Caitlin Montgomery Hubler

It is true contemporary debates over homosexuality in many Christian denominations focus less on arguments over specific Biblical passages and more on an overall Scriptural narrative, church tradition, or the value of experience in determining normative ethical judgments. Nonetheless, it remains true debate in some circles over the applicability of certain Pauline texts continues as a central aspect in the discussion over the ethicality of homosexuality. It is an issue that has and continues to divide Christian denominations, churches, and families. Especially for Protestant traditions that pride themselves on Scriptural authority, a thorough exegesis of Biblical passages referring to same-sex eroticism is central to determining the scope of Paul’s claims.

Although multiple passages of interest exist on the topic, in this paper I will limit my comments to Romans 1:18-32. This is arguably the most cited passage of contemporary Christians who claim it to be a clear condemnation of homosexual acts that extends to the present day. See the passage below:

For this reason God gave them up to degrading passions. Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error (Romans 1:26-27, NRSV).

I have bolded the word “unnatural” because this Greek phrase “παρὰ  φύσιν” is key for the claim I wish to make in this paper. In contrast to those who would cite Romans 1:26-27 as a condemnation of homosexuality writ large applicable in contemporary Christianity, I will argue it is hermeneutically irresponsible to cite Paul as opposing homosexuality because he opposes same-sex eroticism on different grounds than do contemporary Christians (who cite the passage as a proof text of their own views) who oppose homosexuality. My goals are modest: I do not argue Paul would have been accepting, or even neutral, on the issue of homosexuality. What I will argue is simply to cite the verse as a proof text against homosexuality conceals the complex nature of Paul’s opposition to same-sex eroticism, which depends on elements of Jewish mythological narratives and Greco-Roman culture that many who cite the verses in this way would reject. In order to substantiate this claim, I will evaluate two different exegeses of the phrase “παρὰ  φύσιν” advanced by biblical scholars Dr. John Boswell and Dr. Richard Hays.

Boswell believes Paul’s talk of “nature” in Romans 1 is in reference to the specific, individual “natures” or “characters” of the Gentiles in question and the passage thus refers to heterosexuals engaged in same-sex eroticism as opposed to constitutional homosexuals. Hays counters this by arguing Paul links the Gentile idolatry and same-sex eroticism in such a way as to suggest both are rejections of God’s universal created order as represented in Genesis. Ultimately, I will agree with a third scholar, Dr. Dale Martin, who somewhat side-steps the exegetical question and takes up a hermeneutical one: stating Paul’s opposition to same-sex eroticism stems from entirely different considerations than modern-day Christian opposition to homosexuality. This is important for any hermeneutic of Romans 1 because of the ideological solidarity many Christians assume to have with Paul.

Some preliminary comments about the literary context of the passage in question are now in order. In order to understand how various scholars interpret Paul’s passage in Romans 1, a brief overview of the letter’s main themes and purpose for being written will be useful.

The Apostle Paul had not yet traveled to Rome at the time of his writing the Epistle to the Romans in 56-56 C.E. However, his growing influence in the Greco-Roman Christian world and reputation for counseling churches through ethnic and religious tensions lent him the authority to write this theological treatise to the Christians in Rome. Romans is the work of a developed theological mind, apparently written in response to tensions between Christian Jews and Christian Gentiles in Rome who were confused about how the coming of Jesus affected their relationship to the Mosaic law. Paul counsels the Romans that while the law had its purpose (namely, to reveal the universal human need for grace), the coming of Christ was a major turning point in salvific history. Now, salvation ought not to be understood as a result of meticulous keeping of the law, but as a free gift which comes through belief in Jesus Christ, the Messiah.

