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Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century

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I have been the teaching assistant for a course entitled 'Theology of the Welcoming Church'; we have had wonderful diverse groups of students, from traditional/conservative to liberal in background, multi-denominational in affiliation. It always promises to be a good course and provide dialogue for better understanding even if it does not resolve the issue for all in one way or the other. Just for the record -- I am trying to stay as objectively neutral as I can be; I have my biases too, but given that I don't have the answers either (how do I reconcile scripture and tradition with the experience of people I know?) I guess mostly what you'll read here are my fumblings in the dark.

Boswell's book 'Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality' is an early scholastic contribution to the history of how homosexuality has been treated by the Christian church establishment from the beginning of the Christian era to about the fourteenth century. It won the American Book Award for History in 1981. Boswell (now deceased) was a professor at Yale; I have a friend on faculty at the IU Music School who went to high school with him.

Perhaps Boswell's argument can be summed up fairly easily in that, through examples in contemporary literature and records (legal, theological, literary, etc.), homosexuality was not recognised in the same way that it is today, and therefore that it also was not condemned in the way that it is today by much of the church. Friendships and close relationships often developed into sexual ones; these were not considered unusual. There was a variation from culture to culture, but the widespread condemnation of homosexuality didn't begin until thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, when tolerance (not only of this, but of religious opinions in general) ceased to be the rule, as the church (a dominant military, political, and social force as well) attempted to consolidate power.

Boswell's research is extensive and impressive, but his interpretations have remained hotly debated for the 20 years since this book was first published. One scholar-friend of mine who knew Boswell said that his psychological motivation for writing the book (this is a theme that was not designed to win favour in academia at that point in time) was to confront the Catholic church, in which he as a gay man did not feel welcome. And, there is probably some truth to that. Knowing that framework, it is interesting to re-read passages to see where objective scholarship slips into subtle reframing.

Nonetheless, this book provides an excellent historical framework, and cannot be ignored in the current debate. I encountered this book first many years ago when my church was undergoing a discernment process, and it was useful in many ways. Boswell claimed to know of isolated communities and continuing strands where such tolerance continued to the present. He promised on a few occasions (at least semi-publicly) that he would reveal these in the next volume, Same Sex Unions, produced many years later, and an even more controversial text.

I not only had the pleasure of reading this book--surely one of the best works of historical scholarship in the twentieth century--I also had the privilege of taking courses with Professor Boswell. Prof. Boswell demonstrates with convincing scholarship that Christian attitudes toward homosexuality have _always_ been interpretive, and that the interpretations have varied greatly across time. This sharply undercuts the modern American conception, pushed by certain groups, that homophobia is an immutable constant in Christianity. For that reason alone, the book is a must-read for Americans wrestling with the issue of homosexuality. But at the same time, it is a pity that the book is often seen in those terms. The political nature of the issue today means that reactions to Prof. Boswell's work are politicized. But the book can be read by history students as a inspirational primer on method as well. Whether your field is late modern Chinese economic history or Roman military history, this book is a shining example of what historical scholarship is all about.

This impressive book, winner of the National Book Award, is an incisive, passionate piece of advocacy scholarship concerning the development of anti-homosexual attitudes in the pre-modern era. It's required reading mostly because of the arguments that it lays out (many of which are regrettably stretched too thin), the sources that deploys and explicates, and the fact that it was the book that really got the ball rolling on further discussion of these issues.

Boswell's main thesis is that intolerance of homosexuality began in earnest only in the 12th Century, and that homosexuality was both common and tolerated by Christianity and the Christian states prior to that time. Boswell was a convert to Roman Catholicism, and appears to have struggled mightily as a scholar to disconnect the anti-homosexual teachings of the (current) church of his day from what he perceived to have been different attitudes in the pre-medieval church -- essentially in an attempt to drive a wedge between "early" Christianity, on the one hand, and intolerance of homosexuality, on the other. The thesis suggests that such intolerance only came later, and therefore was not intrinsic or important in the earlier periods of the church (and therefore was something that could also be discarded by the church of today as something it did not view as essential in an earlier time).

