preserve was the pursuit of perfect beauty. Greek artists believed that was to be found in the harmony of form and in geometric proportion. This perfection and harmony was to be found above all in the human body.

The contrast between the attitudes of the Greeks and the Jews on this matter could hardly be more stark. For the Greeks the human body was the most beautiful thing in the whole of creation. This was the basis of the cultural heritage passed on to the Romans.

The Greek understanding of proportion gave rise to what is arguably the most beautiful system of architecture that has ever been created and the Athenian Acropolis "So beautiful that the gods marvelled", is truly one of the high points of human artistic endeavour. The depiction of the idealised human form in statues, friezes and frescoes adorned every public building and the houses of the wealthier citizens. The frank portrayal of every human activity, (including homosexual oral and anal sexual intercourse), was on every wine jug and cup and plate. The perfection of the human form was used to depict the gods and so beauty itself was raised to the level of a divine attribute. Indeed beauty had about it the quality of the divine, the phrase kalos gagathos ( ) means beauty as a moral quality, stories in Greek mythology illustrate this. For instance, Adonis is rewarded with endless youth and beauty together with endless erotic adoration for an act of kindness to Aphrodite. Beautiful bodies were extravagantly admired, attaining them for yourself by exercise and discipline was not only a good thing from the point of view of health but was also a moral good in itself. Health and beauty and morality went hand in hand. The idealisation of male beauty that we see in Greek statues, therefor stood not only for athletic prowess, which many of them were carved to celebrate, but also for military commitment and virtue. It stood for moral integrity, and for sexual desirability: it stood for personal salvation and immortality.

This is certainly a world away from the thinking and morality of a desert tribe so obsessed with the shame of nakedness that a son could be banished and cursed for seeing by accident, his father's genitals. Quentin Crisp wasn't quite right though, when he said that the Athens of the fifth century BC must have looked like Harrods during a window dressers' strike. Nudity was restricted to the exercise yard and the gymnasium and the athletics field and in general women would not have been present in these places. The artistic depiction of the male and female nude however was on public display. It is surely no accident that the modern relaxation in attitudes to homosexual behaviour has been accompanied by a general relaxation in taboos against the depiction of the male nude in such things as advertising. As a writer in `Cosmopolitan ' magazine said "It's OK now for men to be called beautiful."

There was a significant change in the nature of art and what art was thought to be for, between the sixth and the fifth centuries BC. "Towards the end of the fifth century, artists had become fully conscious of their power and mastery and so had the public . . . . an increasing number of people began to be interested in their work for its own sake, and not only for its religious and political functions." (`The Story of Art' E.H. Gombrich p.67) The skill of sculptors of this time is shown supremely in the figures from the balustrade around the Temple of Victory in Athens from 408BC. This is art for art's sake, a rejoicing in beauty and grace as a good in itself not just a statement about politics and religion. Pheidias' statues from the previous century had been famous all over Greece as representations of the gods. "The great temple statues of the fourth century earned their reputation more by virtue of their beauty as works of art." (ibid.p.69) The greatest artist of this time, perhaps the greatest sculptor in the whole of Greek art, was Praxitales. He was famed in his own time for the charm of his work and for the sweetness and fluidity of his creations. Sadly we now only have one statue that was almost certainly made directly by him, the statue of Hermes with young Dionysus of about 350BC now in the Olympia Museum. (His most famous creation was of the young Aphrodite stepping into her bath). This is a truly joyous celebration of the beauty of the human body. These statues stand before us like real human beings, with muscles moving softly under the skin, yet as beings from a different, better world.

