Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI, and Paul the Apostle (Part 2)

Yesterday, Americans and others around the world waxed nostalgic about the Apollo 11 lunar landings that took place 50 years ago. One of the world leaders who sent greetings (and blessings) to the astronauts on the moon was Pope Paul VI. A year earlier, the Pope had issued an encyclical letter called Humanae Vitae that, while far less well-known than the moon mission, was also of great historical significance. It was in this document that the Pope set out the Church's teaching that artificial birth control, defined as 'any action which either before, at the moment of, or after sexual intercourse, is specifically intended to prevent procreation—whether as an end or as a means,' is morally unacceptable. The theological basis for this papal ruling was the principle, 'based on the natural law as illuminated and enriched by divine Revelation,' that sex has two essential qualities: one procreative (the generation of new life) and the other unitive (uniting husband and wife in the closest intimacy), and that sexual acts must not be isolated from either of these.

In the first article in this two-part series, we looked at how the teaching of Humanae Vitae is anticipated in Paul's Letter to the Romans. In particular, just as Humanae Vitae declares based on natural law that the sex act must not be sundered from its procreative purpose, so Paul in Romans 1:26-27 condemned sex acts that abandon the 'natural function' of sex and are 'against nature.' Since Paul believes that unnatural sex acts follow from a failure to acknowledge God's creatorship, and since the terms he uses for 'male' and 'female' recall the creation account in Genesis 1:27-28, it follows (we argued) that for Paul the procreative aspect is essential to the 'natural function' of sex. This was borne out by setting Paul's argument in the context of other Hellenistic Jewish writers of his time (e.g., Philo, Josephus, and Pseudo-Phocylides), who also ground sexual morality in 'nature' (phusis), referring explicitly to the procreative aspect.

In this second article, we look at Paul's teachings about sexuality in 1 Corinthians. In this case, the relevant material spans much of three chapters (5 to 7) rather than just two verses, so we will not be able to reconstruct Paul's whole argument but only to make a few select observations. Paul comments extensively on the problem of 'sexual immorality' (Greek: porneia), first giving instructions regarding a case of incest in the Corinthian church (5:1-13) and then, having included certain sexual sins in a vice list (6:9-10), he makes a more general comment about porneia (6:12-19). These latter remarks presuppose that some Corinthian church members are using the services of prostitutes. Finally, in chapter 7, Paul offers detailed instructions concerning marriage and virginity.

The Basis for Paul's Sexual Morality

Paul's instructions concerning the case of incest at Corinth make it clear that he regards the Torah as an authoritative source on sexual morality. Paul instructs the Corinthian church to expel a man who 'has his father's wife' (1 Cor. 5:1). This language is borrowed directly from Lev. 18:8 and 20:11 LXX. It is quite possible that this man's sexual partner was his stepmother and not a blood relative, and furthermore that his father was deceased. Paul nevertheless regards it as 'sexual immorality' (porneia) of a kind 'not even found among the Gentiles.' This last remark implicitly reinforces the Jewish notion, already seen in Romans 1, that sexual immorality is stereotypical Gentile behaviour due to the Gentiles' idolatry and ignorance of God (including in this case the Torah). Paul again invokes the Torah in the expulsion formula he uses in 1 Corinthians 5:13: 'Purge the evil person from your midst' (see Deut. 13:6; 17:7; 19:19; 21:21; 22:21, 24; 24:7 LXX). An indirect appeal to the Torah is also likely in Paul's use of the term arsenokoitai in his vice list in 1 Corinthians 6:9. The meaning of this term—of which Paul's is the earliest extant usage—is disputed among scholars but most likely refers to males who penetrate other males,1 and the term was probably coined (whether by Paul or another Hellenistic Jew) from the words arsenos ('male') and koitēn ('bed') in Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 LXX.

