Did Consensual Same-Sex Sexual Relationships Exist in Biblical Times? A Response to Matthew Vines

By Preston Sprinkle, President of the Center for Faith, Sexuality, and Gender

 

Matthew Vines from the Reformation Project has recently released a video series where he offers an extensive biblical defense of an affirming view of same-sex marriage. There’s one video in particular that I would like to respond to, since it critiques some things I’ve said about the existence of consensual same-sex sexual relationships in the ancient world. The video is titled: “Did Same-Sex Marriage Exist in the Biblical World? A Response to N.T. Wright and Preston Sprinkle.” 

 

If you’re interested in following along, it would be helpful for you to pull up the transcript of Vines’s talk to see exactly what I’m responding to. I want to make sure I’m not misrepresenting anything Vines says, and if I am, I want the reader to be well aware of this, which can only happen if you’re familiar with his actual critiques. 

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Vines spends the bulk of the video critiquing my view, which I sum up in my book People to Be Loved:

 

There is at least some evidence for consensual ‘peer’ same-sex relations [in the Greco-Roman era]. That is, there were men and women who engaged in same-sex relations that were mutual, consensual, interdependent, loving, and committed. These were the minority, but they certainly existed. (People, 62).

 

Vines goes through all the examples I give to support this claim and argues either that my interpretation is incorrect, or that there are other ways to interpret the references I give. I’m going to respond to most of Vines’s claims below, but I would first like to thank Vines for taking the time to dig into the literature—both ancient and modern—surrounding this topic. I’ve often found Vines to be among the more well-read and studious contributors to this conversation, even though we find ourselves in serious disagreement over important questions related to faith and sexuality. 

 

Before I dive in, I need to make two important preliminary points. First, this specific part of the debate is peripheral rather than central to our overall understanding of marriage. That is, whether sex difference is intrinsic to Christian marriage does not rest on whether we have literary or archaeological evidence for consensual same-sex sexual relationships in the ancient world. Even if Vines is right in his critique of my work—and I don’t believe he is—this would not make for a very compelling argument for same-sex marriage today. The theological debate about same-sex marriage is just that—a debate about the meaning of marriage. Specifically, what is marriage? What is marriage for? What is sex for? And, most fundamentally—can it be shown from Scripture that sex difference is not essential for the meaning and purpose of marriage? 

 

The historically Christian view of marriage says that sex difference is an intrinsic part of what marriage is and what marriage is for, while an affirming view of same-sex marriage says that sex difference is not essential. We would have to first show theologically that sex difference is not an essential part of what marriage is, before we wonder whether the biblical writers could have considered ancient same-sex sexual relationships to be marriages.[1]

 

I’ve tried to show elsewhere that the theological and canonical context of Scripture bakes sex difference into the very meaning and purpose of marriage in a way that transcends any particular cultural context.[2] Vines, of course, disagrees with this, but my point is: this is the heart of the disagreement. The existence or non-existence of loving, committed, consensual same-sex sexual relationships is an exciting academic question that lives at the periphery of the modern debates about marriage. And I’m very eager to make whatever correctives I need to make in light of Vines’s critique for the sake of being an honest student of history. As you’ll see shortly, I do need to correct some things that Vines has rightly pointed out that I either got wrong or wasn’t as clear as I could have been. 

 

Another important thing I’d like to point out has to do with the source material we’re using to reconstruct ancient history. Most of what we know (or think we know) about the Greco-Roman world, including its sexual practices and beliefs, comes from Greco-Roman literature. But who wrote this literature? For the most part, men did. And not just any men. Elite literate men. Since only about 10% of the population was literate during this time, the perspective we’re given comes from this 10%. We have little direct access to the perspective of the lives of the 90%. Other pieces of evidence from pottery, vase paintings, graffiti, wall-frescos, etc. can give us a little more insight to life “on the ground,” but it’s largely the literature left behind from the male elites that we’re working with. And most of the men who penned the literature weren’t just literate; they were elite men of high status, sequestered in wealthy urban centers of the empire, where they had little to no contact with the large majority of common people in smaller cities or rural areas. 

 

In other words, our window into the Greco-Roman world is a small and foggy one, clouded by the perspectives of wealthy, literate, elite men living in social compounds walled off from the rest of society. Methodologically, then, relying on Greco-Roman literature to tell us everything we need to know about all the types of same-sex sexual relationships that existed at that time is quite limiting. It’s like asking Donald Trump to tell us what life is like for an African American single mom living in Alaska. No doubt, Trump would have something to say. I’m just not sure it would be the most reliable description. 

