Philo on sexuality and homosexuality: On Moses

In “On Abraham,” Philo constructs a midrash in which God punishes the land for being fruitful and abundant, yet there is no mention of God’s actions towards the humans who were not fruitful nor abundant.

In contrast, in “On Moses,” Philo constructs a backstory which we find referred to in Revelation 2:14.  In Philo’s midrash, we find a detailed and graphic account of  the “stumbling block” and the subsequent punishment.

Rev 2:14 says:

But I have a few things against you: you have some there who hold the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, so that they might eat food sacrificed to idols and practice sexual immorality.”

Numbers 31:15-8 has only this to say about the matter: 

Moses said to them, “Have you let all the women live? Behold, these, on Balaam’s advice, caused the people of Israel to act treacherously against the Lord in the incident of Peor, and so the plague came among the congregation of the Lord.  Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man by lying with him.  But all the young girls who have not known man by lying with him keep alive for yourselves.

Phllo’s midrash says:

Knowing that the one way by which the Hebrews could be overthrown was disobedience, he set himself to lead them, through wantonness and licentiousness, to impiety, through a great sin to a still greater, and put before them the bait of pleasure.  ‘You have in your countrywomen, king,’ he said, ‘persons of pre-eminent beauty.  And there is nothing to which a man more easily falls a captive than women’s comeliness.  If, then, you permit the fairest among them to prostitute themselves for hire, they will ensnare the younger of their enemies.  But you must instruct them not to allow their wooers to enjoy their charms at once.  For coyness titillates, and thereby makes the appetites more active, and inflames the passions.  And, when their lust has them in its grip, there is nothing which they will shrink from doing or suffering.  Then, when the lover is in this condition, one of those who are arming to take their prey should say: ‘You must not be permitted to enjoy my favors until you have left the ways of your fathers and become a convert to honoring what I honor.  That your conversion is sincere will be clearly proven to me if you are willing to take part in the libations and sacrifices  which we offer to idols of stone and wood and the other images.’  Then the lover, caught in the meshes of her multiform lures, her beauty and the enticements of her wheedling talk, will not gainsay her, but, with his reason trussed and pinioned, will subserve her orders to his sorrow and be enrolled as a slave of passion.

Such was his advice.  And the king, thinking that the proposal was good, ignoring the law against adultery and annulling those which prohibited seduction and fornication as though they had never been enacted at all, permitted the women, without restriction, to have intercourse with whom they would.  Having thus received immunity, so greatly did they mislead the minds of most of the young men, and pervert them by their arts to impiety, that they soon made a conquest of them.  And this continued until Phinehas, the son of the High Priest, greatly angered at what he saw and horrified at the thought that his people had at the same moment surrendered their bodies to pleasure and their souls to lawlessness and unholiness, showed the young gallant spirit which befitted a man of true excellence.  For, seeing one of his race offering sacrifice and visiting a harlot, not with his head bowed down towards the ground, nor trying in the usual way to make a stealthy entrance unobserved by the public, but flaunting his licentiousness boldly and shamelessly, and pluming himself as though his conduct called for honor instead of scorn, he was filled with bitterness and righteous anger, and attacking the pair while they still lay together, he killed both the lover and his concubine, ripping up her parts of generation because they served to receive the illicit seed.  This example being observed by some of those who were jealous for continence and godliness they copied it at the command of Moses, and massacred all their friends and kinsfolk who had taken part in the rites of these idols made by men’s hands.  Thus they purged the defilement of the nation, by relentlessly punishing the actual sinners, while they spared the rest who gave clear proof of their piety.

We note that the description of the punishment is graphic, and that the punishment was carried out by a human, not by God.  We note that it was copied on Moses’ orders.  From this we can infer two things:  humans are more severe against one another regarding sexual matters than God is, and God does not object to homosexuality.