Homosexuality
and Bible Verses
Posted by John Bach on May 22
Homosexuality
Some argue that neither the Bible nor Tradition condemns the practice
of homosexuality. Passages such as Leviticus 18:22-30, Romans 1:26-27,
1 Corinthians 6:9, and Jude 7 serve as ample proof from Scripture. Below
is ample proof from Tradition. The Fathers are especially harsh against
the practice of pederasty, the homosexual corruption of boys by men.
The Didache
"You shall not commit murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall
not commit pederasty, you shall not commit fornication, you shall not steal,
you shall not practice magic, you shall not practice witchcraft, you shall
not murder a child by abortion nor kill one that has been born" (Didache
2:2 [A.D. 70]).
The Letter of Barnabas
"You shall not commit fornication; you shall not commit adultery; you
shall not be a corrupter of youth" (Letter of Barnabas 10 [A.D. 74]).
The Letter of Barnabas
"You shall not be a corrupter of boys, nor like unto such" (ibid.).
Justin Martyr
"[W]e have been taught that to expose newly-born children is the part
of wicked men; and this we have been taught lest we should do anyone harm
and lest we should sin against God, first, because we see that almost all
so exposed (not only the girls, but also the males) are brought up to prostitution.
And for this pollution a multitude of females and hermaphrodites, and those
who commit unmentionable iniquities, are found in every nation. And you
receive the hire of these, and duty and taxes from them, whom you ought
to exterminate from your realm. And any one who uses such persons, besides
the godless and infamous and impure intercourse, may possibly be having
intercourse with his own child, or relative, or brother. And there are
some who prostitute even their own children and wives, and some are openly
mutilated for the purpose of sodomy; and they refer these mysteries to
the mother of the gods" (First Apology 27 [A.D. 151]).
Clement of Alexandria
"All honor to that king of the Scythians, whoever Anacharsis was, who
shot with an arrow one of his subjects who imitated among the Scythians
the mystery of the mother of the gods . . . condemning him as having become
effeminate among the Greeks, and a teacher of the disease of effeminacy
to the rest of the Scythians" (Exhortation to the Greeks 2 [A.D. 190]).
Clement of Alexandria
"[According to Greek myth] Baubo [a female native of Elusis] having
received [the goddess] Demeter hospitably, reached to her a refreshing
draught; and on her refusing it, not having any inclination to drink (for
she was very sad), and Baubo having become annoyed, thinking herself slighted,
uncovered her shame, and exhibited her nudity to the goddess. Demeter is
delighted with the sight--pleased, I repeat, at the spectacle. These are
the secret mysteries of the Athenians; these Orpheus records" (ibid.).
Clement of Alexandria
"It is not, then, without reason that the poets call him [Hercules]
a cruel wretch and a nefarious scoundrel. It were tedious to recount his
adulteries of all sorts, and debauching of boys. For your gods did not
even abstain from boys, one having loved Hylas, another Hyacinthus, another
Pelops, another Chrysippus, another Ganymede. Let such gods as these be
worshipped by your wives, and let them pray that their husbands be such
as these--so temperate; that, emulating them in the same practices, they
may be like the gods. Such gods let your boys be trained to worship, that
they may grow up to be men with the accursed likeness of fornication on
them received from the gods" (ibid.).
Tertullian
"[A]ll other frenzies of the lusts which exceed the laws of nature,
and are impious toward both [human] bodies and the sexes, we banish, not
only from the threshold but also from all shelter of the Church, for they
are not sins so much as monstrosities" (Modesty 4 [A.D. 220]).
Novatian
"[God forbid the Jews to eat certain foods for symbolic reasons:] For
that in fishes the roughness of scales is regarded as constituting their
cleanness; rough, and rugged, and unpolished, and substantial, and grave
manners are approved in men; while those that are without scales are unclean,
because trifling, and fickle, and faithless, and effeminate manners are
disapproved. Moreover, what does the Law mean when it . . . forbids the
swine to be taken for food? It assuredly reproves a life filthy and dirty,
and delighting in the garbage of vice . . . Or when it forbids the hare?
It rebukes men deformed into women" (The Jewish Foods 3 [A.D. 250]).
Cyprian of Carthage
"[T]urn your looks to the abominations, not less to be deplored, of
another kind of spectacle . . . Men are emasculated, and all the pride
and vigor of their sex is effeminated in the disgrace of their enervated
body; and he is more pleasing there who has most completely broken down
the man into the woman. He grows into praise by virtue of his crime; and
the more he is degraded, the more skillful he is considered to be. Such
a one is looked upon--oh shame!--and looked upon with pleasure. . . . nor
is there wanting authority for the enticing abomination . . . that Jupiter
of theirs [is] not more supreme in dominion than in vice, inflamed with
earthly love in the midst of his own thunders . . . now breaking forth
by the help of birds to violate the purity of boys. And now put the question:
Can he who looks upon such things be healthy-minded or modest? Men imitate
the gods whom they adore, and to such miserable beings their crimes become
their religion" (Letters 1:8 [A.D. 253]).
Cyprian of Carthage
"Oh, if placed on that lofty watch-tower, you could gaze into the secret
places--if you could open the closed doors of sleeping chambers and recall
their dark recesses to the perception of sight--you would behold things
done by immodest persons which no chaste eye could look upon; you would
see what even to see is a crime; you would see what people embruted with
the madness of vice deny that they have done, and yet hasten to do--men
with frenzied lusts rushing upon men, doing things which afford no gratification
even to those who do them" (ibid., 1:9).