 

The same goes for our conversation. The argument that adult consensual same-sex relations didn’t exist in Greco-Roman times rests largely on the literature left behind by elite men. This is, of course, methodologically suspicious, if not reckless. It relies on the perspective of a few wealthy, elite, literate men to tell us everything we need to know about the sexual practices and desires of common people who weren’t nestled at the top of the social pyramid. The literature simply doesn’t give us an unbiased comprehensive picture of life on the ground. We don’t know, first hand, if any slaves fell in love with other slaves of the same sex, or whether an illiterate shop keeper in Italy had a secret Brokeback Vesuvius affair with his male coworker. Few of these lower-class people left behind personal testimonies of their actual lives. (Some recent papyri give us a little glimpse, but that’s about it.) Maybe none of the non-elites engaged in consensual same-sex sexual relationships, or maybe they did. It’s hard to tell. The closest testimony we have from someone who lived among the lower classes, who was literate and whose writings we have access to, is—the Apostle Paul. 

 

Paul was a literate Roman citizen, which gives him a moderately high social standing. However, he was also a blue-collar worker (a tentmaker) and a Jew who rubbed shoulders with people of all social classes. And he wrote in common language (Koine Greek) to common people. (My Latin professor used to refer to Paul’s Greek as “kitchen Greek.”) Paul gives us a unique window into the beliefs and practices of real people wrestling with their faith and sexuality. The point is: Paul’s letters shouldn’t just be read against the background of Greco-Roman literature, but read as Greco-Roman literature. 

 

On three occasions, Paul mentions same-sex sexual relations (Rom 1:26-27; 1 Cor 6:9; 1 Tim 1:9), and on every occasion he prohibits them. And the language he uses contains no clear references to pederasty, abuse, or nonconsensual relationships. Paul’s unique wording, as a Jewish-Roman writer, is perhaps a better reflection of the actual practices and struggles of early converts living in the Roman world than what we find in the literature of elite, wealthy, Greco-Roman authors. 

 

For sure, the most widespread kind of same-sex sexual experience that was accepted by Roman culture was one where a higher status man was the active partner with a lower status boy or man. This was still the prevailing view. But, as many scholars recognize (I don’t really think this is widely disputed), the first century was a time of profound social changes, where norms and expectations for sexual relationships were being challenged by a growing number of people.[3] And we have some evidence from our cloudy literature that same-sex sexual relationships, which didn’t fit the dominant pattern, were part of this social disruption. And these match the language of mutuality that Paul uses in, for instance, Romans 1. 

 

Classics scholar Kyle Harper points this out in his book From Shame to Sin. He notes that “there is surely enough testimony from the imperial era to posit the existence of men who openly flaunted dominant sexual norms…There is, in fact, more evidence for frank sexual dissidence in the Roman Empire than for any other period before early modernity.”[4] Harper then shows that Paul’s language about same-sex sexual relationships does not reflect the same logic as his fellow Roman contemporaries who also describe same-sex sexual relationships. Referring to Romans 1:26-27, Harper writes: 

 

The very language of “males” and “females” stood apart from the prevailing idiom of “men” and “boys,” “women” and “slaves.” By reducing the sex act down to the most basic constituents of male and female, Paul was able to redescribe the sexual culture surrounding him in transformative terms.[5]

 

In short, we shouldn’t just interpret Paul in light his Greco-Roman context, but as an important contribution to our knowledge of that context. And Paul seems to be describing same-sex sexual relationships that did not fit the common pattern of man/boy or dominator/dominated. 

 

With all that in mind, let’s dive into some of Vines’s critiques of my work. Again, in my book People to Be Loved, I said: 

 

There is at least some evidence for consensual ‘peer’ same-sex relations [in the Greco-Roman era]. That is, there were men and women who engaged in same-sex relations that were mutual, consensual, interdependent, loving, and committed. These were the minority, but they certainly existed. (People, 62)

 

Then, on page 63, I said: 

 

Consensual, same-sex love—even marriages—can be found among women around the time of Paul. 

 

My first paragraph is, I believe, correct, as long as we don’t understand all of these ingredients (consensual, loving, committed, mutual, etc.) to be necessarily at play in every relationship I cite. Some relationships might have been between peers, but not particularly committed. Others might have been loving but not exclusive. But that’s true of every era. Even today, a porn star could be in a consensual sexual relationship for a few minutes, but it’s certainly not loving or committed. A lifelong marriage could be committed and consensual, but not necessarily loving. Even a relationship that is loving, committed, and consensual could still have power differences at play: a wealthy older man married to a younger less-wealthy woman. A wealthy, Enneagram 8 female MMA champion married to a poor, introverted younger man who specializes in video games. Or whatever. Power differences don’t nullify a marriage, and they can exist alongside consent and commitment. 

