Dale Rye, a frequent thoughful commenter at TitusOneNine, offers this summary of the early church’s teachings on marriage, teachings which traditionalists often cite in criticizing same-sex unions:
If one were to ask the Greek and Latin Fathers to define “the Biblical truth as expressed about marriage,” they would quote Luke 20:35: “Those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage.”
As St. Jerome put it (and he was not the most extreme of his contemporaries), “[I]n view of the purity of Christ, all sexual intercourse is unclean.” Therefore, “If this is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry” (Matt. 18:20).
Paul agreed “It is well for a man not to touch a woman” (I Cor. 7:1). As the Council of Trent put it, “If anyone says that the married state surpasses that of virginity or celibacy, and that it is not better and happier to remain in virginity or celibacy than to be united in matrimony, anathema sit.”
(Extra paragraphing added, emphasis edited.)
The early church’s survival strongly suggests that its members did not slavishly follow those particular teachings on marriage. One wonders, then, why some traditionalists insist that today’s church must do so.
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