Unfortunately, Boswell, in his zeal to demonstrate his ideas, regrettably either downplays most of the contra evidence, or interprets it in what can mostly be described as rather tendentious, strained and unconvincing ways. If one is looking at history more or less objectively, without a preconceived attempt to "rehabilitate" the reputation of the early church vis-a-vis homosexuality, it's very hard to accept Boswell's thesis. History records that the early Christian Fathers like Tertullian and Clement railed quite a bit against homosexuality, common as it was in the Hellenistic world of late antiquity. After the adoption by the Empire of Christianity, history again records that statutes punishing homosexuality with death or castration almost immediately began to appear in Roman legal codes, and began to be enforced. St John Chrysostom preached some of the most virulently anti-homosexual sermons in the history of Christianity already in the late 4th Century, and the Emperor Justinian instituted extremely harsh penalties against homosexuals. The historical record, viewed objectively, is reasonably clear: institutional Christianity was hostile to homosexual activity from a very early point.

Of course, this doesn't mean that Christianity, as a belief system, must be anti-homosexual. But for Boswell, that kind of thinking was not good enough because he was interested not in rehabilitating Christianity as a belief system, but in rehabilitating institutional Christianity (particularly the Catholic Church that he so loved) from its anti-homosexual history. Unfortunately, to do so, much history has to be ignored, downplayed or interpreted in very strained ways. And ultimately, this is the undoing of Boswell's thesis. When reading this book -- which glitters with erudition and scholarship -- one can't help rooting for Boswell. You *want* his thesis to be right .... but ultimately, it just doesn't convince. An objective view of history -- while remaining aloof from the question of whether anti-homosexuality is intrinsic to Christianity as a matter of faith (that's an issue for the theologians) -- clearly demonstrates that institutional Christianity has been profoundly anti-homosexual from the time it became "institutional".

Nevertheless, the book is required reading for anyone interested in these topics, mainly because it highlights the issues, frames the debate and (undoubtedly) reflects the work of a brilliant mind.

It's been more than twenty years since John Boswell's pioneering work on the history of homosexuality first appeared. Boswell argues that originally homosexuality was tolerated and admired in the urban world of the Roman Empire. Contrary to what one may think it was not Christianity per se that reduced this tolerance. In fact, one cannot show that the New Testament was hostile to homosexuality at all. Instead there was a certain decline of tolerance as the urban civilization of Rome collapsed. Yet for much of what we know as the Dark Ages homosexuality was viewed as at most a venial sin, and legal prohibitions against it were limited and ineffective. Indeed as urban civilization recovered by the eleventh and twelfth centuries a flourishing gay subculture arose, celebrating homosexual love. But over the next few centuries as powerful states seeking to enforce their authority arose, new anti-sodomy laws appeared, demanding death for its violators.

There is much in this book that is interesting and informative, and certainly there was no other work like it at the time. We learn about the weaknesses of much of the "natural law" case against homosexuality. Homosexuality is supposedly unnatural because animals do not do it. But anti-homosexuals also argue that homosexuality is wrong because vile animals like hyenas commit it. Of course, there is considerable evidence of homosexual behaviour among animals. And many undesirable traits, such as incest, are endemic among animals. And why should animals be the criterion of what is natural anyway? Anyway, much of the argument on what is perverted sex was based on considerable ignorance of the animal world, such as the false belief that hyenas were hermaphrodites or that oral sex is wrong because weasels conceive through their mouths. The same Christians who denounced homosexuality also vigorously denounced "Lending at interest, sexual intercourse during the menstrual period, jewellery or dyed fabrics, shaving, regular bathing, wearing wigs," and much else. In the eighth century the penance given for a priest who went hunting was allotted at three years, while some homosexual acts only got a year. We are given many samples of homosexual poetry, many of them written by high ranking clergymen, the more tactful of whom were canonized.

