Chris L. de Wet - Nemesius of Emesa On Desire, Pleasure, and Sex" (2021)

Religion & Theology 28 (2021) 206–232 Religion
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Nemesius of Emesa on Desire, Pleasure, and Sex

A Case of the Medical Making of an Early Christian Sexual Culture
Chris L. de Wet | orcid: 0000-0002-2628-2013

Department of Biblical and Ancient Studies, University of South Africa,
Pretoria, South Africa; Australian Lutheran College, University of Divinity,
Adelaide, Australia
dwetcl@unisa.ac.za
Abstract
This article investigates the views of Nemesius, the bishop of Emesa in Roman Syria at
the end of the fourth century ce, on desire, pleasure, and sex, mainly from his work,
De natura hominis, asking specifically how Nemesius’s account represents what we
might term the “medical making” of an early Christian sexual culture. Nat. hom. was
most likely composed at the end of the fourth century ce, and represents the first
full and formal Christian anthropology, incorporating views from Christian and non-
Christian philosophy (especially Plato and Aristotle) and, of course, extensively util-
ising (and often even quoting verbatim) ancient medical literature (especially Galen).
The study commences by providing a descriptive account of Nemesius’s framework on
the dynamics of desire, pleasure, and sex, and then draws some conclusions on how
these views of Nemesius translate into a very particular Christian sexual culture in late
antique Syria.
Keywords
Nemesius of Emesa – early Christian sexuality – ancient sexuality – desire – pleasure –

ancient sex – ancient medicine – church fathers
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nemesius of emesa on desire, pleasure, and sex 207
1 Introduction: The Medical Turn in Early Christian Studies
In the past two decades there has been an exponential growth in studies on
early Christian literature that takes medical discourse and practice as trajecto-
ries. Moreover, the period of Late Antiquity has, in particular, received renewed
attention with regards to the relationship between Christianity and medical
discourse and practice. Since the publication of works like Iwan Bloch’s con-
tribution to the Handbuch der Geschichte der Medizin in 1902 on Byzantine
medicine, the period of Late Antiquity has been viewed as a more sterile
period for the development of medical knowledge and practice. Bloch espe-
cially saw Late Antiquity as the last dark age before the wondrous dawn of Ara-
bic medicine.1 A further reason for this view might be, as Vivian Nutton shows,
that in the later Roman Empire, the most dominant form of medicine, namely
Galenism, was already well established.2 Nutton further explains, however: “All
these developments … give the lie to any interpretation of the medicine of
Late Antiquity in terms of stagnation and uncomprehending decline. Rather,
they show new, and at times vigorous, responses on the part of doctors, of all
kinds, to the society around them, even as they assert continuities with their
own heritage.”3 What we encounter in Late Antiquity, however, is more than
new and vigorous responses from doctors only. Christian intellectuals, espe-
cially bishops and priests, did not hesitate to incorporate often detailed medical
information into their homilies and treatises, usually with a distinct Christian
flair. In Late Antiquity, we discover the transformation of medical knowledge
and practice via the vision and literary outputs of early Christianity.
Galenism was particularly influential in the Greek East of the later Roman
Empire, and numerous studies have been undertaken on medical discourse and
practice in early eastern Christianity.4 This article adds to this line of research
1 Iwan Bloch, “Byzantinische Medizin,” in Handbuch der Geschichte der Medizin, ed. Theodor
Puschmann, Max Neuburger, and Julius Pagel, 3 vols. (Jena: G. Fischer, 1902), 492–588.
2 Vivian Nutton, Ancient Medicine (Abingdon; New York, NY: Routledge, 2012), 292.
3 Nutton, Ancient Medicine, 295.
4 See for instance the following seminal studies: Andrew T. Crislip, From Monastery to Hos-
pital: Christian Monasticism and the Transformation of Health Care in Late Antiquity (Ann
Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2005); idem, Thorns in the Flesh: Illness and Sanc-
tity in Late Ancient Christianity, Divinations: Rereading Late Ancient Religion (Philadelphia,
PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012); Gary B. Ferngren, Medicine and Health Care in
Early Christianity (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016); Christian Schulze,
Medizin und Christentum in Spätantike und frühem Mittelalter: christliche Ärzte und ihr Wirken,
Studien und Texte zu Antike und Christentum 27 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005); Antigone
Samellas, “Public Aspects of Pain in Late Antiquity: The Testimony of Chrysostom and the
Cappadocians in Their Graeco-Roman Context,” Zeitschrift für Antikes Christentum 19, no. 2
Religion & Theology 28 (2021) 206–232 Downloaded from Brill.com12/29/2021 07:30:38PM

