英语论文网

of the New Testament can not be ignored. Our Lord’s own celibate state is explicit in the Gospels, and is an un-remarked corollary or his prophetic role. Sexual morality receives distinctive and no-nonsense treatment in the dominical forbidding of divorce and the Pauline encouragement of virginity. The issue remains subordinate one, however, until a century later; but what was the origin of this concern with sexual purity that so came to characterise Christianity in general and the pre sexual revolution Church of England?

The most common answer to this puzzle is to place the blame squarely upon the shoulders of outside influences, largely from Hellenism. It is likely that the very first Christians had a thoroughly positive attitude towards sex and marriage, the replacement of this position by something diametrically opposed to it has to have been as a result of outside influence; specifically the dualism of Platonism with disintegration of the body and bodily pleasures. On this point, Brown notes “I have frequently observed that the sharp and dangerous flavour of many Christian notions of sexual renunciation, both in their personal and their social consequences, have been rendered tame and insipid, through being explained away as no more than inert borrowings from a supposed pagan or Jewish background.”

To ascribe whatever any given individual dislikes in the historical position of Christianity to outside influences, is so obviously tendentious device for preserving the truth and distinctiveness of Christianity, that it hardly requires and refutation by the historian. The contrast between the sexually positive attitude of early Christian sand the bleak otherworldly Platonist's is no less crude, foolish and absurd than the polar and once popular opposite; the contrast between acetic and sexual pleasure hating Christians and the pleasure lovingpagans.

It is of considerable interest, as the attitudes seem to haveremained relatively unchanged in the Church of England and the wider Church, to enquire into the attitudes towards sexuality and marriage in the Churches most successful early missions. The surviving source material relates to the aristocracy. The task of attempting to discern the attitudes of the masses on any subject is difficult, but necessary.We must always be aware of the potential for crude stereotypes between Christian and pagan. Paul Venue argued from epigraphic and literary evidence, however, that the first few centuries of the Christian era saw, not so much the replacement of Greco-Roman sexual mores objurgate ones as the development within both paganism and Christianity of what he calls the “bourgeois” notion of marriage wit hits strict stress upon fidelity. The reality, as Price notes, is that it is “vain to seek to compare the values and attitudes of the‘average’ pagan with the ‘average’ Christian.”

The sexual discourse of early Christian writers differed from those of pagans to an extent in the early period. The ethics of telethons and Stoics alike laid stress upon self-control and upon the rational use of the mind; on the dominance of the intellect over the will; and , of course, of the subjugation of impulses and physical emotions. In general, however, the discourse of the philosophers on matters of sexua本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。