Yet this book has a number of major weaknesses that make Boswell much inferior to such other pioneering works of social history as The Making of the English Working Class or Roll Jordan Roll. His distinction between a more tolerant "urban" and a more intolerant "rural" is hopelessly vague. Not all "rural" societies disliked homosexuals. Moreover, the Roman Empire was overwhelmingly rural anyway, more than 90%, with land being the overwhelming source of wealth. To make things more confusing Boswell suggests that the thirteenth century turn had more to do with increasing state authority (also present in the Roman Empire) and increasing xenophobia as part of the crusades (also present during the Roman Empire, and for the twelfth century as well). Boswell displays a certain tendentiousness throughout the book. At one point Boswell suggests that there was less prejudice against the "passive" position in the Roman Empire because certain emperors indulged in it. But since the emperors in question were Caligula and Nero, one suspects that they were not good examples (Boswell also cites Nero as an example of homosexual marriage). Much of the book depends on the argument from silence, a questionable procedure when most Classical evidence has been lost to us.

But the largest problem with the book is Boswell's discussion of scripture. Boswell was both a homosexual and a Catholic and wanted to find a way to reconcile them. He was not successful. His chapter starts out well by pointing out that the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah is less about the evils of homosexuality than of abusing strangers. But then Boswell has to deal with the discussion of homosexuality in Leviticus, which pronounces it an abomination and demands the death penalty. Boswell argues that since Paul denounced the law Christians need no longer be bound by it. This is clearly tendentious. 2 Timothy refers to the divine inspiration of scripture and the Sermon on the Mount explicitly says that the Law remains in full force until the end. Moreover, Leviticus and Deuteronomy contain moral rules against bestiality, incest and child sacrifice that are still in force. It is revealing that Boswell does not discuss at all the problem of antinomianism or the role of Leviticus and Deuteronomy in Christians thought. If one is a Christian it would be most logical to argue that the law is still in force except (a) where the New Testament explicitly challenges it, (b) when it deals with matters that are now irrelevant (sacrifice ritual), or (c) when it deals with specifically Jewish matters. Boswell also tries to argue that Paul is criticizing not homosexuals but male heterosexuals who betray their nature by indulging in homosexuality. This makes the questionable assumption that people in the first century CE reified people by the sexual acts they committed. Why would Jews like Jesus and Paul, who are so unenthusiastic about marriage, extend to their followers a whole new realm of fornication? Boswell weakly suggests that because heterosexuals produce children who were commonly abandoned and abused, while homosexuals didn't, Christians viewed homosexuality as a lesser problem. But this is mere suggestion; he gives no evidence of such a well developed moral concern in the book. It is not surprising therefore then that scholars such as Robin Lane Fox, Ramsay Macmullen, and David Wright have been critical of Boswell's thesis.

I was truly astounded by this book. Having grown up in a Christian home, I had heard all the scriptures supposedly regarding gay people many times. Reading this book was a true revelation. I never realized the impact of thousands of years of rewrites and (mis)translations upon the Bible. Moreover, Boswell has researched the history and customs of the ancient world with a remarkable degree of thoroughness, especially when one considers that the available material must of necessity be somewhat fragmented and disjointed due to the passage of so much time.

Gay people who are still struggling for self-acceptance must read this book. It was one of the greatest comforts to me to discover that homophobia and Christianity are not related to each other.

Homophobic so-called Christians would also do well to read this book, although, having read some of the other reviews posted here, I suppose that people who have made up their minds to hate will continue to do so no matter what.

I shall quote from my web page: If you are gay and Christian, or gay and were Christian, or are Christian and trying not to be gay, get this book. It saved my life. I had huge problems reconciling religion and homosexuality. In chapter 4 (my favorite chapter, entitled "The Scriptures") Boswell shows how New Testament passages are misinterpreted and that for Christians the laws in the Old Testament no longer apply (2 Corinthians 3 is an example). It's interesting to see the change in attitudes through the ages. Actually it's quite amazing and sad. It's fascinating to read about early Church leaders who were gay and how they argued with others who said they were wrong. Definitely get this book; it is amazing. It also has quite interesting poems and letters with homosexual themes.

This is perhaps the most famous work on Christianity and homosexuality, and that reputation is well-deserved. Boswell's study challenged some of the most basic assumptions about the topic, and lit a firestorm of controversy that still burns nearly two decades later. Conservatives respond with venom, liberals with open arms, and I (a moderate?) shake my head and wonder. Ranked by the NYT Book Review as one of the top ten books of the year, 'CSTH' cannot be recommended too highly for its brave exegesis, fascinating examination of personal correspondence, and brilliant scholarship.