 

My main point is this: in the first century, the culturally accepted forms of same-sex sexual relationship (which ran along the lines of dominator/dominated, man/boy, slave/master kinds of relationships) were being challenged, and we have some evidence (in our foggy, biased literature) of consensual, or loving, or mutual, or same-status kinds of same-sex relationships, especially among women. 

 

My second statement (that “same-sex love—even marriages” existed among women) needs some attention, since it could be misleading. If by “marriage” I mean a marriage that is legally recognized by Rome, then this would be inaccurate. But marriage during the imperial Roman era was a somewhat flexible concept. Bernadette Brooten puts it like this: 

 

Marriage…was a complete hodgepodge of customs and laws. Matrimony—Latin matrimonium—was reserved for Roman citizens, which the Roman state regulated. Enslaved persons were not allowed to marry, but could enter into an informal union called, in Latin, contubernium. People conquered by the Romans had many forms of marriage, including within each culture, which they did not necessarily register with any official. You didn’t have to go to a notary public or anything to register a marriage, but you could. Marriage between women and men was not a uniform institution regulated by or even required to be registered with the state.[6]

 

Marriage, in other words, too many forms in the ancient world. My parenthetical phrase—“even marriages”—wasn’t intended to mean “legal marriages formally recognized by Rome,” but I should have been clearer. More recently, whenever I speak on the topic of female same-sex relationships in the ancient world, I typically say some of them were “marriage-like” or “were described with marital language,” rather than simply saying they were “marriages,” to avoid confusion. Vines himself comes very close to what I was trying to say when he acknowledged in a footnote that some “texts may indicate that some men had relationships with other men that they considered to be equivalent to marriages.”[7]

 

In any case, let’s work through some of Vines’s critiques of my examples of same-sex sexual relationships in the Greco-Roman world. 

 

Male Same-Sex Sexual Relationships

 

One of the examples I cite is from Plato, who references Parmenides and Zeno as a relationship that, in my words, “wasn’t mere pederasty” since “Zeno, his lover, was forty years old.” (Pederasty is between an older man and a teenage boy.) Vines says my statement “is simply a misreading of the text” and then he cites the following English translation of Plato to prove that Zeno was a youth when he was beloved by Parmenides: 

 

Zeno was nearly 40 years of age, tall and fair to look upon; in the days of his youth he was reported to have been beloved by Parmenides.

 

The phrase “in the days of his youth” that Vines highlights isn’t in the original Greek text, which reads: kai legesthai auton paidika tou Parmenidou gegonenai. This can literally be translated, “and he was said to have become paidika to Parmenides.” The word paidika is an adjective that most often means “boyish” or “like a child.” When it’s used to mean “darling” or “beloved”—as it is here—it usually implies the youthfulness of the beloved person. However, it’s unclear from the text whether the romantic relationship between these men was restricted to Zeno’s youthful years or continued into adulthood. The key phrase is “have become” (gegonenai), which is a perfect infinitive and to my knowledge is a bit ambiguous in conveying the time of the relationship; that is, it’s tough to say whether their relationship was only a thing of the past, or whether there was some ongoing relationship. (For those who care: Typically, perfect verb forms imply that something began in the past and has ongoing present implications. The perfect infinitive isn’t as concerned about time as, say, the perfect indicative, but even this is debated.)  I emailed several scholars who know Classical Greek way better than I do, and they all agreed that, according to this one passage in Plato, the time of Zeno and Parmenides’ relationship is somewhat ambiguous; we can’t say for sure whether it concluded before Zeno’s adulthood or continued into the present. However, given Plato’s choice of the word paidika, which connects belovedness to youthfulness, it’s probably more likely that the relationship was a thing of the past.

 

In short, I think Vines is probably right. I’m not sure if I was relying on a poor English translation when I wrote my book, or if I didn’t look closely at the Greek. I think Vines’s accusation that my take “is simply a misreading of the text” could be accurate if he knows classical Greek, but is perhaps a bit ambitious if he does not. The text is more complicated than English translations make it out to be. In any case, without corroborating evidence that Zeno and Parmenides were in a sexual relationship as adults, I’m going to stop using this as an example. 

 

Vines also critiques my reference to Achilles and Patroklos of Homer’s Iliad as being in a relationship that was “homoerotic and consensual” (People, 62). Vines points out that the Iliad never describes their relationship as sexual, even though “it’s true that several centuries after the Iliad was written, some ancient Greek writers interpreted Achilles and Patroclus’s relationship as sexual” (Vines). 

