Intimate Covenant Podcast

Medieval Sex -- Unmasking the Roots of Sexual Taboo in Christianity, part 2 [177]

• Intimate Covenant -- Matt & Jenn Schmidt • Episode 177

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Augustine and subsequent Medieval sexual theology have profoundly influenced modern Christian teachings on sexuality, often causing unnecessary shame and restrictions that aren't biblically based. During the Middle Ages, the influence of Augustine, with echoes of Greek philosophy, intensified into even more unnecessarily restrictive laws and unbiblical teachings about sex. Contrary to Augustine and classic Catholic doctrine, celibacy is not more holy than marriage. The Bible teaches that marriage and the pleasures of married sex are a gift from God.

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Intimate Covenant | Matt & Jenn Schmidt

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Speaker 1:

Hey, jen want to talk about medieval sexual philosophy.

Speaker 2:

Are you feeling okay? I think you might have the plague Great.

Speaker 1:

Today on the podcast, we're talking about philosophy from the Middle Ages that persists even today in our modern religious beliefs. Let's do it. Welcome friends.

Speaker 2:

Welcome. We're Matt and Jen, and this is the Intimate Covenant podcast.

Speaker 1:

Where we believe the Bible and great marriage, sex both belong on your kitchen table. That's right. We are talking about godly marriage with hot sex and emotionally fulfilling oneness. That is our goal for you, that is our goal for the podcast, and so every episode we try to bring a topic that will initiate some conversation in your marriage, to bring you closer both emotionally and sexually, and we thank you for joining us.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, thanks for being here. If you'd like to learn more about us, you can find out more information about us on our website at IntimateCovenantcom, and we would love to hear from you. You can email us at podcast at intimatecovenantcom. Send us all your questions, comments anything.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, in fact we're in the middle of a we'll call it a mini-series, looking at some of the historical influences in our modern religious beliefs, and all of this began from an email. So if you haven't caught up yet, go back and listen to our previous episode 176, and you'll hear that email and you'll hear our response, going all the way back looking at Greek philosophy. But before we get in today's topic, which is more medieval thought and religious influence in our religious thoughts, we want to make one final announcement, and that is that the retreat is coming up our annual marriage retreat, september 18th through the 20th.

Speaker 2:

Yep Next month. We are four weeks out a little bit less than four weeks by the time this drops.

Speaker 1:

Yes, and we are urgently finishing up some of the preparations for that, so we're very much looking forward to that. As has been announced previously, we're very excited to have Trey Keller joining us to provide some musical entertainment for the weekend, and we're just going to have a great time discussing one that is oneness becoming one, becoming one in every way, and so we're going to spend the weekend an enjoyable time with everyone there, certainly looking forward to that.

Speaker 2:

And while it's not normally the case, we do actually have a few spots remaining and you actually could still, in theory, sign up. Our deadline to register is August 28th, so by the time this drops you have like three days, but if in the next three days you decide that you want to join us, it's actually not too late. You can find out more about registering for the retreat at intimatecovenantcom slash retreat.

Speaker 1:

It might be the best last minute decision you will make this year for your marriage. For sure We'd love to have you join us. But getting back to today's episode again, this is a continuation from a conversation that we started last time about how our modern attitudes and teachings in the church may be in many ways markedly influenced by non-biblical philosophies and cultural ideas, and that's a little bit difficult to kind of wrap our heads around. It's sometimes difficult to be honest enough with ourselves to see that this is the case. We would like to believe that all of our beliefs, our religious beliefs, come directly from the Bible and while that is probably true in most cases, all of our beliefs are shaped by the culture that we live in, including the religious community that we're a part of.

