Celibacy in the Ancient World: Its Ideal and Practice in Pre-Hellenistic Israel, Mesopotamia, and Greece

Description

Celibacy is a commitment to remain unmarried and to renounce sexual relations, for a limited period or for a lifetime. Such a commitment places an individual outside human society in its usual form, and thus questions arise: What significance does such an individual, and such a choice, have for the human family and community as a whole? Is celibacy possible? Is there a socially constructive role for celibacy? These questions guide Dale Launderville, OSB, in his study of celibacy in the ancient cultures of Israel, Mesopotamia, and Greece prior to Hellenism and the rise of Christianity. Launderville focuses especially on literary witnesses, because those enduring texts have helped to shape modern attitudes and can aid us in understanding the factors that may call forth the practice of celibacy in our own time. Readers will discover how celibacy fits within a context of relationships, and what kinds of relationships thus support a healthy and varied society, one aware of and oriented to its cosmic destiny. Dale Launderville, OSB, is professor of theology at Saint John's University School of Theology 'eminary, Collegeville, Minnesota. He is the author of Piety and Politics: The Dynamics of Royal Authority in Homeric Greece, Biblical Israel, and Old Babylonian Mesopotamia (Eerdmans, 2003) and Spirit and Reason: The Embodied Character of Ezekiel's Symbolic Thinking (Baylor University Press, 2007). Preface xv Introduction xix Chapter One: Sexual Restraint Within the Context of a Cosmic Household 1 Israel: A Summons to Covenantal Fidelity for Collective Integrity in Ezekiel 16 2 Collective Jerusalem: From Canaanite Foundling to Royal Wife of Yhwh 6 Adulterous Jerusalem: Narcissistic Autonomy and an Excessive Sex Drive 12 The Punishment and Purgation of Defiled Jerusalem 17 Restored Jerusalem: Shame over Past Infidelities 20 Summary 23 Mesopotamia: A Vision for Communal Integrity in a Mythical Tradition 23 Gender and Collective Identity: Hierarchy versus Partnership 24 Channeling the Sex Drive Toward the Creation of Community 28 The Holiness of Inanna/Ishtar: The Fixed Point for a Paradoxical Deity 32 The Dynamics of Boundary Formation in the Forging of Sexual Identity 41 Summary 44 Greece: Engaging Shared Emotion to Foster Wholeness Within the Polis 45 Facing the Irrational Within Collective Existence 45 The Sex Drive Within the Cosmic Household as an Ambiguous Generative Force 52 The Sacred Character of Family Relationships 61 Overcoming Tragedy Through Compassion and Commitment 64 Summary 66 Synthesis: Bodily Integrity in a Monolatrous Model Contrasted with That in a Polytheistic Model 68 The Expression of Collective Identity and the Maintenance of Integrity 68 The Sex Drive as a Form of Physical and Cultural Power 70 The Requirement of Sexual Constraint in the Encounter with the Holy 71 The Dynamics of Boundary Formation in the Forging of Sexual Identity 72 Chapter Two: I ntermarriage: A Threat to the Household as the Enduring Matrix of Personal Identity? 74 Israel: Intermarriage as the Clash of Religious Cultures in Yehud 75 Ezra’s Intrusive Leadership: A Paradoxical Form of Heroism 77 The Organic Character of the Israelite Household 80 The Pressure of the State System on the Household 91 Summary 96 Mesopotamia: Intermarriage as an Element in the Evolution of Urban Culture 97 The Hero’s Battle to Bring Genealogy and Local Tradition to a New Synthesis 100 The Organic Character of the Hereditary Mesopotamian Household 101 Imperial Pressure on the Mesopotamian Household in the Neo-Babylonian and Persian Periods 112 Summary 122 Greece: Intermarriage as a Threat to Democratic Development in Athens 123 Pericles: A Champion of Democratic Athens on the Basis of Its Imperial Power 124 Property, Inheritance, and Intimacy Within the Greek Household 129 City-State and Household: Synergy or Compromise? 