旧約聖書の言う姦淫
婚外の性交はすべて不道徳であるというキリスト教の見解は、上述の聖パウロからの引用に見るように、あらゆる性交は、たとえ結婚している場合においても遺憾なものである、という見解に基づいていた。この種の見解は、生物学的事実に反するものであり、正気の人からは病的な精神異常としかみなされない。こういう見解がキリスト教倫理に埋め込まれているために、キリスト教は、その全歴史を通じて、精神異常と不健康な人生観に向かわせる勢力になってしまった。 聖パウロの見解は、初期教会によって強調され、誇張された。独身は神聖なものとみなされ、人びとは世を捨てて砂漠に行き、サタンと戦ったが、その間、サタンは人びとの想像力を好色の幻影でいっぱいにしたのだった。 |
Chapter V Christian EthicsCondemnation of all fornication was a novelty in the Christian religion. The Old Testament, like most codes of early civilization, forbids adultery, but it means by adultery intercourse with a married woman. This is evident to anyone who reads the Old Testament attentively. For example, when Abraham goes to Egypt with Sarah he tells the king that Sarah is his sister, and the king, believing this, takes her into his harem; when it subsequently transpires that she is Abraham's wife, the king is shocked to find that he has unwittingly committed sin, and reproaches Abraham for not having told him the facts. This was the usual code of antiquity. A woman who had intercourse outside marriage was thought ill of, but a man was not condemned unless he had intercourse with the wife of another, in which case he was guilty of an offence against property. The Christian view that all intercourse outside marriage is immoral was, as we see in the above passages from St. Paul, based upon the view that all sexual intercourse, even within marriage, is regrettable. A view of this sort, which goes against biological facts, can only be regarded by sane people as a morbid aberration. The fact that it is embedded in Christian ethics has made Christianity, throughout its whole history, a force tending towards mental disorders and unwholesome views of life.St. Paul's view were emphasized and exaggerated by the early Church; celibacy was considered holy, and men retired into the desert to wrestle with Satan while he filled their imaginations with lustful visions. |