It is interesting and significant, how the image of the ideal male figure in Greek art changed; not only as a result of the growing skill of the sculptors, though this was certainly the case, but also the change of taste that they represented. Early Greek sculpture clearly owed a lot to earlier Egyptian models; figures are stiff, formal, and adopt postures reminiscent of Egyptian reliefs and wall paintings. A good example is the Statue of a Youth recovered at Delphi and dated to 580BC carved by Polymedes of Argos. Over the next one hundred and fifty years sculptors and painters were able to conquer reality with such discoveries as foreshortening in painting and the ability to show bodies in motion such as The Discus Thrower c450BC by Miron. This is one of the most significant periods in the history of art. Hand in hand with this development went a change in the type of male body which was considered beautiful. M. Delcourt in his book on the Hermaphrodite notes the change from archaic to Hellenistic centuries. Originally Dionysius was portrayed as a bearded lusty man. Later he was sculpted in the form of a `slender languid youth.' This reflected the change in taste to adolescent beauty which reached its apogee in the work of Praxitales.

A feature of the democratic structure of Athens was its division into ten `tribal' voting constituencies. These formed amongst other things, a basis for sporting competitions. The most important of these was the Panathenaic games. "And it is at this all Athenian meeting that we first get notice of the public assessment of physical beauty." (`Understanding Greek Sculpture' Nigel Spivy p36). One of the competitions was for physical appearance. Other evidence for male beauty cults - and they were staged as votive events, on the assumption that a beautiful mortal is pleasing in the eyes of the gods - comes from inscriptions found in gymnasia. "So one challenge, the philoponia, or `love of training' evidently rewarded diligent attendance at the gymnasium workouts." (ibid p.36). This would certainly find echoes in the gay culture of today where many young men attend a gym daily to perfect their pectorals and sharpen their abdominals. In the Jewish tradition too they were aware of the potential attraction between mortals and heavenly beings. Here however the implication is wholly bad. (see later in this book the study of `The Letter of Jude' and the lusting after `strange flesh'.) The Psalmist makes it very clear that in his mind the Lord is not interested in such trivial things as the appearance or strength of a man, but in his moral qualities, "He delighteth not in the strength of a horse; he taketh not pleasure in the legs of a man. The Lord taketh pleasure in them that fear him." Psalm 147 v.10-11).

HOMOSEXUAL BEHAVIOUR IN THE GREEK CULTURE

The artistic adulation of the young male figure went hand in hand with the sexual love of them. Amongst upper class Greeks, this was the pattern for homosexual behaviour. "It is named pederasty, literally the `love of youths'. There are even words to describe a man who is inordinately devoted to young men, philopais or philomeirakios. "In almost all instances" (I would add here `that we know of') a (homosexual) relationship was the relationship between a male adult or older youth, and a younger youth. One partner, almost always the older, assumed the role of the active partner; the other, almost always the younger that of the passive partner." (`The New Testament and Homosexuality.' Robin Scroggs p.18). This suggests that there is an element of power and subjugation in these relationships. This however is a modern obsession with penetration and power. In classical Greece there are very few references which equate sex with domination. Effeminate behaviour or over elaborate modes of dress would certainly invite ridicule but this was not necessarily equated with being the `passive' partner in love making.

Admiration for a particularly beautiful youth was completely accepted and would be an ordinary topic of conversation. There is an example of this in Plato's `Charmides', a dialogue named after a beautiful youth. As the boy comes into the room everyone young and old turned to look at him. Chaerephon asks Socrates if he agrees that Charmides has a beautiful face, Socrates agrees, but Chaerephon responds "Yet if he would agree to strip you would think he had no face, he has such perfect beauty of form." (`Charmides' Plato 154 B-D Trans. Lamb 1954). Xenophon, writing in Athens in the fifth century BC, tells a similar story. In his book `The Symposium' - a formal drinking and dinner party usually held in the mens' room, the andron - he describes how one youthful victor in the wrestling match at the Panathenaic games was sought after by an older admirer, Callias, (one of the richest men of his day, and a legendary chaser of women) who held a party in the boy's honour. So strikingly beautiful is the boy's appearance that when he enters the room everyone falls silent in admiration. An amusing aside to this story is provided by a mini drama surrounding the entertainment at the party. This is by a beautiful girl and boy who play and dance. However the leader of the little troop is very concerned that the guests will lure away the boy, who is his lover. Entertainers at these parties were often in effect prostitutes and sometimes they entered into contracts with customers for longer periods than the night in question, this applied to both the boys and the girls. There are so many drinking cups in existence, produced it seems for just such a drinking party, that are inscribed `ho pais kalos', ( o pais kalos ) `what a beautiful boy', that Xenophon must have been describing a common event.