139 Summary 144 Synthesis: Maintaining the Cultural Integrity of the Household in Times of Transition 144 Purging a Community to Maintain Traditional Values: A Manipulative Ideology or a Heroic Vision? 145 Property and Relationships: Two Constitutive Elements of the Embodied Character of the Household 146 The Incorporation of the Household into the City-State: A Pathway to Death or to Life After Death? 148 Chapter Three: Sex and the Holy: Erotic Synergy or Warfare? 150 Erotic Experience: Its Basic Terminology in Ancient Israel, Mesopotamia, and Greece 153 Israel: The Challenge of Searching for the Source of Life in the Right Place 155 Yhwh as the Divine Husband and Father 155 Sex and Knowledge of the Divine: Compatible or Incompatible? 164 Erøs and the Maintenance of the Sacred Boundaries of the Israelite Household 171 Summary 176 Mesopotamia: Sexuality as a Life-force Spanning the Cosmos 178 The Role of the Erotic Within the Pantheon 178 The Relationship between Sex and Knowledge in the Epic of Gilgamesh 191 Erøs and the Maintenance of the Sacred Boundaries of the Mesopotamian Household 197 Summary 199 Greece: Erøs of the Body Versus Erøs of the Soul 202 Erøs: A God or a Demiurge Within the Ancient Greek World? 202 Erøs as the Desire to Possess the Beautiful and the Good 212 Erøs and the Maintenance of the Sacred Boundaries of the Greek Household 218 Summary 221 Synthesis: Transmuted Sex and the Erotic Desire for the Divine 223 The Presence and Function of the Erotic Within the Divine Realm 224 The Relationship Between Sex and Knowledge 226 Erøs and the Sacred Boundaries of Person and Household 228 Chapter Four: Virginity and Chastity: Feminine Ideals Integral to the Patriarchal Household 230 Definition of Virginity 231 Israel. Virginity: Commitment to the Common Good or to the Patriarchal Good? 235 Virginity as a Sign of Individual and Communal Integrity 235 Virginity and Bodily Wholeness 239 Male Sexual Constraint: An Understated Practice 242 The Purpose of the Sacrifice of Virginity 246 Summary 252 Mesopotamia. Virginity: An Alternative Lifestyle Compatible with the Patriarchal Household 253 The Expectation of Premarital Virginity for Women 254 Protection of a Wife or Daughter: The Ideal of Bodily Wholeness for Women 257 An Old Babylonian Community of Celibate Women: The Nadiåtum of Sippar and Nippur 261 Male Sexual Constraint: A Concern for Boundaries 270 Summary 271 Greece. Virginity: Negotiating an Ideal Within the Limits of the Human Condition 273 The Reception of the Prohibition of Premarital Sex for Women 274 The Ideal Virginity of the Goddesses Hestia, Athena, and Artemis 277 Sexual Defilement: The Violation of Communal and Personal Boundaries 282 Chastity and the Ideal of Male Virginity 286 Summary 292 Synthesis: The Role of Virginity in Maintaining Bodily Integrity 293 The Protection of Women and the Integrity of the Community 294 Pollution as “Matter Out of Place” and as Diminishment of Control 295 Gender Equity: Female Virginity Versus Male Constraint 296 The Patriarchal Household: An Institution Constrained by the Human Condition or a Source of Exploitation? 297 Chapter Five: Composite Guardian Figures: Tension at the Cosmic Junctures 300 Israel: Balancing of the Human, Bestial, and Divine Aspects of Life Through the Integration of Heart and Mind 307 The Primal Human in Ezekiel 28: The Composite Guardian Figure in Eden 308 The Asexual Primal Human in Genesis 2 as an Inadequate Image of the Divine 311 Eunuchs and Prohibited Mixtures in Ancient Israel 320 Summary 323 Mesopotamia: Composite Mythic and Human Figures as Mediators of Integrative Divine Power 325 Mesopotamian Primordial Androgynous Figures as Symbols of the Unity of Humanity 326 Socialization into the Categories of Sex and Gender 329 Composite Figures as Guardians of Cosmic Junctures 332 Cultic Officials as Androgynous