 

But this is exactly what I said in my book: “The relationship between the epic Greek heroes Achilles and Patroklos was considered by many ancient authors to be homoerotic and consensual.” Indeed, Aeschylus, Xenophon, Aeschines, Pindar, and even Plato interpreted their relationship as sexual. (Which does raise the question: are modern scholars and writers like Vines better interpreters of the Illiad than these ancient writers?) I guess I wasn’t as interested in Homer’s original intent (which, of course, we don’t have access to) as I was in the influential ideas about sexual relationships that Homer’s work might have spawned. Whatever the source’s intent, it seems rather clear that the nature of Achilles and Patroklos’ sexual relationship was a live discussion in the Greek era, and I’m more interested in how this story influenced the lives of real people on the ground. 

 

Next, Vines critiques my reference to Zenophon’s portrayal of Hippothous and Hyperanthes in his novel An Ephesian Tale. I based this on Hippothous’s description of his relationship with Hyperanthes: 

 

Our first steps in lovemaking were kisses and caresses, while I shed floods of tears. And at last we were able to take our opportunity to be alone with each other; we were both the same age, and no one was suspicious. For a long time we were together, passionately in love, until some evil spirit envied us.

 

I had to re-read Vines’s point a few times, because he seems to agree with my interpretation here. He simply says that Hippothous and Hyperanthes “had to keep their relationship a secret because their ages meant that it wouldn’t have been accepted,” which is true. After all, the only accepted kind of same-sex relationship was between two unequals (in terms of age, status, etc.). 

 

Well, of course. I never said that consensual, same-age, same-status relationships were common or accepted. I only said that we have some evidence suggesting that they existed. The fact that Hippothous and Hyperanthes were challenging social norms fits perfectly with what we know about what was going on throughout the Roman empire during this time. The fact that they had to keep their relationship a secret shows that these kinds of same-sex relationships weren’t acceptable in some circles of the empire; the fact that it’s part of The Ephesian Tale shows that these relationships were common enough to be a trope in a work of popular literature.

 

I don’t have much to say about my reference to Tatius’ novel, since Vines basically just summarizes what I already said. The two male lovers depicted in the novel were 20 and 16 years old and in a pederastic relationship. This age difference is actually smaller than many opposite sex marriages in ancient times, and even the latter often had power differences. It would be anachronistic to say that the biblical writers only had a problem with these kinds of relationships because of the age difference or difference in power. If we were able to transport biblical writers to the modern western world, where they could witness same-age, same-sex sexual relationships where there were no power differences, would the biblical writers then say, “Ah, now those relationships could be marriages”? I’m skeptical. 

 

Next, Vines critiques me for taking the Satyricon’s portrayal of Encolpius and Ascyltos as “two male lovers…who are equal in age and status” and as a “consensual, nonexploitative, mutual love-relationship.” Vines thinks that their relationship “is not depicted as being in a ‘love relationship’” and is certainly not “lifelong or monogamous.”

 

Vines makes several mistakes here, but I want to first say that Vines is right to point out that “mutual love” might not be the best phrase to describe the relationship between Encolpius and Ascyltos. Their relationship does appear to be consensual, and the fact that they were of similar age and social standing was really the main thing I was trying to draw attention to, since it departs from the typical pattern of active/passive or dominator/dominated. But my phrase “mutual love” makes it sound like their relationship was presented as super healthy and honorable, which I don’t believe. 

 

So, to Matthew’s mistakes. First, I never said their relationship was “lifelong or monogamous,” just that it involved two men who were “equal in age and status.” Pointing out that it wasn’t “monogamous” begs the question. Of course it wasn’tmonogamous, because it wasn’t a gamos (“marriage”). 

 

Second, Vines rightly observes that Enclopius and Ascyltos also slept with other people. (And maybe this is what Vines meant by saying it wasn’t “monogamous.”) But I never said they didn’t. My main point was that their sexual relationship didn’t follow the accepted pattern where the dominant partner was higher in age and status and that it’s striking that the author “doesn’t make a big stink about their relationship—as if it’s some weird, crazy, abnormal thing” (People, 63). 

