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From: lisa@phs.UUCP (Jeff Gillette)
Newsgroups: net.religion.christian
Subject: St. Paul and Homosexuality (II)
Message-ID: <1004@phs.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 21-Mar-85 11:15:54 EST
Article-I.D.: phs.1004
Posted: Thu Mar 21 11:15:54 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 23-Mar-85 00:39:58 EST
Organization: Duke Physiology
Lines: 89

[]

In 1 Corinthians 6.9-10, St. Paul mentions certain groups of people who 
stand under God's wrath: 

E ouk oidate hoti adikoi theou basileian ou kleronomesousin; me 
planasthe, oute pornoi oute eidololatrai oute moixoi oute malakoi oute 
arsenokoitai oute kleptai oute pleonektai, ou methusoi, ou loidoroi, oux 
harpages basileian theou kleronomjsousin. 

Or do you not know that unrighteous people will not inherit God's 
kingdom?  Do not be misled; neither immoral, nor idolaters, nor 
adulterers, nor catamites, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor greedy, nor 
drunks, nor extortioners, will inherit God's kingdom. 


Why did St. Paul insert a list of vices into his letter at this point, 
and where did he get such a list of activities?  Vice-lists are a common 
part of Hellenistic ethical teaching (e.g. Plutarch or Epictetus), and 
the specific activities cited generally seem to have been drawn from 
(informal) catalogs of sins prevalent in society.  Within a particular 
context, however, these lists are generally used as summaries, or as 
transitions.  They bring home the point the writer has been attempting to 
make, and they provide a smooth flow of thought into the next subject. 

I would, therefore, suggest that the particular vices mentioned in 1 
Corinthians 6 ought to be considered in their larger context. The actions 
mentioned appear to focus on two areas: thieves, cheats, drunks, and 
extortioners represent the type of criminal charges which might cause one 
Christian to take another to court.  These sins are probably related, in 
Paul's mind, to the passage he has just completed (6.1-8), which 
encouraged the church to conduct its own legal matters, and judge its own 
offenders, without recourse to the magistrates.  Immorality (porneia - 
prostitution?), idolatry and adultery relate directly to the subject of 
the following discussion (6.13-21) - sexuality and responsibility before 
God. 

In which of these two categories (criminal and sexual) are the actions 
referred to by the terms malakoi and arsenokoitai.  The translation above 
makes my own judgment clear, but we must ask what type of sexual 
connotations might these words carry? 

Victor Furnish (professor of New Testament Exegesis at Perkins School of 
Theology, Southern Methodist University), who would like very much to 
follow Boswell's translation ("dissolute" and "male prostitutes" 
respectively), finds Boswell ultimately unsatisfactory, and (with much 
apology) suggests the translation "men who assume the female role in sex" 
and "men who have sex with them" (_The Moral Teaching of Paul_, p. 70). 

Malakos is used in the New Testament with the meaning of "soft" (e.g. 
soft clothing - Mt. 11.8, Lk. 7.25), but is commonly used of catamites 
(men/boys who received homosexual love) by Dionysius of Halicarnassus 
(1st cent. BC.), Dio Chrysostom (1st cent. AD), and Diogenes Laertius 
(3rd cent AD).  Arsenokoitai (from the terms arsen - male, and koite - 
intercourse) could, theoretically, be used of any male who engages in 
sexual activity, but the implication seems rather that the distinguishing 
mark of these individuals was not their action but their partners.  In 
the Septuagint (early Greek translation of the Old Testament), the term 
arsenokoitos does not occur, but the phrase arsen koitein is found in 
Leviticus 18.22 and 20.23 (in both verses "and you shall not have sexual 
intercourse with men as with women"). 

Although Boswell has suggested that the term arsenokoitai carries the 
idea of cultic activity (e.g. "male prostitutes in the temple" - a 
phenomenon not commonly attested at this time), one might have expected 
Paul, had he wished to convey this idea, to have use some masculine form 
of the term pornes (which was used of a female temple prostitute).  This 
is exactly the case in Deuteronomy 23.17 (again Septuagint), where "there 
shall not be a porne from the daughters of Israel, nor shall there be a 
porneuon from the sons of Israel" who serve in the temple of a god. 

What vices, then, does Paul condemn in 1 Corinthians 6?  I have here 
argued that his terms refer to those who initiate homosexual intercourse, 
and to those who receive it.  These are they who "will not inherit the 
kingdom of God", but they surely have a good deal of company - 
heterosexual offenders, adulterers, idolaters, thieves, drunks, the 
greedy!  Taking a second look at the context of this passage, we might 
notice that Paul does not give instructions for excommunicating these 
people (indeed, the only person he commands to be kicked out of the church 
was most definitely *heterosexual*).  Thus we have seen the theological/
theoretical attitude of Paul towards homosexuality, but the question of
how this should work itself out in the experience and discipline of the
church remains open.

	Jeffrey William Gillette	duke!phs!lisa
	The Divinity School
	Duke University