Naturally, since Paul had not yet been introduced to the Roman Christians, he had to first find some way of establishing common ground with them. After the formulaic epistolary greeting, Paul runs a clever argument in Romans 1-3 that begins with a condemnation of the Gentile pagans in Rome. Importantly, he apparently thought this condemnation of the pagans to be something that would establish good rapport with both Christian Jews and Christian Gentiles in Rome. Only later does he turn the tables and suggest the Roman Christians perhaps were not so holy themselves — what with all their stubborn insistence on strict adherence to the Mosaic Law and internal ethnic divisions. The purpose of Romans 1 is for Paul to use characteristically Pauline rhetorical strategies to liken his attitudes to those of the Romans, later using this to his advantage pastorally.

Dr. John Boswell argues in his book Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality “παρὰ  φύσιν” ought to be understood in the context of how Paul uses the phrase throughout his other letters. Whereas we in 21^st-century America tend to think of the natural/unnatural distinction in a way highly influenced by John Locke’s talk of “natural law,” in which “naturalness” and “goodness” are synonymous, Boswell indicates Paul did not have the same framework for these ideas (Boswell). One must be careful not to impose anachronistic categorizations on Paul, for whom “natural” was always to be understood as being possessed by someone or something — something individual (Boswell). Jews are Jews “by nature,” Gentiles are Gentiles “by nature” — but this sort of nature is one of personal character and not moral significance. Never did Paul discuss nature in the universal, abstract sense assumed in the modern West because of Lockean moral philosophy (Boswell).

For clues as to what meaning this term did hold for him, we might look to Romans 11:24, in which God is said to be acting “against nature” in His act of grafting the Gentiles into the olive tree (representing salvation). In this passage, “unnatural” certainly has the connotation of artificiality, in that Gentiles had not always shared the same position as Jews within God’s salvific plan. However, there is no suggestion this grafting, though unnatural, is morally degenerate. Far from it — it is presented as a loving act of God. Boswell summarizes the issue nicely: “‘Nature’ is not a moral force for Paul: men may be evil or good ‘by nature,’ depending on their own disposition” (Boswell).

Literary context is also important for Boswell in determining what Paul might have meant by the phrase “παρὰ  φύσιν.” Interestingly, the same-sex eroticism Paul discusses in verses 26 and 27 is linked to a general, hyperbolic sense of idolatry in verses 18-25. In fact, same-sex eroticism is described as a punishment for this idolatry as opposed to its cause. Paul describes how the Gentiles had the opportunity to recognize the one true God, since “ever since the creation of the world, his eternal power and divine nature … have been understood and seen throughout the things he has made” (Romans 1:20). Instead, they rejected monotheism and “exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling a mortal human being or birds or four-footed animals or reptiles” (Romans 1:23). Boswell likens this as Paul stating the Gentiles’ rejection of their “true nature” in the same way later in the chapter he discusses the Gentiles who rejected their “true nature” as heterosexuals to engage in same-sex eroticism (Boswell).

The principle implication of this distinction is Paul was condemning heterosexuals engaging in same-sex eroticism, and thus made no comment whatsoever on truly homosexual persons. While some have criticized this view to impose anachronistic categories of orientation that would have been foreign to Paul, I do not think this is necessary for the success of Boswell’s argument (Hays 201). I argue not that Paul necessarily delineated between heterosexuality and homosexuality as orientations (for that depends, in part, of the popularity of myths like those of Aristophanes about the origins of same-sex desire, which is difficult to determine historically) (Hubbard 2). Rather, I contend his comments stem from a worldview that had very different ideas about same-sex eroticism than most people today: worldviews so different, in fact, that applying Paul’s comments about same-sex eroticism to modern notions of homosexuality as a biologically natural orientation is more closely eisegesis than exegesis.

