Pah
Uber all member
Clement of Alexandria (d. ca 215)
Paedagogus 2.10
The end [of marriage] is good breeding of children, just as the reason for the farmer's scattering seed is the provision of nourishment, since the purpose of a man of agriculture is the gathering of fruits. . . . All land is not suitable for cultivation, and even if it were, it would not all be for the same farmer. For there can be no sowing upon rocks, nor should seed be wasted,l since it is the source of generation and comprises both the substance of procreation and the design of nature. It is surely impious for the natural designs to be irrationally perverted into customs which are not natural. Consider, for instance, how the all-wise Moses somewhat symbolically repudiated fruitless sowing, saying, " You shall not eat the hare or the hyena." For he did not wish men to partake of the qualities of these or to taste such wickedness themselves, since these animals are quite 2 obsessed with sexual intercourse.
The hare, for example, is said to grow a new anus each year [see Barnabas 10; Pliny 8.55; etc.], so that he has the same number of openings as the number of years he has lived. Hence the prohibition against eating the hare represents a rejection of pederasty. The hyena, on the other hand, is alternately male and female in succeeding years-by which [Moses] suggests that those who abstain from the hyena will not be very prone to adultery. While I agree that the all-wise Moses meant that we should not become like these animals on account of the prohibition laid equally against them, I do not concur with the interpretation of those who treat them symbolically.
Nature is never constrained to change, and that which is once formed cannot simply will to reverse itself wrongly, since desire is not nature. Desire can alter the character of something already formed, but it cannot remake its nature. It is true that many birds change with the seasons both their colors and their voices, as, for instance, the blackbird is said to change from white to a gold color and to a strident from a soft voice, and as the nightingale changes its color and its song with the seasons. But they cannot change a whit of their actual nature. . . . Nor can it be believed that the hyena ever changes its nature or that the same animal has at the same time both types of genitalia, those of the male and the female, as some have thought, telling of marvelous hermaphrodites and creating a whole new type-a third sex, the androgyne, in between a male and a female. They are certainly wrong not to take into account how devoted nature is to children, being the mother and begetter of all things.
Since this animal [the hyena] is extremely lewd, it has grown under its tail in front of the passage for excrement a certain fleshy appendage, in form very like the female genitalia. This design of the flesh has no passage leading to any useful part, I say, either to the womb or to the rectum. It has, rather, only a great cavity, whence it derives its fruitless lust, since the passages intended for the procreation of the fetus are inverted. This same thing occurs in the case of both the male hyena and the female, because of their exceptional passivity. The males mount each other, so it is extremely rare for them to seek a female. Nor is conception frequent for this animal, since unnatural insemination is so common among them. It seems to me on this account that Plato in the Phaedrus deprecates pederasty, calling it "bestial," because those who give themselves up to [this] pleasure "take the bit" and copulate in the manner of quadrupeds, striving to beget children [thus]. "The ungodly, moreover," as the Apostle says [Rom. 1:26-27], "he gave up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature; and likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another, men with men working that which is unseemly and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet."
Nor did nature concede to these very libidinous animals [the right] to mount the passage for waste matter. Urine flows to the bladder, undigested food to the stomach, tears to the eyes, blood to the veins, earwax to the ears; mucus is carried to the nostrils. And there is a fundament placed next to the end of the intestine through which excess material is carried away. Only in the case of the hyena has nature devised this superfluous part for their excessive copulations, and it is consequently hollow, up to a point, for the use of the libidinous parts; but for the same reason the hollow is a blind alley, since it was not designed for procreation. It is manifestly clear to us from this that physical relations between males, fruitless sowings, coitus from the rear, and incomplete, androgynous unions all ought to be avoided; and nature herself should, rather, be obeyed, who discourages [such things] through an arrangement of the parts which makes the male not for receiving the seed but for sowing it.
When Jeremiah-or the Spirit speaking through him-used to say, "The cave of the hyena has become my home" [Jer. 12:9; cf. 7: II], loathing the food of the dead bodies, he was referring in a subtle parable to idolatry; for the house of the Lord should truly be free" of idols. Again, Moses forbade eating the hare because the hare copulates in every season and does so from the rear, with the female consenting. That is, it is one of those animals which mount from the rear. [The female] conceives monthly and gives birth, copulates and begets children, and as soon as she has given birth, she is immediately mounted by any nearby hare (for they do not limit themselves to one mate), conceives again, and gives birth yet again.
She has in fact a double womb, and it is not enough for only one of the cavities of the womb to be stimulated by intercourse, since every vacuum seeks to be filled; it happens that when they are pregnant the other part of the womb is seized with desire and becomes passionate. Hence they are constantly pregnant. The point of this parable is to advise abstinence from excessive desire, mutual intercourse, relations with pregnant women, reversal of roles in intercourse,corrupting boys, adultery, and lewdness. Moreover, Moses himself prohibited [these] quite plainly, dispensing with metaphor and putting a bare face on it: "You shall not fornicate; you shall not commit adultery; you shall not corrupt
boys." The decree of the Word must be observed by everyone, and no part of it may ever be violated; nor can the Commandments be undermined.