Speaker 1:

And last episode we introduced this conversation by examining how ancient Greek philosophies like dualism and Stoicism, to name a few, tried to find their way into early Christianity, and I would say maybe even more than tried. They did find their way into early Christianity to such an extent that Paul and other New Testament writers directly addressed these fallacies in Scripture In the epistles that we have preserved for us. It's very clear that Paul, john and some of the others are directly addressing some of these fallacies, like Stoicism and Dualism, in their writings to other churches. So again for more about the influence of ancient Greek philosophy on modern religious treatment of sexuality, go back and listen to episode 176.

Speaker 2:

And if you're getting quite worried right now that you have clicked play on the wrong podcast, don't worry, this is not normally a history or a philosophy podcast. We are not actually experts on either, true, but, and honestly, we're really not all that interested in history or philosophy. You're not? No, we are not. Except that some of these bad ancient ideologies still have a major impact on our modern way of thinking about sex, and that's a topic that we are actually interested in, because I think, as you were saying earlier, matt, I think a lot of us would be quite surprised to realize that some of these really ancient dudes who lived like thousands of years ago are impacting our sex lives today.

Speaker 1:

Yes, and our hope in these episodes is that you will get those old dudes out of your bedroom, so to speak. Specifically, we want to kind of jump into this idea, moving away from Greek philosophy and moving to Augustine, who was basically Greek, but Augustine lived somewhere around 400 AD, so 400 years roughly after Jesus was on the earth. But Augustine is easily the most influential ancient writer who shaped the broad Christian theology of sin and in so doing he also had a tremendous impact on the theology of sexuality as well. His writings really lay a very solid foundation from which the Christian faith as it has evolved over the centuries. He really shaped the foundation for how the church was going to think about not only just sin in general but specifically for our purposes. He really shaped how the church was going to handle sexuality as well.

Speaker 1:

His writings that again, his writings are happening several hundred years after Jesus and the apostles. His writings really give this first systemic theology about sexual shame and he links sexuality directly to sin. He links sexual desire directly to sin and he links it directly to the fall to original sin. And so, whether you call yourself a Catholic or a Protestant or a Christian of any kind, a Protestant or a Christian of any kind. Your ideas about sexuality and your church's ideas about sexuality are profoundly influenced by Augustine and yes, I guess we should clarify his name is pronounced Augustine, not Augustine, although.

Speaker 2:

I had him look that up because I was like, wait what?

Speaker 1:

You can say it however you want. I suppose he's not around to ask how to say his name, but we'll say Augustine. So Augustine's view of sexuality was, of course, very heavily influenced by Greek philosophy. He was Greek, he lived in essentially a Greek culture at the time, a Greco-Roman culture. Greek culture at the time, a Greco-Roman culture, and Greek philosophy was still very much prevalent in. These ideas of dualism and stoicism that we discussed in the last episode were still very much prevalent and persistent in culture at that time.

Speaker 1:

In addition, however, his views of sexuality seem to be very heavily influenced by his own personal history of promiscuity and sexual indulgence. You see, augustine didn't grow up living a Christian lifestyle and as a result of his promiscuity, it seems that he really swung the pendulum exactly the opposite direction, and we might argue he swung it in an unhealthy direction to quite a bit of extreme, and so his struggles really inform his negative view of lust. Now, lust certainly is morally enslaving. Lust, when it is left to its own devices, is quite enslaving. Augustine describes this in his book Confessions, one of his most popular works, probably second most popular to his work called the City of God, and I've read some Augustine, maybe you have too and we probably would agree on quite a few things, and his writings are very solid in many ways any room for sexual desire to be something of benefit or even something good, something created by God and with God's blessing.

Speaker 1:

But his harsh views of sexuality come from this cultural assumption that sexual desire and sexual pleasure are inferior, they are animalistic, they are less virtuous. And, as we discussed in the last episode, these ideas come from. You can see how they are born out of these ideas of stoicism and dualism, and I hope you also see that this is not a biblical concept. These are ideas that were baked into this ancient Greek cultural ideology. And so Augustine adopts these views, these stoic and aesthetic and dualistic ideology. He adopts them and really incorporates them into this so-called Christian view and Christian systemization.

