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Revealing Antiquity
From Shame to Sin: The Christian Transformation of Sexual Morality in Late Antiquity
When Rome was at its height, an emperor’s male beloved, victim of an untimely death, would be worshipped around the empire as a god. In this same society, the routine sexual exploitation of poor and enslaved women was abetted by public institutions. Four centuries later, a Roman emperor commanded the mutilation of men caught in same-sex affairs, even as he affirmed the moral dignity of women without any civic claim to honor. The gradual transformation of the Roman world from polytheistic to Christian marks one of the most sweeping ideological changes of premodern history. At the center of it all was sex. Exploring sources in literature, philosophy, and art, Kyle Harper examines the rise of Christianity as a turning point in the history of sexuality and helps us see how the roots of modern sexuality are grounded in an ancient religious revolution.
While Roman sexual culture was frankly and freely erotic, it was not completely unmoored from constraint. Offending against sexual morality was cause for shame, experienced through social condemnation. The rise of Christianity fundamentally changed the ethics of sexual behavior. In matters of morality, divine judgment transcended that of mere mortals, and shame—a social concept—gave way to the theological notion of sin. This transformed understanding led to Christianity’s explicit prohibitions of homosexuality, extramarital love, and prostitution. Most profound, however, was the emergence of the idea of free will in Christian dogma, which made all human action, including sexual behavior, accountable to the spiritual, not the physical, world.
While Roman sexual culture was frankly and freely erotic, it was not completely unmoored from constraint. Offending against sexual morality was cause for shame, experienced through social condemnation. The rise of Christianity fundamentally changed the ethics of sexual behavior. In matters of morality, divine judgment transcended that of mere mortals, and shame—a social concept—gave way to the theological notion of sin. This transformed understanding led to Christianity’s explicit prohibitions of homosexuality, extramarital love, and prostitution. Most profound, however, was the emergence of the idea of free will in Christian dogma, which made all human action, including sexual behavior, accountable to the spiritual, not the physical, world.
304 pages, Hardcover
First published June 1, 2013
69 people are currently reading
1233 people want to read
About the author
Kyle Harper
13 books92 followersProfessor of Classics and Letters and Senior Vice President and Provost at the University of Oklahoma. His research topics are the social and economic history of the Roman Empire and the early middle ages, and the environmental and population history of the first millennium, exploring the impact of climate change and disease on the history of civilization.
from http://www.ou.edu/flourish/about/team...
from http://www.ou.edu/flourish/about/team...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews
February 19, 2014
This book will stay with me for a long time, and it will certainly deepen and challenge my attempts to think theologically about sexuality. Harper's intellectual energy and historical chops make the book a rich text. His argument has given me lots of thinking to do about the relationship between Christian sexual morality and freedom, consent, and divine sovereignty. Harper paints a world in which the Christian sexual revolution attacks the ancient assumptions that the body belongs to the state and that sexual morality must uphold, above all, the manliness of the man with power. This book makes it clear that we won't be able to think well about Christianity and sex without accounting for the radical implications of the gospel message that there is "no longer slave nor free."
November 18, 2016
Foucault, Langlands, Williams, Verstraete and Provencal, along with an army of others, have spilt gallons of ink to chronicle and choreograph the tricky and intricate sexual mores of ancient Rome into the Christian era. Kyle Harper, Professor of Classics and Letters at the University of Oklahoma and Executive Director of the Institute for the American Constitutional Heritage, has added his voice to the discordant chorus in his 316 page hardback, “From Shame to Sin: The Christian Transformation of Sexual Morality in Late Antiquity.” It is a work written for both the lettered and the thoughtful learner alike. The author is clinical in his approach, analytical in his reading, and fairly impartial in his objective.
“From Shame to Sin” seeks to track the change in Roman sexuality over a roughly 600 year period as Roman society met, and became absorbed into, Christianity. Harper does this by “exploring the late classical world out of which Christianity emerged and following the story of the religion’s expansion down to the age of the emperor Justinian” (preface). Since the author is a classicist, it is no surprise that he accomplishes his task by following romantic novels of the high imperial roman society to the late antiquity of Christian Hagiographa. It provides not only an interesting excursion into the romantic genre of the period, but also a contextual glance into the rules of virtue and shame prevalent at the time. As the author observes, “The Christian transformation of sex can be retraced in the history of literature, which mirrors quite sensitively the passage from a public sexual ideology organized around the imperatives of social reproduction to a mentality founded in ecclesiastical norms. In short, the history of literature recapitulates the passage from shame to sin” (16). He follows this transition through the second century work of Achilles Tatius’s Leucippe and Clitophon to the seventh century composition of John Moschus’s The Spiritual Meadow.
Harper takes the reader by the hand and weaves them across the erotic ethics of Rome, showing how the surplus of slave bodies provided a venue for plentiful outlets to gratify the male libido. The author also chronicles the placement of homoeroticism, whether pederasty, consenting adults, prostitutes and kinaidos, etc., that was widely permitted for the freeman to engage in with both slaves and non-slaves; and how same-sex marriage, which was not unknown, “had no legal standing or consequence in public law” (36). He similarly recounts how the moral code for honorable women was pudicitia (modesty), to possess sexual honor. In the end, the author’s recitation shows how “the symphony of sexual values, in all its various movements and complex harmonies, was set to the rhythms of the material world: early marriages for women, jealous guarding of honorable female sexuality, an expansive slave system, late marriage for men, and basically relaxed attitudes toward male sexual potential, so long as it was consonant with masculine protocols and social hierarchies” (78).
“From Shame to Sin” then tackles some New Testament passages as well as the writings of Clement, and Tertullian, that address sexual behaviors showing how “the novelty of Christian language mirrored the transformative logic of a distinctive sexual morality” (98). Though several aspects of Christian sexual morality are addressed, the author capitalizes on homoeroticism, showing how from “Paul onward, Christian sexual ideology collapsed all forms of same-sex contact, whether pederastic or companionate, into one category” (99), and that category was porneia. Fornication went from “being a cipher for sexual sin in general to a sign of all sex beyond the marriage bed, and it came to mark the great divide between Christians and the world. Same-sex love, regardless of age, status, or role, was forbidden without qualification and without remorse” (85). Harper next maps out the direction this new moral code took as Christianity became predominant in late Roman antiquity, with the rigorous laws on the one hand, and the rigid asceticism on the other; “The reign of Justinian marks a terminal point where sin and salvation, rather than shame and reputation, have come to form the dominant axis of public regulation” (158).
Since one “proof of moral freedom was the ability of individuals to change” (127), Harper spends much of the final portions of “From Shame to Sin” presenting one area of change that became prominent in the literary works of late Rome. Novelists and story-tellers maintained the format of the earlier romances, but changed the tension-resolving conclusion from legitimate, honorable marriage to absorption of the “gospel of virginity” (212). Another direction taken up by the storywriters was the recounting and glamorizing of penitent prostitutes. “The impresarios of the Christian imagination realized that in the figure of the penitent prostitute they had not only the raw material for a Christian allegory but a plot that could express the brave new world of sexual morality. The lives of the penitent prostitutes were worked into antiromances, inverting the rich fictional tradition to express an entirely new logic of sexual morality, a new relationship between the sexual self and society” (222).
“From Shame to Sin” is a scholarly read, looking through the lens of literature, to see the social and sexual conversion of latter Rome. It’s richly informative, rigorous, and reasoned. This would not only make an ideal addition to a University and Seminary library, but it would be a worthy supplement to a pastors’ book collection. Harper does a masterful job unpacking the social and sexual mores of the Roman world at the time of the writing of the New Testament, which deepens our understanding both the pressures warned against and the resistances prescribed in the Christian Scriptures. I highly recommend the book.
“From Shame to Sin” seeks to track the change in Roman sexuality over a roughly 600 year period as Roman society met, and became absorbed into, Christianity. Harper does this by “exploring the late classical world out of which Christianity emerged and following the story of the religion’s expansion down to the age of the emperor Justinian” (preface). Since the author is a classicist, it is no surprise that he accomplishes his task by following romantic novels of the high imperial roman society to the late antiquity of Christian Hagiographa. It provides not only an interesting excursion into the romantic genre of the period, but also a contextual glance into the rules of virtue and shame prevalent at the time. As the author observes, “The Christian transformation of sex can be retraced in the history of literature, which mirrors quite sensitively the passage from a public sexual ideology organized around the imperatives of social reproduction to a mentality founded in ecclesiastical norms. In short, the history of literature recapitulates the passage from shame to sin” (16). He follows this transition through the second century work of Achilles Tatius’s Leucippe and Clitophon to the seventh century composition of John Moschus’s The Spiritual Meadow.
