Homosexuality and Class War is taken from Witchcraft and the Gay Counterculture [Boston: Fag Rag Books, 1978]
The mass media have long given us an impression of the Stone Age as a time of terror, violence and war. Stone Age people are often depicted as ape-like creatures who went around clubbing each other over the head. Their societies are usually described with pejorative words like « primitive », « barbaric », « savage » and « low » (in contrast to modern industrial society, which is called « advanced », « civilized », « cultured » and « high »).
Despite this Hollywood view of history, Stone Age culture was actually rather peaceful. The testimony of archeology is overwhelming on this point : the people who lived in the Stone Age did not practice organized warfare (Hawkes, 265). Paintings and art work from the period do not depict warlike activities, weapons are not found in burial areas, settlements are completely unfortified. It may be surprising but is nonetheless true that « war is a comparatively late development in the history of humanity » (Dawson, 239).
Organized warfare did not arise until the appearance of cities, class conflict, government hierarchy, and private property. Indeed, it is precisely those societies in history that have been the most « civilized » that have waged the most frequent and terrible wars. No Stone Age society even approaches the savagery of Nazi Germany against Jewry or « democratic » America against the Vietnamese.
What we know about the people who still live in close contact with nature confirms our knowledge of the peacefulness of the Stone Age. For example, organized warfare was extremely rare among the native North Americans prior to the Christian invasion (Driver, 355). Admittedly, the North American Indians did engage in duels and feuds. But until the white Christians « instructed » them in warfare, they did not develop a permanent military organization, special fighting regalia, or militaristic ceremonies. (The situation was different with middle and south American Indians who were partially urbanized.)
People have mistakenly associated nature societies with war because so-called barbarians have come in conflict with urbanized and stratified societies as in the « Gothic invasions » of the Roman Empire. But the « barbarians » were usually tribes who lived on the periphery of urbanized societies and who imitated their methods. In the case of Rome, outlying « barbarians » had long been admitted into the Roman army before the tribes they came from attacked Rome. Roman militarism had been seeping into their cultures for centuries.
The Stone Age was striking for other reasons besides its peacefulness. As best we can determine from archeological evidence and from comparison with existing Stone Age cultures, there was communal ownership of property by the tribe or the clan, government by voluntary consensus without any hierarchical superstructure, an absence of class domination and no rigid division of labor (Hawkes, 265 ff.). Of course, it is tempting to dismiss this as a utopian fantasy since we are so accustomed in our own society to self-aggrandizement, government repression, class domination and rigid soul-killing division of labor that is either idiotic or based on years of zombie-like institutionalization (« education »). We have become so conditioned through universities, factories and offices to be feelingless, brain-dominated, self-seeking billiard balls that we cannot conceive of a society run otherwise. But the evidence will not go away. Human beings once lived differently.
Women had a very high status in the Stone Age, as we have seen. Archeology, myth and comparison to still-existing nature societies all point to their dominant position. « There is every reason to suppose that under the conditions of the primary Neolithic way of life, mother-right and the clan system were still dominant [as they had been in the Paleolithic period], and land would generally have descended through the female line. Indeed, it is tempting to be convinced that the earliest Neolithic societies throughout their range in time and space gave woman the highest status she has ever known » (Hawkes, 264).
Around 4000 B.C. an extraordinary change took place, beginning first in the Near East and spreading gradually from there into Europe. At this time there emerged a new era — the Bronze Age, which involved much more than the making of bronze implements. For the first time in history, social groups came into existence that were controlled by males and were based on military exploits. In the Stone Age, humans had survived by foraging, farming and hunting. Now came people who survived by warfare.
The political and economic life of the human race was completely upset by these male invaders (Woolley, passim). In place of the earlier tribal communalism, a new institution came into being : the state (Woolley, 360).
The new states lived off the labor of agrarian people and economically exploited them. Class divisions developed, and slavery was imposed where formerly there had been free labor. People became separated from the immediate, direct life of nature, and intellectual activity was stressed at the expense of emotional gratification. Most important of all, the status of women fell, as did the great importance of the mother goddess. « Urban life, the strengthening of intellectual powers and of individuality and selfconsciousness, male rulers and priests, military conquests, were to combine to lower the status of the goddess in all her manifestations in the centers of ancient civilization » (Hawkes, 343).
Many scholars believe these male-dominated warrior groups evolved from Stone Age hunters (usually male). By some process, the male hunters in certain of the earlier societies developed into a separate caste devoted not to hunting but to warfare. The change, once made, became selfperpetuating : peaceful Stone Age tribes were either conquered by the new militarists or were forced to become militaristic to defend themselves.
In the new social order, private property made its first appearance in history (possibly as the seized booty of warfare; Engels, passim). Strict hierarchies, always characteristic of military societies, emerged, as did a new sense of morality characterized by obedience and self-discipline. The beginnings of class warfare lie in this period, as the new order of warriors tended to constitute an urban-based aristocracy that held sway over the peasants.
The older Stone Age traditions that had existed time out of mind eventually reasserted themselves against the Bronze Age innovations. The new military class was too small, and the old peasant culture too large and old, to allow for the annihilation of Stone Age ways. The conquerors tended to be absorbed into the customs of the conquered. An equilibrium was eventually reached, and societies stabilized into new forms that embodied practices and beliefs of both the older Stone Age and the new Bronze Age. Such, for example, were the ancient civilization of Sumer and the oldest kingdoms in Egypt. There, even though organized warfare had now come into being, « it was exceptional and of a rudimentary type » (Dawson, 238). Although the status of women was lower than in the Stone Age, women still maintained a position far higher than they do under the primitive conditions of modern industrialism (Davis, passim).