208 de wet
by investigating the views of Nemesius, the bishop of Emesa in Roman Syria

(modern-day Homs, in Syria) at the end of the fourth century ce, on desire,
pleasure, and sex, mainly from his work, De natura hominis (henceforth Nat.
hom.), asking specifically how Nemesius’s account represents what we might
term the “medical making” of an early Christian sexual culture. Nat. hom. was
most likely composed at the end of the fourth century ce, and represents the
first full and formal Christian anthropology, incorporating views from Christian
and non-Christian philosophy (especially Plato and Aristotle) and, of course,
extensively utilising (and often even quoting verbatim) ancient medical litera-
ture (especially Galen).5 The reason for the combination of philosophical and
(2015): 260–296, doi.org/10.1515/zac-2015-0022; eadem, Death in the Eastern Mediterranean

(50–600 a.d.): The Christianization of the East: An Interpretation, Studien und Texte zu Antike
und Christentum 12 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002); Anne E. Merideth, “Illness and Heal-
ing in the Early Christian East” (Ph.D Dissertation, Princeton University, 1999); Jonathan
L. Zecher, The Role of Death in the Ladder of Divine Ascent and the Greek Ascetic Tradi-
tion, Oxford Early Christian Studies (Oxford; New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2015),
doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198724940.001.0001; idem, “Medical Art in Spiritual Direc-
tion: Basil, Barsanuphios, and John on Diagnosis and Meaning in Illness,” Journal of Early
Christian Studies 28, no. 4 (2020): 591–623, doi.org/10.1353/earl.2020.0044; Susan R. Holman,
Beholden: Religion, Global Health, and Human Rights (Oxford; New York, NY: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 2015), doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199827763.001.0001; Wendy Mayer, “The
Persistence in Late Antiquity of Medico-Philosophical Psychic Therapy,” Journal of Late Antiq-
uity 8, no. 2 (2015): 337–351, doi.org/10.1353/jla.2015.0024; eadem, “Medicine in Transition:
Christian Adaptation in the Later Fourth-Century East,” in Shifting Genres in Late Antiquity,
ed. Geoffrey Greatrex and Hugh Elton (Farnham; Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2015), 11–26; Dana
Robinson, Food, Virtue, and the Shaping of Early Christianity (Cambridge; New York, NY: Cam-
bridge University Press, 2020), doi.org/10.1017/9781108785693; Junghun Bae, John Chrysostom:
On Almsgiving and the Therapy of the Soul, John Chrysostom, Patristic Studies in Global Per-
spective 1 (Paderborn: Brill Schöningh, 2020); Fernando Soler, Orígenes y los alimentos espiri-
tuales: el uso teológico de metáforas de comer y beber, Patristic Studies in Global Perspective 2
(Paderborn: Brill Schöningh, 2021); Courtney Wilson Van Veller, “Paul’s Therapy of the Soul: A
New Approach to John Chrysostom and Anti-Judaism” (Ph.D Dissertation, Boston University,
2015); Chris L. de Wet, “The Preacher’s Diet: Gluttony, Regimen, and Psycho-Somatic Health
in the Thought of John Chrysostom,” in Revisioning John Chrysostom: New Approaches, New
Perspectives, ed. Chris L. de Wet and Wendy Mayer, Critical Approaches to Early Christianity
1 (Leiden; Boston, MA: Brill, 2019), 410–463, doi.org/10.1163/9789004390041_013.
5 For the Greek text, I use the reprinted Teubner edition by Moreno Morani, ed., Nemesii Eme-
seni de Natura Hominis (Leipzig: Teubner, 1987). I also use the very useful and annotated
translation of Robert W. Sharples and Philip J. van der Eijk, trans., Nemesius: On the Nature of
Man, Translated Texts for Historians 49 (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2008). This vol-
ume contains a helpful introduction and extensive notes, especially on the use of Nemesius’s
sources. Further useful introductory information is provided by Martin Streck, Das schönste
Gut: Der menschliche Wille bei Nemesius von Emesa und Gregor von Nyssa, Forschungen zur
Kirchen- und Dogmengeschichte 88 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2005), 18–121. See
Religion & Theology 28 (2021) 206–232