Harper takes the reader by the hand and weaves them across the erotic ethics of Rome, showing how the surplus of slave bodies provided a venue for plentiful outlets to gratify the male libido. The author also chronicles the placement of homoeroticism, whether pederasty, consenting adults, prostitutes and kinaidos, etc., that was widely permitted for the freeman to engage in with both slaves and non-slaves; and how same-sex marriage, which was not unknown, “had no legal standing or consequence in public law” (36). He similarly recounts how the moral code for honorable women was pudicitia (modesty), to possess sexual honor. In the end, the author’s recitation shows how “the symphony of sexual values, in all its various movements and complex harmonies, was set to the rhythms of the material world: early marriages for women, jealous guarding of honorable female sexuality, an expansive slave system, late marriage for men, and basically relaxed attitudes toward male sexual potential, so long as it was consonant with masculine protocols and social hierarchies” (78).
“From Shame to Sin” then tackles some New Testament passages as well as the writings of Clement, and Tertullian, that address sexual behaviors showing how “the novelty of Christian language mirrored the transformative logic of a distinctive sexual morality” (98). Though several aspects of Christian sexual morality are addressed, the author capitalizes on homoeroticism, showing how from “Paul onward, Christian sexual ideology collapsed all forms of same-sex contact, whether pederastic or companionate, into one category” (99), and that category was porneia. Fornication went from “being a cipher for sexual sin in general to a sign of all sex beyond the marriage bed, and it came to mark the great divide between Christians and the world. Same-sex love, regardless of age, status, or role, was forbidden without qualification and without remorse” (85). Harper next maps out the direction this new moral code took as Christianity became predominant in late Roman antiquity, with the rigorous laws on the one hand, and the rigid asceticism on the other; “The reign of Justinian marks a terminal point where sin and salvation, rather than shame and reputation, have come to form the dominant axis of public regulation” (158).
Since one “proof of moral freedom was the ability of individuals to change” (127), Harper spends much of the final portions of “From Shame to Sin” presenting one area of change that became prominent in the literary works of late Rome. Novelists and story-tellers maintained the format of the earlier romances, but changed the tension-resolving conclusion from legitimate, honorable marriage to absorption of the “gospel of virginity” (212). Another direction taken up by the storywriters was the recounting and glamorizing of penitent prostitutes. “The impresarios of the Christian imagination realized that in the figure of the penitent prostitute they had not only the raw material for a Christian allegory but a plot that could express the brave new world of sexual morality. The lives of the penitent prostitutes were worked into antiromances, inverting the rich fictional tradition to express an entirely new logic of sexual morality, a new relationship between the sexual self and society” (222).
“From Shame to Sin” is a scholarly read, looking through the lens of literature, to see the social and sexual conversion of latter Rome. It’s richly informative, rigorous, and reasoned. This would not only make an ideal addition to a University and Seminary library, but it would be a worthy supplement to a pastors’ book collection. Harper does a masterful job unpacking the social and sexual mores of the Roman world at the time of the writing of the New Testament, which deepens our understanding both the pressures warned against and the resistances prescribed in the Christian Scriptures. I highly recommend the book.
August 18, 2022
I don't think I'm smart enough for this book.
January 22, 2023
kind of magnificent. i LOVED the academic mastery Harper writes with. he is thorough and insightful yet approachable.
i basically know a lot about the history of sex in classical greece and the roman empire now.
i basically know a lot about the history of sex in classical greece and the roman empire now.
February 8, 2025
This is the third of Kyle Harper’s books I have read and I found it the least impressive. This is not to say there was anything wrong with it. It just proved to have relatively uninteresting and unsurprising content.
Harper opens the Preface of From Shame To Sin. The Christian Transformation of Sexual Morality in Late Antiquity > by stating, “This book presents an effort to summarize, between two covers, what difference Christianity made in the history of sexual morality. It does so by exploring the late classical world out of which Christianity emerged and following the story of the religion’s expansion down to the age of the emperor Justinian. That is an enormous topic and this is a short book, which can only claim to draw out some of the main lines of such a complex development.”
I am not sure why an author would choose to write a “short book” on “an enormous topic”. I suspect that this was really an academic study which escaped from the academy and found its way to a publishing house.
The thing that really seemed to interest the author was a number of obscure fictional works – which he calls novels – mainly dating from the second to the fourth centuries. However, I felt what he was really writing was more of a literary analysis of the various “novels”; albeit, the commentary was interesting. In addition, there was examination of various more orthodox Christian sources.
There are a number of issues which arise from the approach Harper takes.
1. In the pre-Christian Empire, there was little sense of shame or sin regarding sex. The main factor in play was legality. Morality really was not a part of the matter.
2. The writings to which Harper refers concentrate on rape, prostitution, adultery and homosexuality (including paedophilia), with some treatment also of sexual drive and lust. There are many elements of sexual activity outside these areas which might valuably have been included (even allowing for Harper’s claim that homosexuality and prostitution have been inadequately considered in earlier studies and, by implication, needed redressing).
3. While there was a clear change from pre-Christian to Christian times, this also incorporated a change from an early legal framework which essentially related to property rights (including the rights of slave-owners) to a more moral framework in the later injunctions by the church on acceptable Christian behaviour. And it turns out that the change took centuries to achieve.
4. The documents to which Harper refers reflect a range of points of view in both pre-Christian and Christian eras, so it is problematical trying to identify a representative outlook for either.
5. It is questionable whether the mores posited as Christian are uniquely Christian (as distinct from Hebraic) or, indeed, derive from Jesus rather than from apostolic or later ecclesiastical polemicists. Although Harper does note that “The Jesus of the canonical gospels had warned that lust itself was a sexual crime and hinted that ‘becoming a eunuch for the kingdom of God’ was a supreme state.”
Harper does a sound job of describing attitudes to sexual activity in the early Empire, at least as regards the sexual relationship between man and wife, the position of adultery, homosexual behaviours, prostitution, and sex with slaves. He notes that “the adultery legislation of Augustus was… one of the most intrusive and enduring creations in the history of criminal law. Adulterium meant the violation of a respectable woman. The true significance of the Augustan law against adulterium lay not in the imposition of repressive norms on a libertine society, but in the assumption by the state of an ever greater role in the regulation of sexual morality, along solidly traditional lines.” These areas were not the exclusive domain of the laws. Society’s unwritten prejudices were also of importance and presupposed a sort of implicit embryonic moral code. Harper provides a useful summary of contemporary terms expressing disapproval: “In Latin, the notion of shame was centered around a cluster of words including pudicitia (sexual modesty) and its opposite impudicitia (sexual immodesty), as well as the more concretized states of being, honestas (social respectability) and infamia (dishonor). In Greek, sōphrosynē was used to denote both a virtue (self-control) and the possession of sexual respectability. Shame was expressed as aischynē — an act which brought dishonor on the actor, or the emotional experience of moral failure. Aidōs drew closer to the individual’s “sense of shame,” both positively, in the proper respect for others’ opinions that evoked honorable behavior (similar to the Latin pudor ), or negatively as the embarrassment that follows upon misconduct. In Greek the more concrete states of honor and dishonor were expressed by timē and atimia , respectively.”
He cites various sources which reveal disapproval of either the passive male in homosexuality, or homosexuality in general. Slaves, men, women or children, had virtually no rights or protections. The issue of freeborn women consorting with a male slave was not so much an infringement against a moral code as against honour and respectability. Women had equal access to divorce, and had access to their dowry in the event of divorce. Girls were considered women as young as twelve, so the concept of paederasty mainly applied to boys and, while the law only prohibited that with free-born boys, Harper claims that such activity was nevertheless relatively common. Rape, as such, receives little treatment but Harper does note that women victims did not lose honour as a result. Nevertheless, virginity was very positively regarded.
Outside these matters, all of them the subject of either laws or a sense of public honour, there is not much more.
Harper then follows a variety of changes that occur within the Roman empire as Christendom builds in strength. It is noticeable in relation to this that an element of changed response to sexual activity derives from the emperor and senate, and an element from the church hierarchy and bureaucracy. Even though Constantine became a Christian as a result of his victory in the Battle of Milvian Bridge, and subsequently took on some leadership of the church, there was not much evidence of Christian doctrine in Roman lawmaking of the time, especially regarding the sexual issues with which Harper is concerned. Mind you, a part of this must be attributed to the fact that any orthodox Christian perspective on sex would take some time to evolve. As Harper rightly points out, Christianity in the second century was a minor provincial cult and then, fairly suddenly, it had to adjust to an entirely new role: “But the men and women of the first centuries did not imagine a future where the sexual protocols they formed would be placed in the hands of a powerful institutional church. Indeed, the strident tone of so much early Christian writing on sexuality was nurtured in an atmosphere where the advocates of the religion were a small, persecuted minority.” “The Christian vision of sexual humanity, incubated in the radical air of persecution, was forced, unexpectedly, into the mold of a regulatory system.”