Bronze Age civilization still retained much of the old love of sexuality, especially in religion. Archeological evidence is abundant on this point, both from the new cities and from the countryside. For example : « In searching for some positive features of Bronze Age religion our attention is caught by the strange phallic figures in the rock-carvings of Northern Europe. Whatever the meaning of these figures may be, they unquestionably show that sexuality played a great part in that cult and belief of which they are expressions » (Runeberg, 247). In literary evidence from Bronze Age Egypt, homosexual behavior is idealized as an activity of the gods (Licht, 449). Nearly everywhere the worship of the Great Mother and the horned god continued right along side that of the new militaristic dieties.
One very important example of Bronze Age civilization is the culture that emerged in Crete. From 3000 B.C. to 2000 B.C. waves of immigrants from Asia Minor mingled with the local Stone Age people of Crete and created a new civilization called Minoan, named after the legendary King Minos.
Minoan civilization reached its peak in the period from 2000 B.C. to 1600 B.C. During this time, women had a very high status. They are depicted in Minoan art work as participating equally with men in feasting and athletic contests. In addition, Minoan society was peaceful. Scenes of war are rare. « The emphasis is on nature and on beauty » (Hammond, 30). The two chief deities of the Minoan religion were a great mother goddess associated with animals (such as the snake) and the horned god (in the form of a bull). Later Greek tradition particularly associated Crete with public homosexuality, and several ancient authors claimed that it was the historical source of homosexuality in Greece (Symonds, 4).
On the Greek mainland itself, the local culture originally showed the same peaceful characteristics. « It was peaceful, agricultural, seafaring, and artistic, and its religious beliefs, if we may judge from the steatopygous [fatassed] female figurines, were focused on a mother goddess and may have been associated with a matriarchal society or at least with one which was not strongly patriarchal » (Hammond, 37).
An analysis of early Greek literature shows that the society of the mainland was matrilineal, not patrilineal, and that the characteristic religion was one of shamanism (Butterworth). As we have seen, shamanism is frequently associated with ritual homosexuality, both male and female. There is also evidence of transvestism in the rituals of early Greece as well as the sexual worship of earth deities (Butterworth, 145ff.).
All this was changed at the end of the Bronze Age. There were great upheavals in Crete and Greece. About 2500 B.C. and thereafter, maledominated militaristic tribes started entering parts of the mainland. They worshipped male sky gods, the Olympians, and were organized socially into a partriarchy (Hammond, 39). These new invaders spoke Greek, a language that was previously unknown in the area.
The invading patriarchal Greeks disrupted life in both Crete and Greece. They established a capital at Mycenae in Greece (from which they were called Mycenaeans) and at Cnossus on Crete. They developed bureaucratic institutions, plunged the entire Aegean Sea area into warfare, and violently opened up new markets for their trading interests (Hammond, 42ff.). By the end of the 15th century B.C., all the leading settlements of Crete had been burned (possibly accompanied by a volcanic eruption).
During this period, the status of women declined. Succession to religious rites, political power, and property became patrilineal, not matrilineal. In religion, the status of the Great Mother fell, and the power of Zeus and Ares (the god of war) increased. « The matrilineal world was brought to an end by a number of murderous assaults upon the heart of that world, the potnia meter [Revered Mother] herself. The opposition to the potnia meter seems to have been closely connected with the cult of Ares » (Butterworth, 51). Ares was the only Greek god who was not famous for his homosexual love affairs (Symonds, 10).
After 1400 B.C., patriarchal Greek culture was widely established throughout the Aegean. In the late 13th century B.C., a great convulsion of war rocked the Greek settlements around the Aegean, including but not limited to the famous Trojan War. The ruling patriarchal states destroyed each other, and migrations of new peoples moved into Greece.
In the 12th Century B.C., during all this turmoil, a new tribe of Greekspeaking people moved into Greece, dispossessing the previous warlords of their power. These people — the Dorians — are of special interest because of their attitude toward women and homosexuality.
The early Dorians, whose capital was established at Sparta, are often negatively depicted as boorish and militaristic, in contrast to their rivals, the Athenians, who are usually praised. This depiction is at odds with the facts and has been largely inspired, I believe, by academics' dislike of the Dorians' love for Gay sex.
It is true that the early Dorians were militaristic, but they were actually less militaristic than the previous Mycenaeans. For example, the Dorians were not dominated by a miltaristic aristocracy, and they had no government bureaucracy devoted especially to war, as did the Mycenaeans. « The Dorians, whose tribal organization did not preclude the arming of all their people, attacked and overthrew the Achaeans [another name for Mycenaeans], who were only a small, armed, ruling class ruling over the Greek agricultural population, which was largely unarmed » (Wason, 30).
The Dorians maintained many of the most ancient traditions of the earlier ages, especially with respect to women. For example, unlike the situation in the previous patriarchy, « there is ample evidence to show that the status of women among the early Dorians was one of freedom and honour — a survival, perhaps, of a matriarchal period » (Carpenter, Intermediate Types, 107). Among the Dorians, women ran and wrestled naked in public with men. They had fuller power over property than anywhere else in Greece. They had the power to publicly praise or censor men, who greatly feared their criticism (Carpenter, 106ff.).