Speaker 1:

So Augustine and others at the time often attempted to interpret the writings of the apostles in this light, in this light of dualism and stoicism, and they then conflate this godly view of sexuality with a view that is steeped in shame and suppression and self-righteous restriction. And so A couple of really important ideas that Augustine really brings into the mainstream is that original sin. For those who subscribe to this idea of original sin. He taught that original sin was transmitted through sexual reproduction. That is that the sin of Adam and Eve was passed directly to their descendants through sex and because of sex. It is because of sex that this original sin was passed from generation to generation.

Speaker 2:

So you can really see how shame is being attached to even married sex within that IT.

Speaker 1:

Especially married sex. I mean even something that is blessed by God. This covenant, this sacred covenant of marriage, then becomes tarnished because of the shame that is associated with passing on this sinful nature of mankind. He says in one of his writings called On the Good of Marriage um, in chapter six, if you're interested, he says the sexual intercourse of the married couple is not a sin if it is only used for the begetting of children.

Speaker 2:

So this is a way to take like that shame and be like, but there's maybe one way that you can use sex in a sort of okay way.

Speaker 1:

Right.

Speaker 2:

And that is if you're creating children.

Speaker 1:

Right, and so his idea was that ideal sex was, of course, within marriage, which I don't think we would argue. The Bible clearly teaches that. But he says that ideal sex was within marriage, for procreation only, and not only for procreation, but entirely without the motivation for pleasure. In other words, if you at all obtain pleasure from sex, then that is sinful because it is only for procreation and it should not be something that you desire for your own pleasure and gratification, that you desire for your own pleasure and gratification. He taught that the church, and God for that matter, tolerate sex only as a means of reproduction and that sexual pleasure, sexual desire, wanting sex for any reason was sinful and that, ideally, any sexual desire that you had would be avoided or entirely suppressed.

Speaker 2:

And important to note. Those are his ideas. Those are not found in Scripture.

Speaker 1:

Amen. And I think they are not only not in Scripture, the opposite is found in Scripture. He also wrote that sexual desire was disordered, that it was involuntary, and again, all of that because it was a direct result of the fall, that the sin that Adam and Eve introduced into the garden was a sexual nature and therefore any kind of sexual desire, even if it was desired for sanctioned sexuality, even if it was desired for sanctioned sexuality, even if you have desire for your spouse, it was still considered by him to be undesirable and should be avoided, sorry. He also wrote that celibacy and virginity were a higher spiritual calling than marriage, because in his idea he saw that virginity was a foretaste of the resurrection life and that through virginity you could devote yourself more fully to God His words, he said. Marriage is good, virginity is better.

Speaker 2:

Interesting that he would say that because God himself compares his relationship with the church, with his people, using the metaphor of marriage. So again, he is twisting scripture itself to make it what he would like it to say. And why does that matter? Well, because it greatly influenced, obviously, all religious thought at that time, but it's still influencing the church as a whole today.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I mean to be clear. This could not have been popularized if Augustine was the only one who was willing to subscribe to these ideas. But the powers that be at the time, for whatever reason, adopted these ideas and were very happy to continue with this very heavily Greek-influenced ideology. And we get further and further away from the truth and further and further away from God's intention for marriage and for sexuality as we move further into the Middle Ages. The teachings about sex become more and more restrictive and more and more severe during these Middle Ages. So again, the medieval church, the medieval Catholic church in particular, these teachings, their teachings about sex, were of course very heavily influenced by Augustine and they became increasingly more restrictive, more moralistic and really more suspicious even of sexual pleasure.

Speaker 1:

For sex is accepted for procreation in marriage, but the church authorities at that time continue to frame it as inherently tainted and in fact even going so far as to say that sex, even in marriage, is sinful, and even going so far as to very strictly regulate sexual activity.

