Is Sexual Sin and Temptation a Bigger Problem Today Than It Was in the Early Church?

The Hellenistic culture of the Roman Empire in which the church had its beginning had many parallels to modern society. Similar to today’s culture, large numbers of people attached little stigma to “recreational” and uncommitted sex and valued individual sexual “freedom” more than the children resulting from sexual activity. In both cultures, a large proportion of babies are (were) unwanted and killed or aborted. Prostitution was even more socially accepted and widespread in the Roman Empire than it is in the “developed” countries of the modern world. In fact, in a few places—like Corinth, where a city of approximately 100,000 residents reportedly had 1,000 “sacred prostitutes” (hierodule, lit. “temple slave”) serving the temple of Aphrodite, prostitution had a “religious” function.

¹ A large proportion of the population of the empire was enslaved, and slaves had no protection against owners who wished to sexually exploit them. Today, although most of the modern world has outlawed slavery, conditions of forced prostitution and “sex tourism” in many third world countries are strikingly similar to slavery.

On the other hand, there were major differences. Major cities were much smaller than today, and population density much higher. A number of authorities cited by Rodney Stark estimate the size of Ephesus and Antioch, the third- and fourth-largest cities of the Roman Empire, at 200,000 and 150,000 respectively. Corinth, Sardis, and Gadir were at 100,000. Population density was off the charts in terms of modern civilization, with the number of persons per acre averaging about 150. (Modern Calcutta has 122 per acre and Manhattan, with all of its high rises, 100.) By modern standards, there was far less privacy.

Hellenistic society was strongly patriarchal. There was no cheap and reliable means of contraception and no such thing as “sexual liberation” for women. Although Hellenistic women weren’t regarded highly as persons, respectable women were jealously guarded as “sexual possessions” and bearers of legal heirs. Much like women in extreme fundamentalist Jewish, Muslim, and Christian cultures today, women at that time had little opportunity to interact with men outside of their family. There was no dating, and there were few opportunities for unmarried men and respectable women to be alone in private circumstances.

For that matter, women were outnumbered by men. Because girls were less valued than boys, huge numbers of baby girls were “exposed”—abandoned to die of exposure, be killed by wild animals, or raised as slaves. Consequently, there were approximately 14 men for every 10 women in most parts of the Roman Empire.² The circumstances of life were hard, reflected in a short life span and little luxury or leisure.

But the most significant difference between the two cultures is the explosive growth of the modern pornography industry.

The word pornography is rooted in two Greek words: porne´ (which means “prostitute”) and grapho (“write”). The Webster New World Dictionary defines the root meaning of pornography as “writing about prostitutes.” The Greeks also had a word for sexual sin (porneia) directly related to the English terms prostitution and pornography. This word has traditionally been translated “fornication.” In its widest sense, “porneia denotes immorality in general or every kind of sexual transgression.” ³

Due to technology, a new form of sexual immorality has spread throughout the modern world, a form that is more widespread and far-reaching than any form of prostitution in the past. Anyone with cable television, a connection to the Internet, or even regular exposure to magazines marketed in supermarket checkout lanes knows that seductive images are virtually impossible to avoid. What many people do not know is that such seductive and sexually charged images trigger autonomic (automatic) physiological responses. (See the ATQ article, Why Is Pornography Addiction a Serious Problem?) There is little comparison between today’s technologically sophisticated pornography and the crude pornographic drawings and stories of Hellenistic times. Further, the anonymity of contemporary urban culture—especially cable television and the Internet—provide abundant opportunity for anyone to be absorbed into a secret world of sexual fantasy.⁴

It seems a fair assumption that given these circumstances it is a considerably greater challenge for contemporary Christians to maintain their moral integrity in the area of sexuality than it was for early Christians. Christians today are exposed to a barrage of erotic images that induce subliminal physiological and hormonal reactions. These result in compartmentalization: nominal submission to Christian sexual ideals while actually embracing the values of the sexualized culture (in terms of divorce rates, frequency of premarital and extramarital sex, usage of pornography, etc.).⁵

By and large, too many of us have been largely ignoring an unprecedented tidal wave of social change in the area of sexuality.⁶ It’s time for Christians to face the seriousness of the problem.

