Editing Religion and sexuality (section)

====Early Christianity====
In [[early Christianity]], reflection on scriptural texts introduced an [[eschatological]] [[hermeneutic]] to the reading of the [[Book of Genesis]]. The [[Garden of Eden]] was seen as a normative ideal state to which Christians were to strive; writers linked the future enjoyment of [[Heaven]] to the original blessedness of Adam and Eve in their reflections.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Anderson |first1=Gary |title=Celibacy or Consummation in the Garden? Reflections on Early Jewish and Christian Interpretations of the Garden of Eden |journal=Harvard Theological Review |date=April 1989 |volume=82 |issue=2 |pages=121–148 |doi=10.1017/S0017816000016084 |s2cid=161371876 }}</ref>

The valuation of [[virginity]] in the ancient church brought into relief a tension between the Genesis injunction to "be fruitful and multiply"<ref>{{bibleverse|Genesis|1:28}}</ref> with its understood contextual implication of marriage as a social institution, and the interpretation of the superiority of virginity over marriage, sexual activity and family formation from the Gospel texts [https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=mt+19%3A11-12&version=NIV Matt 19:11-12], [https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+19:29&version=NIV Matt 19:29]. One way patristic thinkers tried to harmonize the texts was through the position that there had actually been no sexual intercourse in Eden: on this reading, sex happened after the [[fall of man]] and the expulsion from Eden, thus preserving virginity as the perfect state both in the historical [[Paradise]] and the anticipated Heaven. [[John Chrysostom]], [[Gregory of Nyssa]], [[Justin Martyr]], [[Epiphanius of Salamis]], and [[Irenaeus of Lyons]] all espoused this view:
* [[Gregory of Nyssa]], ''On Virginity'', 12 "He did not yet judge of what was lovely by taste or sight; he found in the Lord alone all that was sweet; and he used the helpmeet given him only for this delight, as Scripture signifies when it said that 'he knew her not' till he was driven forth from the garden, and till she, for the sin which she was decoyed into committing, was sentenced to the pangs of childbirth. We, then, who in our first ancestor were thus ejected, are allowed to return to our earliest state of blessedness by the very same stages by which we lost Paradise. What are they? Pleasure, craftily offered, began the Fall, and there followed after pleasure shame, and fear, even to remain longer in the sight of their Creator, so that they hid themselves in leaves and shade; and after that they covered themselves with the skins of dead animals; and then were sent forth into this pestilential and exacting land where, as the compensation for having to die, marriage was instituted".<ref>St. Gregory of Nyssa, "{{Lang|grc-Latn|Contra fornicarios oratio}}," trans. by William Moore & Henry Austin Wilson, in Philip Schaff & Henry Wace, eds., ''Nicene & Post-Nicene Fathers'', Second Series № 5 (Buffalo, N.Y.: Christian Literature Publishing, 1893) [revised & edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight (2017), "[http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2907.htm Church Fathers: On Virginity]," accessed 2019‑10‑07].</ref>
* [[John Chrysostom]], ''On Virginity'', 14.3 "When the whole world had been completed and all had been readied for our repose and use, God fashioned man for whom he made the world... Man did need a helper, and she came into being; not even then did marriage seem necessary... Desire for sexual intercourse, conception, labor, childbirth, and every form of corruption had been banished from their souls. As a clear river shooting forth from a pure source, so they were in that place adorned by virginity." 15.2 "Why did marriage not appear before the treachery? Why was there no intercourse in paradise? Why not the pains of childbirth before the curse? Because at that time these things were superfluous."<ref>{{harvp|Miller|2005|p=290}}.</ref>
* [[Irenaeus]], ''[[Against Heresies]]'', Book 3, ch 22:4 "But Eve was disobedient; for she did not obey when as yet she was a virgin. And even as she, having indeed a husband, Adam, but being nevertheless as yet a virgin (for in Paradise they were both naked, and were not ashamed, inasmuch as they, having been created a short time previously, had no understanding of the procreation of children: for it was necessary that they should first come to adult age, and then multiply from that time onward), having become disobedient, was made the cause of death, both to herself and to the entire human race..."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103322.htm |title=CHURCH FATHERS: Against Heresies, III.22 (St. Irenaeus) |website=Newadvent.org |access-date=2017-06-30}}</ref>
* [[Epiphanius of Salamis]], ''[[Panarion]]'', 78.17–19 "And as in paradise Eve, still a virgin, fell into the sin of disobedience, once more through the Virgin [Mary] came the obedience of grace."<ref>{{harvp|Miller|2005|p=293}}</ref>
* [[Justin Martyr]], ''[[Dialogue with Trypho]]'', ch 100 "For Eve, who was a virgin and undefiled, having conceived the word of the serpent, brought forth disobedience and death. But the Virgin Mary received faith and joy, when the angel Gabriel announced the good tidings to her..."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/01287.htm |title=CHURCH FATHERS: Dialogue with Trypho, Chapters 89-108 (Justin Martyr) |website=Newadvent.org |access-date=2017-06-30}}</ref>