 

Lastly, their relationship was sexual, as several scholars recognize. Enclopius and Ascyltos often refer to each other as fratres, which typically means “brother” but, as classics scholar Amy Richlin points out, frater “in the Satyrica sometimes means ‘boyfriend’” and is used in this sense to describe Encolpius and Ascyltos’ relationship (along with other sexual relationships in the work).[8] For instance, Ascyltos says to Encolpius: “Seeing as how I was your frater the same way in the garden that the boy [i.e. Giton] is now in this motel?" (Satyr. 9.6-10).[9] (Encolpius and Giton were clearly in a sexual relationship.) Richlin, who wrote her Ph.D. dissertation on sexual terms in the Satyricon and other similar texts, says this about frater: “What is interesting about this term is that it implies equality and interchangeability among an indefinite number, unlike the man/boy norm…which defines hierarchical pairs with no role switching allowed.”[10] Historian Laura Dunn likewise says: “The Satyricon is unique for its presentation of the same-sex relationship between coevals which is not derided or labelled inappropriate,” which suggests that “a same-sex relationship between coevals was at least a cognitive and cultural possibility in first-century Rome.”[11] 

  

 

Bernadette Brooten and Female Same-Sex Marriages 

 

Vines then critiques all my references to female same-sex sexual relationships. He points out that I’m following the interpretation of Bernadette Brooten, who’s done some groundbreaking work on female same-sex relations in the ancient world.[12] Vines says he really respects Brooten, but “her book also received criticism from other scholars specifically for her interpretations of these days, and Brooten herself has responded to those critiques by significantly qualifying her claims about them.” He then cites a lecture Brooten recently gave where, according to Vines, she “significantly qualified her claims.” 

 

That Brooten’s book “received criticism from other scholars” is kind of a yawner for anyone who’s written a scholarly book. Scholars critiquing other scholars is just the air we breathe. In any case, I was eager to watch Brooten’s lecture to see, apparently, all the ways in which she changed or “significantly qualified” her previous research, because Vines made it sound like she walked back several of her previous claims. I watched the whole lecture twice and transcribed almost ½ of it, just to be sure I’m understanding her correctly. And honestly, her lecture bore little resemblance to Vines’s interpretation of it. Brooten’s lecture is largely a prolonged defense of her previous work, and she responds to several of her critics’ claims. But don’t take my word for it. Brooten’s lecture (https://youtu.be/3vTV0I-dmGU) and Vines’s interpretation (https://reformationproject.org/same-sex-marriage-homosexuality-biblical-world/) are both available online. I would encourage anyone who’s interested to watch both of them and see what you think.

 

For instance, Vines points out that Brooten said during her lecture: “I have to live with the uncertainty of my hypotheses, for I can hardly prove anything.” He then says: “So that’s the big picture for all of the texts that Sprinkle cites.” 

 

I’m not sure about you, but in my opinion (and I could be wrong), it makes it sound like I’m simply relying on the work of a scholar who’s now shrugging her shoulders in defeat, grieving the flaws of her previous work. But here’s the full context of Brooten’s statement (which is at about the 5min mark; please do watch it for yourself): 

 

Those of us who work to paint a historical picture of life in the ancient world are by necessity detectives. This applies even more to those of us working in women’s history, which for the ancient Mediterranean I call prehistory, owing to the dearth of the sources. I have to live with the uncertainty of my hypotheses, for I can hardly prove anything. But the joy of detective work on very ancient and obscure lives outweighs my desire to prove something.

 

In my reading, this doesn’t feel like the perspective of a scholar significantly qualifying her claims because her work has been severely critiqued. It’s simply the words of a wise historian of ancient history—ancient “women’s history,” which suffers from a “dearth of the sources.” No historian can claim absolute certainty about what actually happened. I don’t know any honest ancient historian who wouldn’t echo Brooten’s sentiment. But this doesn’t mean historians, like Brooten, don’t do their best to look at the evidence we have and do “detective work;” that is, reconstruct, to the best of their ability, some kind of historical situation, which is exactly what Brooten did in her previous work and which she defends in this lecture. 

 

Throughout Vines’s examination of the various texts that Brooten cites, he primarily follows the work of one of Brooten’s critics, Alan Cameron,[13] but does not mention Brooten’s critiques of Cameron nor the evidence she gives in her response to Cameron. I won’t go through them all, but here are few examples. 

 

Cameron critiques Brooten’s interpretation of Lucian’s Dialogue of the Courtesans, which I follow in my book. Here’s the text where Lucian describes a relationship between two women using marital terms:

 

My name is Megillos, and I’ve been married (gegameka propalai) to Demonassa here for ever so long; she’s my wife.

 

Cameron (whom Vines relies upon) does not deny that the relationship is sexual and consensual, but points out that it’s not monogamous or a legal marriage. How does Brooten respond? 

 

“Obviously,” Brooten says, “but perhaps Cameron’s understanding of marriage is too limited for this satirical work.” Brooten reminds us that “we are certainly not talking about legally recognized marriage” and that she never said it was monogamous, only that “some [women] refer to their partners as if they’re lawful wives.” 

