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→Homosexuality in Rome
===Homosexuality in Rome===
===Homosexuality in Rome===
After Greece Rome is the next most significant entity in the history of homosexuality, and many Emperors were the most notorious examples of such. Juvenal (60-140 A.D.) and Martial (c. 40-102 A.D.) wrote of formal marriage unions between homosexuals. Some moral philosophers around the time of the apostle Paul questioned the merits of homosexual behaviors. Seneca (4 B.C-65 A.D.), a statesmen and tutor to the homosexual emperor Nero, reproved homosexual exploitation, such which which forced a slave to shave his beard, and dress and behave as a women,<ref>Moral epistles 47.7-8</ref> though Nero himself castrated a boy, and dressed him as female and married him, after killing his wife.<ref>Suetonius "Nero," XVIII-XVIX De Vita Caeasarum; Dio Cassius, LXII, xvii</ref> Dio Chrysostom (A.D. 40) likewise condemned such exploitation, and commended ''natural intercourse" and union of the male and female.''<ref>Discourse, 7.133, 135; 151-52; 21:6-10; 77/78.36</ref> Later, in 226 B.C., the Lex Scantinia (149 B.C.) is understood to have penalized homosexual practice.
After Greece, Rome is the next most significant entity in the history of homosexuality, and this cultural practice in both is understood by scholars as being what the apostle Paul is immediately referring to in condemning homosexuality in [[Romans 1.]]<ref>Homosexuality by James B. DeYoung, pp. 152-192ff</ref> Romans emperors were sometimes the most notorious examples of homosexuality. Juvenal (60-140 A.D.) and Martial (c. 40-102 A.D.) wrote of formal marriage unions between homosexuals. Some moral philosophers around the time of the apostle Paul questioned the merits of homosexual behaviors. Seneca (4 B.C-65 A.D.), a statesmen and tutor to the homosexual emperor Nero, reproved homosexual exploitation, such which which forced a slave to shave his beard, and dress and behave as a women,<ref>Moral epistles 47.7-8</ref> though Nero himself castrated a boy, and dressed him as female and married him, after killing his wife.<ref>Suetonius "Nero," XVIII-XVIX De Vita Caeasarum; Dio Cassius, LXII, xvii</ref> Dio Chrysostom (A.D. 40) likewise condemned such exploitation, and commended ''natural intercourse" and union of the male and female.''<ref>Discourse, 7.133, 135; 151-52; 21:6-10; 77/78.36</ref> Later, in 226 B.C., the Lex Scantinia (149 B.C.) is understood to have penalized homosexual practice.
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>
===Homosexuality in Egypt===
The [[Old Testament]] of the Bible mentions Egypt as one of the nations exampling sins which Israel is to avoid, including homosexuality. (Lv. 18:3) While no legal texts are yet possessed, other stories testify of homosexual acts and attitudes.
The earliest and longest version of the Contendings of Horus and Seth (Greek transliterations, or Heru and Set from Egyptian), dated c. 1160 B.C., late in the 20th Dynasty in the New Kingdom, with elements of religious mythology which are likely older, tells of Set, who is before manifested as heterosexual, perpetrating a homosexual act upon Horus. This is seen as shameful by Ruler Ennead. Seth is also said to have become pregnant by eating lettuce with the semen of Horus on it, placed there by his mother.<ref>The Contendings of Horus and Seth, by Khenmetaset and Marie Parsons</ref> An earlier version (est. 2,000 B.C.) is similar. from Kahun, from Griffith, F., Hieratic Papyri from Kahun and Gurob, 1908</ref> Historians see this indicating that to be anally penetrated was looked upon as humiliating and shameful.<ref>Montserrat, 1996, p. 71; Bullough, p. 65.</ref>
The Egyptian Book of the Dead (c. 14.50 century B.C.) is the name given by Egyptologists to a collection of mortuary texts written on sheets of papyrus covered with magical texts and accompanying illustrations. The earliest record of Book of the Dead is dated from approx. 1650-1550 B.C., though it is thought that some of the spells originated in the Pyramid Texts carved more than 1000 years earlier.<ref>[http://www.touregypt.net/boda.htm] The Book of the Dead, An Introduction</ref><ref>[http://www.egyptologyonline.com/book_of_the_dead.htm The book of the dead, EGYPTOLOGY ONLINE]</ref> In chapter 125 are two sets of “negative confessions”, in which the deceased was to testify before Osiris and forty-two other gods of his righteousness and worthiness of eternal life. In the first set of declarations (before Osiris) is the statement (as translated), ''I have not penetrated the penetrater of a penetrater''<ref>[Book of the Dead Chapter 125A http://www.digitalegypt.ucl.ac.uk/literature/religious/bd125a.html]</ref>, while in the second set (before the 42 judges) it is declared (as translated), ''I have committed no acts of impurity nor have I had sexual intercourse with a man.''<ref>[The Book of the Dead, chapter 125, by Richard Hooker http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/EGYPT/BOD125.HTM]</ref>
Part of an incomplete text dating from approximately 2200 B.C. has been termed, ''Neferkare’s Affair with General Sisene.'' It tells of a common man discovering that King Neferkare (Pepi 2) was making regular nightly visit to a man living without a wife,<ref>Egyptian Myth: A Very Short Introduction, by Geraldine Pinch</ref> and which may imply a homosexual affair as part of royal corruption.<ref>Egyptologist J. Gywn Griffths</ref>
The Teaching of Vizier Ptahhotep (c. 2200 B.C.), has a difficult to translate text (32) which may read, ''Do not copulate with a woman-boy,for You know that one will fight against the water upon her heart.''<ref>The Maxims of Good Discourse, by vizier Ptahhotep</ref>
Later, a homosexual liaison is described between the Governor of Egypt C. Vibius Maximus (103-107 A. D.) and a 17 year old ''still beardless...and handsome youth'' who ate and traveled with him rather than attending school and the gymnasium. His sexual relations with the politician were known, and the young man is described as exhibiting an attitude often seen in contemporary society today:
Once accustomed to this shame this handsome and rich young youth gave himself airs and became so impudent..in the presence of everyone, and laughed long and freely in the middle of the clients.
Partly because of this conduct the Governor incurred ''damnatio memoriaem'', with his name being removed from public documents.<ref>R. Syme, C. Vibius Maximus, Prefect of Egypt, Historia 6 (1957), p. 184</ref><ref>After Paul left Corinth, by Bruce W. Winter, p. 114</ref>
==Ancient laws against homosexual acts==
==Ancient laws against homosexual acts==