When John Boswell's magnum opus appeared in 1980, it was immediately hailed by gay Christians, to whom he was a new Savior, who would rescue them not only from homophobic religionists, but also from gay infidels like myself. Here I must emphasize that most of the early activists for homosexual rights -- from the latter part of the 19th century through the first third of the 20th -- were hostile to religions, which they considered responsible for the historic oppression of gay men.

Boswell was a Believer, whose goal was to reconcile homosexuality and Christianity -- to plead for greater tolerance for "gay people", while at the same time exonerating Mother Church for her role in the oppression of homosexual men. In Boswell's own words: "Much of the present volume ... is specifically intended to rebut the common idea that religious belief -- Christian or other -- has been the _cause_ of intolerance in regard to gay people."

_Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality_ (CSTH) is a formidable work of scholarship, which has much of value. But Boswell's arguments are fatally flawed by his doomed attempt to reconcile the irreconcilable. In his effort to marry the gay liberation movement to the Christian Church, Boswell is often required to compromise the former, while becoming complicitous in the historic crimes of the latter.

Among Boswell's academic transgressions are his ignoring of scholarship hostile to his own case, misinterpreting biblical passages, suppressing evidence, misrepresenting Roman laws of the 4th century AD, and so on. This is not the place to go into the deatils. Suffice it to say that CSTH, despite its popular success, was received very negatively by scholarly specialists. The monograph, "Homosexuality, Intolerance, and Christianity: A Critical Examination of John Boswell's Work" -- by Warren Johansson, Wayne R. Dynes and John Lauritsen -- shows that none of Boswell's leading arguments for a gay-friendly Christianity hold up under critical examination. (This monograph is in the library of the Pink Triangle Trust.)

To be a scholar is to be committed to the truth, whether or not one finds it palatable. The hateful words in Holy Scripture -- saying that males who make love to each other should be put to death -- really do mean what they say. Over the centuries, owing to the taboo against male-male sex in the Holiness Code of Leviticus, gay men really were imprisoned, tortured, and killed. Our liberation is allied with knowledge, not with superstition. Accordingly, the name of the world's first homosexual right organization (founded in Berlin in 1897) was the Scientific Humanitarian Committee.

Despite his shortcomings, Boswell was an important gay scholar. For me his greatest contribution was the third chapter of CSTH, "Rome: The Foundation", which cogently makes the case that in Ancient Rome, sex between males was an accepted part of life. The obscure Lex Scantinia did not, and could not, have categorically outlawed sex between males, citizens or non-citizens.

I read the 1981 edition of the 1980 book. With 448 pages the book appears to be exhaustive. However, subtract the bibliography etc. and the 67 p appendixes of quoted and/or translated historic documents and we are left with 338 pages. These in turn have to get halved, because of the extensive footnotes, leaving some 170 regular text pages - a rather thin book, actually.

As was the science book standard at the time, the author shows off his education with copious use of Latin, Old Greek and occasional modern foreign languages in the footnotes, not always translating them, in the case of Old Greek not even transscribing it into the Latin alphabet. Considering that some pages may consist of just seven regular text lines and 43 lines in small print of footnotes, this adds to an obstacle reading.

Describing the relationship of the (Catholic) Church to what much later has been termed homosexuality - including a comparison to the previous Greek, Roman and to the contemporary Muslim Iberia -, John Boswell comes to the conclusion that (usually male) homosexuality wasn't continuously banned by the Church before the first general council on the issue in 1179. Critics have argued that Boswell may have overemphasized and downplayed one and the other historic notion of homosexuality correspondingly. For my reading purpose that is irrelevant, as I was seeking facts based on documents and nobody to my knowledge ever challenged those. He puts the start of organized downpression of homosexuality in the context of an expansion of government supervision, pogroms against Jews and the crusades.