Speaker 1:

Going so far as to very strictly regulate sexual activity, and this is probably most evident even today, where celibacy is idealized. Think about monks and nuns and priests who their celibacy, their restriction from any kind of sexual activity and or marriage is idealized and held in high regard. And in fact it is intolerable for the religious leaders of the Catholic Church even today, to be married and to have even access to sexual lives. So the dominant and again, this is because marital sex just becomes even less and less tolerated as the medieval church becomes more and more restrictive. The dominant view in this time is that sex is permissible only within marriage, again, only for the purpose of having children Obviously you can see where Augustine's influence comes from there and that any other motive, even the motive of providing pleasure for your spouse, is considered sinful. One writer during this time in the 1100s says the conjugal act is excused only by the intention of procreation. Again, sexual acts for pleasure were explicitly condemned and in fact even moving to being considered as mortal sins.

Speaker 2:

And again that's within marriage as mortal sins and again that's within marriage, like any kind of sexual acts meant solely for pleasure within marriage were at this time now being equated with mortal sins.

Speaker 1:

And these are beliefs not held by the extremists of the time, thomas Aquinas even, who is still greatly regarded as a religious thinker, and many of us would probably agree with many of the things that he had to say. But even Thomas Aquinas believed that any act that was not for the purpose of procreation, that is, any act such as oral sex or contraception of any kind, was a mortal sin, he says. A man who approaches his wife without desire for offspring commits a sin. So if you have sex with any intention of not having children, then you are sinning. In his mind, sex was often linked with shame and impurity, again, views that are rooted in Augustine's belief that sexual desire was the result of original sin, and so this continues to be translated into suspicion about the body and its desires and continues to feed this deep discomfort with sexual pleasure among the religious authorities. St Jerome wrote in the fourth century he who loves his wife too ardently is an adulterer.

Speaker 2:

It's kind of that statement's in stark contrast, isn't it, with Proverbs. It's kind of that statement's in stark contrast, isn't it, with Proverbs? Is it five or six? You know that you're commanded to let your wife's breast satisfy. You be intoxicated by her love.

Speaker 1:

Like it doesn't sound to me like God himself is saying don't love too much. Well, yeah, and even in the book of Hebrews the writer says that let the marriage bed be undefiled. And he goes on to explain the way you don't defile the marriage bed is avoid fornication and adultery.

Speaker 2:

So have marital sex.

Speaker 1:

That's how you keep it undefiled is have sex within your marriage. Peter Lombard in the 12th century said intercourse, even in marriage, is attended by shame. Just it's unbelievable. I mean, even theologians, who permitted marital sex, often insisted that spouses should feel guilty for enjoying it. And then the confession manuals that began to be written during this time start to categorize and scrutinize specific sexual acts in elaborate detail, increasing the association of sex with guilt continued through this time to impose rigid restrictions on when even sex could occur, even for married couples.

Speaker 1:

Sex was forbidden on Sundays. It was forbidden on feast days. It was forbidden during Lent, during Advent, during other times of fast. It was forbidden during menstruation, forbidden during pregnancy, forbidden for long periods of time after childbirth. This meant that at some points in time, depending on where you lived and who your religious leaders were at the time, sex was restricted for over half of the year. Peter sorry.

Speaker 1:

The Burchard of Worms around 1000 AD, wrote that intercourse is forbidden on holy days, lest the seed of death be sown on the day of life. Holiness with sexuality, putting them at odds with each other. That you can't have sex because that's unholy. So you can't have sex on these quote holy days because that would be doing something that was unholy, just completely disregarding the fact that God created sex, that God blessed the sexual relationship and he gave it as a blessing to married couples the sexual relationship, and he gave it as a blessing to married couples. Even within marriage, it became sinful, or it was taught that sex would be sinful if it was too frequent, too pleasurable, again, if it was not for procreation. Sex was sinful if it was initiated by the woman and sex was sinful if it was in a quote unnatural position, whatever that means. The medieval church canonized and systematized a culture of silence, regulation and shame, especially around topics like sexual pleasure, even within marriage, especially around topics like sexual pleasure, even within marriage, and I think we still see that influence today.