In Romans 1, we found that Paul's ideas on sexual (im)morality were grounded in his understanding of creation, for which his source was of course the creation narratives in Genesis 1-2 (also part of the Torah). This dependency is again evident in 1 Corinthians 6:16, where Paul quotes from Genesis 2:24 LXX: '"For the two," it says, "shall become one flesh".' This Genesis text stresses the unitive aspect of the sexual act, while Genesis 1:27 stresses the procreative aspect (by describing the gendered creation of humanity as 'male and female,' followed immediately by the imperative to procreate in v. 28). It is noteworthy that these two creation texts (Gen. 1:27 and 2:24) are precisely those quoted by Jesus in the Gospels (Mark 10:6; Matt. 19:4) to justify his teachings on marriage and divorce. That Paul's sexual morality in Romans and 1 Corinthians is grounded in the same two creation texts is probably not coincidental, but suggests his familiarity with the Jesus tradition later preserved by Mark.

Sex and Nature

We saw in the previous article that, in Romans 1, Paul's decisive criterion for determining sexual acts to be moral or otherwise was the 'natural function.' In 1 Corinthians 6, Paul anticipates and refutes an argument from 'natural function' that can be—and often has been—used to undermine the unitive aspect of the sexual act, that is, its exclusive use in the intimacy of a monogamous marital bond. The argument is conveyed in the aphorism, 'Food for the belly and the belly for food' (1 Cor. 6:13). It is not clear whether some Corinthians were actually using this line to justify going to prostitutes, or whether Paul is manufacturing a hypothetical justification in order to strike it down. However, the implicit argument is one of analogy: food and the belly are made for each other; thus, when we are hungry, we are justified in satisfying our appetite. In the same way, sex and the sexual organs are made for each other; thus we are equally justified in satisfying our sexual appetites (even if that means going to a prostitute).2

Notice that this argument takes a page out of Paul's book; it is an argument from nature and the created order, just like Paul's argument concerning sexual (im)morality in Romans 1. It is thus quite ingenious, and indeed does not violate the 'natural' procreative function of sex. However, as Paul goes on to explain, sex that is had only to satisfy an appetite, for instance with a prostitute, violates the unitive aspect of sex, which is not merely natural but spiritual. Paul therefore turns to the more transcendent purposes of creation: 'The body...is not for immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body...your body is a temple of the holy Spirit within you...you are not your own' (1 Cor. 6:13, 19). Paul alludes to the way that the marital union decreed in Gen. 2:24 signifies the union between Christ and the Church (1 Cor. 6:16-17)—an idea that will be elaborated on in Ephesians 5:23-32. Paul warns the Corinthians that 'anyone who joins himself to a prostitute becomes one body with her.' There is a unitive, spiritual dimension to the sexual act and there are thus untold spiritual implications for those who debase sex by, for instance, going to a prostitute.

The Importance of Sexual Morality for Paul

Christians today who take a traditional, conservative position on issues of sexual morality are often portrayed, including by other Christians, as prudish or petty. 'Millions of people are starving but all you're worried about is sex,' so the argument goes. Why be so preoccupied with sexual sin while turning a blind eye to far more grievous sins committed against social justice? This criticism is justified: if a preoccupation with sexual morality causes us to de-emphasise social justice more generally, then we are indeed in serious trouble. However, the solution is not to disregard or downplay the demands of sexual morality in favour of social justice. Our approach should be both/and, not either/or.

There are a number of ways in which Paul's teachings in 1 Corinthians 5-6 show that he understood sexual morality to be a very important aspect of the Christian life. Firstly, we have Paul's aforementioned instructions concerning the reported case of maternal or step-maternal incest in Corinth: expulsion from the congregation ('Purge the evil person from your midst'). Numerous scholars interpret 2 Corinthians 2:5-11 to be a 'happy ending' to this story: the man had repented and was to be restored to his place in the church. Secondly, we have Paul's remark that 'the unjust will not inherit the kingdom of God' (1 Cor. 6:9-10), with 'unjust' by no means limited to sexual sins but inclusive of them. Forgiveness of sins and a new, chaste identity is available in Christ (1 Cor. 6:11), but to continue unrepentant in sexual immorality would be to forfeit one's eternal destiny. Thirdly, Paul explicitly says that sexual immorality is distinct from other sins in its gravity: 'Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person (ho porneuōn) sins against his own body' (1 Cor. 6:18). Fourthly, Paul's whole instructions concerning sexual morality could be summarised in the command, 'Avoid sexual immorality' (pheugete tēn porneian, 1 Cor. 6:18). Paul's choice of verb could hardly be more emphatic: the literal meaning of pheugō is 'flee,' as from moral danger (cf. Mark 14:50; John 10:12).