The name for an evil desire is hybris, and Plato called the steed of
evil desire hybriste when he read, " You have become to me as stallions obsessed with females" [Jer. 5: 8]. The angels who came to Sodom make known to us the punishment attendant upon hybris. For they burned those who were trying to dishonor them right there in the city, demonstrating with a clear sign that this-the fire-is the fruit of lust. The experiences of those before us, as I said above, have been recorded for our instruction, so that we may not be corrupted by the same things but may, rather, guard against falling into equal [sins]. For young men must be viewed as sons and the wives of others protected as if they were one's own daughters.
The greatest government is the ruling of the passions and the control of the womb and the things yet within it. For if reason does not permit a wise man to move even his finger randomly, as the Stoics assert, how much more ought the sexual part to be controlled by those in pursuit of wisdom? This is the reason, it seems to me, that it is called" the private," because it is essential to use this part of the body with more modesty than any other part. For nature allows us the enjoyment of lawful unions just as of foods, insofar as [ such enjoyment] is appropriate, useful, and decent; that is, it permits a desire for procreation. But those who pursue excess fall into that which is unnatural, harming themselves with unlawful intercourse [cr. Rom. I: 27].
But the best course of all is never to have sexual intercourse with boys as one would with a woman. On account of this the Philosopher, [instructed] by Moses, says, "Do not inseminate rocks and stones, since a fruitful nature is not obtainable from their roots." Moreover, the Word has commanded as clearly as possible through Moses [that] "you shall not lie with a man as with a woman. It is an abomination." He adds, "Also abstain from every female field" which is not your own. The good Plato, culling the Holy Scriptures and inferring from them what is lawful, has advised, "Thou shalt not lie carnally with thy neighbor's wife, to defile thyself with her."
For the sowings of concubinage are illegitimate and adulterous. Sow not where you do not desire to reap, nor touch anyone at all besides your own wife, with whom alone it is licit for you to enjoy the pleasures of the flesh for legitimate succession. These things alone are lawful according to the Word. .
Taken from a translation appearing in John Boswell's Christianity,Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality, Apendix 2, Texts and Translations
Paedagogus 2.10
The end [of marriage] is good breeding of children, just as the reason for the farmer's scattering seed is the provision of nourishment, since the purpose of a man of agriculture is the gathering of fruits. . . . All land is not suitable for cultivation, and even if it were, it would not all be for the same farmer. For there can be no sowing upon rocks, nor should seed be wasted,l since it is the source of generation and comprises both the substance of procreation and the design of nature. It is surely impious for the natural designs to be irrationally perverted into customs which are not natural. Consider, for instance, how the all-wise Moses somewhat symbolically repudiated fruitless sowing, saying, " You shall not eat the hare or the hyena." For he did not wish men to partake of the qualities of these or to taste such wickedness themselves, since these animals are quite 2 obsessed with sexual intercourse.
The hare, for example, is said to grow a new anus each year [see Barnabas 10; Pliny 8.55; etc.], so that he has the same number of openings as the number of years he has lived. Hence the prohibition against eating the hare represents a rejection of pederasty. The hyena, on the other hand, is alternately male and female in succeeding years-by which [Moses] suggests that those who abstain from the hyena will not be very prone to adultery. While I agree that the all-wise Moses meant that we should not become like these animals on account of the prohibition laid equally against them, I do not concur with the interpretation of those who treat them symbolically.
Nature is never constrained to change, and that which is once formed cannot simply will to reverse itself wrongly, since desire is not nature. Desire can alter the character of something already formed, but it cannot remake its nature. It is true that many birds change with the seasons both their colors and their voices, as, for instance, the blackbird is said to change from white to a gold color and to a strident from a soft voice, and as the nightingale changes its color and its song with the seasons. But they cannot change a whit of their actual nature. . . . Nor can it be believed that the hyena ever changes its nature or that the same animal has at the same time both types of genitalia, those of the male and the female, as some have thought, telling of marvelous hermaphrodites and creating a whole new type-a third sex, the androgyne, in between a male and a female. They are certainly wrong not to take into account how devoted nature is to children, being the mother and begetter of all things.
