ethics, denounced the corruption of the
Gentiles in these words: "For this cause God gave them up into vile
affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that
which is against nature: and likewise also the men, leaving the natural
use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men
working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that
recompence of their error which was meet."

Christ uttered no opinion upon what we now call sexual inversion.
Neither light nor leading comes from Him, except such as may be
indirectly derived from his treatment of the woman taken in adultery.

When the Empire adopted Christianity, it had therefore the traditions of
the Mosaic law and the first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans to
guide its legislators on this topic. The Emperors felt obscurely that
the main pulses of human energy were slackening; population all tended
to dwindle; the territory of the empire shrank slowly year by year
before their eyes. As the depositaries of a higher religion and a
nobler morality, they felt it their duty to stamp out pagan customs, and
to unfurl the banner of social purity. The corruption of the Roman
cities had become abominable. The laziness and cowardice of Roman
citizens threatened the commonwealth with ruin. To repress sexual
appetites was not the ruler's object. It was only too apparent that
these natural desires no longer prompted the people to sufficient
procreation or fertility. The brood begotten upon Roman soil was
inadequate to cope with the inrushing tide of barbarians. Wisdom lay in
attempting to rehabilitate marriage, the family domestic life. Meanwhile
a certain vice ran riot through society, a vice for which Jehovah had
rained fire and brimstone upon Sodom, a vice which the Mosaic code
punished with death, a vice threatened by St. Paul with "that recompence
of their error which was meet."

Justinian, in 538 A.D., seems to have been terrified by famines,
earthquakes and pestilences. He saw, or professed to see, in these
visitations the avenging hand of Jehovah, the "recompence which was
meet" mysteriously prophesied by St. Paul. Thereupon he fulminated his
edict against unnatural sinners, whereby they were condemned to torments
and the supreme penalty of death. The preamble to his famous Novella 77
sets forth the principles on which it has been framed: "Lest as the
result of these impious acts whole cities should perish together with