 

Brooten’s next statement is quite significant for the point I was trying to make in my book: “Cameron agrees with me that some female couples lived openly” and “refer to their partners as if they’re lawful wives.” She then cites Cameron himself: “There can be little doubt that female couples who openly lived together were a not uncommon feature of the observant Ptolemy’s everyday world.”[14]  

 

Again, what I said in my book was this: 

 

Consensual, same-sex love—even marriages—can be found among women around the time of Paul. 

 

Brooten and Cameron both agree that “female couples who openly lived together were a not uncommon feature” and that some of these relationships were described as marriages (even though they weren’t legal marriages). This is all I was trying to say in my book. Vines’s critique does not offer a better reading of this passage, and it borders on misrepresenting both Brooten and Cameron.   

 

A second example comes from Ptolemy of Alexandria. In my book, I said: 

 

The early Christian theologian Clement of Alexandria refers to women-women marriage. And Ptolemy of Alexandria, a famous second-century scholar of many trades, refers to women taking other women as “lawful wives.”

 

We’ll get to Clement of Alexandria in a second. Let’s first discuss Ptolemy’s statement. Vines helpfully quotes Ptolemy’s entire statement: “sometimes they refer to the women with whom they are on such terms as though they were actually their legal wives.” In my book, I only quoted the last two words “legal (or lawful) wives” and it would have been better for me to quote the entire sentence, since it contains the phrase “as though” (Greek: hosper). Again, I never argued that these relationships actually were legal marriages. But it still would have been better for me to quote the entire line for clarity’s sake, and I’ll do so in the future. In short, Ptolemy seems to refer to female same-sex relationships that were believed to have a kind of marriage-like character, which was my original point.  

 

Clement of Alexandria, writing around the same time as Ptolemy and from the same region, also references female marriages in his Paidagogos: 

 

[Luxury] confounds nature; men passively play the role of women and women behave like men in that women, contrary to nature, are given in marriage and marry (other women) (gamoumenai te kai gamousai gynaikes). (Paidagogos 3.3.21.3) [15] 

 

In seeking to understand this passage, Vines once again relies on Alan Cameron when argues: 

 

But as Alan Cameron has argued and as Bernadette Brooten has acknowledged, the word Clement of Alexandria used in this line of his book Paidagogos can either mean “to marry” or simply “to have sex with.” And either way, Brooten has argued that Clement’s comment may simply be “part of a broader dystopian view of the debauched other,” not a description of his actual social context.

 

The way Vines describes Brooten’s interpretation appears quite misleading when you watch the full context of Brooten’s lecture. Here’s a fuller picture of Brooten’s response (at around the 9 min mark) to Cameron: 

 

In my book Love Between Women: Early Christian Responses to Female Homoeroticism, I suggested… that some women conceptualized their relationship with another woman as a marriage. As expected, this has drawn some positive and some critical responses. That would be what you would expect…. Classicists Alan Cameron and Roger Bagnall each wrote an article disputing my conclusions…. Classicist Alan Cameron questioned my interpretation of Clement—this passage in front of you—arguing that the gam—the GAM root—in the Greek text that I cite can mean something other than marriage, namely to have sex, especially of the licentious or shameful variety. In response, while Cameron plausibly showed that gameo etc. can mean simply sex and not marriage, he did not prove that it cannot mean marriage in the texts that I discussed. He concedes that gameo in Clement can mean to marry, but he cites other examples in which it can simply mean to have sex. His argument for it meaning something other than sex here is, and I quote him, “Why repeat the verb in both passive and active? His point must be that some women play the husband and some the wife in these unions.” I agree with Cameron that the active and passive forms of the verb refer to different roles, but active and passive are the foundational categories for both sex and marriage in the ancient Mediterranean. Clement surely knew that Emperor Nero (AD 37-68) had publicly celebrated marriages to other males. In one, Nero was the groom, yet while in at least one other ceremony, he was the bride, complete with veil. And Clement may well have heard of other aristocratic men who celebrated marriages to other males.

 

At around the 12:45 mark, Brooten continues to push back on Cameron’s criticism of her interpretation of Ptolemy’s statement about “legal wives”: 

 

Cameron’s critique is, “If these marriages could be compared to marriages, they were obviously not marriages.” But as Cameron is not claiming that legal wives does not mean legal wives—but rather that they were not actuallylegal wives—I am not arguing that they were legal wives, either, but rather that some women may have conceptualized their relationships that way.

 

Brooten adds further proof to her interpretation: 

 

An early fifth century astrological work by Hephaestion of Thebes replicates the reference to lawful wives, which shows that it continued to be known and circulated.  