However, Dr. Richard Hays looks doubtfully upon Boswell’s exegesis of “παρὰ  φύσιν,” claiming he dangerously confuses exegesis with hermeneutics. He believes Paul’s comments in Romans 1 are a clear condemnation of not only same-sex eroticism, but homosexuality writ large, and any suggestion otherwise is a wistful rejection of the “plain sense” of the text (Hays 196). The thrust of Hays’s argument is his insistence Paul’s condemnation of the pagan Gentiles’ same-sex eroticism is linked to their idolatry in such a way as to associate both with a rejection of God’s natural (morally right) created order. Whereas Boswell believes Paul could have just as easily chosen any other sin with which to rebuke the pagans, Hays maintains the mention of same-sex eroticism is key to Paul’s overall argument. As he states, “The passage is not merely a polemical denunciation of selected pagan vices, it is a diagnosis of the human condition” (Hays 200).

Hays believes in order to define “παρὰ  φύσιν,” one must be cognizant of the common trope of natural vs. unnatural in Greco-Roman moral philosophy. Indeed, although Paul certainly did not understand “natural law” in a strictly Lockean sense, it can be argued the conceptions he would have had from Greco-Roman moral philosophy are not as dissociated from morality as Boswell claims. Stoicism in particular provides a thorough framework for considering the “natural” (κατά φύσιν) vs. “unnatural” (παρὰ  φύσιν) distinction, in which “right moral action is closely identified with action κατά φύσιν” (Hays 192). While there were no equivalent words in Greek for “heterosexual” and “homosexual,” these phrases function with the same meaning. This is evidenced throughout the many Stoic texts cited by Hays that use the category to discuss the morally degenerate “unnatural” phenomenon of same-sex eroticism: most notably, Dio Chrysostom and Plutarch (Hays 192).

These same categories were adopted by Hellenistic Jewish philosophers, with whom Paul would likely have been even more familiar. Not only did they often associate actions “κατά φύσιν” and “παρὰ  φύσιν” with good and evil moral categories, but they did so on the basis of an appeal to Mosaic law. Both Josephus and Philo, Paul’s contemporaries, used “παρὰ  φύσιν” in this exact way (Hays 193). Thus, Hays would strongly contest Boswell’s assertion Paul refers to “nature” in a personalized, specific way to refer to the individual nature of the being in question. Instead, he would assert Paul is playing on categories of “natural” and “unnatural” present and recognized by his contemporaries as clear references to God’s original created order.

The language of “exchange” used in Romans 1:23, 25-26, therefore, carries great rhetorical power for Hays. It is what cements the link between same-sex eroticism and idolatry as both results of a rejection of God’s created order. Just as the pagan Gentiles “exchanged the truth of God for a lie,” also did their women “exchange natural intercourse for unnatural” (Romans 1:25-26). The idea is idolatry is a form of rejecting the order of creation — and this rejection of God as creator is the first major misstep that causes perversions in other areas of the created order as well. Thus, Hays believes Paul’s presumption must have been opposite-sex eroticism is the natural design for humankind.

A third scholar, Dr. Dale Martin, sees several problems with linking Paul’s discussion of idolatry and same-sex eroticism in such a way. Martin accuses Hays of lumping together idolatry and Adam’s fall through “Augustinian lenses,” which would equate the two, whereas Paul would not necessarily have done so (Martin 54). There is no evidence Paul considered Adam’s fall to be an act of idolatry in the same way as the idolatrous acts of the pagans are described in Romans 1 (Martin 52). In fact, Hays argues “Paul presupposes a Jewish mythological narrative about the origins of idolatry,” which would preclude it from occurring simultaneously with the fall (Martin 53). Here Martin cites various rabbinic sources attributing the origins of polytheism/idolatry to “Kenan, Enosh (son of Seth), or the people of Enosh’s generation” — well after the Fall (Martin 53).

Moreover, Martin sees Paul’s diatribe in Romans 1 as possessing another key element of these Jewish mythological narratives: namely, Jewish “decline of civilization” narratives that function in Greek, Roman, and Jewish circles as a means of explaining how Israel is “set apart” from the excessive immorality of the Gentiles (Martin 53). These stories trace Gentile immorality to some point in history at which they became polytheistic, rejecting the one true God and consequently venturing into sexual immorality and general moral corruption. Perhaps the most famous example of this in Judaism is in 1 Enoch, wherein the Genesis 6 account of the fall of the Watchers is expanded to account for Gentile immorality (Martin 53).

