Ancient Christian same sex marriage

[John Savage]

Is this true?

Contrary to myth, Christianity's concept of marriage has not been set in stone since the days of Christ, but has constantly evolved as a concept and ritual. Prof. John Boswell, the late Chairman of Yale University’s history department, discovered that in addition to heterosexual marriage ceremonies in ancient Christian church liturgical documents, there were also ceremonies called the "Office of Same-Sex Union" (10th and 11th century), and the "Order for Uniting Two Men" (11th and 12th century).

http://anthropologist.livejournal.com/1314574.html

[may by the bay]

Ah, you saw that too eh?

[Elizium23]

http://www.dailycatholic.org/issue/2002May/may23tru.htm

That is exactly what John Boswell did. The past Chairman of Yale's history department was gay and a convert to Catholicism. He resided in New Haven with his long-time companion, and died not too long ago [1994] at age 42 of an AIDS-related illness. Now, in "history according to Boswell," homosexuality was tolerated in the first centuries of Christianity and homosexual marriages were celebrated liturgically in the Middle Ages.

If you have a child enrolled in a Medieval History class at a university, you might check out the reading list------there is a good chance he will be exposed to Boswell's "scholarship." His 1980 book Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality has become the standard reference for those who want the Church to reverse its traditional teaching against homosexual unions and activities. This book, which Boswell admitted was written to "prove" there was acceptance of homosexuality in the Western Catholic tradition from the beginning of the Christian era until the 14th Century, won the American Book Award for History in 1981.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adelphopoiesis

[Melchior_]

The Early Church Fathers were uniform in their opposition to homosexual intercourse. In this light, there is a zero percent chance of there being a marriage rite for two members of the same gender.

From what I understand the "rite" in question was designed, in the East, for something along the lines of officially declaring a brotherhood with someone.

That said, I fully expect the inaccurate take of "ZIOMG SAME SEX MARWIGE!" to be what trends, because hey; it's cool to report inaccurate things about the Church.

[Nine_Two]

It seems a bit strange that he calls a 10th century account of two 5th century martyrs the "definitive" account. Sounds a bit like cherry picking sources.

[Theophorus]

Originally Posted by John Savage

Is this true?



http://anthropologist.livejournal.com/1314574.html

No.

It refers to a sort of spiritual Adoption of a non-blood family member in a non-sexual relationship, much like those old intense platonic friendship's we were able to have before we sexualised everything in the wake of kinsley and Freud et al

[po18guy]

I wasn't raised on a farm, but I know absoiute hogwash when I see it. Look at the timing. Why was this not an issue 500 years ago during the reformation? 200 years ago? 50 years ago? Sniff sniff... agenda.

[presidentjlh]

Sounds akin to a very early Christian fraternity initiation ritual, so to speak, not marriage.

[John Savage]

Thanks

[DavidinStLouis]

Glad we got some responses. I was a bit taken aback too when I was "referred" to this link by a posting by a contrarian on a conservative website:

http://www.christianity-revealed.com...stianrite.html

Doesn't sound like something that Christ's Church would have supported.

[Captain America]

. . . umm, isn't anyone suspicious of the timing of this?

Who's this professor; what's his bias, if any.

I'm surprised such a thing has been buried all these centuries, until just now, when the Big Push for Sodomite Marriage in on!

[Dakota Roberts]

Originally Posted by John Savage

Is this true?



http://anthropologist.livejournal.com/1314574.html

Critique of Boswell's book

http://www.leaderu.com/ftissues/ft9411/darling.html

[FaithBuild18]

Originally Posted by Theophorus

No.

It refers to a sort of spiritual Adoption of a non-blood family member in a non-sexual relationship, much like those old intense platonic friendship's we were able to have before we sexualised everything in the wake of kinsley and Freud et al

It ticks me off how everything is sexualised now. I mean this ascends beyond same sex marriage. When did this happen, and why isn't the Church more aggressive? It condemns things like Twilight and Avatar, yet it doesn't say anything about the filthy sexualization of the typical American sit-com... Or does it?

[mcrow]

I could quote bible verse and church teaching until I'm blue in the face but it would seem like overkill for such obvious garbage "history".

[_Abyssinia]

Originally Posted by John Savage

Is this true?



http://anthropologist.livejournal.com/1314574.html

No it is not true.

See Criticism of Boswell:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adelpho...ism_of_Boswell

The medieval church showed many examples of honouring close male relationships for their spiritual value, from Aelred of Rievaulx’s book, 'On Spiritual Friendship', to the love letters and poetry addressed by many bishops and abbots to their own beloveds.

In the Western Church, the practice of making 'sworn brothers' included liturgical rituals, celebrated in church with the Eucharist, and created legal ties of kinship between the families: an equivalent term for 'sworn brother' was 'wedded brother'. Same -sex weddings, in church, are hardly new, although the earlier meaning was not the same as current usage.

In 4th and 5th century Macedonia, and later in the Western church, there is archaeological and tombstone evidence of another way in which these relationships were honoured by the church: same – sex pairs buried in shared graves, just as many (opposite – sex) married couples were. A much later example of this is the well – known example of Cardinal John Henry Newman, who specifically asked to be buried alongside his beloved Aubrey St John (a request that does not appear to have caused any surprise to his community)."

http://lasalettejourney.blogspot.com...l-need-to.html

-

Sergius, Bacchus, and the growing myth of “early Christian gay marriage”

..

Boswell’s claims have been completely debunked by David Woods, Robin Young, and Brent Shaw (to name the first three authors I found during a simple internet search).

Some samples of the conclusions of their debunking:

the comparison of the punishment of Sergius and Bacchus to the punishment of those convicted of homosexual offences is misleading at best.” – Woods

“the author’s painfully strained effort to recruit Christian history in support of the homosexual cause that he favors is not only a failure, but an embarrassing one.” – Young

“…same-sex marriages forged with the approval of the Christian church, and with its rituals? No. Such a reading is very misleading.” – Shaw

http://www.catholicvoteaction.org/am...dex.php?p=8289

-

Gay Marriage: Reimagining Church History

..

Before becoming emperor, Basil was made brother of one John, a native of Achaia, although he had at first resisted entering into a relationship with an underling. According to Boswell's translation of the historian Theophanes Continuator, Basil "honored [John] with the title protospatarius and granted him intimacy with him on account of their earlier shared life in ceremonial union." The word for "intimacy" here is parrhesia, meaning the freedom- of-speech, the boldness, enjoyed by an inferior before his superior. And "earlier . . . union" is more readily translated as "previous association in spiritual brotherhood," the Greek clause reading: kai tes pros auton parresias metedoke dia ten phthasasan koinonian tes pneumatikes adelphotetos. Contrary to Boswell, koinonia rarely means sexual intercourse, even though, in Boswell's words, "Basil was thus what modern Americans would call a 'hunk.'" It is hard to see, by the way, how Figure 13, a reproduction of a manuscript illumination of this episode in Theophanes, bears out either Boswell's interpretation of this adoption ceremony as a "liturgical union" or his estimation of Basil's physical allure.

http://www.leaderu.com/ftissues/ft94...s/darling.html