Among other Greeks who had lost the earlier traditions, women were not allowed to dine with their husbands. The could not call their husbands by name, but only « lord. » They lived secluded in the interior of the house (Mueller, 297).
Homosexuality had a high status among the Dorians. In fact, it was more highly regarded there than it was at Athens during the later classical period. Male homosexuality at Sparta took the form of paiderestia — the love of an older more experienced man for a younger inexperienced man. Paiderestia was a form of religious, military, educational and sexual training. The experienced man initiated the inexperienced man into men's mysteries. It was through the institution of paiderestia that the Dorians transmitted their cultural values. It made learning into an intimate personal, emotional and sexual experience. The more experienced man was called eispnelas, which means « inspirer, » and the inexperienced man was called aitas, which means « hearer » or « listener » (Mueller, 300-301). In Crete, where the same cutoms prevailed, the corresponding terms were philetor (« lover ») and kleinos (« renowned one ») (Mueller, 302).
Paiderestia had a religious origin, as we discover in a remarkable study by the German scholar E. Bethe. Bethe points out that cum was originally viewed as a sacred substance, conveying a man's soul-power (468). The « inspiring » that took place among Dorian men was the transference of cum, which was viewed as a holy and religious act (463).
Unfortunately, little is known about the Gay sex life of women at Sparta, due to the sexist prejudice of Western historians. It's very probable, however, that similar religious and sexual relations existed among women in view of their high status. Plutarch, writing in the first century A.D., said of the women of Sparta : « the unmarried women love beautiful and good women » (Lives, v.1, 18, 4). We know that even in the non-Doric island of Lesbos in the 6th century B.C., Sappho praised and practiced lesbianism and that she and her lovers worshipped Aphrodite, the great goddess in her capacity as the protector of love. When the Christians came to power in the early Middle Ages, they deliberately set about destroying most of Sappho's works.
From what has been said about the Dorians, we can see the falsehood of two lies often repeated by historians : 1) that male homosexuality is historically associated with contempt for women; and 2) that homosexuality was a late development in Greece. To the contrary, Doric paiderestia is a reflection of familiar shamanistic and religious concepts that date back to the Stone Age. The Dorians, though coming later than the Mycenaeans, remained much closer to the earlier sexual traditions. As for the contempt-for-women myth : « It completely founders on the fact that precisely in Sparta and Lesbos, where boy-love and girl-love are best known, the sexes, as best we can tell, associated more freely with each other than in the other Greek states » (Bethe, 440).
In the 12th century B.C., as we have seen, Mycenaean power collapsed, and Greece was thrown into chaos. Invading tribes had learned well the military methods of the Mycenaeans, which they now imitated (including, eventually, the Dorians as well). Militarism was again on the rise, and another revolution occurred in human affairs — the Iron Age. With the advent of the Iron Age, the power of male-dominated armies increased in politics, and powerful city-states with imperialistic ambitions came into existence.
After 1000 B.C., the city-state emerged as the typical political unit. Cities became economic centers, and a « new type of people » began making themselves felt in politics — traders, seafarers, artisans, and merchants (Wason, 52). An urban-based bourgeoisie developed and struggled for power with the older class of land-magnates and warlords. Monarchies tended to be replaced by republics, still in the form of city-states. The various city-states were constantly at war with each other, struggling to build up their own commercial and military empires. Slavery became widespread in Greece for the first time (Wason, 44).
The effect of this urbanism, militarism, and growing bourgeois ambition was predictable. « Civilization » (that is, urban culture) increasingly lost touch with the nature religion of the peasants, who formed, together with the urban slaves, the lowest level in the new economic order. The status of women fell because male-dominated activities like war, trade, and government service were now the crucial activities on which urban society depended for its survival. A negative turn developed in the attitude toward sexuality in general and homosexuality in particular. Sex was no longer part of the public religion of the urban upper classes.
The final outcome of this turn of events is well illustrated in Athens during the classical period (after 500 B.C.) During this period Athens was almost constantly at war : against the military empire of Persia, against Sparta, even against its former allies. During the same period, the status of homosexuality fell. It was no longer practiced as a means of public education or viewed as an expression of public religious sentiment. It had become a private affair, something done in the privacy of one's house between consenting adults.
In the late classical period, Greeks got out of touch with the religious origins of homosexuality. Educated writers reacted with surprise and contempt when they encountered it in more « primitive » societies, especially when male transvestism was involved. Herodotus describes such behavior among Scythian shamans as « a disease of effeminacy » (theleia nosos — quoted by Carpenter, 24). Classical Greek civilization became contemptuous of the effeminate man — which is not surprising in view of their contempt for women and the importance of war (hence masculinism) to their economy and politics.
This change in attitude toward homosexuality is strikingly evidenced by an event that occurred in 399 B.C. — the trial and condemnation of the philosopher Socrates. Few straight academics have understood the real issues involved in Socrates' confrontation with the establishment of his day. They usually describe Socrates as an advocate of unpopular ideas who was executed by people who felt threatened by them. In part this is true. But there is much more : Socrates' Gayness and his religion. In the second half of the 5th century B.C., a reaction had developed against educational homosexuality. This reaction was led by the Sophists (Bethe, 439). The Sophists were independent professional academics who taught practical skills and knowledge for money and who believed in book learning. They viewed the relationship between teacher and pupil as a purely objective, mercenary one. They rejected the traditions of the old nature religion, where learning was through the oral tradition and where sexuality played an important part in the relationship between teacher and student.
