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Rationalising Sexual Morality in Western Christian Discourses, AD 390 – AD 520

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Deviance and Disaster: Rationalising sexual morality in Western Christian discourses, AD 390 – AD 520 Ulriika Vihervalli School of History, Archaeology and Religion Cardiff University Presented for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy April 2017 Abstract This thesis argues that the transition from traditional Roman ideas of sexual behaviour to idealised Christian sexual behaviour was a reactionary process, for which the period from AD 390 to AD 520 offers a crucial key stage. During this era, the Roman West underwent significant socio-political changes, resulting in warfare and violent conflict, which created a pressurised and traumatic environment for people who endured them. In this context, the rhetoric of divine punishment for sinful behaviour was stron gly linked with sexual acts, causing ideas on sexual mores to develop. The thesis highlights three key aspects of these developments. Firstly, warfare necessitated changes in Christian doctrines on marriages and rape, resulting from collective and cultural trauma. Secondly, sexually impure acts of incest and prostitution were defiling to the religious collective yet the consequences of these were negotiated on a case-to-case basis, reflecting adaptation. Thirdly, traditional Roman ideas of polygyny and homosexual acts overrode Christian ideas on the same. After discussing these three aspects, this work offers a revised interpretation of Salvian of Marseilles’s De gubernatione Dei to illuminate the purpose of the sexual polemic contained in his work – a task that no existing scholarship has attempted to undertake. Daily realities and conflicts drove discourses on sexual mores forwards, and this thesis outlines how this occurred in practice, arguing that attitudes to sex were deeply rooted in secular contexts and were reactionary in nature. This examination of attitudes to sexual mores reveals a re-moulding of pre-existing Roman cultural norms, rather than a revolutionising Christian overtake. The thesis concludes that the ‘Christianisation’ of late Roman society was a process conditioned by contemporary events and concerns, which contr ibutes to interpretations on the dynamics of cultural change in the late antique era. Contents Acknowledgements .......................................................................................................iii Abbreviations ................................................................................................................ iv 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................ 1 1.1 Scope of Research ................................................................................................ 3 1.2 Chapter Synopses ................................................................................................. 6 1.3 Historiography and Methodology ........................................................................ 8 Theories Applied .................................................................................................. 13 Terminology ......................................................................................................... 16 A Note on Translations ......................................................................................... 20 1.4 Thematic Overview: Setting the Scene .............................................................. 21 1.5 Historical Context: AD 390 – AD 520 .............................................................. 30 2. Impact of War on Christian Ideas of Morality ..................................................... 37 2.1 Expectations of Morality in Wartime ................................................................ 40 Maximus of Turin ................................................................................................. 42 Augustine of Hippo .............................................................................................. 48 Valerian of Cimiez ................................................................................................ 54 Leo the Great ........................................................................................................ 59 AD 460 to AD 520 ................................................................................................ 65 2.2 Changes to Lay Marriages ................................................................................. 71 Second Marriages ................................................................................................. 72 Potential Structural Implications .......................................................................... 77 2.3 Rape ................................................................................................................... 81 Rape Legend in Christian Discourse .................................................................... 86 Augustine .............................................................................................................. 89 Leo the Great ........................................................................................................ 95 Avitus of Vienne ................................................................................................... 98 Rape Redefined? ................................................................................................. 102 2.4 Chapter Conclusions ........................................................................................ 105 3. Negotiating Impurity: Contagiousness and the Collective ................................. 109 3.1 Importance of Purity in Christian Communities .............................................. 112 Defining Purity ................................................................................................... 114 Consequences of Impurity .................................................................................. 117 3.2 Incest ................................................................................................................ 123 Inherited Incest ................................................................................................... 125 i Regulating Incest ................................................................................................ 131 Failure? Avitus of Vienne ................................................................................... 136 3.3 Prostitution ....................................................................................................... 142 Salvation for All? Maximus’s Samaritan Whore ............................................... 144 Prostitution: Ideology and Reality ...................................................................... 150 3.4 Chapter Conclusions ........................................................................................ 155 4. Dominance of Tradition: Roman Mores in Christian Discourses ...................... 157 4.1 Homosexual Acts ............................................................................................. 159 Searching for Sodom .......................................................................................... 163 Legal Evidence as ‘Christianising’? ................................................................... 172 Homoeroticism ................................................................................................... 178 4.2 Polygyny .......................................................................................................... 185 Resistance to Monogyny .................................................................................... 188 Crime and Punishment, Or a Lack Thereof ........................................................ 199 4.3 Chapter Conclusions ........................................................................................ 206 5. The Self-Inspecting Mirror of Salvian of Marseilles .......................................... 209 5.1 Context of De gub . ........................................................................................... 212 Genre of De gub. ................................................................................................ 216 Audience of De gub. ........................................................................................... 218 5.2 Christian Sexual Deviance ............................................................................... 222 Polygyny and the Wealthy .................................................................................. 224 The Apogee of Sexual Sin: North Africa ........................................................... 228 5.3 Pudici barbari : Sexual Morality and the Barbarians ....................................... 238 Sexual Hyperbole and Surrealism ...................................................................... 240 5.4 Salvian’s Sexual Idealism in Context .............................................................. 246 Marseilles and War ............................................................................................. 248 The Functions of Sex in De gub. ........................................................................ 250 5.5 Chapter Conclusions: Salvian Re-Interpreted .................................................. 252 6. Conclusion ............................................................................................................. 255 7. Bibliography .......................................................................................................... 261 Appendix 1 ................................................................................................................
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