 

At around 14:28, Brooten continues:

 

My proposal that some women may have been in long-term relationships with other women—relationships that they viewed as marriages—elicited, as I mentioned, both agreement and disagreement. So, classicist Alan Cameron, who I have just mentioned, questions my interpretation and writes, that my case for marriage between women “rests essentially on four Greek texts.” That is, Clement of Alexandria, Ptolemy of Alexandria, and two that I will discuss shortly. Cameron, however, simply ignores my discussion of an ancient rabbinic text known as the Sifra. And that is significant, because the Hebrew verb nasa unambiguously means to marry and not to have sex.

 

Soak all this in, and then let’s return to Vines’s summary of Brooten’s interaction with the statements in Ptolomy and Clement, and her interaction with Cameron:

 

But as Alan Cameron has argued and as Bernadette Brooten has acknowledged, the word Clement of Alexandria used in this line of his book Paidagogos can either mean “to marry” or simply “to have sex with.” And either way, Brooten has argued that Clement’s comment may simply be “part of a broader dystopian view of the debauched other,” not a description of his actual social context. (Vines) 

 

I’ll let you decide if you think Vines is fairly representing Brooten. 

 

I also want to point out that Brooten’s nuanced language (both interpretations are possible, or there are various ways to read the text, or this word could mean this or could mean that, etc.) is typical of erudite scholars. I loved how Brooten fielded questions at the end of her lecture and basically entertained everyone’s ideas as possible and liked to ask “what do you think it means?” with a warm smile. When I was in my doctoral program at Aberdeen University, it took me a while to interpret such subtleties. In our seminars, professors would push back on each other and often say, “I’m not sure I’m quite convinced yet,” which seemed to mean, “Your argument holds as much weight as a wet paper bag.” Brooten’s tone throughout her lecture sounds the same. As a good scholar, she’ll say that various interpretations are possible. And then she’ll proceed to graciously and sometimes quite subtly dismantle them. It’s what seasoned scholars do.  

 

Back to my take on Clement and Ptolemy of Alexandria. In sum, I’m not saying that the relationships they describe actually were legal marriages, only that they were described using marital language, which suggests some level of love, commitment, and perhaps consent, and that they were not pederastic or oppressive, where one higher status member was dominating the lower status one. 

 

Vines critiques my take on a Jewish document called Sifra on Leviticus 18:3. He says:

 

Sprinkle writes that “two Jewish documents that were written shortly after the New Testament refer to (and forbid) female marriages that were happening in their day,” and he argues in his endnote that this “would be superfluous if such marriages were unknown.” 

 

The text I was referring to reads:

 

A man married (Heb: nasa) a man and a woman a woman, and a man married a woman and her daughter, and a woman was married to two men. (Sifra on Lev. 18:3)

 

Vines surprisingly says that this text “was written more than a millennium after the time it purportedly describes” and even then, “this text is highly questionable as a source of historical fact.” 

 

I had to read Vines’s first statement a few times. Pointing out that the midrash was describing events that happen more than a millennium before it was written suggests that Vines doesn’t really know how Jewish midrash works. The rabbis weren’t simply writing as cool historians trying to figure out facts about the historical context of the passages they’re interpreting. Their interpretation of the texts they are reading reveals more about their own current social context than about the ancient, Mesopotamian situation of the original writings they are interpreting. And I don’t think this is terribly disputed among scholars of rabbinic literature.[16] I think Brooten captures what most rabbinic scholars would take for granted when she says: “The rabbinic sages whose views Sifra represents apparently believed that female homoeroticism in the form of a long-term commitment was wrong and sought a biblical verse to prove it. They found it in Lev 18:3.”[17] 

 

In any case, Vines says that 

 

Brooten commends rabbinic scholar Laliv Clenman, who she says “persuasively reads” this text, not as a description of reality, but as a dystopian alternative universe “in which women are legal agents and able to marry in a way that renders men subservient or irrelevant.” 

 

To be clear, Brooten never said that Clenman has proven that same-sex female marriages didn’t actually exist in ancient times. She simply says Clenman’s interpretation is possible and could work for the Sifra text. But her comment that Clenman “persuasively reads” the text does not mean Brooten agreed with Clenman. Brooten’s entire lecture is largely a defense of her earlier work which sought to show that female marriages did exist (again, not legally) back then. In fact, Brooten later offers several arguments against Clenman’s interpretation (none of which are mentioned by Vines). For instance, Brooten says:

 

Clenman, however, focuses solely on the text of the Sifra. Had she considered the other sources, she might have considered other interpretive possibilities.