Socrates hated the Sophists. He was horrified by the idea that teachers should make money out of conveying knowledge. He rejected book learning. He believed that the only way to learn was through personal dialogue. He believed that sex was an important part of the educational process (he had famous affairs with his pupils, like Alcibiades). Finally, he insisted that his vocation was a holy one and that he was personally inspired by some spirit or god (in Greek, daimon — usually used to denote nature spirits, and almost never applied to the Olympians). These characteristics of the Socratic method of learning are all typical of shamanism : the sexual relationship between teacher and pupil; the emphasis on learning through personal oral communication rather than through books; the aura of a divine being. Of course, Socrates was not a shaman in the same way that shamans existed in the Stone Age, but he was following that tradition in so far as it had managed to survive in urbanized, militarized Athens.
Socrates infuriated the Sophists. He attacked their economic prerogatives, their bookishness, and their repressive attitude toward sexuality. In the end, the Sophists won out. Socrates was condemned to death for corrupting the young men of Athens and for believing in gods that the state didn't believe in (Plato, Apologia, 24B). The new moralism of the Iron Age could no longer be resisted.
After the advent of the Iron Age, the entire Mediterranean area became a world of deep class divisions and ever-increasing urbanism. Small groups of warlords and their attendants settled in fortresses, which later became cities, and held sway over the masses of peasants. Economic growth depended on warfare. By the end of the fourth century B.C., most Greek city-states had become « military tyrannies ruling over an enslaved population and resting in the last resort on mercenary armies » (Rostovtzeff, 6).
Throughout the entire Mediterranean, rival states fought for supremacy. In the end, the city-state of Rome proved to be the most ruthless and violent of all and succeeded in conquering nearly all the rest.
The nature of the Roman state and Roman society has been greatly misunderstood, especially in regard to sex. Most people still think that the Romans did little else than sit around at banquet tables and devote themselves to orgies. This view, which is based on Christian propaganda, is a distortion. Roman society — when viewed in the context of the cultures before it — was actually hostile to sensual pleasure. Admittedly, in the eyes of the early Christians it seemed hedonistic. But we must never forget that the standard of judgment used by Christians was one of the most sexrepressive in the history of the world.
The dominant value system of Rome, both early in the republic and later in the empire, was one of self-discipline. The virtues praised in public and taught in school were the virtues of self-sacrifice to the state, obedience to hierarchical authority, and suspicion of pleasure and sex.
It was no accident that Rome had these values. Rome was a highly artificial state created and maintained through military violence. The foundation of the expanding Roman economy was quite simple : « The Romans enslaved the enemy and maintained their lands » (Levy, 62). War was the essence of the Roman economy. The property seized from the defeated tribes and nations became state property and was divided up among the most aggressive of the Roman warlords who became absentee landlords. The defeated peoples themselves were often shipped off to Rome where they formed an army of slave labor (Levy, 62). Roman warlords developed masculinist values because these values validated their warlike activities and supported the economy.
As might be expected, women and Gay men, especially effeminate Gay men, suffered under such a regime. In 186 B.C., the Senate banned the practice of the Bacchanalia, which was an ancient sex and nature ritual in honor of Bacchus, a variant of the horned god. The historian Livy has preserved a Consul's argument in favor of this ban, including his condemnation of the high status of women and Gay men in the Bacchanalia and its subverting influence on Roman militarism :
A great number of adherents are women, which is the origin of the whole trouble. But there are also men like women, who have joined in each other's defilement ... Do you think, citizens, that young men who have taken this oath can be made soldiers ? Are they to be trusted when they leave this obscene sanctuary ? (Partridge, 54).
There were extensive prosecutions under the ban, and about 7000 people are reported to have been arrested (Partridge, 55). The class nature of this oppression is evident when we realize that the ancient worship of Bacchus was most popular with the lower classes (Finley, 82).
The status of women fell under the militarized Roman patriarchy. Under original Roman law, a man's wife and children were considered his personal property to dispose of as he will, as if they were so many tables and chairs. This extreme situation was later tempered, however, but not because of anything Roman. It resulted from the influence of the more lenient customs of conquered peoples on Roman legislation itself (Bury, V. 2, 403).
Around 169 B.C., the Scantinia or Scatinia law was passed, which outlawed pederasty and made it punishable by death (Meier, 180). The emperor Augustus re-affirmed this condemnation and also made adultery a public crime. The anti-gay laws of Rome were primarily designed to control the behavior of the lower classes and were often ignored or flaunted by the members of the upper classes. Although homosexuality was tolerated in the upper classes, however, it had clearly lost the great social and religious significance it once had in earlier ages. It was now often associated with guilt, self-deprecation, and cruelty.
