Saint Nikodemos the Hagiorite Concerning Homosexuality

Saint Nikodemos the Hagiorite Concerning Homosexuality

HOMOSEXUALITY, LESBIAN, GAY, SODOMY, MANY NAMES FOR THE SAME FOUL AND SOUL-DESTROYING SIN Sodomy is such a fearful thing, as one teacher thinks, that God Himself resolved to come down in person in order to see whether such a sin was really being perpetrated on the earth, as if He could scarcely believe that such a monstrous vice could be found anywhere on earth. For thus did He speak in reference to sodomists, otherwise known as sodomites: “I will go down now and see whether they are actually doing according to the cry of it which is coming to me; or if not, in order that I may learn the truth” (Genesis 18:21). St. Jerome, on the other hand, says that it was only on account of this sin that the Son of God delayed for so many thousands of years before becoming a human being incarnate. It was for this reason, too, that the pious Emperors in pursuance of this divine law were wont to put sodomists to death. Both Justinian, according to Zonaras (Book III), and Theodosios the Great used to strip sodomists first of all their possessions, and afterwards would parade them before the eyes of the public, and then give them a bitter death. Valentinian used to burn sodomists alive before the eyes of everybody. In Ecloga Legum the Emperors Leo III and Constantine Copronymus both say (in Title XXVIII, page 128, of the book of Jus Graeco-Romanum) that lascivious persons are to be put to death with swords, both the actor and the minion. But if the minion be under twelve years of age, he is to be pardoned due to his youth. With reference to the words which God spoke in regard to Sodom, saying “the cry of Sodom,” etc., St. Gregory of Nyssa says: “Let us shudder, then, brethren, and let us tremble in terror: for the danger is not anything small, since God says that this sin is one that is exceedingly great.” Plato declared that pederasty is not a human deed, but a beastly act of four-footed creatures, though even the quadrupeds do not commit such an unnatural deed. Divine Chrysostom says that those young men who consent to undergo such a thing would be better off if they died instead of submitting to such infamy: “It were better to die than to live while being subjected to insult, no matter what sin you mention, you will not say one that is equal to this violation of the law. And if the pathetic were sensible of what was being

done to them, they would suffer countless deaths rather than submit to this.” For this reason, too, the young men among the Grecians, in spite of the fact that they lacked the light of the faith, used to prefer to be killed rather than stand for being insulted (in such fashion). For Plutarch relates that licentious Aristodemus, when told that there was a shapely young man in Peraea, fitted out a galley and set forth with the object of dishonoring him. But when the young man learned of this, he climbed upon the tiled roof of the house, and committed suicide by throwing himself down from the roof. “After climbing up,” it says, “on the tile roof, he cast himself down and died.” See page 333 of the Trumpet. Hence it was that Attaliates in his Synopsis of the laws (Title LXXI, page 64 of the second volume of Jus GraecoRomanum.) said that if anyone be forced by another person to engage in lasciviousness, he may slay him without risk. Lucas the Patriarch of Constantinople, in the course of solving certain questions, together with the Synod surrounding him, says in extant manuscripts that those who fall into arsenoania cannot take one another’s sister (in marriage). HOMOSEXUALITY – ARSENOCOETIA -- TWO KINDS WITH MEN AND WITH WOMEN Note that this division of arsenoeoetia was found among the Canons of the Faster, reading thus: “Arsenocoetia is of two kinds: one is that in regard to women in which men lie with them unnaturally; the other is that in regard to men in which males perform their obscenity with males, as St. Paul says. It is also to be noted that of men of this kind one may be distinguished as taking only the active part in arsenocoetia, while another takes only the passive role, whereas another one on the contrary will play either part, that is, will engage in the practice both by performing the act and by undergoing it. Though it is a worse sin for one to perform the act than to undergo it when performed by another, yet is the sin a still worse one when a man both performs and undergoes the act. And for one to do the act to women who are generally strangers is a more serious sin than for one to do it to males. But for one to do it to his own wife, this is more serious than for him to do it to a strange woman. Hence from these words we conclude that a married couple that fall into the unnatural style of intercourse are to be canonized much more severely than a man who has practiced arsenocoetia with males or with strange females. As for how much a man is canonized who has fallen into the unnatural style with his wife, see at the end of the penalties of the same Faster. ...Consanguinity holds even in connection with arsenoquitae (i.e., male homosexuals); for according to the most holy Patriarch Lucas, men who practice arsenoquity with each. other are disallowed from taking one another’s sister to wife. Taken from The Rudder.