Sodom and Sodomia I

Today I shall write about two things that originally had nothing to do with each other, namely the Sodom story in Genesis 18-19 and sodomia as a word for Homosexuality (and a few other things)…

1050 or thereabouts, a rather beaten child by the name of Pietro Damiani (*1107 †1072) invented the Concept sodomia in his Liber gomorrhianus a writ dedicated to the first “Reform” Pope, Leo IX (Bruno von Egisheim-Dagsburg, Bishop of Rome 1048-1054). His errand was the Spilling of Semen (particularly by Priests and Monks) without an intent to procreate.

According to Neo Platonist Academics this was far worse than murder, because it threw the un-baptised souls of little boys (the Academics believed Semen consisted of little ready-made miniature boys) into Limbo; the place wherefrom Heavenly Bliss could be beheld by the un-baptised, but not enjoyed... (Rumours say that Benedict XVI is planning to skip this Limbo, as Tridentinum abolished Purgatory).

Consequently Luxuria was a sub-division of the changed Moral (and therefore disciplining) Concept “Sin” (from German Sind Flut; the Great Flood in Genesis 8) of the new Carolingian State Ideology, imported from State Church Byzantion:

Superbia, Greed, Lust, Sloth, Gluttony, Wrath, and Envy.

In the Bible this wanting on the part of humans to be God-like is invariably called by various archery terms, in Greek amartía: “missing the mark”, shooting over the goal, miss-stepping, from trying too much...

It may be pointed out for us in late modernity, who have been taught to see “sex” (a Modern to late modern category) everywhere, that it is only the third of these; Concupiscentia – which may be sexual…

In the interest of Empire Crowd control the 12th century Parisian changes in the Latin translation (2nd to 3rd century North Africa) Versio vulgata added Concupiscentia to the Text of Colossians 3:5, turning 10th Commandment epithumía; (material) Greed, into Luxuria; Lust.

Luxuria itself was added to Galatians 5:19…

For San Pietro and other adherents of Emperor Louis’ the Pious (†843) ecclesiastical “Reforms”, it was necessary for office holders to contain their Semen – especially since Abstinence; the self-imposed Martyrium of the Neo Platonist Academic, gave them auctoritas over the lay…

An intent to procreate was the only possible excuse for the Spilling of Semen.

Un-surprisingly, according to Johannes Chrysostomos (†407) and other Neo Platonists, (monogamous hetero-)Marriage was a lesser celibacy. This basically Gnosticist view lasted till about 1970, when Hetero-sex suddenly was transmogrified into God’s particular Gift to Adam and Eve (Focus on the Family and others…)

I distinctly remember how chocked I was (in 1968) when I first heard this anti Modern fabrication from my confirmation pastor (he was also, although a Priest in the Church of Sweden, appointed as Pastor of the Moravian (= 19th century Pietist) Brothers in Gothenburg).