This decline in the status of homosexuality is illustrated in the case of the emperor Hadrian and his lover Antinous. When Antinous died in 120 A.D., Hadrian ordered statues erected to him throughout the Empire. Some historians compare this act to the repressive mentality of modern industrial society and see it as showing a high status for homosexuality at Rome. In reality, however, when the event is compared to earlier ages, we see that homosexuality had fallen in esteem. This falling off is well explained by one historian as follows :
To Hadrianus the relationship with Antinous was a personal matter, respected by the society in which he lived in the same way as other serious emotional rela tions. But whatever ethical and esthetic component there was in the relationship was an individual and private matter between the two. Pederasty was no longer a means employed by the state in the education of the young, controlled by its highest authorities and an obligation for the best men to take upon themselves. It was not institutionalized any longer, had no place in the cult, and its symbols had ceased to be the generally recognized expressions of the noblest aims of the communal life of the society (Vanggaard, 131).
The longer the Roman state existed, the more militarized it tended to become. « As the army in its new shape was the greatest organized force in Rome, its chiefs were bound not only to represent the military strength of the state but also to become its political leaders » (Rostovtzeff, 26). As early as 49 B.C., Julius Caesar, the militarist who defeated the Celtic tribes of Western Europe, seized power at Rome in a military coup d'etat. The republic became a military dictatorship. Even though Caesar was subsequently assassinated, the new form of government stuck.
It was during this period of the increasing militarization of the Roman state that Christianity first came into being — a fact of great significance for women and Gay men, as we'll shortly see.
The oppressive class structure of Rome was reflected in the relationship between city and country. Warlords, bureaucrats, manufacturers, academics, and other members of the upper classes took up residence in the cities, whose growth was deliberately fostered by imperial policy. In Western Europe, the emperor Augustus tried to suppress the tribal system of the Celts in favor of urbanizing them (Rostovtzeff, 51). The new class of the urban bourgeoisie supported these efforts in return for being granted a « privileged position among the masses of the provincial rural population » (Rostovtzeff, 83). The result of these developments was that the oppressed classes of the empire were rural classes, either still on the land of absentee landlords or living dispossessed in cities.
These rural-based classes held on to the old religious and cultural values, which included elements dating back to the matriarchal period. They held on to their old languages and steadfastly resisted efforts to make them accept Greek and Roman culture. It was only the privileged classes in the cities that spoke the official languages of Latin and Greek; the rest of the population spoke Celtic, Iberian, Illyrian, Thracian, etc. (Rostovtzeff, 298). In reality, the Greek and Latin literature that modern academics hold up before us as the basis of Western civilization is the voice of a minority of oppressors.
The city-based oppressing classes looked down on the tribal, rural cultures as « half civilized or uncivilized » (Rostovtzeff, 180). They especially disapproved of their loose sexuality. The emperor Tiberius had the image of the sex goddess Isis (a version of the great mother) pulled down and thrown into the Tiber (Partridge, 60). Increasingly, Roman poets and other molders of public opinion mentioned homosexuality in a context of scorn, ridicule, and satire (Gibbon, V. 2, 377).
Despite this cultural repression, the old traditions sometimes even penetrated into the upper classes. The most famous example is that of Elagabalus, a priest in a sex and nature cult, who became emperor of Rome in 218 A.D. As Emperor, he often appeared in public in drag, practiced ritual sex with members of both sexes, and publicly declared one of his male lovers to be his husband. The sentiments of the ruling classes were outraged. He was assassinated by an indignant Praetorian Guard in 222 A.D. His body was mutilated, dragged through the streets of Rome, and thrown in the Tiber River. « His memory was branded with eternal infamy by the senate » (Gibbon, V. 1, 129).
The rise and triumph of the Roman patriarchy brought with it a profound change in human values. At first gradually, and then in a great rush just prior to the triumph of Christianity, a wave of grim asceticism swept across Greco-Roman civilization. « It pervaded philosophy and religion. Like a mighty tide it swept onward, especially from the first century B.C., from the East over the West, gathering momentum as it forced its way into every serious view of life. Every great teacher from Plato to John the Baptist, from Paul to Plotinus, axiomatically accepted asceticism as an essential of and qualification for religious life » (Angus, 216-217). In the new system of values, sex and the body were degraded. « Copulation in itself became a sin ... Matter was looked upon as evil or as the seat of the evil principle; the whole business of life was to release the soul from the contact and pollution of matter, from the body, its bane » (Angus, 222).
The cause of this cultural phenomenon was the ever-increasing militarism of the Roman state. In the late Empire, the army became a separate caste consisting of huge numbers of soldiers with an elaborate bureaucratic organization. Together with the emperor, it was the largest single consumer of goods and services produced in the empire (Rostovtzeff, 149). All important political decisions came to be dictated, either directly or indirectly, by the needs of the army. Emperors were made and unmade at the behest of various factions of the army. The legendary last words of the emperor Severus to his sons sum up the whole scene : « Be united, enrich the soldiers, and scorn the rest » (Rostovtzeff, 354).
This utter militarization of society encouraged asceticism. In the first place it gave rise to the « cult of discipline » — the idea of stern self-sacrifice on behalf of the state. Secondly, and more important, it resulted in a strangulation of local political life (Halliday, 41). Decisions were made at the top, and often with great violence. Ruinous civil wars were frequent, whenever the various factions of the army couldn't agree on an emperor. The economy was dangerously unstable, depending as it did on war needs. Government became increasingly rule-bound, top-heavy, bureaucratic, and out of touch with peoples' needs. All freedom of expression was squelched. A system of secret police was formed to spy on the population. People simply had no control over their lives. Daily life became dangerous, and the best the average person could hope for was to be left alone. Ascetic religion became an opiate for the pain, enabling people to stifle their real needs and feelings, and thus avoid the suffering of constant frustration. The government was well-disposed to ascetic religion because it kept the people quiet and obedient.