Speaker 2:

So it should cause you to stop and say, well, what does the Bible say, how did we end up there and what is it?

Speaker 1:

that God had in mind. Well, last episode we discussed that the Bible is quite clear that sex and sexual desire are created by God as a blessing for his people. Certainly, a purpose for sex is for procreation, but making babies is not the sole purpose for sex creation. But making babies is not the sole purpose for sex. For example, in two places in scripture sex is mentioned as providing comfort for one or both spouses. That is, in Genesis, chapter 24, isaac is comforted by Rebecca after the death of Isaac's mother, and in 2 Samuel 12, mother. And in 2 Samuel 12, david comforts Bathsheba with the sexual relationship after they lose their first child together.

Speaker 1:

So at least in two places sex is mentioned entirely for the purpose of comforting the other spouse. Having nothing to do with procreation in those cases, do with procreation. In those cases Sex is also, of course, for building intimacy, building oneness, creating that one flesh idea together, that one flesh connection together. No-transcript, he is using precise language to describe what sex is for and what it is about. In that case, meant to give this idea of knowing, of intimacy, of building oneness together and connection together. And of course, if you read the Song of Songs, I mean it is quite clear that sex is celebrated as a means to experience connected pleasure and fun and to express love and desire for one another. That is entirely the purpose for and it's entirely how sex is described.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, there's no making babies mentioned in the book of Song of Songs.

Speaker 1:

Not even once in that book does the book talk? Do this married couple talk about making babies or even having babies? They are entirely focused on each other and there is no mention of procreation. Now, to be clear, it is true that both Jesus and Paul spoke about some advantages of celibacy, and they did speak at times about the advantages of being unmarried, both in Matthew 19 and in 1 Corinthians 7. But in both of these cases, the context of these passages and these statements affirm that their advice in these passages is the exception.

Speaker 1:

It is not the ideal, nor is it necessarily the sole recommendation, nor is it praised as being more holy than being married. In fact, the entire rest of God's word idealizes marriage as the norm and it describes marriage. As Jen already said, it describes marriage as a metaphor for God's love for his people. Now it's worth saying that singleness is not inferior to being married either. We're not trying to make that case. That's clearly not the case. Paul and Jesus both speak to the advantages of each. There are advantages to each situation and there are disadvantages.

Speaker 2:

Well, right, because the point being, you should be a worker in the kingdom, in whatever status you're in, and both are temporary. Whether you're single or you're married, that's a temporary way of being here on earth. Yes, and we will be neither when we're in heaven.

Speaker 1:

Right. But God gives marriage in this life for specific purposes and he blesses that connection, he blesses that institution of marriage, he blesses that relationship of marriage. So from the beginning, god's design was that it was not good for man to be alone. He says that directly from the very beginning, the very beginning. So if communion with God alone in this life was sufficient, or even if it was God's ideal design, why then did God give Adam a wife? Why did he create woman, if the ideal was for him not to be married?

Speaker 2:

Well, and at the end of that creation is the statement that it was very good. So God gets to label what's good, not us.

Speaker 1:

Exactly exactly. Proverbs and Ecclesiastes both speak to the joy, the pleasure, the fulfillment of marriage and in both cases the wise men who wrote those passages encourage young men to find a good wife and they encourage women to find fulfillment in their wifely role. The Song of Songs, as we mentioned, is an entire book which celebrates marriage. It's an entire book which celebrates the beauty of the sexual relationship within that covenant of marriage. Many kinds of sexual activities between married couples are described in that book and again, like Jen said, there is not a single mention of children or conception. It is just simply desire and passion and pursuit and connection through the sexual relationship that is described there. In Ephesians 5, paul explains how our earthly marriages reflect the beauty of Christ's love. For the church, I mean the Bible is clear there is nothing less holy or less virtuous about marriage compared to celibacy or virginity.