Anyone who says that the Church needs to relax its teachings on sexual morality cannot cite Paul in support. It is certainly true that some conservative Christians make sexual morality their hobby horse to the exclusion of other important moral issues, especially concerning social justice. However, the critique of such people should not be, 'Focus on social justice and stop going on about sexual sin' (which rests on a false dichotomy), but, 'These you should have done, without neglecting the others' (cf. Matt. 23:23).

Paul and Abstinence

In 1 Corinthians 7, Paul has a lot to say about abstinence. Paul says that temporary abstinence within marriage is morally acceptable (1 Cor. 7:5), which anticipates the teaching of Humanae Vitae, which also approves of temporary abstinence and states that it is the only acceptable method of birth control. However, more prominent in this chapter is Paul's emphasis that total abstinence, lifelong virginity, is a good and noble calling. This is arguably the most radical feature of Paul's sexual morality within his Second Temple Jewish context. The author of Pseudo-Phocylides gives the prevailing Jewish view at the time: 'Remain not unmarried, lest you perish nameless. And give something to nature yourself: beget in turn as you were begotten'3 These instructions are directed at men; women did not even have a choice in the matter, as a woman's marriage was a transaction between her father and her husband-to-be. This moral obligation to marry and procreate stands in stark contrast to Paul's statements in 1 Corinthians 7. Paul expresses a wish for 'everyone to be as I am' (i.e. celibate), while acknowledging that celibacy is a 'gift from God' that not all possess (1 Cor. 7:7). Thus it is 'a good thing for [the unmarried and widows] to remain as they are' (1 Cor. 7:8), provided that they have the required self-control. Paul's instructions about 'virgins' in 1 Corinthians 7:25-40 concern both females and males, though the term itself is syntactically feminine.4 Paul makes it clear that, at least in the case of a widow, she is free to decide whom to marry and whether to marry (1 Cor. 7:39-40).

Paul thus takes an important step toward liberating women to determine their own vocation, whether it be marriage or virginity, and anticipates the Christian rite of consecrated virginity (e.g., nuns) and the celibacy of priests.5

Conclusion

Careful study of material in Romans and 1 Corinthians shows that, for Paul, the sexual act has a 'natural function' tied to its procreative potential, and has a unitive, spiritual function that explains why it is permissible only in the monogamous intimacy of the marital union. Paul's teachings thus anticipate those of Pope Paul VI nineteen centuries later in Humanae Vitae. Paul's letters show that he understood sexual morality to be vitally important to the Christian life, undermining those in his day and ours who regard the Church as prudish and petty when it speaks out against sexual immorality. Finally, Paul's teachings on abstinence and virginity in 1 Corinthians 7 anticipate the teaching of Humanae Vitae that temporary abstinence is an acceptable method of birth control, and also underlie the historic Christian practices of consecrated virginity and priestly celibacy.