Since this animal [the hyena] is extremely lewd, it has grown under its tail in front of the passage for excrement a certain fleshy appendage, in form very like the female genitalia. This design of the flesh has no passage leading to any useful part, I say, either to the womb or to the rectum. It has, rather, only a great cavity, whence it derives its fruitless lust, since the passages intended for the procreation of the fetus are inverted. This same thing occurs in the case of both the male hyena and the female, because of their exceptional passivity. The males mount each other, so it is extremely rare for them to seek a female. Nor is conception frequent for this animal, since unnatural insemination is so common among them. It seems to me on this account that Plato in the Phaedrus deprecates pederasty, calling it "bestial," because those who give themselves up to [this] pleasure "take the bit" and copulate in the manner of quadrupeds, striving to beget children [thus]. "The ungodly, moreover," as the Apostle says [Rom. 1:26-27], "he gave up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature; and likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another, men with men working that which is unseemly and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet."
Nor did nature concede to these very libidinous animals [the right] to mount the passage for waste matter. Urine flows to the bladder, undigested food to the stomach, tears to the eyes, blood to the veins, earwax to the ears; mucus is carried to the nostrils. And there is a fundament placed next to the end of the intestine through which excess material is carried away. Only in the case of the hyena has nature devised this superfluous part for their excessive copulations, and it is consequently hollow, up to a point, for the use of the libidinous parts; but for the same reason the hollow is a blind alley, since it was not designed for procreation. It is manifestly clear to us from this that physical relations between males, fruitless sowings, coitus from the rear, and incomplete, androgynous unions all ought to be avoided; and nature herself should, rather, be obeyed, who discourages [such things] through an arrangement of the parts which makes the male not for receiving the seed but for sowing it.
When Jeremiah-or the Spirit speaking through him-used to say, "The cave of the hyena has become my home" [Jer. 12:9; cf. 7: II], loathing the food of the dead bodies, he was referring in a subtle parable to idolatry; for the house of the Lord should truly be free" of idols. Again, Moses forbade eating the hare because the hare copulates in every season and does so from the rear, with the female consenting. That is, it is one of those animals which mount from the rear. [The female] conceives monthly and gives birth, copulates and begets children, and as soon as she has given birth, she is immediately mounted by any nearby hare (for they do not limit themselves to one mate), conceives again, and gives birth yet again.
She has in fact a double womb, and it is not enough for only one of the cavities of the womb to be stimulated by intercourse, since every vacuum seeks to be filled; it happens that when they are pregnant the other part of the womb is seized with desire and becomes passionate. Hence they are constantly pregnant. The point of this parable is to advise abstinence from excessive desire, mutual intercourse, relations with pregnant women, reversal of roles in intercourse,corrupting boys, adultery, and lewdness. Moreover, Moses himself prohibited [these] quite plainly, dispensing with metaphor and putting a bare face on it: "You shall not fornicate; you shall not commit adultery; you shall not corrupt
boys." The decree of the Word must be observed by everyone, and no part of it may ever be violated; nor can the Commandments be undermined.
The name for an evil desire is hybris, and Plato called the steed of
evil desire hybriste when he read, " You have become to me as stallions obsessed with females" [Jer. 5: 8]. The angels who came to Sodom make known to us the punishment attendant upon hybris. For they burned those who were trying to dishonor them right there in the city, demonstrating with a clear sign that this-the fire-is the fruit of lust. The experiences of those before us, as I said above, have been recorded for our instruction, so that we may not be corrupted by the same things but may, rather, guard against falling into equal [sins]. For young men must be viewed as sons and the wives of others protected as if they were one's own daughters.
The greatest government is the ruling of the passions and the control of the womb and the things yet within it. For if reason does not permit a wise man to move even his finger randomly, as the Stoics assert, how much more ought the sexual part to be controlled by those in pursuit of wisdom? This is the reason, it seems to me, that it is called" the private," because it is essential to use this part of the body with more modesty than any other part. For nature allows us the enjoyment of lawful unions just as of foods, insofar as [ such enjoyment] is appropriate, useful, and decent; that is, it permits a desire for procreation. But those who pursue excess fall into that which is unnatural, harming themselves with unlawful intercourse [cr. Rom. I: 27].
But the best course of all is never to have sexual intercourse with boys as one would with a woman. On account of this the Philosopher, [instructed] by Moses, says, "Do not inseminate rocks and stones, since a fruitful nature is not obtainable from their roots." Moreover, the Word has commanded as clearly as possible through Moses [that] "you shall not lie with a man as with a woman. It is an abomination." He adds, "Also abstain from every female field" which is not your own. The good Plato, culling the Holy Scriptures and inferring from them what is lawful, has advised, "Thou shalt not lie carnally with thy neighbor's wife, to defile thyself with her."
For the sowings of concubinage are illegitimate and adulterous. Sow not where you do not desire to reap, nor touch anyone at all besides your own wife, with whom alone it is licit for you to enjoy the pleasures of the flesh for legitimate succession. These things alone are lawful according to the Word. .
Taken from a translation appearing in John Boswell's Christianity,Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality, Apendix 2, Texts and Translations