Speaker 2:

And I think the broader point and the reason we're doing this series, matt, is we just don't recognize that the shame we have allowed to be attached to even the subject of married sex, the reason that this is not talked about and those who are willing to talk about it are shamed, is because we have accepted that which is not biblical.

Speaker 1:

That's exactly right. We have accepted the lies, we have incorporated these pagan philosophies into our thought process and into our religious thought even, and even into how we view morality, and this is true not just for sexuality, this is true even about how we treat our bodies in terms of diet and how we express emotion. That is a whole nother sermon that we'll maybe save for some other context. But we have gone away from what God has defined as good and we have defined something else as good, thinking that if we are more restrictive than what God has put forward, then that somehow makes us more righteous, and that is not true.

Speaker 2:

What it makes us is those who are unwilling to call good what God has called good, yes, and then who throw away the gifts that God has given us.

Speaker 1:

True, we become idolaters, trusting in our own version of what is good, our own practices, our own ideas about what we ought to do, and we are no better than the pagans who put to death their babies because they think that that's the best way to please the gods and to make themselves right. Flat out, I hope we've made our point. Augustine was wrong. He was wrong about sex and marriage, just like Plato and the other Greek philosophers were wrong about sex and marriage. Unfortunately, though, the popularity of their teachings infiltrated the medieval religious culture with wildly unnecessary restrictions, with wildly unnecessary shame, and those restrictions and shame still influence popular religious attitudes even today. So, like we said from the beginning, let's kick these old dudes out of our bedrooms and leave only room for God and for his word to influence our sexual attitudes and behaviors. Specifically, celibacy is not more spiritual than married sex, and also sexual pleasure, is a gift from God to be shared and enjoyed in the marriage bed for both spouses, and sex, then, is for much more than just procreation. All right, so here we are.

Speaker 1:

Last episode was about Plato. This time we talked about Augustine and the medieval church. Next week, we're going to wrap up this history lesson. Keep your applause to yourself. We're going to wrap up this history lesson with talking about the Puritans of the 18th century and beyond, and we're probably going to throw in a little bit of Sigmund Freud just to mix it up a little bit. Little bit of Sigmund Freud, just to mix it up a little bit. And again, you might be surprised how much our modern culture, even modern religious thought, has been influenced even by the depraved ideas of Sigmund Freud. So we'll see, we'll see. Hopefully you'll join us for the next episode as well.

Speaker 2:

Hopefully you'll come back. All right, Matt, give us our wrap up.

Speaker 1:

Modern religious attitudes about sex have deep roots in ancient philosophical and societal ideologies that have converged over the centuries. But not all of our quote religious convictions are based on biblical concepts. During the Middle Ages, the influence of Augustine, with echoes of Greek philosophy, intensified into even more unnecessarily restrictive laws and unbiblical teachings about sex. Contrary to Augustine and contrary to Catholic doctrine, celibacy is not more holy than marriage. The Bible teaches that marriage and the pleasures of married sex are a gift from God.

Speaker 2:

Now it's time to grab your spouse and your Bible and head to your kitchen table to have the conversation about your attitudes about sex. Have either of you been exposed to, teaching or incorporated attitudes that treat sexuality like something worldly or inferior?

Speaker 1:

We would love to hear your feedback. Contact us by emailing podcast at intimatecovenantcom. Or, if you would prefer to submit an anonymous question or feedback, go to intimatecovenantcom slash podcast and you'll find a link to submit an anonymous form.

Speaker 2:

Thanks to all of you for listening, subscribing, rating and sharing the podcast. We're truly humbled by your encouragement and your support. Thanks, especially to our Patreon subscriber for coming alongside us in a very real way. If Intimate Covenant has blessed your marriage, we'd love to have you join us too. Subscribe at patreoncom. Slash intimate covenant.

Speaker 1:

Thanks as always, and until next time, keep striving and don't settle.