This Classical Text Does Not Exist
The passage below cannot exist because everyone knows that ancient people, most especially the apostle Paul, had no concept whatsoever of sexual orientation. Taken from Aristophane’s speech from Plato’s Symposium written approximately 400 years before the New Testament:
“The women who are a section of the woman do not care for men, but have female attachments; the female companions are of this sort. But they who are a section of the male follow the male, and while they are young, being slices of the original man, they have affection for men and embrace them, and these are the best of boys and youths, because they have the most manly nature.
Some indeed assert that they are shameless, but this is not true; for they do not act thus from any want of shame, but because they are valiant and manly, and have a manly countenance, and they embrace that which is like them. And these when they grow up become our statesmen, and these only, which is a great proof of the truth of what I am saying. When they reach manhood they are lovers of youth, and are not naturally inclined to marry or beget children,—if at all, they do so only in obedience to custom; but they are satisfied if they may be allowed to live with one another unwedded;
And such a nature is prone to love and ready to return love, always embracing that which is akin to him. And when one of them meets with his other half, the actual half of himself, whether he be a lover of youth or a lover of another sort, the pair are lost in an amazement of love and friendship and intimacy, and one will not be out of the other’s sight, as I may say, even for a moment: these are the people who pass their whole lives together, and yet they could not explain what they desire of one another. For the intense yearning which each of them has towards the other does not appear to be the desire of lover’s intercourse, but of something else which the soul of either evidently desires and cannot tell, and of which she has only a dark and doubtful presentiment.”...see more
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This speech is significant for another reason as well. It is Plato’s vehicle for describing a traditional Greek myth of man’s primeval perfection, fall and punishment followed by hereditary guilt. Notwithstanding its strange and comic formulation in a speech attributed to Aristophanes, Josef Pieper argues in his brilliant little book, “The Platonic Myths,” that Plato believed this myth to be true. Needless to say, that is a view not universally accepted by secular scholars.
[1] Posted by wildfire on 10-2-2012 at 03:19 PM · [top]
Why did the SCLM forget this when looking at resources for “The Witnessing and Blessing of a Lifelong Covenant.” They could have quoted Aristophanes and saved themselves a lot of trouble.
Don’t look to me to extend the olive branch when those folks just want to pass the olive oil.
[2] Posted by Undergroundpewster on 10-2-2012 at 03:29 PM · [top]
“...they are valiant and manly, and have a manly countenance, and they embrace that which is like them… And such a nature is prone to love and ready to return love, always embracing that which is akin to him. And when one of them meets with his other half, the actual half of himself, whether he be a lover of youth or a lover of another sort, the pair are lost in an amazement of love and friendship and intimacy”
The argument that homoeroticism is a form of idolatry meets with rolling eyes and/or incoherent shrieks these days. But there it is.
[3] Posted by Timothy Fountain on 10-2-2012 at 05:39 PM · [top]
It has been silly on the part of the GLBTQXYZ to insist that the ancients didn’t know about homoerotic love in terms of long-term “relationships.” Homosexuality was tolerated in pretty much all its forms back then. The shocking thing is how disingenuous “scholarship” has been on this front. It’s far more about editorializing and rationalizing than finding easily discovered pieces such as this. They don’t believe these treatises exist, so there’s no reason to look and they never get found. QED.
Not exactly intellectually curious, are they? And we’re supposedly the “ignorant” ones?
[4] Posted by Bill2 on 10-3-2012 at 06:37 AM · [top]
Good reference Matt, many thanks. Homosexuality was not only well-known but advocated by significant groups at the time Paul wrote his letters.
The “golden time” for open acceptance of homosexuality was in Athens during the classical period (5th century BC), although it was widely accepted in many parts of ancient Greece before and after. A rhetorical education in Paul’s day meant reading the works of Aristophanes, Euripides and other ancient writers where the issue was discussed.
Thus Paul’s condemnation of homosexual acts was written in full knowledge of the same issue we face today.
[5] Posted by MichaelA on 10-5-2012 at 01:40 AM · [top]
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