Sex, Marriage and Saint Paul

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Pic courtesy of Salon.com.
Pic courtesy of Salon.com.

Paul, the author of much of the New Testament, loathed his own sexuality.

“The fact is, I know of nothing good living in me—living, that is, in my unspiritual self—for though the will to do what is good is in me, the performance is not, with the result that instead of doing good the things I want to do, I carry out the sinful things I do not want. When I act against my will, then, it is not my true self doing it, but sin which lives in me…I can see my body follows a different law that battles against the law which my reason dictates…What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body doomed to death” (Rom. 7:18–24, NJB.)

Poor, pathetic Paul! Deluded with puritanical ideas, he was repulsed by his own libido and miserable. He was a suppressed, toxic little man, ill at ease with himself.

It’s no surprise he was celibate:

“I say therefore to the unmarried and widows, it is good for them if they abide even as I. But if they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn” (1 Cor. 7:8–9, KJV.)

To be single was quite unusual for a Pharisee like Paul, as they were expected to marry. I suspect he would have had difficulty finding a woman willing to live with him. Or he may have been homosexual, yet ashamed to be, so he lived “in the closet.” Whatever the case, he quite clearly had a neurosis about sex:

“For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you. Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live” (Rom. 8:6–13, KJV.)

“He wants you to keep away from fornication and each one of you to know how to use the body that belongs to him in a way that is holy and honorable, not giving away to selfish lust like the pagans who do not know God, He wants nobody at all to ever sin by taking advantage of a brother in these matters; the Lord always punishes sins of that sort, as we told you before and assured you. We have been called by God to be holy, not to be immoral” (1 Thess. 4:3–7, NJB.)

“Yes, it is a good thing for a man not to touch a woman. But since sex is always a danger, let each man have his own wife and each woman her own husband. The husband must give his wife what she has the right to expect, and so too the wife to the husband. The wife has no rights over her own body; it is the husband who has them. In the same way, the husband has no rights over his body; the wife has them. Do not refuse each other except by mutual consent, and then only for an agreed time, to leave yourselves free for prayer; then come together again in case Satan should take advantage of your weakness to tempt you” (1 Cor. 7:1–6, NJB.)

My commentary is almost superfluous. He thought sex was distasteful, an annoying but an necessary nuisance, like going to the toilet. He implied people should get it over with quickly, so they could get on with praying. He thought people got married so sex was on tap; that a spouse served the same function as a convenient toilet.

From where did he get this sour, jaundiced perspective? He may have been sexually abused as a child, or had erectile difficulties, or been disgusted by his own attraction towards men, or been brainwashed with Platonic ideas about base bodily functions. He may have genuinely thought the end of the world was imminent, so it was better to not reproduce.

I think he was put out by people’s sexuality, particularly because it was way more interesting than his spiritual profundities. So he tried to control this part of people’s lives too.

While most people today quite rightly dismiss this dogma, a sizable minority doesn’t, as preachers still promote it. Consider the psychological damage inflicted on millions of innocent people through their Christian upbringings. All youngsters explore their sexuality; yet the child or adolescent is often told that such behaviors—even thoughts—are sins! The inevitable consequence is guilt and shame. The psychology here was worked out centuries ago. I think the church’s underlying agenda has always been to get people to dislike themselves. When an ego is wounded, a person is easier to control. The virgin Jesus, pure and sinless, comes to the rescue, sins are forgiven, and the church has conned another customer. The punter is saved from a problem he never had in the first place.

This negativity about sex is a filthy stain that’s hard to wash out of people’s minds once it has taken root. Shame on churches for promoting this as the word of God!

Sex is a special, natural, wholesome, and beautiful part of life. It’s a private affair, so preachers should butt out of people’s personal practices.

ED: MadMike’sAmerica welcomes new author Dr. Mark Fulton and is looking forward to publishing his work for the edification of our viewers; believers and non-believers alike.

