{"id":1475,"date":"2014-02-20T17:11:40","date_gmt":"2014-02-20T22:11:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michaelbray.org\/?p=1475"},"modified":"2017-06-13T13:39:30","modified_gmt":"2017-06-13T18:39:30","slug":"sodomy-the-judgment-of-the-churches-of-god-in-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/michaelbray.org\/?p=1475","title":{"rendered":"Sodomy: What Say, in History, the Churches of God?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Michael Bray
\n<\/span>20 February, 2014<\/span><\/p>\n

McClintock and Strong produced the Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature, <\/i>published by Harper and Brothers, 1867-1887, reprinted by Baker Book House Company in 1981.\u00a0 I bought by own copy within a few years of that date and remain gratified by the usefulness of the set \u2013 a wealth of exactly what the title says.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

For example, I consulted it today just to sooth my mind with some sound reading and judgments.\u00a0 <\/span>When one lives in an age of doctrinal apostasy and intellectual idiocy when the very idea of a Standard is thought peculiar, it is good to be reminded of the sober judgments of the past.\u00a0 <\/span>In particular, it is helpful to shore up one\u2019s confession of the Faith today by hearing the testimonies of the past.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Our encyclopedists say this in vol. IX, p. 859 (which is available here <\/span>http:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=f04XAAAAYAAJ&pg=PR5#v=onepage&q&f=false<\/span><\/a>): <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSODOMY, an unnatural crime, consisting of the defilement of man with man, and thus differing from bestiality, which is defilement of man with brutes.\u00a0 <\/span>The name is derived from Sodom, in which city the crime was frequent.\u00a0 <\/span>Sodomy was strictly forbidden in the Mosaic law, and was punishable with death (Lev. 20:13).\u00a0 <\/span>Among the pagan nations of antiquity, as still in many heathen countries, this was a very common vice (Rom. 1:27); the Greeks and Romans designated it by the term pederasty<\/span><\/i> (see Wilcke, De Satyricis Romanis [Viteb. 1760]).\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>In the early Church this was considered, not an ordinary, but a monster crime.\u00a0 <\/span>The Council of Ancyra has two canons relating to this and similar crimes, imposing heavy ecclesiastical penalties upon offenders.\u00a0 <\/span>St. Basil (Can. 62, 63) imposes the penalty of adultery, viz., twenty years\u2019 penance; and the Council of Eliberis refused communion, even at the last hour, to those guilty of this crime with boys.\u00a0 <\/span>There was an old Roman law against it, called Lex Scantinia, <\/span><\/i>mentioned by Juvenal (Sat<\/span><\/i>. ii, 44) and others; but it lay dormant until revived by Christian emperors.\u00a0 <\/span>Constantus made it a capital offense, and ordered it to be punished with death by the sword; while Theodosius decreed that those found guilty should be burned alive.\u00a0 <\/span>According to modern legislation, it is considered a very heinous crime, and severely punished.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>See Joseph Bingham, Antiquities of the Christian Church<\/span><\/i>, bk. xvi, ch. xi, p. 9.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is good, by the reading of the wisdom of another time, <\/span>to have our minds set free from the intellectual inebriation they suffer under the influence of the Zeit Geist <\/span><\/i>of the moment.\u00a0 <\/span>Although we would be critical of some ecclesiastical pronouncements – in particular,\u00a0the Council of Eliberis which denied\u00a0last rites to the pederast – we find in the record a consistent, strong,\u00a0 monolithic,\u00a0judgment by the churches down through the ages\u00a0against the\u00a0Lawless voices of \u201cdiversity\u201d in our age.\u00a0 <\/span>The current Age of Apostasy and Perversion is unparalleled in the history of the Christendom. \u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Michael Bray 20 February, 2014 McClintock and Strong produced the Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature, published by Harper and Brothers, 1867-1887, reprinted by Baker Book House Company in 1981.\u00a0 I bought by own copy within a few years of that date and remain gratified by the usefulness of the set \u2013 a wealth […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1475"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1475"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1475\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2279,"href":"http:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1475\/revisions\/2279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}