Boundary-Keepers 334 Eunuchs at the “Sacred” Boundaries of Palatial Culture in Assyria and Persia 339 Guardian Figures and Magic 346 Summary 348 Greece: The Interplay of Mythic and Human Androgyny in Euripides’ Bacchae 350 Dionysian Polarities: The Unfolding of the Amoral Life-force 350 Pentheus’s Efforts to Control the Feminine 356 Pentheus’s Androgyny Revealed 359 Maenadic Madness and the Sacrifice of Pentheus 362 Summary 366 Synthesis: The Role of Composite Guardian Figures in the Integration of the Divine, the Human, and the Animal 369 Chapter Six: Celibacy as a Proleptic Death and a Quest for Transcendence 373 Israel: The Promise of Enduring Life Through God’s Word 374 The Symbolic Character of Jeremiah’s Celibacy 375 The Word of God: Educator of the Human Person Within the Cosmic Community 384 The Power of the Written Word Within the Politics of Piety 391 Summary 395 Mesopotamia: Linguistic Protection Against the Power of Death 397 The Plight of Those Who Suffer Divine Abandonment 398 The Pursuit of Wisdom and the Confrontation with Death 402 The Development of the Role of the Scribe from Recorder to Scholar 410 Summary 414 Greece: The Embodied Soul in the Search for Truth that Promotes Justice and Happiness 416 Plato’s Vision for the Rule of Reason in Classical Athens 417 The Socratic-Platonic Educational Process 426 Aristotle: The Wise Ordering of Desire in the Rational Animal 436 Summary 440 Synthesis. Celibacy: Death to Oneself and the Rise of the Common Good 442 Chapter Seven: Communion with the Real: The Goal of Celibacy 445 Erotic Poetry and the Encounter with the Divine 446 The Evocative, Sacramental Character of Erotic Love in the Song of Songs vis-à-vis Mesopotamian and Greek Parallels 447 Love as Strong as Death (Song 8:6) in Light of the Cosmic Journeys of Gilgamesh and Odysseus 456 Summary Comparative Summary of Factors Giving Rise to Celibacy and Related Forms of Sexual Renunciation in Ancient Israel, Mesopotamia, and Greece 461 Chapter 1: Sexual Restraint Within the Context of a Cosmic Household 461 Collective Existence Personified as a Woman in a Patriarchal Culture 461 Erøs Out of Control: Erøs Without the Context of the Cosmic Household 462 Impurity and the Experience of the Irrational 464 Chapter 2: Intermarriage: A Threat to the Household as the Enduring Matrix of Personal Identity? 465 Maintenance of the Intergenerational Web of Relationships Within the Patriarchal Household 465 Communal Identity in the Face of Diversity and Competition for Resources 466 Immortality in the Continuity of the Patriarchal Line 467 Chapter 3: Sex and the Holy: Erotic Synergy or Warfare? 468 The Janus-character of Erøs as a Defining Issue in the Divine-Human Relationship 468 Transmuting Sexual Erøs into Human-Divine Erotic Energy 469 Chapter 4: Virginity and Chastity: Feminine Ideals Integral to the Patriarchal Household 471 Collective Responsibility for the Integrity of Family Relationships 471 Safeguards for the Integrity of Personal and Communal Bodies 473 Male Sexual Constraint: A Stepping-Stone to a Higher Goal 474 The Voice of Women on Virginity and Their Status in a Patriarchal Society 475 Chapter 5: Composite Guardian Figures: Tension at the Cosmic Junctures 476 The Imaginative Interplay of Polarities of Sex and Gender: An Exercise in Pragmatic World Construction 476 Servants on the Margin: Eunuchs as Protectors of the Common Good 478 The Challenge of Negotiating Rather Than Eliminating Boundaries 478 Chapter 6: Celibacy as a Proleptic Death and a Quest for Transcendence 480 Radical Self-Denial and Truth Telling as Measures for Combating the Amorphous Power of Death 480 Self-Denial and the Search for the Divine 482 Salvation Through Contemplation of Transcendent Truth 483 Conclusion. Celibacy Within the Cosmic Household: A Journey Beyond Death Through Love 485 Abbreviations 490 Bibliography 493 Subject Index 535 Index of Biblical Texts 558