About Post Author

Mark Fulton

Dr Mark Fulton is a practising physician living on the Sunshine Coast, Australia. He has spent many years researching the origins of Christianity, and has written a book, soon to be published, titled "Get over Christianity by Understanding it." His website is at www.markfulton.org
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10 years ago

Christianity really should be called Paulianity. There is so much of present day Christian “theology” which is based on fallacious assumptions about ancient Hebrew culture, that Paul added. Thinks he got from Mithraism, and Zoroastrianism. Tarsus was a “hot-bed” of Mithraism. Now, so many thousands of years later, the cultural “overlay” is so heavy, and thick, both recent, and generation long, is almost impossible to get at the real truth. For example, no one even considers the fact today, that the Hebrews did not believe in heaven, or hell, or immortality, (in the same way it’s preached today). Neither did Paul, actually. He wrote that the (only) “saved” WERE ALREADY experiencing “resurrection”. No hell. No “going to heaven”. Bet they never told ya that in Sunday School. The Hebrews did not even have a real concept of “immortality” until after the Exile, and it arose and developed in the apocalyptic period, BUT ONLY FOR political HEROS, not for everyone. The “shades” of everyone who died, were thought to go to “Sheol”, which was a place Yahweh was NOT present in. There is no reason to think Paul or Yeshua ben Josef thought any different.

As the great Hebrew Torah scholar/Philosopher, Martin Buber, (whom the Catholics just LOVE to quote, from “I and Thou”, but forget about his other books), points out in his “Good and Evil”, (part II), the entire business of the “fall” (in Genesis), is a complete misunderstanding of the Hebrew version of the common ancient Near Eastern “Chaos Myth”. Which means, ALL of Christian theology is based on an interpretive fallacy. A “goof”! Jesus, (if he existed) was a Jew. So was Saul of Tarsus, (Paul). If one takes OFF the rose-colored glasses, and stops reading Paul’s letters with modern, (“Presentist”)assumptions, suddenly the whole business of “resurrection”, (see the Christian Biblical scholar Dr. B.B. Scott’s “The Trouble with Resurrection”) looks very different.

Paul took the fledgling cult, twisted it for his own purposes, as he HAD to be the leader, and he hated and was hated by the Jerusalem church so bad, he had to leave town. “Apostle to the Gentiles”.. ha ha. More like “get out of town and don’t ever come back”.

Nice article Mark. 🙂

Dender Peach
10 years ago

Ahoy mate! Good show from a fellow countryman and atheist. Paul was a real bugger!

Mark Fulton
Reply to  Dender Peach
10 years ago

Cheers and thanks! More to come soon!

10 years ago

What’s up there Norman? Sure means you don’t have a clue and just feel compelled to write nonsense to every comment. Sad it is, because this is a good article and it deserves more respect.

Jennings Hartman
Reply to  Fartheeaway
10 years ago

Fartheeaway, Norman is just being Norman, he’s English you know, I’m sure he is in bed asleep, so I will defend him.

Reply to  Jennings Hartman
10 years ago

Thank you JH! Fartheeaway was right actually, I was babbling. Lost Bumble the cat and got drunk and when I get drunk….well…oops 😉

E.A. Blair
Reply to  Norman Rampart
10 years ago

Norman, I can’t think of a better reason to get tipsy than mourning a beloved moggie. Last October, I lost Kveldulf, a wonderful nineteen-year-old who was extra special because he was my late wife’s cat. In ’08 I lost Freti, a veteran of nineteen years. I currently have two, Isa (who marks her ninth birthday today, the 21st) and Samone, a two-year-old.

I find that having two cats is best for me (when my wife was alive, we had as many as four) because when you lose one, the other provides continuity. When I bring the number back up to two, it’s not so much replacing the one passed, but restoring balance to the household.

I am sure that to you, Bumble was the Bestest Kitty in the Whole World (a title currently held by Isa). He was a warm place in your heart and on your lap, and he is with you as long as you remember him with love.