The morality of sexual matters was also being considered during this period by the Stoics and the Cynics and, again, we find different writers within these movement espousing different points of view. Harper distils their ideas down to seeking virtue, which leaves the question of where virtue is to identified, but then “sexual morality was primarily about the internal regulation of desires.” And this certainly goes beyond the pure legalism of the state. Mixed up in these concepts, there was the question of the degree to which we are the driver of our own actions. Harper claims that one of the significant outcomes of Christian thinking was to make a clear statement that humans were agents of free will, so that they, and not some astrological destiny, carried full moral responsibility for their actions.
The complexity that was confronting early writers is evident in the various attitudes to marriage. It was variously argued that sex within marriage was immoral and that complete abstinence was necessary for cleanliness; that sex within marriage was acceptable as long as its sole purpose was the intention to procreate; and that lust or the pursuit of pleasure within marital sex were immoral. And presumably, there were ordinary people whose lives were not regulated by any of these strictures!
Harper marks a major landmark when in AD 428 the Christian emperor Theodosius II enacted a law banning the use of coercion in the sex industry. This was twenty emperors and seventy years after Constantine. “The law wished to repress the prostitution of slaves, daughters, and other vulnerable members of society, which was anything but a marginal part of the classical sexual order. The moral foundations of the law were, there can be no doubt, Christian.” He sees this as “the diffusion of a new pattern of moral reasoning.”
Harper makes the interesting point that Hebraic attitudes to sex were more similar in some ways to early Roman than to Christian: monogamy was Roman rather than Hebraic, and “Because legitimate female sexuality was strictly confined to marriage, a woman who engaged in any extramarital sex was guilty of zenuth . In the patriarchal logic of early Hebrew culture, she became a ‘whore’, and the feminine participle, zonah , was the primary word for prostitute throughout the biblical period. The Hebrew Bible is decidedly tepid in its condemnation of males patronizing the brothel.”
Harper notes several severe sixth century Roman laws and comments: “What is notable about this promulgation is not the headlong intrusion of moralism into lawgiving, but the subtle disappearance of old modes of regulation, in which status above all framed the dynamics of power between state and society.” Although this change has not really been a focus in the book, it is an important point well made.
Late in the book, Kyle Harper reiterates a claim he made back at the beginning. “Stories have a claim, just as much as formal philosophical literature, to a privileged place in the history of sexuality. The narrative literature of the late classical world proved capable, like no other medium, of representing the pattern and experience of sexual morality, measured against the shape of life.”
I think he can claim to have incorporated that genre effectively; I just wish the book had been more adventurous in its examination of the morality of sex. As it is, I doubt any reader will be surprised by the judgments he makes.
Harper opens the Preface of From Shame To Sin. The Christian Transformation of Sexual Morality in Late Antiquity > by stating, “This book presents an effort to summarize, between two covers, what difference Christianity made in the history of sexual morality. It does so by exploring the late classical world out of which Christianity emerged and following the story of the religion’s expansion down to the age of the emperor Justinian. That is an enormous topic and this is a short book, which can only claim to draw out some of the main lines of such a complex development.”
I am not sure why an author would choose to write a “short book” on “an enormous topic”. I suspect that this was really an academic study which escaped from the academy and found its way to a publishing house.
The thing that really seemed to interest the author was a number of obscure fictional works – which he calls novels – mainly dating from the second to the fourth centuries. However, I felt what he was really writing was more of a literary analysis of the various “novels”; albeit, the commentary was interesting. In addition, there was examination of various more orthodox Christian sources.
There are a number of issues which arise from the approach Harper takes.
1. In the pre-Christian Empire, there was little sense of shame or sin regarding sex. The main factor in play was legality. Morality really was not a part of the matter.
2. The writings to which Harper refers concentrate on rape, prostitution, adultery and homosexuality (including paedophilia), with some treatment also of sexual drive and lust. There are many elements of sexual activity outside these areas which might valuably have been included (even allowing for Harper’s claim that homosexuality and prostitution have been inadequately considered in earlier studies and, by implication, needed redressing).
3. While there was a clear change from pre-Christian to Christian times, this also incorporated a change from an early legal framework which essentially related to property rights (including the rights of slave-owners) to a more moral framework in the later injunctions by the church on acceptable Christian behaviour. And it turns out that the change took centuries to achieve.
4. The documents to which Harper refers reflect a range of points of view in both pre-Christian and Christian eras, so it is problematical trying to identify a representative outlook for either.
5. It is questionable whether the mores posited as Christian are uniquely Christian (as distinct from Hebraic) or, indeed, derive from Jesus rather than from apostolic or later ecclesiastical polemicists. Although Harper does note that “The Jesus of the canonical gospels had warned that lust itself was a sexual crime and hinted that ‘becoming a eunuch for the kingdom of God’ was a supreme state.”
Harper does a sound job of describing attitudes to sexual activity in the early Empire, at least as regards the sexual relationship between man and wife, the position of adultery, homosexual behaviours, prostitution, and sex with slaves. He notes that “the adultery legislation of Augustus was… one of the most intrusive and enduring creations in the history of criminal law. Adulterium meant the violation of a respectable woman. The true significance of the Augustan law against adulterium lay not in the imposition of repressive norms on a libertine society, but in the assumption by the state of an ever greater role in the regulation of sexual morality, along solidly traditional lines.” These areas were not the exclusive domain of the laws. Society’s unwritten prejudices were also of importance and presupposed a sort of implicit embryonic moral code. Harper provides a useful summary of contemporary terms expressing disapproval: “In Latin, the notion of shame was centered around a cluster of words including pudicitia (sexual modesty) and its opposite impudicitia (sexual immodesty), as well as the more concretized states of being, honestas (social respectability) and infamia (dishonor). In Greek, sōphrosynē was used to denote both a virtue (self-control) and the possession of sexual respectability. Shame was expressed as aischynē — an act which brought dishonor on the actor, or the emotional experience of moral failure. Aidōs drew closer to the individual’s “sense of shame,” both positively, in the proper respect for others’ opinions that evoked honorable behavior (similar to the Latin pudor ), or negatively as the embarrassment that follows upon misconduct. In Greek the more concrete states of honor and dishonor were expressed by timē and atimia , respectively.”
He cites various sources which reveal disapproval of either the passive male in homosexuality, or homosexuality in general. Slaves, men, women or children, had virtually no rights or protections. The issue of freeborn women consorting with a male slave was not so much an infringement against a moral code as against honour and respectability. Women had equal access to divorce, and had access to their dowry in the event of divorce. Girls were considered women as young as twelve, so the concept of paederasty mainly applied to boys and, while the law only prohibited that with free-born boys, Harper claims that such activity was nevertheless relatively common. Rape, as such, receives little treatment but Harper does note that women victims did not lose honour as a result. Nevertheless, virginity was very positively regarded.
Outside these matters, all of them the subject of either laws or a sense of public honour, there is not much more.
Harper then follows a variety of changes that occur within the Roman empire as Christendom builds in strength. It is noticeable in relation to this that an element of changed response to sexual activity derives from the emperor and senate, and an element from the church hierarchy and bureaucracy. Even though Constantine became a Christian as a result of his victory in the Battle of Milvian Bridge, and subsequently took on some leadership of the church, there was not much evidence of Christian doctrine in Roman lawmaking of the time, especially regarding the sexual issues with which Harper is concerned. Mind you, a part of this must be attributed to the fact that any orthodox Christian perspective on sex would take some time to evolve. As Harper rightly points out, Christianity in the second century was a minor provincial cult and then, fairly suddenly, it had to adjust to an entirely new role: “But the men and women of the first centuries did not imagine a future where the sexual protocols they formed would be placed in the hands of a powerful institutional church. Indeed, the strident tone of so much early Christian writing on sexuality was nurtured in an atmosphere where the advocates of the religion were a small, persecuted minority.” “The Christian vision of sexual humanity, incubated in the radical air of persecution, was forced, unexpectedly, into the mold of a regulatory system.”