It was within this historical setting that Christianity entered the stage. From its very start, the Christian religion was one of the most ascetic religions of the empire. Jesus the Nazarene, believing that the world was about to end, called upon his followers to renounce all interest in worldly things and to prepare for the age to come. Paul of Tarsus based his entire theology on the concept of sin and saw sin in practically every form of human sensuality. The new religion fed on and re-enforced the sense of despair that was growing in the Roman state :
In not a few respects Christianity was a new reflection of that pessimism which pervaded the ancient world in the centuries immediately before and immediately after the beginning of the Christian era. It adopted, but transformed in so adopting them, many of the characteristic sentiments of Greek and Roman philosophic pessimism . . . by cultivating certain practices like asceticism, mortification, and celibacy (Thompson, 61-62).
In one important way, however, Christianity differed from the other ascetic religions : it strongly emphasized corporate organization. Ascetic movements that were non-Christian were never well organized, nor were they generally intolerant of other religions. The Christians, on the other hand, were totally intolerant of any religion but their own and were very effectively organized (Gibbon, V. 1, 383). In fact, it was because of their fanaticism and zeal for organizing that the Christians were originally perceived as a threat by the Roman establishment. Consequently they were sporadically persecuted in the first and second centuries.
Christianity had another important peculiarity. In contrast to the old sex religions, Christianity was from its very first an urban religion. The word « Christian » first came into use in Antioch, a large metropolis in Asia Minor. « Early Christianity was a religion of towns and cities; it was urban, not rural. It spread from city to city, from province to province, along the highways of trade and commerce by land and by sea » (Thompson, 56). The first Christians were members of the new urban classes : artisans, craftspeople, shopkeepers and tradespeople (Thompson, 57). Urban oriented, they tended to equate rural living with everything non-Christian. The word « pagan » comes from the Latin pagan us, which means country dweller. Augustine labelled his ideal Christian community the city of God and subtitled his book of that name « Against the pagani. »
Early in the third century A.D., Christianity spread rapidly in the army, as soldiers responded to the Christian emphasis on discipline, organizational order and obedience. A contending religion, Mithraism, had also grown rapidly in the army as early as 60 B.C. (Taylor, 251-252). Christianity absorbed much of the militaristic spirit of this religion and even some of its holidays (such as December 25th, the birth-day of Mithra, the son of the sun god, and Sunday, the day of the sun, in contrast to Saturday, the Jewish sabbath). During this period, with the conversion of soldiers and the absorption of Mithraism, Christianity began to change from a loose federation of cells into a unified, centrally-controlled hierarchy of bishops and archbishops (Gibbon, V. 1, 421).
The emperor Constantine emphasized the militaristic traits of Christianity and incorporated them into army life. The cross was adopted as a military symbol and placed on shields and banners. Goths and Germans were recruited in the army and made to march behind the sign of the cross. The first two letters of the word « Christ » in Greek were formed into a logo and stamped on coins with the inscription in hoc signo winces (« By this sign shall you conquer ») (Gibbon, V. 1, 644, 656).
On becoming emperor, Constantine proclaimed himself the protector of Christianity, made Christianity a legal religion throughout the empire, systematically appointed Christians to high-level bureaucratic jobs in the government and army, encouraged people to donate money to the church, and finally converted to the new religion on his death bed. He was the first Roman ruler to realize that a religion well-entrenched in the army and ascetic in outlook could be very useful in controlling the state : « The passive and unresisting obedience which bows under the yoke of authority, or even of oppression, must have appeared in the eyes of the absolute monarch the most conscpicuous and useful of evangelic virtues » (Gibbon, V. 1, 640).
The Christian emperors following Constantine consolidated his policy. Christianity became the state religion; all other religions were banned. The rich and powerful converted in great numbers to Christianity and donated vast amounts of money to the church. Bishops became more than religious officials; in many parts of the empire, both east and west, they absorbed the powers and functions of government officials, generals, and judges. They also became absentee landlords of huge estates. For example, the fifthcentury bishop of Cappadocia owned almost all the land in the province of Cappadocia (Thompson, 82).
The church itself increasingly assumed the powers of government, developing an elaborate bureaucracy (Thompson, 77). As the largest landowner in society, the church also became the largest slaveowner and advocate of slavery. The church pushed slavery beyond its earlier form in the secular Roman empire (Thompson, 86). Christians systematized a whole set of slave laws which later facilitated the enslavement of non-white people in the 17th and 18th centuries. « It was that most Christian of emperors, Justinian, whose codification of the Roman law . . . provided Christian Europe with a ready-made legal foundation for the slavery they introduced into the New World a thousand years later » (Finley, 88-89).
And so Christianity became more than just a religion. It became a system of power and property. The ruling warlords and absentee landowners of Roman civilization converted to Christianity and made it their own, as society moved away from the ancient economy towards medieval feudalism. The church itself emerged as the most potent corporate body in society, holding in its hands not only the keys of Peter but also the government and the major means of production.