Footnotes

• 1 See, most recently, the detailed philological arguments of John Granger Cook, 'μαλακοί and ἀρσενοκοῖται: In Defence of Tertullian’s Translation,' New Testament Studies 65 (2019): 332-352. Paul himself uses arsēn in his description of homoerotic sex acts in Rom. 1:27, and also uses koitē in the sense of 'sexual promiscuity' in Rom. 13:13. Cook establishes a semantic field consisting of other compound nouns formed from either arsēn or koitē (or similar elements) and finds a general pattern by which 'a male has sex with the person (or animal) referred to by the nominal form that appears first in the construction (e.g. μητροκοίτης means "one who penetrates a mother".' This, together with usage of arsenokoitēs in other texts from the second century C.E. onward, supports the meaning of 'one who penetrates a male' as most likely. However, numerous scholars have defended other meanings of arsenokoitai (and malakoi), arguing that they have more specialised connotations relating to, e.g., sexual violence, pederasty, or cultic prostitution. For further exegetical observations on the acts referred to in Romans 1:26-27, see the footnotes in my previous article.
• 2 David E. Garland points out that the verb koilia ('belly') is occasionally used in the LXX as a euphemism for sexual organs (2 Kgdms 7:12; 16:11; Ps. 131:11; Sir. 23:6), which may have facilitated the food-belly/sex-genitals analogy (1 Corinthians [Grand Rapids: Baker Academic], 230).
• 3 Pseudo-Phocylides, Sentences 175-76 (trans. Walter T. Wilson, The Sentences of Pseudo-Phocylides [Berlin: de Gruyter, 2005], 187).
• 4 The definite article preceding the word parthenos ('virgin') in 1 Corinthians 7:28, 34 is hē (feminine). Thus, although the word parthenos can be used of males (cf. Rev. 14:4), Paul probably uses it exclusively for female virgins here. Nevertheless, it is clear from Paul's remarks in 1 Corinthians 7:27-28, 32-33, 36-38 that he has in mind the possibility of a celibate life both for men (like himself) and women.
• 5 Of course, the notion that virginity is a holy and venerable calling would have been rooted in the life of Jesus himself, and also finds support in the saying of Jesus in Matthew 19:12 (cf. Isa. 56:3-5).

Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI, and Paul the Apostle (Part 1)

51 years ago, in July 1968, Pope Paul VI published an encyclical letter called Humanae Vitae ('Human Life') that is one of the most counter-cultural documents ever produced by the Catholic Church. In 1968, the Sexual Revolution was in full swing in the West, and social norms (and legal codes) concerning sexual behaviour were rapidly changing or would change in the future as a result. Specifically, sexual and related behaviours that were becoming or would become increasingly normalised in society included artificial contraception (especially the Pill), abortion, pornography, masturbation, premarital sex, casual sex, and homosexual sex. The common denominator to all of these items is the driving of a wedge between sex and procreation. The only essential purpose of sex is enjoyment (including relational bonding, for the more conservatively and monogamously minded); pregnancy is an incidental side effect that can be welcomed, avoided, or terminated as desired.

Against this background—and against the advice of some of his theological advisers—Pope Paul VI authoritatively taught in Humanae Vitae that the sexual act has two essential purposes, namely unitive and procreative. The unitive purpose is to unite married couples in mutual love, thus strengthening the marital bond. The procreative purpose is to produce offspring and thus perpetuate the human race. These purposes are intimately related in that a strong marital union contributes to a healthy setting for raising children. By declaring both of these purposes to be essential to the sexual act, the Pontiff implicitly reinforced the Church's long-standing prohibition on non-procreative sexual acts (e.g., masturbation, oral sex, anal sex) and explicitly forbade the use of contraception: 'any action which either before, at the moment of, or after sexual intercourse, is specifically intended to prevent procreation' is excluded. The only family planning method that is permitted is periodic abstinence, i.e. to 'take advantage of the natural cycles immanent in the reproductive system and engage in marital intercourse only during those times that are infertile.' In effect, the Pope ruled all the 'fruits' of the Sexual Revolution off-limits. This was a radical stand to make, as by this time most of the Protestant world had embraced contraception as an acceptable family planning method, and many observers—Catholic and non-Catholic—assumed that the Pope would follow suit.

Humanae Vitae does not quote any Scripture, since it is intended more as a pastoral instruction than a theological treatise. Nevertheless, my recent study of the letters of St. Paul have led me to marvel at how aptly Pope Paul VI was named; for his teachings in Humanae Vitae are anticipated in the writings of his namesake apostle. (This is true despite the fact that Paul (and Scripture generally) offers no direct teaching on contraception.) In what follows I will briefly comment on Paul's ideas on sexuality and marriage based on passages in Romans and 1 Corinthians, and compare them to Humanae Vitae.