The morality of sexual matters was also being considered during this period by the Stoics and the Cynics and, again, we find different writers within these movement espousing different points of view. Harper distils their ideas down to seeking virtue, which leaves the question of where virtue is to identified, but then “sexual morality was primarily about the internal regulation of desires.” And this certainly goes beyond the pure legalism of the state. Mixed up in these concepts, there was the question of the degree to which we are the driver of our own actions. Harper claims that one of the significant outcomes of Christian thinking was to make a clear statement that humans were agents of free will, so that they, and not some astrological destiny, carried full moral responsibility for their actions.
The complexity that was confronting early writers is evident in the various attitudes to marriage. It was variously argued that sex within marriage was immoral and that complete abstinence was necessary for cleanliness; that sex within marriage was acceptable as long as its sole purpose was the intention to procreate; and that lust or the pursuit of pleasure within marital sex were immoral. And presumably, there were ordinary people whose lives were not regulated by any of these strictures!
Harper marks a major landmark when in AD 428 the Christian emperor Theodosius II enacted a law banning the use of coercion in the sex industry. This was twenty emperors and seventy years after Constantine. “The law wished to repress the prostitution of slaves, daughters, and other vulnerable members of society, which was anything but a marginal part of the classical sexual order. The moral foundations of the law were, there can be no doubt, Christian.” He sees this as “the diffusion of a new pattern of moral reasoning.”
Harper makes the interesting point that Hebraic attitudes to sex were more similar in some ways to early Roman than to Christian: monogamy was Roman rather than Hebraic, and “Because legitimate female sexuality was strictly confined to marriage, a woman who engaged in any extramarital sex was guilty of zenuth . In the patriarchal logic of early Hebrew culture, she became a ‘whore’, and the feminine participle, zonah , was the primary word for prostitute throughout the biblical period. The Hebrew Bible is decidedly tepid in its condemnation of males patronizing the brothel.”
Harper notes several severe sixth century Roman laws and comments: “What is notable about this promulgation is not the headlong intrusion of moralism into lawgiving, but the subtle disappearance of old modes of regulation, in which status above all framed the dynamics of power between state and society.” Although this change has not really been a focus in the book, it is an important point well made.
Late in the book, Kyle Harper reiterates a claim he made back at the beginning. “Stories have a claim, just as much as formal philosophical literature, to a privileged place in the history of sexuality. The narrative literature of the late classical world proved capable, like no other medium, of representing the pattern and experience of sexual morality, measured against the shape of life.”
I think he can claim to have incorporated that genre effectively; I just wish the book had been more adventurous in its examination of the morality of sex. As it is, I doubt any reader will be surprised by the judgments he makes.
January 11, 2019
Not for the faint hearted, this is a fascinating, in depth look at sexual morality and the impacts Christianity made on it in the first six centuries of its existence. Well paced, well documented, and unflinching in its portrayal of the brutalities, blusterings, and backwardness of understandings about sex in both secular and religious circles, this is a worthy read for anyone who is interested in the history of sex.
August 20, 2017
Wonderful book on the shift in sexual mores from the Late Classical era to the early Christian Middle Ages. Of necessity, the focus is on the eastern Mediterranean. What is most excellent about the text is the clarity of Harper's thought and his use of narrative in preference to invective to illuminate the changing morality.
April 19, 2021
Astonishingly good. Looks at the transition of public ideas about sexuality around the time Christianity became mainstream in the Roman Empire (fourth to fifth century). I was so fascinated to learn about all the ways ancient Greek and Roman sexuality was different to today (e.g., the main categories of sexual being were differentiated by class and age as well as gender). It also underlines just how much body hatred has been so deeply engrained in Christianity, and how purity culture was not unique to the nineties.
November 13, 2017
Harper's book provides a well-researched, yet still entertaining look at the beliefs towards sex in antiquity and the transition of sexual mores in the Christian era. The structure is broken down into four large thematic chapters. He utilizes the one of the extant ancient romance novels, Leucippe and Clitophon, written by Achilles Tatius, throughout the book for its themes and insights.
The first chapter examines the beliefs about sex and sexuality among the classical Greeks and Romans. Broadly speaking, the ancient mindset revolved around an active/passive dichotomy towards sex. This is further bound up in notions of social hierarchies and misogynistic views of women's roles in society. Whether or not the sexual activity of two people, either heterosexual or homosexual, was deemed proper depended on its relation to this dichotomy. It also elaborates upon classical ideas of chastity. Ideally, women were expected to remain virgins until marriage, while men only had to show "moderation" in terms of their sexual activities (a, perhaps purposely, vague and relativistic standard). This chapter excels in dispelling some of the popular notions of the classical Greek and Romans as uncontrollably hedonistic individuals, a stereotype first propagated by early Christians.
The second chapter delves into the Christian ideas about sex before Constantine. In an era when Christianity was a minority sect, the renunciation of sex (either until marriage or perpetually) was emblematic of a Christian's renunciation of society at large. Early Christian writers, like Clement of Alexandria, implored their flock not to engage in the sexual customs of the Greco-Roman culture. The active/passive dichotomy was ignored and homosexuality was expressly forbidden. In this faith, both women and men were now expected to remain virgins until marriage, though the idea of a "virginity for males" was unknown in the ancient world before. The consequences of sex before marriage was not social shame and stigma, as the Greco-Roman culture would have it, but rather religious sin.
The third chapter tackles the post-Constantine world, in which Christians could no longer claim to be part of society at large, but must reckon with now being the driving ideology of the Mediterranean. Harper does an excellent job of elaborating on the link to the Christian discussion of free will, which, especially in Augustinian theology, frequently involve the topic of sex. Furthermore, now that the Christian faith was in control of the empire, there was the question of legislating sexual morality and how far such laws should go. Should a Christian emperor seek to eradicate activities deemed sinful, like prostitution and homosexuality? The social reforms of Justinian will show a trend towards moralizing legal codes that extend into the medieval period.
The fourth and final chapter takes an analytical look at genre of ancient romance novels in comparison to later Christian texts, primarily hagiographies. Harper convincingly shows several fascinating parallels between these. For instance, both genres occasionally feature a female character, who endures many hardships, and seeks to preserve her virginity either out of chaste devotion to a male lover (the classical romance novels) or religious devotion to God (the Christian texts). Both feature other surprisingly similar plot points and features that show a level of continuity in stories told in Late Antiquity.
Harper closes by reminding the reader that we must remember that erotic sexuality itself did not vanish under the prohibitions of Christianity, only the public nature of it did. After all, there was some people who were still copying the texts of these romance novels well into the medieval period. We also still have instances, such as John Chrysostom berating "youths" for their unseemly erotic wedding chants, to remind us that not everyone followed the expectations of Christianity. Overall, this book is an excellent, though dense, read and would be perfect for anyone interested in social history.
The first chapter examines the beliefs about sex and sexuality among the classical Greeks and Romans. Broadly speaking, the ancient mindset revolved around an active/passive dichotomy towards sex. This is further bound up in notions of social hierarchies and misogynistic views of women's roles in society. Whether or not the sexual activity of two people, either heterosexual or homosexual, was deemed proper depended on its relation to this dichotomy. It also elaborates upon classical ideas of chastity. Ideally, women were expected to remain virgins until marriage, while men only had to show "moderation" in terms of their sexual activities (a, perhaps purposely, vague and relativistic standard). This chapter excels in dispelling some of the popular notions of the classical Greek and Romans as uncontrollably hedonistic individuals, a stereotype first propagated by early Christians.
The second chapter delves into the Christian ideas about sex before Constantine. In an era when Christianity was a minority sect, the renunciation of sex (either until marriage or perpetually) was emblematic of a Christian's renunciation of society at large. Early Christian writers, like Clement of Alexandria, implored their flock not to engage in the sexual customs of the Greco-Roman culture. The active/passive dichotomy was ignored and homosexuality was expressly forbidden. In this faith, both women and men were now expected to remain virgins until marriage, though the idea of a "virginity for males" was unknown in the ancient world before. The consequences of sex before marriage was not social shame and stigma, as the Greco-Roman culture would have it, but rather religious sin.
The third chapter tackles the post-Constantine world, in which Christians could no longer claim to be part of society at large, but must reckon with now being the driving ideology of the Mediterranean. Harper does an excellent job of elaborating on the link to the Christian discussion of free will, which, especially in Augustinian theology, frequently involve the topic of sex. Furthermore, now that the Christian faith was in control of the empire, there was the question of legislating sexual morality and how far such laws should go. Should a Christian emperor seek to eradicate activities deemed sinful, like prostitution and homosexuality? The social reforms of Justinian will show a trend towards moralizing legal codes that extend into the medieval period.