As these changes were taking place, Christian propagandists called for the destruction of paganism because of the prevalence of homosexuality in the religions of the old nature cultures. Augustine, one of the most influential writers, repeatedly called attention to this love of sexuality and urged that it be destroyed. He was particularly incensed by the worship of the Great Mother, whose chief priests were Gay transvestites. After ridiculing various rural sex gods, he says, « The same applies to the effeminates consecrated to the Great Mother, who violate every canon of decency in men and women. They were to be seen until just the other day in the streets and squares of Carthage with their pomaded hair and powdered faces, gliding along with womanish languor, and demanding from the shopkeepers the means of their depraved existence » (Augustine, 286).
Constantine declared pederasty a capital offence; the emperors Valentinian and Theodosius applied the penalty of being burned. Justinian initiated a pogrom against Gay men, whom he rounded up in large numbers, tortured, and burned. An ancient author notes : « Some he had castrated, while in the case of others he ordered sharp reeds inserted into their genital openings and had them paraded as captives through the forum » (Theodosius of Melitene, quoted by Bury, 412, note 5). The charges of homosexuality became a tool for hunting down political dissidents, as it would be later in the Middle Ages (Gibbon, V. 2, 378). In the fourth century A.D., the emperors Valentinian and Valens undertook a witch-hunt for practitioners of « magic. » « From the extremity of Italy and Asia the young and the aged were dragged in chains to the tribunals of Rome and Antioch. Senators, matrons, and philosophers expired in ignominious and cruel tortures » (Gibbon, V. 2, 856).
The triumph of Christianity thus represented the triumph of the worst patriarchal elements of Roman civilization. It was the final triumph of urban-based male militarists and their followers, who increasingly rose to power first under the republic and then under the empire. Once victorious, they adopted a new patriarchal religion, banned all other religions, appropriated to themselves all the means of production, reduced the rest of the population to slavery, enforced a universal code of blind obedience to authority, degraded women, and suppressed sexuality.
In the past, victorious patriarchal groups always reached some accommodation with the older matriarchal and rural traditions which continued to exist and mold society in an important way. But things were different after 300 A.D. For the first time in Western history, the patriarchists attempted to root out and utterly destroy everything connected with the old rural-based sex religions. Their successors continued the same tactics of terror later in the middle ages in their attacks on witches and heretics.
The repressive institutions and values established by these patriarchists became the basis for the development of industrialism. The new cities that emerged in the late middle ages came to birth in the context of a profound Christian contempt for rural living. « Christianity ... reinforced the prejudice against the countryside in making the countryman (pagan us) into the pagan, the rebel against the word of the Christian god » (Cipolla, Fontana Economic History of Europe, V. 1, 71). This is not surprising since the new towns first formed around the fortresses of Christian warlords and the buildings of Christian monasteries.
These new towns owed their existence to violence and repression against the countryside. They became an « abnormal growth, a peculiar body totally foreign to the surrounding environment. » As the countryside itself gradually became industrialized, peasants were wrenched away from rural servitude to become slaves in urban workshops (Cipolla, Fontana, V. 1, 18, 180). The mentality of the new towns was typically Christian : they displayed a love of order, discipline, punctuality and self-restraint. These attitudes were « indispensable to the growth of capitalism and to the industrial revolution » (Cipolla, Fontana, V. 1, 94).
Another Christian legacy to industrialism was the objectification of nature. In the old religion, trees, rocks and plants were viewed as living beings with which people could personally communicate. Often they were worshipped as gods. Christians viewed these natural beings as so many objects to be used by the highest order of creation : humankind. The new urbanism reinforced this belief. Christians lived within the walls out of touch with natural beings, which now became « resources. » One result of this attitude was the rapid deforestation of Europe. « The great forests of Europe . . . were regarded as as enemy to be hewn down » (Thompson, 610). As might be expected, these practices led to an acute shortage of lumber, especially in England. There, this state of affairs led in turn to the adoption of coal for manufacturing activities, a practice that « put England well on the road to the Industrial Revolution » (Cipolla, Fontana, V. 2, 12).
The evolution of monasteries laid the foundation for the development of a money economy. In the 4th century A.D., monasteries were incorporated and allowed to own corporate property (Thompson, 139). The discipline, asceticism and orderliness of the monasteries enabled them to acquire great wealth in a short period of time. « Religiously the monks were intense fanatics, economically they became avaricious » (Thompson, 141). Bulging with wealth, monasteries became the earliest banks of the middle ages. Although Christian law at this time forbade usury, the monasteries were exempted. « A common argument was that, as the monastery was a corporation, and not a person, no sin was attached to the taking of usury » (Thompson, 638).
Another important step along the industrial road was Christian militarism. By the middle ages, the church had become a great military power. Bishops, abbots, and even Popes were warlords who often personally took to the field of battle (Thompson, 655-657). The Christian love of war, together with the Christian intolerance of any other religion, led to the development of the crusades, beginning in the 11th century. The crusades were the first great impulse of European imperialism. They brought foreign markets under Western control, encouraged the development of cities, created a money economy in place of the natural economy of barter, and fostered the development of a new class, the bourgeoisie (Thompson, 397).
It was in the same mood of religious militarism that Europe undertook a second wave of expansion in the 16th century, the so-called voyages of discovery to the new world. In reality, they were imperialistic expeditions with two goals : to spread the Christian religion and to get gold (Gilbert, 30). These European invaders annihilated the cultures of the native peoples they encountered (all of whom were non-white), and gave special attention to wiping out their sacred Gay transvestites. The gold and silver bullion stolen from the nature peoples was returned to Europe, where it provided the basis for the financial expansions of European businesses. In the succeeding centuries, white Europeans enslaved millions of people from nature cultures to provide the forced labor necessary to support the growing industrial monster. The enslaved victims, who were non-white, were viewed as less than human beings. « These dark-skinned peoples lacked both the Christian culture which Europeans considered essential for salvation, and the technology to resist European mastery » (Gilbert, 288).