Boswell offers different interpretations of the homophobic Bible lines, averring that some of them don't even deal with homosexuality at all. He is more elaborately with the Sodom story than the other ones, which I find a bit disappointing. The standard rethoric of homophobic religious fundamentalists is the claim of eisegesis (the interpretation of a holy text by reading into it one's own ideas) for anyone who doesn't agree with them (i.e. their own form of eisegesis). I don't know about most of the other (supposedly or real) homophobic sections of the Bible (that's what I intended to find out more thoroughly), but I do know about the Sodom story. For me, taking sides on homosexuality is completely irrelevant, when it comes to this story. It is a central story. Boswell's mind is focused on his point that it is NOT on something (homosexuality). My focus is, what it IS about. Greed. Caused by the constructed belief of separation (from one another = egoism). Manifesting itself in inhospitality and leading to ever more pitilessness and ruthlessness of the in-group against the out-group (concerning country and countries union borders). Which is the most severe problem, this global system we live in is currently facing (and has been facing ever sin-ce colonialism). To mask the central holy text passages on that with something completely different has much more severe consequences than "merely" downpressing any given constructed minority. It means to take away a teaching of enjoining us from engaging in that sinful greed mechanism. This has nothing to do with "eisegesis": Holy texts, such as the Bible, teach that lesson over and over again. The Sodom story is the most intense one and certain people, already fallen for the sin of greed, had and have an interest to avert attention from its message. At least Boswell succeeds in referencing some examples of early Christian teachers who still communicated the original message. So, please: Argue about whatever interpretations about whatever Bible sections on the pro and con about homosexuality, but leave the Sodom story out of it. I find it daring to suggest a case of eisegesis, when in reverse it cannot coherently explained which words of the story are supposed to refer to homosexuality. I am amazed that Boswell doesn't mention that (the raped) angels aren't even gendered to begin with.

The book succeeds in listing many (but not all) the prohibitions and regulations which used to come together with those of banning homosexuality. All of which have become ridiculous and/or completely ignored today, begging for the question, why the homophobic one has been able to sustain itself. These include not touching one's own penis during urination, not watching animals during copulation, not dyeing fabrics, not shaving and not bathing regularly. Loving one's wife too much would be shameful and the failure to divorce a barren wife as unnatural as sinful masturbation. Or the disgust of one church leader (Clement) at the thought of a woman taking an active role in heterosexuality, i.e. enjoying the procedure. Curiously, Boswell doesn't list the punishments, e.g. cruel execution of wet dreaming youths and the VICTIMS of rape, which would have excelled the point even more.

On the other hand, Boswell elaborates on wrong (and most funny) scientific ideas of the time about animals, deriving even more wrong conclusions about homosexual humans from that. At the time, Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity (Stonewall Inn Editions) hadn't been written yet, a book even thicker than this one on some 450 species with known homosexual behavior. Also, Evolution's Rainbow: Diversity, Gender, and Sexuality in Nature and People will be of interest.

Some time ago I had read in different sources that the early and Christianity pre-ceding passages of holy texts had been faked and/or mistranslated, also in the homosexual context. I hoped to get elaborations on that in this book. I hoped in vain. (Please leave a comment, if you know more about that and/or a source.)

Of interest may be Wrestling with God and Men: Homosexuality in the Jewish Tradition, Islamic Homosexualities: Culture, History, and Literature, Colonialism and Homosexuality, and Boy-Wives and Female Husbands: Studies of African Homosexualities. For more on the persecution of homosexuals in Christian Europe, read Homosexuality and Civilization. Shortly before John Boswell passed on on Christmas in 1994, he published Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe on the blessing of homosexual couples by the early Orthodox Church.

It is a very recommendable book not only for English-speaking people but also for us Japanese. At first I had read it in Japanese translation and now again in English, GREEK et LATINE. I know that some Fundamentalists want to try polemic defiances with a superstitional bias. However as we know very well the certain dogma of a religion is or was not often in accord with the social realities, e.g. Islamic doctrine in pre-modern muslim society where male-boy love was very popular. And also in Japan , although Buddhist teachings did not always encourage same-sex relationshipps , after ancient Greek only Japanese could have enhanced male homosexuality to highly ethical valued SHUDO i.e. the way of male love.So in Japan ,nobody thinks that homosexual love is unusual or sinful traditionaly-- at least those who have some reasoning power never-- . Of course there are a few exceptions e.g. the cultists of dangerous pseudo-religion.