The fourth and final chapter takes an analytical look at genre of ancient romance novels in comparison to later Christian texts, primarily hagiographies. Harper convincingly shows several fascinating parallels between these. For instance, both genres occasionally feature a female character, who endures many hardships, and seeks to preserve her virginity either out of chaste devotion to a male lover (the classical romance novels) or religious devotion to God (the Christian texts). Both feature other surprisingly similar plot points and features that show a level of continuity in stories told in Late Antiquity.
Harper closes by reminding the reader that we must remember that erotic sexuality itself did not vanish under the prohibitions of Christianity, only the public nature of it did. After all, there was some people who were still copying the texts of these romance novels well into the medieval period. We also still have instances, such as John Chrysostom berating "youths" for their unseemly erotic wedding chants, to remind us that not everyone followed the expectations of Christianity. Overall, this book is an excellent, though dense, read and would be perfect for anyone interested in social history.
September 2, 2016
Kyle Harper’s From Shame to Sin: The Christian Transformation of Sexual Morality in Late Antiquity from Harvard University Press is rigorously academic in its range and depth. The good news for the rest of us is how lucid and enjoyable Harper’s writing is throughout. He describes, for instance, the escalating denunciations of Roman carnality by early theologians as an “arms race of sexual invective.” Monks helping to reform the life of a prostitute are “like a modern sports team that courts away its rival’s most valuable player.”
While pagan Rome represented a more open sexual culture—legal brothels, tolerance of homosexuality, equality of property and divorce rights between men and women—Harper is quick to remind us that their worldview and economy were framed by slavery and a strict hierarchy of social status.
On the one hand, eroticism’s secular deregulation lost out to the Church’s decreeing procreative marriage as the singular outlet for sexual expression. However, Harper also sees epochal societal gains with Christianity’s forceful condemnation of prostitution and the redemptive cloistering and rebuilding of broken lives. But there’s plenty of tyrannical exploitation on both sides in From Shame to Sin to suggest that abuse and victimization were no less disentangled from Eros two millennia ago than today.
Harper, a 2007 Harvard Ph.D. history grad, is currently an associate professor in the University of Oklahoma’s Department of Classics and Letters. More than the work of a first-rate historian of antiquity, From Shame to Sin is equally a supreme work of literary criticism. Harper’s analysis of ancient Greek novels and the Apocryphal Acts and Gospels—with a nod to influential literary critics like Northrop Frye and Stephen Greenblatt—is fascinating for the manner in which he detects recurring themes and shifts in emphasis that are shown to emerge alongside cultural changes.
While pagan Rome represented a more open sexual culture—legal brothels, tolerance of homosexuality, equality of property and divorce rights between men and women—Harper is quick to remind us that their worldview and economy were framed by slavery and a strict hierarchy of social status.
On the one hand, eroticism’s secular deregulation lost out to the Church’s decreeing procreative marriage as the singular outlet for sexual expression. However, Harper also sees epochal societal gains with Christianity’s forceful condemnation of prostitution and the redemptive cloistering and rebuilding of broken lives. But there’s plenty of tyrannical exploitation on both sides in From Shame to Sin to suggest that abuse and victimization were no less disentangled from Eros two millennia ago than today.
Harper, a 2007 Harvard Ph.D. history grad, is currently an associate professor in the University of Oklahoma’s Department of Classics and Letters. More than the work of a first-rate historian of antiquity, From Shame to Sin is equally a supreme work of literary criticism. Harper’s analysis of ancient Greek novels and the Apocryphal Acts and Gospels—with a nod to influential literary critics like Northrop Frye and Stephen Greenblatt—is fascinating for the manner in which he detects recurring themes and shifts in emphasis that are shown to emerge alongside cultural changes.
March 26, 2023
In "From Shame to Sin" Kyle Harper intends to compare how the Romans changed their approach to various aspects of sexual morality in the span of a couple of centuries that marked the transition from the old pagan beliefs to the christian state religion. The majority of people raised in any of the countries tracing their roots to the European Christendom organise their thinking about human sexuality around the norms propagated by the church. That applies just as well to those who disagree with its stance on e.g. homosexuality, because even when criticising it, they still use the vocabulary and framework built-up over the ages by the very people they oppose.
The purpose of the book is to show us how this framework, no matter our attitude towards it, toppled the older one, which shaped people’s thinking about sexuality in the Ancient Greece and Rome’s Republic and Early Empire. Harper takes on different aspects of human sexuality but the most important ones covered in this book are women's chastity, prostitution and homosexuality.
Harper manages to construct a very persuasive argument around the role of prostitution for the empire’s social stability.
From there he also draws a conclusion as to why we end up with some hypocrisy in our judgement of men’s behaviour.
One of the key features the author draws our attention to is the influence the redefinition of the free will had on the state’s and people’s approach to the breaking of sexual norms. Whatever our individual attitude to prostitution may be nowadays there’s no escaping the fact that in our judgement we would still separate the act itself from the readiness of the person to commit it.
Prostitution and women’s chastity are not the only affairs that draw Harper’s attention. He also dedicates a substantial part of the book to how differently homosexuality came to be perceived between the epochs discussed in the book. Viewing the homosexual act solely through the lens of the gender of the people involved is what the church managed to imprint on us throughout the ages. It must be recognised that for the Romans and Greeks it was rather the social strata that were taken into account. A sexually active free Roman would never be subject to castigation contrary to a passive one. The slaves were not even taken into account as their position was somehow shameful by definition.
That conclusion ends the journey we take with the book. We started from the redefinition of what was and what was not viewed as the norm. We ended with one of the biggest changes the conversion to christianity had brought with it. It’s our willingness to participate in breaking the norm - the sin - and not the gravity of the act itself - the shame - that would "make" us worth salvation and a good member of society.
The author of the book draws most of the examples supporting the narrative from literary sources and epistles. He assumes some level of familiarity with the people and the chronology of the Roman Late Empire. The language used is fairly sophisticated and the sentences are rich with more than an average vocabulary. While the reading asks for focus and dedication in that way Harper manages to convey a lot of information in even a few sentences. This is his second book I’ve read - the other being The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease, and the End of an Empire. I must say he has a knack for taking on somewhat less obvious topics but in both cases the result has turned out splendidly.
The purpose of the book is to show us how this framework, no matter our attitude towards it, toppled the older one, which shaped people’s thinking about sexuality in the Ancient Greece and Rome’s Republic and Early Empire. Harper takes on different aspects of human sexuality but the most important ones covered in this book are women's chastity, prostitution and homosexuality.
"The code of sexual rules that came to prevail in the early Christian church was highly distinctive; its moral logic was more innovative still. For the Greeks and Romans, public sexual ideology was an organic expression of a social system. Sexual norms were in harmony with public law, the protocols of marriage, and the patterns of inheritance. Even pagan philosophy tended, at its deepest level, to offer a duty-based sexual ethics that accepted the logic of social reproduction while devaluing pleasure as such. But early Christianity showed itself prepared to abandon the traditional needs and expectations of society, if necessary in the most dramatic fashion. Christianity broke sexual morality free from its social moorings. The indifference toward secular life and the new model of moral agency - centered around an absolutely free individual whose actions bore an eternal and cosmic significance - were covalent propositions."
Harper manages to construct a very persuasive argument around the role of prostitution for the empire’s social stability.
"The predatory sexuality of young, unmarried men was a dangerous presence in the ancient Mediterranean city; in a society where men were half a generation older than their wives, the threat of adultery was conceived in generational terms, as a threat emanating from below, from younger men with enough cunning to play the seducer. The solution was a high degree of tolerance toward sex with slaves and prostitutes."
From there he also draws a conclusion as to why we end up with some hypocrisy in our judgement of men’s behaviour.
"There is little trace of those paradoxical values, familiar in later Mediterranean societies, that simultaneously lionized and vilified the adulterer. In the classical world, the adulterer was purely villainous. The idea of sexual pleasure as a finite commodity, the object of an intense, zero-sum competition, was distinctly alien to the classical spirit, so successfully had the brothel made sex a public good."
One of the key features the author draws our attention to is the influence the redefinition of the free will had on the state’s and people’s approach to the breaking of sexual norms. Whatever our individual attitude to prostitution may be nowadays there’s no escaping the fact that in our judgement we would still separate the act itself from the readiness of the person to commit it.