Prof. John Noonan suggests that "if one asks... where the Christian Fathers derived their notions on marital intercourse – notions which have no express biblical basis – the answer must be, chiefly from the [[Stoics]]".<ref name="Noonan_68">{{harvp|Noonan|1965|p=68}}</ref> He uses texts from [[Musonius Rufus]], [[Seneca the Younger]], and [[Ocellus Lucanus]], tracing works of [[Clement of Alexandria]], [[Origen]] and [[Jerome]] to the works of these earlier thinkers,<ref name="Noonan_68"/> particularly as pertaining to the permissible use of the sexual act, which in the Stoic model must be subdued, dispassionate, and justified by its procreative [[intent]].<ref>{{harvp|Noonan|1965|pp=67–68}}</ref>

[[Augustine of Hippo]] had a different challenge: to respond to the errors of [[Manichaeism]].<ref name="Noonan, John Thomas p. 169">{{harvp|Noonan|1965|p=169}}</ref> The Manichees, according to Augustine, were "opposed to marriage, because they are opposed to procreation which is the purpose of marriage".<ref name="Noonan, John Thomas p. 169"/> "The method of [[contraception]] practised by these Manichees whom Augustine knew is the use of the sterile period as determined by Greek medicine",<ref name="Noonan, John Thomas p. 169"/> which Augustine condemns (this stands in contrast to the contemporarily permitted Catholic use of [[Natural family planning]]). [[Elaine Pagels]] says, "By the beginning of the fifth century, Augustine had actually declared that spontaneous sexual desire is the proof of—and penalty for—universal original sin", though that this view goes against "most of his Christian predecessors".<ref name="Pagels2011">{{cite book|author=Elaine Pagels|title=Adam, Eve, and the Serpent: Sex and Politics in Early Christianity|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=btufm2vXzpEC&pg=PR17|date=5 October 2011|publisher=Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group|isbn=978-0-307-80735-9|pages=xvii-xix}}</ref>

As monastic communities developed, the sexual lives of monks came under scrutiny from two theologians, [[John Cassian]] and [[Caesarius of Arles]], who commented on the "vices" of the solitary life. "Their concerns were not with the act of masturbation, but with the monks who vowed chastity. The monks' vow made masturbation an illicit act; the act itself was not considered sinful...  In fact... prior to Cassian, masturbation was not considered a sexual offence for anyone."<ref name="Keenan2010">{{cite book|last=Keenan |first=James F. |author-link=James F. Keenan|title=A History of Catholic Moral Theology in the Twentieth Century: From Confessing Sins to Liberating Consciences|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KWbtc5XPMw0C&pg=PA45|date=17 January 2010|publisher=A&C Black|isbn=978-0-8264-2929-2|page=45}}</ref>