Was Paul of Tarsus' "thorn in the flesh" homosexuality?
Biblical reflections* by Kittredge Cherry** published on his blog Q Spirit (United States) in August 2018, freely translated by Giacomo Tessaro, part two
The modern concept of homosexuality did not exist in biblical times, but according to John Shelby Spong and others, sexual attraction to men could explain some mysteries of Paul's life:
– He never married; something unusual for a first-century Jew. However, he had a series of mission companions, male, younger than him;
– Sometimes he expressed negative judgments towards women and exploitation in homosexual relationships;
– Tormented by dissatisfaction with himself, he begged God three times, in vain, to remove an unspecified “thorn in the flesh” that tormented him. Some believe that the "plug" was the attraction for other men. God, in any case, Paul writes, refused to oblige him, explaining “My grace is sufficient for you; in fact my power is fully manifested in weakness";
– Homosexuality could even explain his paroxysmal conversion experience. From the intense persecution of Christians he landed the role of leader more active than the very movement he had tried to destroy. The vision he had of Christ left him shattered by the revelation that nothing could separate him from the love of God.
“The war being fought inside is a pretty classic description of what I've seen in repressed gay men.” Spong said in an interview with Los Angeles Times on February 2, 1991. For the bishop, these contradictions finally found their meaning when he read the book by the British theologian Arthur Darby Nock Saint Paul, published in 1937, in which Paolo's possible homosexuality is foreshadowed: “[That book] it was for me an amazing revelation of who Paolo was".
Some glimpse a possible romantic relationship between Paolo and his “beloved brother” Onesimus in the Epistle to Philemon. There is also a possible homoerotic component to his love for the resurrected Christ, as David E. Fredrickson states in the book Eros and the Christ: Longing and Envy in Paul's Christology (Eros and Christ. Desire and envy in Pauline Christology).
The Apostle also wrote some curiously queer sentences, in which he imagines himself in the role of a woman: “I give birth again in pain until Christ is formed in you!” (Galatians 4:19); “We have been loving among you as a mother nourishes and cares for her children” (1 Thessalonians 2:7-8).
* The biblical passages are taken from the Jerusalem Bible/CEI.
** Kittredge Cherry is founder ofQ Spirit blog. She is a lesbian Christian writer who writes regularly about LGBTQ spirituality. She has degrees in theology, journalism and art history. She is pastor of the Metropolitan Community Churches and has served as a national ecumenical officer; she is currently involved in the National Council of Churches and the World Council of Churches, and fights for LGBT rights.
Original text: Paul the Apostle: Did his homosexuality shape Christianity?