"The individual was morally responsible, and moral responsibility required freedom, from the stars and from social expectation alike. The chill severity of Christian sexuality was born not out of a pathological hatred of the body, nor out of a broad public anxiety about the material world. It emerged in an existentially serious culture, propelled to startling conclusions by the remorseless logic of a new moral cosmology. The discovery of the free will was not a circumstantial adjunct of early Christian sexual morality; it was an essential feature, determined by the deep logic of a moral order founded on sin and salvation"
"The high notion of absolute freedom that is so deeply embedded in early Christian thinking about sex and sin enjoyed its fullest ascendance in the aftermath of Constantine’s conversion. The fourth century was the golden age of free will. But triumph brought unforeseen challenges. The early Christian notion of free will was a cosmological assertion, forged in opposition to Stoic causality, popular astrology, and gnostic determinism."
"The sudden recognition that Christian sexual morality would have to account for those without volition over their sexual fate is a sign of the church’s broader social power from the later fourth century. Most remarkably, this new anxiety led directly to a program of legal reform in which Roman emperors, from Theodosius II to Justinian, attacked coerced prostitution. The campaign against violent sexual procurement is deeply symbolic of the triumph of a Christian logic of sexual morality, rooted in sin, in the order of imperial law and public culture."
Prostitution and women’s chastity are not the only affairs that draw Harper’s attention. He also dedicates a substantial part of the book to how differently homosexuality came to be perceived between the epochs discussed in the book. Viewing the homosexual act solely through the lens of the gender of the people involved is what the church managed to imprint on us throughout the ages. It must be recognised that for the Romans and Greeks it was rather the social strata that were taken into account. A sexually active free Roman would never be subject to castigation contrary to a passive one. The slaves were not even taken into account as their position was somehow shameful by definition.
That conclusion ends the journey we take with the book. We started from the redefinition of what was and what was not viewed as the norm. We ended with one of the biggest changes the conversion to christianity had brought with it. It’s our willingness to participate in breaking the norm - the sin - and not the gravity of the act itself - the shame - that would "make" us worth salvation and a good member of society.
The author of the book draws most of the examples supporting the narrative from literary sources and epistles. He assumes some level of familiarity with the people and the chronology of the Roman Late Empire. The language used is fairly sophisticated and the sentences are rich with more than an average vocabulary. While the reading asks for focus and dedication in that way Harper manages to convey a lot of information in even a few sentences. This is his second book I’ve read - the other being The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease, and the End of an Empire. I must say he has a knack for taking on somewhat less obvious topics but in both cases the result has turned out splendidly.
October 12, 2021
This was a fascinating read. My only complaint is that I yearned for more detail. Kyle Harper goes through the relevant literature in antiquity in regards to sexuality in sketching out both Roman pre-Christian sexuality and sexuality after Christianity came to dominance. Basically, the Roman view of sexuality fitted on the grid of sex and class. If you were an upper class man you used slaves to satisfy your sexual lusts at will. If you were an upper class woman you were kept 'safe' from men and your virginity was saved for marriage to an upper class man. It was an axiomatic part of Roman literature that a high class woman's virginity would be kept safe due to the fact that she is upper class. The double standard was very much in full force in antiquity.
Harper walks through the first few centuries A.D. in terms of both history and literature, putting a lot of focus on the Roman romance novel. The form of the novel was consistent in that a high-born woman would be brought low by circumstance but would preserve her virginity through a series of trials before re-uniting with her high-born would be husband. The novel's form changes in the Christian era as it become about the repentant prostitute rather than the upper class woman. the free choice of the woman to repent became the focal point rather than the class position one was born into. Also, chastity for men became a serious concept rather than a weird curiosity in the pre-Christian era.
For the sexuality of men pederasty in the pre-Christian era was commonplace. Older men would have relationships with young men in their later teen years about 15 to 17 or so. Going younger than that was looked down upon at least in the Roman world however the previous Greek milieu was even more flexible about that. Such relationships did not exist, not legally at least, between two higher class Roman citizen men but only when the older one was of a higher class than the younger one. There was an inherent class power imbalance.
I should have mentioned this before but it must be stated clearly that Roman society was a thoroughly slave society. Slaves were used sexually and that was thought as shameful. Shameful for them not shameful for the man who used them. The idea of consent being an important part of sex didn't become an issue until the Christian era as slaves were thought of as property. Now, this is fascinating to me because slavery was not abolished by any Christian emperor. Pederasty was cracked down upon but not slavery itself as an institution. I've read that Gregory of Nyssa condemned slavery as an institution but really he was the only one who came close to that next logical step. No one else did and certainly no one in government did.
This leads me to the other glaring question I had while reading the book. The question of homosexuality. it appears that homosexuality as we conceive of it was not really condemned by Christians of the first few centuries. Justinian punished pederasts but not adult homosexuals. It can be argued that the twin immoralities of pederasty and slavery combined together in an exploitative way that the early Christians condemned. Prostitution also was mixed up with slavery intrinsically too.
Reading this makes me want to read more about the subject. It is so fascinating because the people of antiquity were dealing with very different frameworks than we are used to yet they were still human and there are commonalities that reach across the ages.
Harper walks through the first few centuries A.D. in terms of both history and literature, putting a lot of focus on the Roman romance novel. The form of the novel was consistent in that a high-born woman would be brought low by circumstance but would preserve her virginity through a series of trials before re-uniting with her high-born would be husband. The novel's form changes in the Christian era as it become about the repentant prostitute rather than the upper class woman. the free choice of the woman to repent became the focal point rather than the class position one was born into. Also, chastity for men became a serious concept rather than a weird curiosity in the pre-Christian era.
For the sexuality of men pederasty in the pre-Christian era was commonplace. Older men would have relationships with young men in their later teen years about 15 to 17 or so. Going younger than that was looked down upon at least in the Roman world however the previous Greek milieu was even more flexible about that. Such relationships did not exist, not legally at least, between two higher class Roman citizen men but only when the older one was of a higher class than the younger one. There was an inherent class power imbalance.
I should have mentioned this before but it must be stated clearly that Roman society was a thoroughly slave society. Slaves were used sexually and that was thought as shameful. Shameful for them not shameful for the man who used them. The idea of consent being an important part of sex didn't become an issue until the Christian era as slaves were thought of as property. Now, this is fascinating to me because slavery was not abolished by any Christian emperor. Pederasty was cracked down upon but not slavery itself as an institution. I've read that Gregory of Nyssa condemned slavery as an institution but really he was the only one who came close to that next logical step. No one else did and certainly no one in government did.
This leads me to the other glaring question I had while reading the book. The question of homosexuality. it appears that homosexuality as we conceive of it was not really condemned by Christians of the first few centuries. Justinian punished pederasts but not adult homosexuals. It can be argued that the twin immoralities of pederasty and slavery combined together in an exploitative way that the early Christians condemned. Prostitution also was mixed up with slavery intrinsically too.
Reading this makes me want to read more about the subject. It is so fascinating because the people of antiquity were dealing with very different frameworks than we are used to yet they were still human and there are commonalities that reach across the ages.
December 22, 2022
In this book, Dr. Harper describes the societal values regarding sexual morality in the Roman Empire in the time of pagan dominance and how Christianity changed it, somewhat like an Overton window for sexual morality in the Roman Empire over the course of late antiquity. Dr. Harper uses as evidence artifacts, Roman laws and literature.
While there was some variation in sexual morality in pagan Rome, the general lines are as follows:
• Wives were expected to be faithful to their husbands, but husbands were free to fool around with prostitutes and slaves. For that matter, prostitutes and slaves were considered to be an acceptable outlet for male sexual energy to divert male attention from other men’s wives.
• Marriages could be terminate at the request of either the husband or the wife.
• Men were expected to be masculine, with masculinity defined as being the penetrator in sexual activity, whether with a woman or another male. Up to a certain point in puberty, there was no dishonor for a male being sexually penetrated. For this reason, it is likely that Paul in 1 Cor. 6:9-10 refers to effeminates (μαλαχοί) and homosexuals (ἀρσενοκοῖται), with homosexuals referring to those doing the penetrating and effeminates being their same sex partners receiving the penetration.
• A man might be dishonored by sex addiction, excesses of sexual activity.
• Slaves had no rights and could not refuse the sexual advances of their masters, whether male-to-female or male-to-male.
• Brothels were largely staffed by slaves. In addition, acting troupes were often slaves and did double-duty as prostitutes.
• Sex was ubiquitous and out in the open. For example, lampshades were often painted with erotic scenes.
• Any illicit sex was merely grounds for dishonor and shame.
As Christianity became dominant, so did its sexual morality:
• Both husbands and wives were expected to be faithful; no more double standard allowing the husband to be promiscuous.
• The allowable grounds for divorce was limited to infidelity, consistent with Jesus’ teaching on divorce.
• Pederasty was outlawed.