This is an attempt to refute Hays’s idea that in connecting idolatry and same-sex eroticism, Paul is implicitly claiming both are rejections of the created order resulting from Adam’s fall. Paul is operating within a different mythological narrative than the fall of man: the “decline of civilization” narrative regarding the origins of idolatry. Where Hays wants to conflate the two, Martin indicates their differences have important implications for any hermeneutic of Romans 1.

Additionally, when Paul makes allusions to the original created order elsewhere, such as later in Romans 5:12 when he speaks of the fall of Adam, he uses language from Genesis: “the fall,” “Adam,” “Eve,” and talking about general humanity as opposed to a specific group of people (Martin 52). Given this language is absent from Romans 1, and Paul would have likely seen idolatry as having origins separate from Adam’s fall, Martin believes nothing in Romans 1 is a gesture toward the created order. He thus believes interpretations of “παρὰ  φύσιν” like Hays’s hijack Paul’s conclusions while dismissing the premises of his arguments.

I find Martin’s arguments persuasive and believe they arise from an attitude toward Biblical hermeneutics that should be forwarded. The principle of examining the premises Paul uses for his argument and not merely taking his conclusions for granted is a noble one in Biblical scholarship. A responsible definition of Biblical authority ought to be one that honestly wrestles with the extent to which contextual and historical considerations come into play when taking moral judgments from ancient authors as authoritative. Far from a devaluation of Biblical authority, what this does is allow the Bible to be evaluated on its own terms. Only then can it be put into conversation with other forms of Christian revelation, namely, nature and experience.

Take for example another instance in Paul’s letters in which he makes a similar appeal to nature, 1 Corinthians 11:13-15: “Judge for yourselves: is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head unveiled? Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears long hair, it is degrading to him, but if a woman has long hair, it is her glory? For her hair is given to her for a covering” (1 Corinthians 11:13-15, NRSV).

Most contemporary Christians would reject Paul’s conclusions in this passage (a woman ought to either veil herself or cut off her hair, as per verse 6) because he begins with premises with which they would disagree. The sort of “nature” Paul discusses here may in fact be what he believes is the abstract, universal order of creation set by God in Genesis — but it is historically conditioned by strong views of male-female hierarchy in the ancient Greco-Roman world. Martin identifies within this hierarchy the “implicit devaluation of the feminine,” also a relevant factor when examining ancient attitudes toward same-sex eroticism (Martin 58).

In order to determine why Paul and his contemporaries might have seen same-sex eroticism as self-evidently “unnatural,” it is necessary to examine what role sexual orientation played in the opinions of the populace toward it. It is certain there were myths, like that of Aristophanes, which purported to explain homosexuality alongside heterosexuality as both naturally occurring phenomena. However, this was likely not the predominant view, and indeed, more influential philosophers rejected it (Loader 2). What can be constructed as historically probable is the attitude same-sex eroticism did not arise out of any biologically “natural” orientation, but was instead an extreme expression of heterosexual lust and/or gluttony. It is inordinate desire rather than disoriented desire (Boswell). Dio Chrysostom puts it this way:

The man whose appetite is insatiate in such things, when he finds there is no scarcity, no resistance, in this field, will have contempt for the easy conquest and scorn for a woman’s love, as a thing too readily given — in fact, too utterly feminine — and will turn his assault against the male quarters, eager to befoul the youth who will very soon be magistrates and judges and generals, believing that in them he will find a kind of pleasure difficult and hard to procure (Dio Chrysostom 7:151-52).

