This talk looks at how Christian leaders associated adultery, prostitution, and slavery to condemn behavior they wanted to prohibit. Prostitution, concubinage, and sex with enslaved people conflicted with emerging ideas of Christian sexual ethics in the later Roman empire. In the thinking of Christian authors, enslaved people were negative figures that could tempt free men, but more often they were used to chastise them. They argued against male adultery, using enslaved people to highlight the perceived disgrace of this behavior. 

Friday, October 18, 2024 – 12pm

Olds Upton Science Hall, Room 312