Megan, I've forwarded your query to the Med-Gay listserv, asking its members
to respond to you directly.
Tom Long
Dr. Thomas L. Long, Ph.D.
English Department
Thomas Nelson Community College
PO Box 9407
Hampton, Virginia 23670 USA
Chairperson, VCCS Regional Centers for Teaching Excellence/Tidewater
757.825.3663 (voice)
757.825.3842 (fax)
http://users.visi.net/~longt
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Megan McLaughlin [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Tuesday, December 19, 2000 11:52 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Non-Festive Holiday Query
>
> Greetings, listmates. Yesterday, while I was looking around for
> something to read while consuming my lunch, my eyes fell on my copy
> of the Golden Legend, and I thought I would read what James of
> Voragine had to say about the Nativity. As he discusses the ways in
> which all creatures bore witness to the birth of Christ, he throws
> in the following:
> "And even the sodomites gave witness by being exterminated wherever
> they were in the world on that night, as Jerome says: 'A light rose
> over them so bright that all who practiced this vice were wiped out;
> and Christ did this in order that no such uncleanness might be found
> in the nature he had assumed.' For, as Augustine says, God, seeing
> that a vice contrary to nature was rife in human nature, hesitated to
> become incarnate." (Ryan translation, pg. 41)
> Now, reading this did not exactly lift my holiday spirits--in fact I
> was left quite depressed by the savagery of the sentiment. But the
> passage also left me puzzled. Based on what I've read about the
> evolution of attitudes towards homosexuality, it seems unlikely that
> Jerome actually thought all "sodomites" died at the first Christmas.
> Does anyone have a clue, then, about when and where this nasty legend
> originated?
> Megan
> --
> Megan McLaughlin
> Associate Professor of History and Women's Studies
> University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
> 309 Gregory Hall, 810 S. Wright St.
> Urbana, IL 61801 U.S.A.
> Phone: 217-244-2084
> Fax: 217-333-2297
> E-mail: [log in to unmask]
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