Deyr fé,
deyja frændr,
deyr sjálfr et sama;
ek veit einn,
at aldri deyr:
dómr um dauðan hvern.

Cattle die,
Kinsmen die
One day you die yourself
I know one thing
That never dies
The memory of a life well-lived.

(Hávamál, Gestaþáttr, Verse 77)

Did Bumble live a good life? Do you remember him? If you do, he is immortal. Take comfort in that and enjoy your inebriation in his honor.

Jess
Reply to  Fartheeaway
10 years ago

Are you new to the internet or something? This is what is done, it is known. Anyone can tell me where it is known is from, without doing ninja googling, gets nothing by way of door prizes.

Reply to  Fartheeaway
10 years ago

Sorry Fartheeaway. You are quite right. I was drunk due to death of a much loved cat so I was babbling. Well, babbling more than I normally do. My apologies.

Reply to  Norman Rampart
10 years ago

I’m sorry about your cat Norman, and sorry for being an ass.

Reply to  Fartheeaway
10 years ago

You’re not.

An ass that is 😉

10 years ago

“In later years I decided that Paul himself was a prick, in the flesh.”

Love it!

Reply to  Mark Fulton
10 years ago

I have known a couple of Paul’s who were pricks – not this one though as far as I do know….I’ll take your word for it 😉

Jess
10 years ago

“The wife has no rights over her own body; it is the husband who has them” The tamborine bangers fer Jeebus take this one literally don’t they? How sad sexytimes would be, really, lay there and think good thoughts honey, it will be done in a matter of minutes.

Reply to  Jess
10 years ago

Minutes? I’m impressed 😉

Blank Ron
Reply to  Jess
10 years ago

It’s a lovely example of quote-mining, since they never seem to know the very next sentence, that ‘the husband has no rights over his body; the wife has them.’

Whatever Saul/Paul’s views on sex were, he at least seems to be familiar with the BDSM concept of the ‘switch’…

Baker48
10 years ago

Christians are a reminder to all how such biblical nonsense can effect generations. A good example is Leviticus who wrote about man having dominion over the beasts of the earth and the creatures of the sea. The religious took this literally and set up slaughtering and enslaving millions of animals. The example of Paul above is timely given the puritanical mindset of the more fanatic believers.

Reply to  Baker48
10 years ago

Leviticus clearly never met a cat 😉

E.A. Blair
Reply to  Baker48
10 years ago

Leviticus is not a who. The book’s English name is from Latin, which itself was taken from the Greek Λευιτικός, Leuitikos which means, “of the Levites”, being the tribe which was the clan of the priesthood. Its purpose is to define the roles and rituals of the priests and laity and, according to tradition, it was written by the mythical character known as Moses.

Since Moses is supposed to have been born in Egypt, he would undoubtedly have been familiar with cats. Unlike Moses, we know our furry, purry darlings did exist back then.

Reply to  E.A. Blair
10 years ago

Bloody hell! I bow to your knowledge of such things old bean!!! Still, furry purry darlings does it for me anyways 😉

10 years ago

I seem to recall Boy George of Culture Club – a highly successful band in the ’80’s – once said he would ‘prefer a cup of tea to sex’

I am not aware that he is shortly to be elevated to Sainthood but you never know eh? 😉

Rachael
10 years ago

I don’t believe much of the biblical yammering, but do know that some of what is written has repercussions with the ignorant masses for thousands of years to come.

newageluddite
10 years ago

Doctor Mark,
Welcome and well written!
Growing up in the Southern Baptist Church, we sometimes talked about what Paul’s prick in the flesh was. One of our preachers thought it might have been a scolding wife. The preacher didn’t think he said he was not married (or did he?); only that he was celibate-which would have given a wife plenty to scold about. “Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a prick in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me.” In later years I decided that Paul himself was a prick, in the flesh.

Joe Hagstrom
10 years ago

Peter actually didn’t like Paul. Don’t blame him. Man was an asshole.

