Regulating Sex in the Roman Empire: Ideology, the Bible, and the Early Christians by David Wheeler-Reed

Abstract

Reviewed by: Regulating Sex in the Roman Empire: Ideology, the Bible, and the Early Christians by David Wheeler-Reed William Loader david wheeler-reed, Regulating Sex in the Roman Empire: Ideology, the Bible, and the Early Christians (Syncrisis; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017). Pp. xxi + 177. $45. Wheeler-Reed’s book seeks to expose the reader to the “discourses from the Roman Empire, Judaism, early Christianity, and modern America that attempt to regulate marriage, procreation, and sexuality” (pp. xi-xii). In particular it addresses the extent to which what many contemporary conservative American movements claim about the uniqueness of Christian sexual ethics really existed and makes sense in the world of today. He does so by examining these discourses in four chapters: Augustan sexual ideology; Judaism and procreationism; conflicting values in the NT; and battles in the early church. A fifth chapter address contemporary discussion in American society. The discussion of Augustus concentrates on the lex Iulia legislation of 18 b.c.e. and 9 c.e., imposing procreation as a civil responsibility, divorce as mandated in cases of adultery, the requirement that widows remarry, and minimum quotas of offspring to be produced. Augustus promoted such law on the basis of the need to return to the true order of a harmonious society, evoking as did others like Virgil and Horace the ideal of an impending golden age. More grounded assessments have shown that, rather than “family values,” the driving concern was ensuring sufficient male offspring to enable Rome and its military to remain strong. Musonius Rufus, W.-R. demonstrates, is misunderstood when taken as an early proponent of feminism. Rather, Musonius’s comments about women and companionate marriage sit within the Augustan frame of reference. This he argues, was also true of the romantic novels of the period. The chapter on Judaism rightly highlights the similar focus on procreation across a number of texts, and especially in Philo. Some claims are debatable. CD 13.17b-19 need not imply that the Damascus Document saw divorce as sin. The discussion of Jubilees’ rewrite of Genesis 1–2 overlooks that celibacy is about being in sacred space, Eden being understood as a temple, and that the first couple’s coming together in sexual intercourse was clearly prior to their entry and also clearly prior to the prospect of their bearing children, thus reflecting a positive attitude toward nonprocreative sexual union. Some exploration of the implications for sexuality of seeing eschatological space as sacred, implied also in Jubilees 23 and reflected in the early Jesus tradition, would have strengthened the discussion. Treatment of the impact of the LXX translation of Genesis 1–2 is missing. Philo’s account of the Essenes focused less on the sexual danger women posed than on their quarrelsomeness. [End Page 544] In the discussion of NT texts, the author rightly notes that Paul does not use the argument for procreation, suggesting that his playing down family derives from imminent eschatology. I suggest it derives also from the belief that the age to come is sacred and so no place for sexuality and marriage. It is important to hear Paul’s insistence that marrying is not sin, despite Paul’s clear preference for celibacy. Paul’s view of marriage cannot be reduced to a strategy to avert sexual immorality. The book rightly notes the tension between what Paul says, preferring celibacy, and what those writing in his name propounded to order Christians households. The impact of an eschatology that saw a celibate future for all, expressed in Mark 12:25 and Revelation and assumed by Paul, needs more nuanced discussion. To be out of place in the holy has nothing to do with morality, nor did it imply deprecation of sex or family, but it could certainly lead in that direction. Celibacy, challenge to family power, and negative attitudes to sexuality are not necessarily the same thing and are in themselves complex. There are missing elements in this and the preceding chapter, many covered in my own research. The chapter on the early church highlights subsequent developments that partly perpetuate the trend to accommodation evident in the later NT writings, but also exploit the potential that eschatology...