Ancient Christian Beliefs About Sex Were Wild

Christian beliefs regarding sexuality and gender, alongside human bodily matters during the early Christian era, were far from conventional standards.

The religious beliefs that modern people view as sacred foundations originally appeared revolutionary and even disturbing to early Christian society.

Early Christian thinking about sexual matters and spiritual purity embraced radical perspectives that modern people find strange and even unsettling. Theologians developed a fascinating concept about the spiritual body, which they described as androgynous.

According to Christian belief, some followers thought their resurrected bodies would be angelic and without gender distinctions, so they would not need to differentiate between male and female.

The radical belief system proposed that spiritual purity was not the only Christian goal since the ultimate destination involved transcending all earthly gender distinctions.

Gospels of Thomas and Philip

The Gospel of Thomas presents one of the most puzzling, enigmatic passages about this concept to scholars and readers, who find its content difficult to comprehend.

According to this gospel, Jesus explains that his disciples can enter the Kingdom of God by uniting separate entities and removing all distinctions between inner and outer aspects, upper and lower parts, and male and female elements.

The obscure teaching indicates that spiritual transformation into a genderless realm exists as a goal, although the specific process remains obscure.

The Gospel of Philip offers a somewhat more understandable, yet still unconventional, view among early Christian texts. This gospel explains that death originated when Eve received her separate existence from Adam during the creation of the sexes.

In the Gospel of Philip, Christ came to restore the unity of male and female genders so people who experienced separation through these genders could gain eternal life.

According to the gospel, the “bridal chamber” union between man and woman provided the solution to this separation.

The bridal chamber, which described marital sexual relations, served as the means to bring back the sexes into unity and restore the original perfect state of existence.

Self-castration for spiritual purity

Early Christian thought contained many sexual beliefs that seemed unconventional, although they were not the most radical ideas present at that time. Christian believers went to drastic lengths to prevent sexual transgressions by performing self-castration as a method of spiritual purification.

The Gospel of Matthew contains passages where Jesus discusses eunuchs who “have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.”

The Christian scholar Origen of Alexandria became inspired by these words to perform self-castration, which he kept secret from others. His alleged secret act came to light through his followers and surprised many people during the early days of Christianity.

The Church History by Eusebius of Caesarea contains the story of Origen’s self-castration, but scholars doubt its authenticity due to Eusebius writing it sixty years after Origen died.

Early Christian thought strongly embraced chastity and self-discipline regarding sexuality, although Origen’s personal actions remain uncertain since some followers discovered his secret behavior.

The early Christian church had previously implemented radical ideas about sexual matters. The Council of Nicaea from the 4th century established rules regarding self-castration as one of its many theological discussions.

The council established regulations against clergy positions for self-castrated people, yet allowed eunuchs who became that way through external means to participate.

The council established a rule about castration because members of the Christian community performed this action with enough frequency to require official recognition.

The extreme practices demonstrated by early Christians show the extent to which believers attempted to control their sexuality while achieving spiritual body alignment.

Early Christians believed sexual immorality stood as a major barrier to spiritual development, while they considered the flesh as representing bodily desires that needed suppression for spiritual purity.

The mindset encompassed more than self-discipline and castration because it expanded into comprehensive discussions about sexuality and morality.

Apostle Paul’s teachings on sexual morality

The Apostle Paul wrote many New Testament letters that dedicated numerous passages to sexual immorality.

Paul uses his writings to stress that Christians should stay away from sinful actions, which include drunkenness and quarreling, as well as illicit sexual conduct.

Through his Roman letter, Paul instructs believers to adopt the “armor of light” to reject “works of darkness” that include sexual immorality and debauchery.

In his teachings, Paul explains that idolatry results in immoral actions, including sexual transgressions. The Apostle’s religious texts demonstrate how sexual misconduct served as evidence of spiritual inadequacy during that time period.

Through his message to the Galatians, Paul once more denounced sexual immorality by naming both orgies and debauchery acts as sinful. According to Paul, those who practice these immoral acts cannot obtain entrance into the kingdom of God.

Paul, along with numerous early Christians, viewed flesh as something that required complete resistance because sexual pleasures represented sinful nature.

Early Christians reached such a state of fear about sexual immorality and sexual desires that they performed self-castration to prevent themselves from sinning.

Accusations of sexual deviance against rival Christian sects

The early church leaders Tertullian and Irenaeus accused opposing Christian sects of performing orgies and practicing incest and even eating human flesh during their religious ceremonies.

Early Christian leaders used these potentially exaggerated or fabricated accusations to create moral distinctions between different groups and establish their own sect as pure and their rivals as immoral.

In his writings, Christian scholar Epiphanius describes the “Phibionites,” who practiced extreme sexual behavior.

Epiphanius reported that members of this religious sect performed orgies while drinking wine through shared sexual rituals, which they believed were essential for their spiritual rites.

Epiphanius describes, in a disturbing section, that members of the group used accidental pregnancy fetuses during their Eucharist rituals, which would be an unthinkable practice if proven true.

Although scholars question the accuracy of these statements, they demonstrate the intense accusations early Christian leaders made to reject specific religious groups.

The unusual religious customs and beliefs demonstrated that early Christians followed intense, and frequently extreme, paths connecting sexual beliefs with spirituality and gender roles.

The theological debates about sexuality maintained strong connections to cultural values while also following social expectations.

Final thoughts

The spread and evolution of Christianity made these theological debates progressively complex, thus generating the numerous conflicting perspectives about sexuality and gender that exist in modern Christianity.

The original Christian perspectives about sexuality demonstrate that church teachings regarding these matters have always been subject to change and heated debate.

Throughout its nearly two thousand years of existence, Christianity has experienced a continuous evolution in how its followers view sex and gender, although past beliefs that seemed radical or objectionable now show different perspectives.

The study of historical Christian views about sexuality remains essential to understanding present-day church debates about sexuality that produce continuing disagreement among worldwide Christian congregations.

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