• There had been a problem with pagan masters selling their Christian slaves to brothels, potentially forcing them to commit sexual immorality (πορνεία). For this reason, laws were enacted prohibiting the forced prostitution of Christians. These laws also extended to prohibitions on forcing Christians to perform in theatrical productions. Later laws prohibited prostitution altogether.
• Erotic lampshades fell out of use, and more pious artifacts became more common.
• Illicit sex was viewed as sin, an offence against almighty and transcendent God.
In addition to these points, Dr. Harper uses literature to contrast pagan sexual morality with Christian morality. For example, a romance, Leucippe and Clitophon, serves as an example of the pagan views of sexual morals. Leucippe, a free woman, has fallen in love with Clitophon but is captured by pirates and sold into slavery. The fates and her free-born status ensure that she preserves her chastity for Clitophon, even in the face of advances by her master. This is a reflection on the Roman view of a wife’s duty to protect her chastity. However, once Christianity was dominant, the literature changed. Dr. Harper provides examples of stories in which Christian women are sold into brothel slavery and use artifices to preserve their chastity, not for husbands, but for their God. He also provides other stories about prostitutes who converted to Christianity and became not just celibate, but ascetic, as well.
As I read this book, I couldn’t help coming away with various impressions of the differences between pagan and Christian sexual morality as well as by an apparent reversal from Christian sexual morality toward more pagan values in contemporary America. For example, consider the innocence of children. The use of erotic art on lampshades and pederasty showed that pagan Rome didn’t value the innocence of children. It was Christians who opposed and outlawed pederasty and who changed public morality to protect their innocence. Today, the innocence of children is one of the fronts in America’s culture wars, with one side advocating drag queen story hour, age-inappropriate sex education and transgender ideology. American progressives are turning back the clock.
While there was some variation in sexual morality in pagan Rome, the general lines are as follows:
• Wives were expected to be faithful to their husbands, but husbands were free to fool around with prostitutes and slaves. For that matter, prostitutes and slaves were considered to be an acceptable outlet for male sexual energy to divert male attention from other men’s wives.
• Marriages could be terminate at the request of either the husband or the wife.
• Men were expected to be masculine, with masculinity defined as being the penetrator in sexual activity, whether with a woman or another male. Up to a certain point in puberty, there was no dishonor for a male being sexually penetrated. For this reason, it is likely that Paul in 1 Cor. 6:9-10 refers to effeminates (μαλαχοί) and homosexuals (ἀρσενοκοῖται), with homosexuals referring to those doing the penetrating and effeminates being their same sex partners receiving the penetration.
• A man might be dishonored by sex addiction, excesses of sexual activity.
• Slaves had no rights and could not refuse the sexual advances of their masters, whether male-to-female or male-to-male.
• Brothels were largely staffed by slaves. In addition, acting troupes were often slaves and did double-duty as prostitutes.
• Sex was ubiquitous and out in the open. For example, lampshades were often painted with erotic scenes.
• Any illicit sex was merely grounds for dishonor and shame.
As Christianity became dominant, so did its sexual morality:
• Both husbands and wives were expected to be faithful; no more double standard allowing the husband to be promiscuous.
• The allowable grounds for divorce was limited to infidelity, consistent with Jesus’ teaching on divorce.
• Pederasty was outlawed.
• There had been a problem with pagan masters selling their Christian slaves to brothels, potentially forcing them to commit sexual immorality (πορνεία). For this reason, laws were enacted prohibiting the forced prostitution of Christians. These laws also extended to prohibitions on forcing Christians to perform in theatrical productions. Later laws prohibited prostitution altogether.
• Erotic lampshades fell out of use, and more pious artifacts became more common.
• Illicit sex was viewed as sin, an offence against almighty and transcendent God.
In addition to these points, Dr. Harper uses literature to contrast pagan sexual morality with Christian morality. For example, a romance, Leucippe and Clitophon, serves as an example of the pagan views of sexual morals. Leucippe, a free woman, has fallen in love with Clitophon but is captured by pirates and sold into slavery. The fates and her free-born status ensure that she preserves her chastity for Clitophon, even in the face of advances by her master. This is a reflection on the Roman view of a wife’s duty to protect her chastity. However, once Christianity was dominant, the literature changed. Dr. Harper provides examples of stories in which Christian women are sold into brothel slavery and use artifices to preserve their chastity, not for husbands, but for their God. He also provides other stories about prostitutes who converted to Christianity and became not just celibate, but ascetic, as well.
As I read this book, I couldn’t help coming away with various impressions of the differences between pagan and Christian sexual morality as well as by an apparent reversal from Christian sexual morality toward more pagan values in contemporary America. For example, consider the innocence of children. The use of erotic art on lampshades and pederasty showed that pagan Rome didn’t value the innocence of children. It was Christians who opposed and outlawed pederasty and who changed public morality to protect their innocence. Today, the innocence of children is one of the fronts in America’s culture wars, with one side advocating drag queen story hour, age-inappropriate sex education and transgender ideology. American progressives are turning back the clock.
February 7, 2021
Very interesting to hear about this topic from a secular perspective. The main takeaway is that Christianity utterly changed the sexual ethics of the ancient world in two ways: the primacy of the concept of free will, and the resulting strenuous suppression of slavery-prostitution that was ubiquitous in ancient pagan societies. It also talks about the suppression of pederasty, but stresses that the elimination of slavery-prostitution was by far the most dramatic and significant change.
The author also included descriptions of the romantic literature of both pagan and Christian antiquity, demonstrating now the latter subverted the tropes of the former, which was very interesting. I now feel I understand better some ancient Christian literature I have read in the past.
Dr. Harper does sometimes describe Christian sexual ethics as chilly or repressive, and he thinks Pelagianism is more friendly than it is, but he is quite fair overall, and has no agenda other than helping people learn about this era.
(Due to the nature of the topic, this is clearly a book for adults, but the author’s approach is completely professional. There is nothing gratuitous—it is a good academic work.)
The author also included descriptions of the romantic literature of both pagan and Christian antiquity, demonstrating now the latter subverted the tropes of the former, which was very interesting. I now feel I understand better some ancient Christian literature I have read in the past.
Dr. Harper does sometimes describe Christian sexual ethics as chilly or repressive, and he thinks Pelagianism is more friendly than it is, but he is quite fair overall, and has no agenda other than helping people learn about this era.
(Due to the nature of the topic, this is clearly a book for adults, but the author’s approach is completely professional. There is nothing gratuitous—it is a good academic work.)
November 2, 2025
I don’t fuck with Harper. While I appreciate his storytelling, the narrative presents a triumph of Christianity that is far too linear to be historically convincing. Not only because I don’t buy into the shame/sin distinction he makes upon which his whole argument hinges, or because he treats Judaism as a monolith, or because he overreads Paul’s silences to posit that Paul ostensibly “invented” homosexuality as a category sanitized of all Hellenic, Roman influence—a conclusion that has been disastrously mobilized in conversion-therapy contexts. This book is an example of what is at stake when as scholars of pre-modernity, we fail to historicize categories such as “sex,” “gender,” and “natural,” and proceed with more much certainty than curiosity. Harper loves to make a wideeee sweeping generalization, and I don’t see how that ever serves an argument. The reason why I gave this book 3 stars is because of Harper’s important argument that Roman sexual ethics were completely defined by the omnipresence of slaves. Otherwise, this was a tough read.
Why is this book so awarded and highly reviewed?!! It’s not even good historical work…
Why is this book so awarded and highly reviewed?!! It’s not even good historical work…
July 23, 2021
I had no idea how warped the Roman world was: slavery, prostitution, women as property in the patrilineal structure. The teachings of Jesus and Paul were revolutionary. Unfortunately, the early church got pretty warped pretty quickly - primarily opposed to all sex. (OK, there has to be a little for reproduction, but even that's not ideal).
This is a thorough, well researched book with important information, but Mr. Harper never fails to use a 10 letter word when a 5 letter one works just as well. I'm wondering if he just sat there with an obscure thesaurus trying to make things obscure or if maybe he was worried people might read his book because they thought it would be titillating (it wasn't). I read a lot and have a decent vocabulary, but he easily had a couple hundred words I'd never seen, and some that I didn't find in Miriam-Webster.
This is a thorough, well researched book with important information, but Mr. Harper never fails to use a 10 letter word when a 5 letter one works just as well. I'm wondering if he just sat there with an obscure thesaurus trying to make things obscure or if maybe he was worried people might read his book because they thought it would be titillating (it wasn't). I read a lot and have a decent vocabulary, but he easily had a couple hundred words I'd never seen, and some that I didn't find in Miriam-Webster.