The word usually used to describe such beautiful boys was the Greek adjective `kalos'. K.J. Dover succinctly describes the meaning of this word. It "means beautiful, handsome, pretty, attractive, or lovely when applied to a human being, animal, object or place . . . . It must be emphasised that the Greeks did not call a person beautiful by virtue of that person's morals, intelligence, ability or temperament, but solely by virtue of shape, colour, texture and movement." (`Greek Homosexuality' K.J. Dover p.115).

As is the case in some societies today, women in the classical Greek world tended to play very little part in the wider society. Women stayed at home so any social gatherings outside the home, any public events and any process of education, which would have centred on the gymnasium, would only have been for men and boys. "The ethos of the gymnasium was male with the striving towards physical strength and beauty the focus of attention." (`The New Testament and Homosexuality' R. Scroggs p.20). The irony of this situation is that having banished women from their all male social club the men bring them back as sexual partners in the guise of beautiful youths. Graeco Roman society was openly bi-sexual, for most of the men who would have admired and presumably desired Charmides would also have been married with children of their own.

Perhaps the most famous person in his own time, and in the history of the world, to show strong homosexual tendencies, though in the Greek tradition he was also married twice, was Alexander the Great. He was known for the great loyalty he showed to the men who had been his friends since his boyhood and in particular towards his closest friend and almost certain lover Hephaistion. His most famous love however was for the Persian eunuch Bagoas, who in turn had been the young lover of the Persian Emperor Darius. Bagoas was said to have been the most beautiful boy in the whole Persian empire and was an accomplished dancer and acrobat. On one famous occasion when he had won a competition in front of Alexander and the whole army Alexander bent over to ruffle his hair, this caused a huge burst of applause from the soldiers, so that Alexander embraced and then kissed the boy. It was a most public display of their affection. Alexander was not the only Emperor to publicly display his love for a young man, Hadrian, the fifth of the good Roman Emperors of the golden Antonine age, was beloved of the young Bithynian Antinous. When the youth was drowned in the Nile the heartbroken Emperor founded cities in his name, established games and erected statues of him all over the empire. Hadrian's love captured the imagination of his contemporaries so much so that the depiction of Antinous became a favourite subject in imperial art, and a symbol for human beauty.

The practices of pederasty, that is the love by an older man or mentor for a younger man, emerged out of the social culture of the day. In some quarters pederastic relationships were lauded, in almost all quarters they were condoned; there was no need to be `in the closet' about homosexual preferences, as is shown by the actions of Alexander and Hadrian. It was against this background of tolerance and acceptance for homosexual behaviour that Jewish writers of the time were so critical. In particular they railed against the Greek styles as being effeminate and demeaning; shaving and hairdressing being singled out for special censure. (I quote the Jewish commentator Philo, at length later in this book.) And also for the fact that the majority of these homosexual liaisons would have been adulterous.

THE DECLINE AND FALL OF A CULTURE

Despite the attempts of people like Julian the whole culture which could appreciate the beauty of the human form and celebrate it in art and literature, went into decline under the combined disapproval of Judaeo Christian and Islamic beliefs and the collapse of the political structures which had supported it as the Empire declined. This was a tragedy for human civilization and understanding. I recognise that the Jewish insight into the value of fidelity in human relationships, the importance of human sexuality for building up a relationship between two people, the importance of stable family relationships for the good of society and as a way of learning about love for each other and the way God loves us; was a genuine insight given by God. However attitudes to the human body found in the Bible, the shame of nakedness, the guilt attending sexual relations and the obsession with bodily functions was and is, in societies where they are still observed, deeply neurotic.

In such cultures, looking appreciatively at a human body created by God, with eyes given by him, becomes a shameful thing. When I see a beautiful girl or youth in the street I feel no shame in appreciating them for what they are - a beautiful part of God's creation. We are meant to think like this, that is the way all of us have been made.