medical literature lies in the fact that, for Nemesius, the two main parts of the
human subject are the soul and the body. While there was not that much of
a distinction between philosophical and medical genres in Greek and Roman
antiquity, Nemesius relies on philosophy to elucidate the nature of the soul and
on medicine to better explain the body. Philosophy and medicine, however, are
inextricably intertwined in Nat. hom. Nemesius was most likely not a practic-
ing physician, and his writing highlights how detailed “lay” medical knowledge
could be in Late Antiquity. What is most important is that Nemesius shows us
the possibilities of combining medical-philosophical knowledge with Chris-
tian theology. I will begin by providing a descriptive account of Nemesius’s
framework on the dynamics of desire, pleasure, and sex, and thereafter I draw
some conclusions on how these views of Nemesius translate into a very par-
ticular Christian sexual culture in late antique Syria. In this regard, Nemesius
represents perhaps an almost perfect example of the relevance of the medical
turn in early Christian studies.
In sum, although social historians of medicine did not give due attention to
transformations of medical discourse in late antique religious texts, the inverse
would also be true. For many years, those studying patristics did not acknowl-
edge the fact that medical discourse, in itself, also represented a (different) type
of theological discourse. As medicine and philosophy was inextricably related
in ancient thought, the same could be said, in some cases, for the relationship
between medicine and theology in Late Antiquity. Nemesius is a prime exam-
ple of how medicine and theology could magnificently eclipse and become
intertwined, as it were. The value of the approach followed in this article is that
it approaches seemingly conventional theological texts and themes – in this
case, that of theological anthropology – from the position of discourses (such
as medicine) that appear, at first, to be unrelated to theological enquiry. This
testifies to the complex and diverse transformations of theological thought in
the late antique period – transformations that reach beyond the great theo-
logical councils and controversies, finding resonance closer to the very bodily
experiences of those who confessed the creeds.
also several useful essays in Véronique Boudon-Millot and Bernard Pouderon, eds, Les Pères
de l’Église face à la science médicale de leur temps, Théologie historique 117 (Paris: Duchesne,
2005).

210 de wet
2 Nemesius on Desire, Pleasure, and Sex
The most important trajectory in Nemesius’s work is the relationship between

the soul and the body.6 This relationship is what fundamentally undergirds the
human experience in every sense, even up to the minutest and most banal facet
of human existence. We need to begin here, with the dynamics of psychic dom-
ination, before we can fully grasp his views on desire, pleasure, and sex.
2.1 The Importance of Psychic Domination

In this regard, Nemesius follows the principle common to much of both Chris-
tian and non-Christian philosophy, namely that the soul should dominate and
rule over the body. This is especially due to the influence of Plato on Nemesius’s
thought. For Nemesius, the body should be an instrument (ὄργανον) of the soul,
which is likened to a craftsman (τεχνίτης):
The body is the instrument of the soul and it is divided up in correspon-

dence with the faculties of the soul. For it is constructed to be serviceable
and useful for these, so that none of the soul’s powers should be impeded
by the body. At least, special parts of the body are assigned to each psy-
chic power for its activity, as the argument will show as it continues. For
the soul is in the position of a craftsman, the body of an instrument,
the matter is what the action is concerned with, the completion is the
action itself. For example, the woman is the underlying material, for the
action is concerned with her: the action is adultery or fornication or mar-
riage.
τὸ δὲ σῶμα τῆς ψυχῆς ὄργανον ὑπάρχον ταῖς ψυχικαῖς δυνάμεσι συνδιαιρεῖται.