Injunctions against sexual immorality (porneia) are a common feature of the Pauline and deutero-Pauline1 epistles (1 Cor. 6:9-10; 2 Cor. 12:21; Gal. 5:19-21; 1 Thess. 4:3-5; Eph. 5:3-5; Col. 3:5-9; 1 Tim. 1:9-10). However, these are generally brief warnings and 'vice lists' that offer little insight into the theological grounding of Paul's sexual ethic. We do observe that sexual immorality is of 'the flesh,' the morally compromised aspect of human nature (Gal. 5:19), and that it correlates with idolatry and 'the Gentiles who do not know God' (1 Thess. 4:5; Eph. 5:5). The material that gives us greater insight into Paul's sexual ethic is found in Romans 1:18-32 and in 1 Corinthians 5-7.

Romans 1:18-32 is a section of the letter that contributes to a wider argument. Paul here effectively assumes the guise or role of a scrupulously law-observant Jew or Jewish Christian in order to indignantly condemn Gentiles for their idolatry and resulting loose morals. By v. 32 his Judaeo-centric readers are cheering him on as he unloads on the 'Gentile sinners' (for this phrase see Gal. 2:15). However, it is all a setup: beginning in 2:1 he turns the tables on self-righteous fellow Jews in order to eventually conclude that 'all, both Jews and Gentiles, are under sin' and in need of the redemption that is in Christ Jesus (Rom. 3:9, 24). The point is not that Gentiles are actually good and Jews are bad, but that everyone is bad. Therefore, Paul's attack on Gentile sin in Romans 1:18-32, although a clever rhetorical device, does represent his actual views.

The main thrust of Romans 1:18-32 is that the Gentiles are culpably ignorant of God and idolatrous, and that as a result God has 'given them up' to their human fallenness ('the lusts of the hearts,' 1:24; 'degrading passions,' 1:26; 'their undiscerning mind,' 1:28), resulting in all kinds of wicked behaviour enumerated in vv. 29-31. However, in vv. 25-27 Paul singles out certain immoral sexual behaviour for special censure:

25 They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and revered and worshiped the creature rather than the creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. 26 Therefore, God handed them over to degrading passions. Their females exchanged natural relations for unnatural, 27 and the males likewise gave up natural relations with females and burned with lust for one another. Males did shameful things with males and thus received in their own persons the due penalty for their perversity. (NABRE)

Now, Romans 1:26-27 is one of what LGBT Christians refer to as 'the clobber passages' that are used as proof texts (often without any nuance) to oppose same-sex relationships/marriage, or simply to make gay people feel unwelcome. My intention is certainly not to 'clobber' anyone but only to carefully examine Paul's contextual meaning. Notice that the immoral sexual behaviour described in vv. 26-27 results from denying God's creatorship.2 This implies that, for Paul, sexual morality is grounded in God's creative design, i.e., in nature. This is confirmed when Paul describes the illicit behaviour as an exchange or abandonment of 'the natural function' or 'the natural relations' (Greek: tēn phusikēn chrēsin) and as 'contrary to nature' (para phusin). By referring here to humans in their sexuality as 'male' (arsēn) and 'female' (thēlus) (terms Paul rarely uses),3 Paul alludes to the Genesis creation story ('he made them male [arsēn] and female [thēlus],' Gen. 1:27 LXX) and so grounds his understanding of 'the natural function' in the sexual complementarity of creation and the accompanying responsibility to procreate (Gen. 1:28). This reading of Paul's intent is supported by evidence from his historical context in Hellenistic Judaism.4

In Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI follows in his namesake's footsteps, emphasising that the Church's teaching on marriage 'is based on the natural law as illuminated and enriched by divine Revelation'. The Church acknowledges and defers to God's 'wisely ordered laws of nature,' including the natural phenomenon of sexual procreation. While Paul in Romans 1:26 probably refers to female-female homoerotic acts,5 just as 1:27 clearly refers to male-male homoerotic acts,6 it would be consistent with Paul's reasoning to regard as 'contrary to nature' and thus immoral any sexual act that involves a departure from 'the natural function' of sex, which includes its procreative purpose. Thus, in prohibiting measures intended to 'obstruct the natural development of the generative process,' Pope Paul VI in Humanae Vitae drew a conclusion that had been anticipated by Paul the Apostle in Romans 1:26.

The second part of this article will look at Paul's teaching on sex and marriage in 1 Corinthians 5-7, and how this too anticipates the teaching of Pope Paul VI in Humanae Vitae.