 

“Might have considered other interpretive possibilities” is a classy, scholarly way of saying that someone’s interpretation is probably wrong. One of the other sources Brooten suggests Clenman should consider is a recently discovered letter (which dates to about the late 3^rd century AD) where the mother writes to her daughter and says: “You wrote to me—your wife (he gyne sou) in your name—and I sold the wine at twice what I bought it for.”[18] (Vines, by the way, never mentions this artifact.) As a careful scholar, Brooten surveys various interpretations to this letter, but gives strong evidence that it should be taken in its most straight forward sense: the mother’s daughter was in a relationship with another woman that they considered to be a marriage (even if it wasn’t an actual legal marriage). 

 

I went back and read Clenman’s article on the Sifra text, and in my opinion it didn’t seem to be blistering with evidence for her view.[19] In any case, I didn’t understand her to be saying that consensual female same-sex sexual relationships didn’t exist in the time the Sifra was written. She only seemed to be saying that they weren’t actual marriages and that the author of the Sifra was sort of creating a world (akin to science fiction) where women were actually marrying other women. But I could be wrong. 

 

Lastly, Vines says that I interpreted a funeral relief too confidently as referring to a same-sex couple. He says: 

 

Sprinkle cites a funeral relief from the time of Caesar Augustus in which he says “two women are holding hands in a way that resembles ‘the classic gesture of ancient Roman married couples.’” This funerary relief can be found today at the British Museum in London, but while the British Museum’s own catalogue notes that some interpreters have seen the two women as lovers, it gives greater weight to other interpretations. In particular, Susan Walker, an archaeologist who specializes in the study of Roman art, has argued that the women were more likely to have been mother and daughter than to have been lovers. Walker wrote that the woman on the left “appear[s] to be about a generation older than the woman on the right,” and she further observed that “…the deceased woman [is looking] vacantly into space,” in contrast to most married couples, who are shown looking at each other.  We can’t know for sure what the nature of these women’s relationship was; we can only make educated guesses.

 

I appreciate Vines’s cautionary note at the end, that “we can only make educated guesses.” Of course, that’s true when interpreting any ancient artifact. Pretty much every claim about ancient history is subject to “educated guesses”—that’s just how historical research works. The question is: which “educated guess” has the best evidence to support its conclusion?

 

What I wish Vines would have at least acknowledged is that the funeral relief depicts two women holding hands in what resembles the dextrarum inuctio—a well-known symbol of marriage in Roman times.[20] Plus, the relief had been later recut to make the couple look like a husband and wife. Mary D’Angelo explains: “In late antiquity the stone had been recut; the veils of the women were cut away and the face of one recut to make her look like a man, while the other was given a wedding ring. Presumably the reviser hoped to turn the relief into a conventional funerary portrait of husband and wife.”[21] It’s possible that this relief depicts a mother and daughter, but this does raise the question: why would someone later try to recast them as husband and wife if it were simply a mother and daughter? And why would they be depicted with the familiar Roman gesture for marriage? 

 

Susan Walker (whom Vines seems to agree with, of course) has argued that the hand gesture doesn’t always refer to marriage but can refer to other levels of commitment.[22] So the interpretation of this relief is certainly open to other, non-sexual or non-marital, interpretations. I’m thankful for Vines’s reminder along these lines. I just wish he would have discussed the artifact more honestly so that his audience would know the full picture. 

 

I have more thoughts on other references that Vines critiques—such as the significance of Nero playing both the active and passive roles in a public marriage ceremony—but for the sake of time, I’ll skip to some concluding thoughts. 

 

CONCLUSION 

 

Anytime a critic nudges you to go back and reconsider your viewpoint, it’s a good day at the office. And today was a good day. I am more than happy to make any changes and adjustments to my view when the evidence suggests that I should, and there have been a few places where I’m eager to make some revisions. But overall, I found Vines’s critiques to be uncompelling in many places and simply wrong in others. And after watching Brooten’s lecture and then reading Vines’s summary of it, I also questioned the accuracy with which Vines represents other scholars. I’m more than happy for readers to listen to both Vines and Brooten and reach their own conclusions. 

 

To summarize my view: there is some literary and archeological evidence that some same-sex sexual relationships (or the conception of same sex sexual relationships) during the Greco-Roman era broke the typical active/passive, dominate/dominated pattern and, in the case of some women, were described using marital terms. I think we should take the evidence cumulatively. That is, some references are clearer than others (including those of the apostle Paul), but taken all together, they do suggest that such consensual (or mutual, or committed, or same-status, etc.) same-sex relationships did exist in the ancient world, especially during the first and second centuries AD. We also have to consider the very nature of Greco-Roman literature, since it can never give us a full unbiased picture of life on the ground. But this should caution both views; namely, that consensual same-sex sexual relationships did exist or that they did not. If the literature is like a small cracked door allowing us to peer into a slice of the room, what would we see if were able to kick the entire door open? I suggest we’d see more of what we currently see through the cracked door, and not less.