The naturalization of gendered hierarchy plays an unmistakable role in the attitudes of the ancients toward same-sex eroticism. For example, Plato agrees same-sex eroticism is “contrary to nature”: but on the grounds a man ought not be mounted “like cattle” (Moralia 751d). A similar justification is used in reference to exegesis of 1 Corinthians 6:9, in which the word “μαλακός,” literally meaning “soft.” is used in a derogatory way to refer to the submissive partner in same-sex male intercourse (Martin 44). In other words, it was the very parts of ancient Greco-Roman culture with which the modern world might most vehemently disagree that were the basis for common attitudes toward the ethicality of same-sex eroticism.

If a disruption of gendered hierarchy is also for Paul what makes same-sex eroticism unnatural, then any Christian who uses Romans 1 as a proof text against homosexuality must also adopt the ancient Greco-Roman ideas of gendered hierarchy in order to fully take Paul’s word as authoritative. In the same way a Christian might reject Paul’s instruction for women to be veiled on the basis of disagreeing with the principle that “nature itself” teaches it, so might a Christian reject Paul’s condemnation of same-sex eroticism on the basis he simply had no concept of homosexuality as a biologically natural orientation. The question also demands to be asked of what relevance is contemporary biological information that suggests homosexuality does contain a natural as well as an environmental component (Mondimore). If Paul operates under a biological paradigm no longer considered accurate, the effect this has on his ethical judgments which are based on such a paradigm is a serious question faced by those seeking to define Biblical authority in a responsible way.

If one is to be a responsible reader and interpreter of the Biblical text, one cannot evaluate Paul’s conclusions apart from the premises he uses to make his arguments. Because his opposition to same-sex eroticism is based on ancient Greco-Roman ideals of gendered hierarchy and an etiology of homosexuality with which modern biology would disagree, it is hermeneutically irresponsible to cite Paul as opposing homosexuality as distinct from merely same-sex eroticism. This is particularly the case if one believes, as Boswell and Martin both claim, “παρὰ  φύσιν” is Paul’s way of referring not to the created order in Genesis, but to the specific pagan Gentiles in question. Importantly, qualifying Paul’s comments in this way does not necessarily constitute a rejection of the authority of Paul: it is simply to recognize the limits of that authority. One might affirm he made authoritative conclusions based on the available information he had at the time while also affirming new information might alter our interpretation and/or application of his comments today.

Paul’s comments regarding same-sex eroticism in Romans 1 demand a response from contemporary Christian communities with a high view of Scripture. Just as they cannot be directly transplanted from the ancient Greco-Roman world that had no concept of a homosexual orientation, there are also problems with tossing them lightly aside as products of the past with no relevance to today. The work done by Biblical scholars balancing exegesis with hermeneutics is valid and necessary for this passage in particular. Debates over the ethicality of homosexuality will continue to rage within denominations and churches, but perhaps responsible Biblical scholarship can serve as a guiding light.

Works Cited

Boswell, John. “The Scriptures.” Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century. Chicago and London: U of Chicago, 1980. Print.

Dio. Dio Chrysostom. Cambridge, MA: Harvard U, 1993. Print.

DeYoung, Kevin. What Does the Bible Really Teach about Homosexuality? Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2015.

The Harper Collins Study Bible: New Revised Standard Version. General Editor: Harold W. Attridge. San Francisco, CA: HarperCollins Publisheres, 1989.

Hays, Richard B. “Relations natural and unnatural: a response to J Boswell’s exegesis of Rom 1.” Journal of Religious Ethics 14.1 (19860101): 184-.

Hubbard, Thomas K. Homosexuality In Greece and Rome : a Sourcebook of Basic Documents. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003.

Loader, William. “Same-Sex Relationships: A 1^st-Century Perspective.” Hervormde Teologiese Studies 70.1 (2014): 1-9. Academic Search Complete. Web. 30 Oct. 2015.

Martin, Dale B. Sex and the Single Savior: Gender and Sexuality In Biblical Interpretation. Louisville, Ky.:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2006.

Mondimore, Francis Mark. A Natural History of Homosexuality. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996.

Plutarch, and Grēgorios N. Vernardakēs. Moralia. Lipsiae: B. G. Teubner, 1888.