1. The Greek geographer Strabo wrote this about Corinth in the second decade of the first century AD:
   The temple of Aphrodite was once so rich that it had acquired more than a thousand prostitutes, donated by both men and women to the service of the goddess. And because of them, the city used to be jam-packed and became wealthy. The ship-captains would spend fortunes there, and so the proverb says: “The voyage to Corinth isn’t for just any man.” Back To Article
2. Men greatly outnumbered women in the Greco-Roman world. Dio Cassius, writing in about 200, attributed the declining population of the empire to the extreme shortage of females (The Roman History, 1987 ed.). In his classic work on ancient and medieval populations, J. C. Russell (1958) estimated that there were 131 males per 100 females in the city of Roma, and 140 males per 100 females in Italy, Asia Minor, and North Africa. Russell noted in passing that sex ratios this extreme can occur only when there is “some tampering with human life” (1958:14). And tampering there was. Exposure of unwanted female infants and deformed male infants was legal, morally accepted, and widely practiced by all social classes in the Greco-Roman world (Fox 1987; Gorman 1982; Pomeroy 1975; Russell 1958). Lindsay reported that even in large families “more than one daughter was practically never reared” (1968:168). A study of inscriptions at Delphi made it possible to reconstruct six hundred families. Of these, only six had raised more than one daughter (Lindsay 1968). (Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity, p. 97.) Back To Article
3. “In 1 Corinthians 5:1, porneia is rightly translated in the RSV by ‘immorality,’ which term it properly uses also in 1 Corinthians 5:11” (Elwell, Evangelical Dictionary of Theology). Back To Article
4. “We describe pornography as any sexually explicit material that is intended to be or is used as a sexual outlet. Our definition doesn’t rest on how sexually graphic porn is or on the nature of its subject matter, but rather on the type of relationship a person develops with the sexual material. Unlike sex education materials, which provide accurate information about sex, and erotic art and literature, which are produced to celebrate the human body and sexuality, the goal of porn is to sexually arouse and, ultimately, involve the consumer in a sexual relationship with it” (Wendy and Larry Maltz, The Porn Trap: The Essential Guide to Overcoming Problems Caused by Pornography, p. 15). Back To Article
5. “There’s something tired about religious figures decrying pornography. Christian magazines and ministers are supposed to broadcast jeremiads about visual fornication. In fact, our condemnation is part of pornography’s appeal for its users. And, as it happens, they are often us: In a landmark 2000 Christianity Today survey, 40 percent of clergy acknowledged visiting pornographic websites; another survey in 2002 reported 21 percent do so regularly. A 2002 survey at Pastors.com reported that 50 percent of pastors had viewed pornography in the previous year” (Jason Byassee, “Not Your Father’s Pornography”). Back To Article
6. “In the ten years since we noted growing problems with porn among our own clients, the sheer volume of porn has grown exponentially, as has the ease of getting access to it. As a result, the number of people across the United States and in the world who have developed—and are developing—problems with it has been increasing substantially. Couples and families break up over porn. Single people say their preoccupation with it makes them feel less capable of establishing monogamous, long-term intimate relationships. Self-identified sexual addicts who have spent years in successful recovery, relapse with porn, often in more destructive ways than ever before. . . .
   “Most porn users we’ve counseled or spoken with are surprised at how easily porn transformed from an occasional diversion or fantasy to a habitual problem that has the potential to destroy almost every aspect of their real lives. What began as fun, escapist sexual entertainment, or a brief but thrilling visit to a taboo world, became a trap. Like quicksand, pornography sucked them in so steadily and quietly that they often didn’t even notice they were sinking. For some, porn swallowed up their whole lives, dragging down their relationships, their jobs, their self-esteem, and even their dreams and desires. . . .

   “The depth of the problem on the partners of porn users was driven home to us when we learned that two-thirds of the members of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers reported that compulsive Internet use had played a significant role in divorces in 2002 and that well over 50 percent of those cases involved pornography. Eight years earlier, pornography played almost no role in divorce.

   “Intimate partners not only worry about whether they can continue to live with the porn user, they also often worry about their children being exposed to porn. Their fears are real—it is not uncommon for children to discover a parent’s porn stash or mimic a parent’s attitudes about sexual behavior and pornography. And if one parent regularly uses porn and the other feels demeaned by it, a child can grow up with a confused sense of what is sexually appropriate and healthy. Partners often feel emotionally abandoned, powerless, and unable to help themselves or their children. Clearly, the porn trap doesn’t just trap the user” (Wendy and Larry Maltz, The Porn Trap: The Essential Guide to Overcoming Problems Caused by Pornography, Introduction). Back To Article