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→Extra-biblical occurrences: moved law sec
Many see Rome realizing a deleterious change in aspects of social morality beginning in the second century B.C, due to the influence and adaptation of "Asiatic luxury and Greek manners", including homosexuality, resulting in a "moral crises from which she never recovered (historian D. Earl)<ref>Young, Homosexuality, p. 153</ref>
Many see Rome realizing a deleterious change in aspects of social morality beginning in the second century B.C, due to the influence and adaptation of "Asiatic luxury and Greek manners", including homosexuality, resulting in a "moral crises from which she never recovered (historian D. Earl)<ref>Young, Homosexuality, p. 153</ref>
==Ancient laws against homosexual acts==
Greek laws existed which regulated pederasty, while later Romans laws went further. During the Roman Imperial period the Lex Julia de adulteris (originally of c.17BCE) was expanded by legal commentators to include first offenses against boys, and possibly all male homosexual acts. The Institutes of the Corpus Juris Civilis (which went into effect Dec 30, 533) is understood by some to sum up the legal opinons:<ref>Paul Halsall, Justinian I: Novel 77 [538] and Novel 141 [544 CE]</ref>
Institutes IV. xviii .4:
''In criminal cases public prosecutions take place under various statutes, including the Lex Julia de adulteris, "…which punishes with death (gladio), not only those who violate the marriages of others, but also those who dare to commit acts of vile lust with [other] men (qui cim masculis nefandum libidinem exercere audent)."
On Dec 16, 342 A.D., Constantius and Constans issued a a legal decision which was included in the later Theodosian Code:
Cod.Theod. IX. Viii. 3: (Cod. Justin IX.ix.31):
''When a man marries in the manner of a woman, a woman about to renounce men {quum vir nubit in feminam viris porrecturam), what does he wish, when sex has lost all its significance; when the crime is one which it is not profitable to know; when Venus is changed to another form; when love is sought and not found? We order the statutes to arise, the laws to be armed with an avenging sword, that those infamous persons who are now, or who hereafter may be, guilty may be subjected to exquisite punishment.''
The meaning of this is somewhat obscure, and is debated. Homosexual author John Boswell argued that this indicated a previous legal status of same-sex marriage.<ref>Boswell, Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality, pp. 137-66; Same-Sex Unions in Pre-Modern Europe</ref> More explicit is the law issued by Valentinian II, Theodoisus and Arcadius on Aug 6, 390, and which also survives in the Theodosian Code:
Cod.Theod. IX. Vii. 6:
''All persons who have the shameful custom of condemning a man's body, acting the part of a woman's to the sufferance of alien sex (for they appear not to be different from women), shall expiate a crime of this kind in avenging flames in the sight of the people.''
After late Roman pagan lawyers had already applied the Lex Julia to homosexual acts, Christian emperors enacted laws and issued exhortations against homosexuals, four in a two-hundred year period, with the two by Justinian (527-565) being as much concerned with penance as penalty.<ref>Derrick S. Bailey, Homosexuality and the Western Christian Tradition Bailey pp. 79-81</ref>
==Homosexuality in myths==
==Homosexuality in myths==