E.A. Blair
Reply to  Joe Hagstrom
10 years ago

That’s probably because so many people were robbing him to pay Paul.

Reply to  E.A. Blair
10 years ago

LOL LOL LOL! Yep. That’s it 🙂

Jess
Reply to  Joe Hagstrom
10 years ago

The question then becomes did he like Mary?

Dale Fisk
Reply to  Jess
10 years ago

Mary was a fox! I would do her.

Bill Formby
10 years ago

On the other hand it could have been the fact that people back then wore those damn robes in all that heat and bathed infrequently. I will say, as I have before, that the overly religious repression of children in this country may be a leading cause of rapists and serial killers.

Anonymous
10 years ago

Paul, like so many of these so called ‘scholars’ was a charlatan, and his anti-sex rants managed to harm millions for generations after his death.

Jennings Hartman
10 years ago

I can’t get the image out of my head that sex is like a bodily function . . .

He thought sex was distasteful, an annoying but a necessary nuisance, like going to the toilet.

As a mature woman of advancing years, I sometimes have to use the bathroom in supermarkets or restaurants. I would like to wait until I get home, but when ya gotta go . . . The terrifying idea that my husband might nudge me in the ribs as we are looking to buy sausage (of course) and saying: “Come on old girl, lets go have a quickie.” This painful thought presented a dilemma, what bathroom would we use, Men or Women? And would it be OK to use the handicapped only stall, as they are quite roomy.

Jess
Reply to  Jennings Hartman
10 years ago

I dunno Jennings, if hubby said to me let’s go have a quickie and the only place available was a toilet, roomy or not, I might just junk punch his ass for being disgusting. No way in hell would I have a quickie in the toilet, unless it was some fancy place we are at. These days lot of stores just have co ed bathrooms anyone can use.

Jennings Hartman
Reply to  Jess
10 years ago

Jess, my tongue was ever so slightly in my cheek when I wrote that sex in toilet thing, my husband is much too nice a person to suggest such a thing, which more than I can say for his wife.

10 years ago

It has long been clear to me that the christian repression of anything remotely sexual, even nudity has its roots in Paul.

Think of the guilt pain, and mental anguish this sick attitude has brought to mankind. So, “What’s the harm in religion?”

10 years ago

Hi everyone, Mark here. It’s a pleasure to post. Thank you Mike for inviting me.

E. A. Blair, thank you for your comments. I agree with you that Paul really disliked himself, and the rest of humanity!

Paul is the only author in the new Testament that we know the true identity of. We get inside his head reading his letters in a way that we can never do reading the supposed words of Jesus.

Paul, as best we can tell, was the true original creator of Christian theology, yet he never knew Jesus. Nor did he ever respect or agree with the very Jewish family and disciples of Jesus, people such as James John and Peter. That’s ironic, because the pushers of today’s Christianity pretend that all the weird ideas came from Jesus, whereas they really came from Paul.

I hope to post a few more blogs about Paul over the coming months.

E.A. Blair
10 years ago

Usually, people who are both misanthropic and misogynistic are full of themselves (think of Rush Limbaugh), but in the case of Paul, he seems to have hated himself as much or more than he did the rest of humanity. Without him, Christianity may have evolved into a decent religion, but in its present form, with Paul’s hateful scribblings given as much or more shrift in the New Testament than the actual life of the Christ, is should be known as Paulism instead.

Perhaps Christianity could be redeemed by the invention of reliable time travel and an IED delivered to that road to Damascus where he had his so-called revelation.

In my college days, there was a guy named Doug, a peripheral member of my circle of friends, who sometimes claimed that he was a reincarnation of Saint Paul. As Doug, he was merely annoying; as Paul, he was insufferable. Since we never knew from one day to the next what to call him, he became known as “Doug-Paul the First”. Of course, had he been a genuine fundie, he would never have made that claim, as reincarnation is unthinkable to people of those stripe.

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