Early Christians who Defended Licitness of Non-Procreative Sex?
Upvote:0
Of course, "early Christians" in a broad sense could include fringe sects embracing all manner of licentiousness (e.g., Carpocratian orgies). If we limit the scope to the Church Fathers:
It would depend somewhat on what you mean by non-procreative—deliberately contracepted, performed in a manner incompatible with procreation (i.e., sodomy), undertaken in the absence of fertility (e.g., post-menopause), undertaken without any intention of procreation, or undertaken without procreation as the sole purpose, to distinguish several cases.
Anyway, a pertinent example is John Chrysostom, who (with the implicit equation of licit sex with marriage) writes in his Homily on Marriage 1 (late 4th century):
These are the two purposes for which marriage was instituted: to make us chaste, and to make us parents. Of these two, the reason of chastity takes precedence. When desire began, then marriage also began. It sets a limit to desire by teaching us to keep to one wife. Marriage does not always lead to procreation, although there is the word of God which says, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth". We have as witnesses all those who are married but are childless. So the purpose of chastity takes precedence, especially now, when the whole world is filled with our kind.
Upvote:3
Having read through quite a bit of the Ante-Nicene Church Fathers, I can't remember ever seeing anyone advocate for non-procreative sex. Rather it was common to advocate for remaining a virgin for life.
I think if anyone in the early church did advocate for non-procreative sex, you are more likely to find them among those whom the Church Fathers debated against and labeled as heretics.
Keep in mind, also, that they didn't have condoms back then or the concept of "safe sex." And there most certainly weren't any church fathers advocating for h*m*sexuality - which would contradict the scriptures (and the early church fathers drew heavily from the scriptures).
More post
- 📝 What type of Christianity does Hans Christian Andersen depict in *The Red Shoes*?
- 📝 According to LDS teaching, Does God have a God?
- 📝 What date was the second Easter?
- 📝 Can a human coherently claim to be "God the father"?
- 📝 The seven churches that were condemned; did any of them repent?
- 📝 Why do Catholics portray Jesus on the Cross?
- 📝 Did the religion of Christianity arise in AD70?
- 📝 Where did the "humans become angels" tradition come from?
- 📝 How did the Church fathers of the first four centuries understand 2 Corinthians 5:21?
- 📝 Should we have realistic unbelief?
- 📝 "AD & BC" vs "CE & BCE"
- 📝 What are the main arguments Protestants use against the idea of the perpetual virginity of Mary?
- 📝 Why does a clever Satan fight with God even though he knows he will lose?
- 📝 Are (or should be) the resolutions of the SDA General Conference public?
- 📝 What did John Wycliffe teach about the fate of infants who die?
- 📝 What do the Apologists mean by three persons as "one in nature" if the Son and Spirit are not eternal?
- 📝 Why was Jeremiah called the "weeping prophet"
- 📝 How did the Born Again teaching be associated with one first believing in Jesus Christ?
- 📝 Can a Catholic simultaneously profess more than one rite?
- 📝 According to full preterists, what is the historical basis for viewing the last trumpet call as a historical fact that has already been fulfilled?
- 📝 Is there a sense in which Stephen was the first Catholic saint?
- 📝 Is it justifiable to kill an innocent person with the following conditions?
- 📝 What does inherit the earth mean in Matthew 5:5
- 📝 Why do most Christians call Jesus "Son of God" rather than simply "God"?
- 📝 What exactly are 'private vows'?
- 📝 What did the Early Church Fathers think about pets (animals) going to Heaven upon death?
- 📝 Should we 'let our light shine' and tell people the good works that we do?
- 📝 Ark of the Covenent
- 📝 According to Protestants, what "new" things has the Eastern Orthodox Church acquired over time?
- 📝 How is new humanism different from the catholic teaching?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 Early Christians who Defended Licitness of Non-Procreative Sex?
- 📝 What is the significance of the four laws given to early Christians who were not ethnically Jews?
- 📝 According to Evangelicals, before the Reformation, who were Christians if “Catholics are not Christians”?
- 📝 For how long did the early Christians share all their possessions?
- 📝 Is it true that early Christians were baptised naked?
- 📝 Why did so many early church fathers say that sex was a consequence of the Fall?
- 📝 Why did early Christians in Acts still go to the Jewish temple every day?
- 📝 What were the early Christians officially persecuted for?
- 📝 How do Christians who reject pre-fall death reconcile their views with the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event (66 million years ago)?
- 📝 How does a Roman Catholic reconcile a preference for purely procreative sex with the Song of Solomon?
- 📝 Besides Paul, were there any other enemies of the early church who converted to Christianity?
- 📝 How do Theistic Evolutionists who are Christians reconcile these Scriptures with the adoption of evolutionary theory?
- 📝 How did Christians respond to abortion in the early Church?
- 📝 The book of revelation as comfort to persecuted early Christians
- 📝 Why did Justin Martyr speak so harshly about Christians who ate meat sacrificed to idols?
- 📝 Does Romans 1:18-25 pose a challenge to Christians who believe in the Theory of Evolution?
- 📝 Which pre-Nicene Christians who helped shape the trinity doctrine are now considered heretics?
- 📝 Has the term "born again" always been synonymous with baptism with the Christians of the Early Church?
- 📝 How do Christians who insist upon keeping the 7th day Sabbath explain Acts 15?
- 📝 What are Christians called who believe in a non-intervening God?
- 📝 When were the early Christians no longer considered a sect of Judaism?
- 📝 Are there any Christians who only accept the gospels?
- 📝 What is the biblical basis that people who are attracted to the same sex were not created by God that way?
- 📝 Why did early Christians believe in the Real Presence?
- 📝 Historical Apologetic used by 7th Century Christians towards Early Muslims Regarding the Hypostatic Union and Jesus' Title "Son of God"
- 📝 How do Christians who adhere to the maxim “in essentials unity; in non-essentials liberty; and in all things charity” determine what is essential?
- 📝 Other than non-Trinitarian, what terms are there for Christians who don't believe in the trinity?
- 📝 Are there any groups of Christians who believe that all loans made with their money should be made without the expectation of repayment?
- 📝 How can Saint Thomas Christians who are Catholic have confidence that St. Thomas sailed to Muziris?
- 📝 Is there any historical evidence of Early Church Christians denying the divinity of Jesus during the 1st and 2nd centuries AD?