Arnobius
"[T]he mother of the gods loved [the boy Attis] exceedingly, because
he was of most surpassing beauty; and Acdestis [the son of Jupiter] who
was his companion, as he grew up fondling him, and bound to him by wicked
compliance with his lust . . . Afterwards, under the influence of wine,
he [Attis] admits that he is . . . loved by Acdestis . . . Then Midas,
king of Pessinus, wishing to withdraw the youth from so disgraceful an
intimacy, resolves to give him his own daughter in marriage . . . Acdestis,
bursting with rage because of the boy's being torn from himself and brought
to seek a wife, fills all the guests with frenzied madness; the Phrygians
shriek, panic-stricken at the appearance of the gods . . . [Attis] too,
now filled with furious passion, raving frantically and tossed about, throws
himself down at last, and under a pine tree mutilates himself, saying,
`Take these, Acdestis, for which you have stirred up so great and terribly
perilous commotions'" (Against the Pagans 5:6-7 [A.D. 305]).
Eusebius of Caesarea
"[H]aving forbidden all unlawful marriage, and all unseemly practice,
and the union of women with women and men with men, he [God] adds: `Do
not defile yourselves with any of these things; for in all these things
the nations were defiled, which I will drive out before you. And the land
was polluted, and I have recompensed [their] iniquity upon it, and the
land is grieved with them that dwell upon it' [Lev. 18:24-25]" (Proof of
the Gospel 4:10 [A.D. 319]).
Basil the Great
"He who is guilty of unseemliness with males will be under discipline
for the same time as adulterers" (Letters 217:62 [A.D. 367]).
Basil the Great
"If you [O, monk] are young in either body or mind, shun the companionship
of other young men and avoid them as you would a flame. For through them
the enemy has kindled the desires of many and then handed them over to
eternal fire, hurling them into the vile pit of the five cities under the
pretense of spiritual love.. At meals take a seat far from other young
men. In lying down to sleep let not their clothes be near yours, but rather
have an old man between you. When a young man converses with you, or sings
psalms facing you, answer him with eyes cast down, lest perhaps by gazing
at his face you receive a seed of desire sown by the enemy and reap sheaves
of corruption and ruin. Whether in the house or in a place where there
is no one to see your actions, be not found in his company under the pretense
either of studying the divine oracles or of any other business whatsoever,
however necessary" (The Renunciation of the World [A.D. 373]).
John Chrysostom
"[The pagans] were addicted to the love of boys, and one of their wise
men made a law that pederasty . . . should not be allowed to slaves, as
if it was an honorable thing; and they had houses for this purpose, in
which it was openly practiced. And if all that was done among them was
related, it would be seen that they openly outraged nature, and there was
none to restrain them. . . . As for their passion for boys, whom they called
their 'paedica,' it is not fit to be named" (Homilies on Titus 5 [A.D.
390]).
John Chrysostom
"[Certain men in church] come in gazing about at the beauty of women;
others curious about the blooming youth of boys. After this, do you not
marvel that [lightning] bolts are not launched [from heaven], and all these
things are not plucked up from their foundations? For worthy both of thunderbolts
and hell are the things that are done; but God, who is long-suffering,
and of great mercy, forbears awhile his wrath, calling you to repentance
and amendment" (Homilies on Matthew 3:3 [A.D. 391]).
John Chrysostom
"All of these affections [in Rom. 1:26-27] . . . were vile, but chiefly
the mad lust after males; for the soul is more the sufferer in sins, and
more dishonored than the body in diseases" (Homilies on Romans 4 [A.D.
391]).
John Chrysostom
"[The men] have done an insult to nature itself. And a yet more disgraceful
thing than these is it, when even the women seek after these intercourses,
who ought to have more shame than men" (ibid.).
John Chrysostom
"And sundry other books of the philosophers one may see full of this
disease. But we do not therefore say that the thing was made lawful, but
that they who received this law were pitiable, and objects for many tears.
For these are treated in the same way as women that play the whore. Or
rather their plight is more miserable. For in the case of the one the intercourse,
even if lawless, is yet according to nature; but this is contrary both
to law and nature. For even if there were no hell, and no punishment had
been threatened, this would be worse than any punishment" (ibid.).
Augustine
"[T]hose shameful acts against nature, such as were committed in Sodom,
ought everywhere and always to be detested and punished. If all nations
were to do such things, they would be held guilty of the same crime by
the law of God, which has not made men so that they should use one another
in this way" (Confessions 3:8:15 [A.D. 400]).
The Apostolic Constitutions
"[Christians] abhor all unlawful mixtures, and that which is practiced
by some contrary to nature, as wicked and impious" (Apostolic Constitutions
6:11 [A.D. 400]).
http://www.catholic.com/answers/tracts/_homosex.htm
Romans 1:26 For this cause God gave them up
unto vile affections:
for even their women did change the natural
use into that which is
against nature:
:27 And likewise also the men, leaving the
natural use of the
woman, burned in their lust one toward another;
men with men
working that which is unseemly, and receiving
in themselves that
recompence of their error which was meet.
Leviticus 18:22 Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.
Leviticus 20:13 If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.
Romans 1:22-27
V22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, V23 And changed
the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible
man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.
V24 Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts
of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:
V25 Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served
the creature more than the Creator, Who is blessed for ever. Amen.
V26 For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even
their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:
V27 And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman,
burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which
is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error
which was meet.
1 Timothy 1:8-10
V8 But we know that the law is good, if a man use it lawfully;
V9 Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but
for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy
and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers,
V10 For whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind,
for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other
thing that is contrary to sound doctrine;
1 Corinthians 6:9 Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind
Jude V7 Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.
SAY THIS PRAYER: Dear Jesus, I am a sinner and am headed to eternal
hell because of my sins. I believe you died on the cross to take away my
sins and to take me to heaven. Jesus, I ask you now to come into my heart
and take away my sins and give me eternal life. http://www.armyofgod.com/Leviticus.html