Paul on Sexual Immorality

In the midst of some typical and typically inane apology for sodomy, Neil Elliot (in Liberating Paul: The Justice of God and the Politics of the Apostle , Orbis, 1994) raises the interesting question of why Paul focuses on sexual immorality at the beginning of his letter to the Romans (1:18-32). His answer is that Paul is summarizing the evils of the imperial house in particular. From Tiberius through Nero (with a brief respite under Claudius), Roman emperors were notorious sexual predators. Suetonius records that Caligula took wives of dinner guests into adjoining rooms, raped them audibly, and “then returned to the table to criticize his victims’ performance” (Elliot’s words).

Likewise, Paul’s following description of the evils of the pagan world (1:29-31) applies to the imperial house: “As a description of conventional gentile morality, the passage is an inexcusable exaggeration . . . . As a description of the horrors of the imperial house, however, Paul’s words actually seem restrained.”

From the beginning of the letter, then,

Paul’s target is the arrogant pretense at the spiritual core of the empire, that the “golden age” of the gods’ favor is at hand; that the world is awash in piety and the benevolent justice of Augustus and his successors; and that those who suffer within this sacred order are pernicious rebels, whom the gods have justly abandoned to their fate.

Against this false justice, Paul opposes the “righteousness of God” revealed in the gospel.