Footnotes

• 1 The deutero-Pauline epistles are those that claim to have been written by Paul but that many modern scholars believe were written by someone else in his name, even after his death. The deutero-Pauline letters mentioned here are Ephesians, Colossians, and 1 Timothy. Romans, 1-2 Corinthians, Galatians, and 1 Thessalonians were all indisputably written by Paul himself.
• 2 The link that Paul identifies between idolatry and sexual immorality is causal: the one leads to the other. Of course, in making this connection Paul would have been well aware of the sexual debauchery and prostitution that often accompanied idolatrous worship. However, this does not mean that Paul condemns sexually immoral acts only when practiced as part of idolatrous worship. The text is clear that he condemns such acts because they are intrinsically contrary to the natural order.
• 3 Neither of these words occurs elsewhere in Paul's letters apart from Gal. 3:28, where the gendering of humans is again the point at issue. In the entire rest of the New Testament, the words arsēn and thēlus occur together only in Matt. 19:4 and Mark 10:6, both quotations from the creation story of Gen. 1:27 made to ground Jesus' teaching on marriage.
• 4 For example, Paul's contemporary Philo of Alexandria describes homoerotic acts as 'contrary to nature' (para phusin, the same phrase Paul uses in Rom. 1:26) and condemns pederasty not only because of the damage it does to the violated young men but because the pederast disregards his responsibility to procreate (Special Laws 3.37-39). Elsewhere, he condemns the men of Sodom for discarding 'the law of nature' regarding sexuality (On Abraham 133-136). Josephus, Paul's younger contemporary, explains that Jewish laws allow no sexual intercourse except that 'according to nature' (kata phusin), namely of a man with his wife, and that only for procreation (Against Apion 2.199). He later condemns the Elean and Theban Greeks for doing 'that contrary-to-nature (para phusin, again same phrase as Rom. 1:26) and licentious thing of intercourse with males,' adding that they attribute such practices to their gods in order to justify their 'improper and contrary-to-nature (para phusin) pleasures' (Against Apion 2.273-275). The Sentences of Pseudo-Phocylides (first century B.C.E./first century C.E.) makes it obligatory to marry and procreate to 'give something to nature' (phusei, 175-76) and to 'Go not beyond natural (phuseōs) sexual unions for illicit passion' (190) (text and translations from Walter T. Wilson, The Sentences of Pseudo-Phocylides [Berlin: de Gruyter, 2005]). The same general moral principle that God's laws follow from the created order of nature is apparent in 4 Maccabees (late first century C.E.): 'Therefore we do not eat defiling food, for, believing that the law is divine, we know that the Creator of the world shows us sympathy by imposing a law that is in accordance with nature (kata phusin)' (4 Macc. 5.25-26 NETS). Finally, Wisdom of Solomon 14 identifies idolatry as the origin of sexual immorality (porneia, v. 12) and more specifically of 'inversion of procreation' (geneseōs enallagē, v. 26). The similarities between this passage and Romans 1:18-32 are so striking that numerous scholars have argued for some sort of literary dependence.
• 5 It is also possible, though less likely, that the sexual acts 'contrary to nature' involving females that Paul has in mind here are heterosexual oral and/or anal sex. The former is condemned in one other early Christian text, the Epistle of Barnabas (cf. 10.8). What makes female-female homoerotic acts the most likely meaning is that only females are mentioned as the actors and that the male-male acts in v. 27 are likened to those in v. 26 using the word 'likewise' (homoiōs).
• 6 Most English translations, for understandable reasons, neglect to convey the sexual explicitness of the Greek text. The phrase translated 'Males did shameful things with males' in the NABRE renders arsenes en arsesin tēn aschēmosunēn katergazomenoi. Aschēmosunē does literally mean 'disgrace' but is used as a euphemism for genitals in the Septuagint (Ex. 20:26; Lev. 18:6; Deut. 23:14) as well as in Rev. 16:15 (cf. BDAG 147). Given the sexual context of Rom. 1:27 it is best understood in this sense here, and so a literal translation of this phrase would be, 'Males working the member in males,' an obvious reference to male-male sexual intercourse.