The violence of Christian militarism was also internalized in Europe itself. The most famous example of this was the never ending hunt for heretics and the mobilization of armies to wipe them out. In the time of the early Christian emperors, a campaign was begun « to despoil the pagan temples of their property » (Thompson, 71). The seized property was used to pay for the increased cost of government bureaucracy, and bishops became financial speculators with the proceeds (Thompson, 71, 77). In the later middle ages, the hunt for witches and heretics was an example of the same thing. Witch-hunting became a major industry in the middle ages. The crusade against the Albigensians turned into « a series of gigantic buccaneering expeditions » (Thompson, 490). The King of France supported the crusade because he wanted to bring the southern provinces within his power, thereby unifying the French state and establishing direct trade routes with the East (Thompson, 492). In a separate incident with another French King, the Templars were charged with homosexuality and deprived of their property in order to build up the French Treasury and underwrite war expenditures. Everywhere heresy-hunting helped provide the needed capital for building up the apparatus of the emerging state.
The entrenched militarism of Christian civilization led to the development of a huge arms industry where modern methods of production were first practiced on a wide scale. « It is characteristic of the early modern period that until far into the 17th century the best examples of large-scale industrial organization were state-owned factories producing war materiel » (Gilbert, 51). The modern factory system is thus a direct descendant of Christian militarism.
The real beneficiary of Christian militarism was a new institution that became the epitome of institutionalized violence-the nation state. This happened because the business of war increasingly became the specialty of secular princes and the new economic forces that supported them (the bourgeoisie). The nation-states they created eventually came to have a monopoly on institutionalized violence, and so ended up with a monopoly on political power as well.
Although Christian violence was responsible for the birth of the modern nation-state, the state nonetheless engaged in a savage struggle with its parent. In time, the state was victorious. The rule of clergy was replaced by the rule of politicians. Scholasticism was replaced by science. Government bureaucracy took over from church hierarchy. But underneath there remained the same class domination, urbanism, militarism, racism, exploitation of nature, and repression of women and sexuality.
The triumph of the nation-state brought with it a shift in Christian values, coinciding with the rise of Protestantism. Lutheranism, the first successful form of Protestantism, came into being because certain petty states in Germany were willing to use their armies to resist Catholic military power. Luther never forgot this debt and continually supported the secular power's authoritarianism. For example, in 1525 Luther urged the state to suppress with violence the rebelling peasants, whom he compared to mad dogs (Gilbert, 155). Lutheranism became a profoundly reactionary religion, whose members were drawn mostly from the upper and middle classes (Gilbert, 156).
In Calvinism, the successful accumulation of money was viewed as a sign of God's grace; alienated labor was a « calling »; and self-interested calculation was a sign of rationality. The bourgeois thrust of Calvinism has led some writers like Max Weber to conclude that Protestantism prepared the way for the rise of capitalism. But as we have just seen, the entire Christian tradition was working to this end for a thousand years.
The really different thing about Protestantism is that it tried to purge Christianity of influences it had picked up from paganism. The so-called Reformation was in reality a reaction against the Renaissance, where pagan influence (including a looser sexuality) had had a major impact on Western culture. Protestants emphasized the anti-sexual, anti-woman writings of Paul of Tarsus. They detested anything that suggested sensuality. In some cases, they entered existing churches, smashed the organs, broke the statuary, and white-washed the murals (Gilbert, 136). Significantly, they rejected the worship of Mary, whose cult was a survival within the Christian patriarchy of earlier matriarchal values.
The Puritans were the most fanatical of the Protestants. John Knox attacked the status of women in his pamphlet « The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women » (Partridge, 116).
Thomas Hall published a pamphlet called « The Loathsomeness of Long Haire » (Partridge, 118). Puritans insisted on sexist dress codes. « The Puritans attempted, for reasons which should not be too obscure, to masculinize men as far as possible, and correspondingly, to defeminize and make negative members of the opposite sex » (Partridge, 117-118).
All the major sects of Protestantism agreed on severely repressing sexuality; on inculcating unquestioned obedience to authority, both of the state and of the male head of the family; and on scorning non-Christian and non-white cultures. The rising bourgeoisie eagerly embraced these values and translated them into public policy, where they remain to this day.
And so the story of human history in the West has been the sickening scpectacle of increasing patriarchal power, first gradually in the Bronze Age, then with a sudden leap in the triumph of Christianity, and finally overwhelmingly with the onrush of industrialism. Corresponding to this rise has been a fall, first in the status of women, then of rural people, then of Gay people, then of non-white people.
Everywhere the old nature cultures are gone. The Celts are gone, conquered by Caesar. The peasants of Europe are gone, having been murdered, enslaved, or transformed into an urban proletariat. The Indians are gone, wiped out on orders from the Pope and from Washington. The Third World has been going every day. They are all gone, and in their place has come that son of the city of God, that all-conquering Leviathan, the new industrial state.
And that's how it happened that straight white males got control of our lives.
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