September 3, 2021
As with the covid book, I really like history, so I'm biased about this book, but I picked it up on a whim and am very happy with the choice.
Harper uses tools ranging from the prevalence of sexual lamps to analysis of the romcoms of the day to look at how Christianity, as it merged into the empire, changed the laws of the empire while itself shifting away from radicalism to better accommodate the Family Values (not the same ones as today) that Rome treasured.
What I like most about the book besides how weird the society it betrays is, is how reliably the book cites primary and secondary sources, as well as archeological evidence.
Harper uses tools ranging from the prevalence of sexual lamps to analysis of the romcoms of the day to look at how Christianity, as it merged into the empire, changed the laws of the empire while itself shifting away from radicalism to better accommodate the Family Values (not the same ones as today) that Rome treasured.
What I like most about the book besides how weird the society it betrays is, is how reliably the book cites primary and secondary sources, as well as archeological evidence.
January 6, 2025
Had some difficulty getting through this book just because of how it was written (clearly meant for the academe and those more familiar with anthropological texts which I am not, I am more of a science/medical nerd), but from what I could fully understand, it was really informative and sheds a whole new light on the progression of views on sex and gender that really had me considering and juxtaposing them with how we view them now, or rather asking why ours are so varied these days.
Good book, highly recommended for anyone wanting to deepen their understanding.
Good book, highly recommended for anyone wanting to deepen their understanding.
June 21, 2020
This is a fascinating historical account of how Christianity transformed The Roman and moved from a shame based system that allowed for all kinds of behavior provided honor was not violated to a view of acts being wrong in themselves before God regardless of who commits those acts or what status he has.
September 1, 2024
The prose is a little bit hard to handle since it's somewhat academic. Sometimes the level of detail gets a little bit overwhelming and repetitive. However the central thesis is very well done and very illuminating. Perhaps the amount of repetition is necessary to cut through multiple centuries of our presuppositions And christianized assumptions about what is real.
December 27, 2019
Fascinating. Some subpoints of the author's thesis were rather doubtful, but his survey of the notions of freedom and the will in late antiquity is original and unparalleled. A discerning reader will see the myriad connections to the 21st century West.
December 20, 2021
Interesting account of the impact Christianity had on the sexual mores of the ancient world. I liked the book but my expectations were probably too high. The last chapter (on the literature of the period) seemed a bit superfluous.
September 2, 2020
A lot to look into. To be read again.
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January 4, 2022Recommended by Jeff Nine
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July 22, 2022Read for Hilary Term Primary Tutorial: Women in Early Christianity
May 31, 2023
From Achilles Taitus to the Justinian Code, an exploration of the changes in sexual mores in the Roman world of Late Antiquity.
The author uses Achilles Taitus' Clitophon and Leucippe as the spring board from which to discuss the sexual mores of the Roman world before the diffuse spread of Christianity. He explores the wide variety of literature on the subject and sets forth the general Roman perspectives on such things. He demonstrates the penetrator/penetrated framework of Roman sexual understanding and the role of shame in that framework. Same sex behavior is discussed in comparison and contrast to the post-Victorian heterosexual/homosexual framework now en vogue. This description of Roman sexuality is the most thorough I have found.
The author then explores Christian understanding of sexuality first as rooted in Jewish heritage, but then in its more revolutionary forms. The author speaks of the elevation of chastity and virginity even beyond anything the Apostle Paul imposed, and even the emphasis on free will, which he suggests is in large part on account of the sexual ethos of Christians. This free will emphasis will remain even in Augustine in terms of sexual behavior even if Augustine will eventually walk free will back somewhat in his argument with the Pelagians and the development of the original sin transmitted through procreation doctrine. With Augustine the author is able to show the full shift from the shame framework of the Romans to the sin framework of the Christians and the ascendancy of the latter, then encoded into the Justinian Code.
This work, for good reason, should be the gold standard for understanding how the spread of Christianity led to profound shift in sexual mores in the Roman world of Late Antiquity. Highly recommended.
The author uses Achilles Taitus' Clitophon and Leucippe as the spring board from which to discuss the sexual mores of the Roman world before the diffuse spread of Christianity. He explores the wide variety of literature on the subject and sets forth the general Roman perspectives on such things. He demonstrates the penetrator/penetrated framework of Roman sexual understanding and the role of shame in that framework. Same sex behavior is discussed in comparison and contrast to the post-Victorian heterosexual/homosexual framework now en vogue. This description of Roman sexuality is the most thorough I have found.
The author then explores Christian understanding of sexuality first as rooted in Jewish heritage, but then in its more revolutionary forms. The author speaks of the elevation of chastity and virginity even beyond anything the Apostle Paul imposed, and even the emphasis on free will, which he suggests is in large part on account of the sexual ethos of Christians. This free will emphasis will remain even in Augustine in terms of sexual behavior even if Augustine will eventually walk free will back somewhat in his argument with the Pelagians and the development of the original sin transmitted through procreation doctrine. With Augustine the author is able to show the full shift from the shame framework of the Romans to the sin framework of the Christians and the ascendancy of the latter, then encoded into the Justinian Code.
This work, for good reason, should be the gold standard for understanding how the spread of Christianity led to profound shift in sexual mores in the Roman world of Late Antiquity. Highly recommended.
May 4, 2021
Challenging study of Roman romance novels, from St Paul to Augustine and even slightly later. The author explored these books, along with more well-known philosophical texts from this time period, to show how views on sexuality changed over this time period. The two biggest changes were same-sex relationships (merely unpopular in Jesus's time; eventually punished much more severely by the end of the period) and prostitution.
Prostitution was a big problem for early Christianity. Early Christians idealized virginity and marriage, but they weren't sure what to do about slaves who were forced into prostitution. They met this challenge at the same time that "free will" became an important concept in Christianity. Forced prostitution was not a sin in the same way that lust was a sin because it was against the person's will. This eventually led to the end of forced prostitution in the later Roman empire.
This was an interesting history to read. The specific romance novels in the author's analysis don't sound like they're really worth reading, so I'm grateful for the summaries. It was also interesting to read alongside the Middle Ages's history of the saints, The Golden Legend , which has many of the resulting stories about early virgin saints. You can see how the Roman romance novels morphed into the later hagiographies from this book.
It's hard to recommend this book because it's very dense and assumes good knowledge of the early Church and the late Roman empire. But if you feel confident about that period and want to dig into details on early Christian views of sexuality, this is the book for you.
Prostitution was a big problem for early Christianity. Early Christians idealized virginity and marriage, but they weren't sure what to do about slaves who were forced into prostitution. They met this challenge at the same time that "free will" became an important concept in Christianity. Forced prostitution was not a sin in the same way that lust was a sin because it was against the person's will. This eventually led to the end of forced prostitution in the later Roman empire.
This was an interesting history to read. The specific romance novels in the author's analysis don't sound like they're really worth reading, so I'm grateful for the summaries. It was also interesting to read alongside the Middle Ages's history of the saints, The Golden Legend , which has many of the resulting stories about early virgin saints. You can see how the Roman romance novels morphed into the later hagiographies from this book.
It's hard to recommend this book because it's very dense and assumes good knowledge of the early Church and the late Roman empire. But if you feel confident about that period and want to dig into details on early Christian views of sexuality, this is the book for you.
March 16, 2014
Great exploration of the changing regime of sexuality in late antiquity. Harper uses various sources including Greek novels, theological letters, legal documents, etc. to chart the rise of a Christian conception of sexuality as against the freewheeling Roman/Mediterranean variety, which he repeatedly points out was underwritten by an utterly callous slave economy. (Harper's first book was on slavery in the Roman empire.) I'm no expert so I can't really vouch for the quality of the scholarship, but I found this book utterly fascinating and convincing. My only quibbles are the shockingly bad copy editing (Northup Frye? Really?) and a lot of repetitious rhetorical huffing and puffing in the first half, which usually suggests to me an author a little unsure as to whether he's convinced by his own arguments or his adduced evidence. The counterbalance to that, however, is the second half in which Harper does some splendid literary criticism teasing out the implications of the romance genre with its explorations of carnality in the late classical period and the weird inversions it's put through to become the Christian Lives of the Saints genre. Even with my quibbles I'd recommend this to anyone with even a smidgen of interest in the topic.
August 27, 2013
'Here is a wonderful contribution to the study of the history of human sexuality. This diachronic treatment of human sexuality is well researched and a must-have title!'
See the review on Academia at http://academia.co.in/reviews/?p=144
See the review on Academia at http://academia.co.in/reviews/?p=144
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December 11, 2013Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews