ABSTRACT
MANY FACTORS SHAPED ancient and medieval Christian ideas about sex, the institutions that resulted from these ideas and in turn influenced them, and the actual sexual practices of Near Eastern, African, and European Christians. Of these factors, the words of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in Christian Scriptures were probably the least important, for Jesus seems to have said very little about sex, and his recorded words are contradictory. Jesus describes marriage as ordained by God (Matthew 19:45), yet later in the same discussion appears to approve of those “who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 19:12). He also characterizes those who remained unmarried as “equal to angels…and sons of the resurrection” (Luke 20:36). Jesus clearly opposes adultery and divorce, and seems to have condemned sex with prostitutes, though he made friends with individual prostitutes and shocked priests who challenged him by commenting that repentant prostitutes would get into heaven before they would (Matthew 21:31-32). While Jesus was himself a man, the centrality of the male disciples may have been less evident during his lifetime than it later became; women were present at many of the key events of his life and were the first to discover the empty tomb after the crucifixion (Mark 16:1-8).
