Kim M. Phillips > Quotes

“Although Christians were more interested in martyrdom than sexual purity between the second and fourth centuries, all began to change when Christianity received approval by Constantine I in 313, and became the official religion of the Roman Empire in 391. In 320 Roman legal provisions against celibacy were lifted and in 325 the Council of Nicaea ordered clerics to abstain from sex, marriage and keeping concubines. By the fourth and early fifth centuries Christians were looking for a new badge of heroism, and found it in sexual renunciation. The Christian quest for distinctiveness turned from death to sex.”
― Kim M. Phillips, Sex Before Sexuality: A Premodern History