ταύταις γὰρ πρόσφορόν τε καὶ ἐπιτήδειον κατεσκεύασται πρὸς τὸ μηδεμίαν
αὐτῆς δύναμιν ὑπὸ τοῦ σώματος ἐμποδίζεσθαι. ἑκάστῃ γοῦν ψυχικῇ δυνάμει
πρὸς τὴν ἐνέργειαν ἴδια μέρη τοῦ σώματος ἀποκεκλήρωται, ὡς προϊὼν ὁ λόγος
ἀποδείξει. ἡ μὲν γὰρ ψυχὴ τάξιν ἐπέχει τεχνίτου, τὸ δὲ σῶμα ὀργάνου, ὕλη δέ
6 On the unity of and relationship between soul and body in Nemesius, see Pier F. Beatrice,
“L’union de l’âme et du corps. Némésius d’Émèse lecteur de Porphyre,” in Les pères de l’ église
face à la science médicale de leur temps, ed. Véronique Boudon-Millot and Bernard Pouderon,
Théologie historique 117 (Paris: Beauchesne, 2005), 253–286; Marie-Odile Boulnois, “L’union
de l’âme et du corps comme modèle christologique, de Némésius d’ Émèse à la controverse
nestorienne,” in Les pères de l’église face à la science médicale de leur temps, ed. Véronique
Boudon-Millot and Bernard Pouderon, Théologie historique 117 (Paris: Beauchesne, 2005),
451–476.

ἐστι, περὶ ἃ ἡ πρᾶξις, τὸ δὲ ἀποτέλεσμα ἡ πρᾶξις αὐτή. οἷον ὡς ὕλη μὲν ὑπόκει-
ται ἡ γυνή· περὶ ταύτην γὰρ ἡ πρᾶξις· ἡ δὲ πρᾶξις μοιχεία ἢ πορνεία ἢ γάμος.7
The notion that the body should be an instrument, or even a slave, to the soul is
quite common in early Christian thought. The discourse of enslavement to the
passions occurs quite frequently in early Christian writings. Nemesius’s view
here is firmly based on the Platonic notion that the soul should master the body,
just as the incorporeal and immaterial Divine masters that which is material
and corporeal.8 He further writes: “For the soul, being one of the things which
are complex, seems both to be affected with the body in a way through its affin-
ity with it, and sometimes to master it, sometimes to be mastered” (ἐκείνη μὲν
γὰρ, τῶν πεπληθυσμένων οὖσα, δοκεῖ καὶ συμπάσχειν πως δι’ οἰκειότητα τῷ σώματι
καὶ κρατεῖν ἔσθ’ ὅτε καὶ κρατεῖσθαι).9 The soul is then in the highest position of
master or craftsman, and the body and soul together affect action (πρᾶξις) on
various forms of matter (ὕλη) towards a certain purpose or toward full comple-
tion (ἀποτέλεσμα) of the action. What is quite interesting is that Nemesius uses
an example from sex to demonstrate this basic principle between ὕλη and πρᾶ-
ξις. In the act (πρᾶξις) of sexual intercourse, the woman represents ὕλη, matter.
This assumes, on the one hand, the Aristotelian view that the woman provides
the matter in sexual union, while the man provides the movement and gener-
ation, or form. In De generatione animalium, Aristotle writes:
… [W]e may safely set down as the chief principles of generation the male
⟨factor⟩ and the female ⟨factor⟩; the male as possessing the principle of
movement and of generation, the female as possessing that of matter ….
By a “male” animal we mean one which generates in another, by “female”
one which generates in itself. This is why in cosmology too they speak of
the nature of the Earth as something female and call it “mother,” while
7 Nat. hom. 5 (Morani 54.23–55.6); Sharples and van der Eijk, On the Nature of Man, 99–100.
8 See esp. Gregory Vlastos, “Slavery in Plato’s Thought,” Philosophical Review 50, no. 3 (1941):
289–304, doi.org/10.2307/2180538, on how slavery functions as discourse in Plato’s cosmol-
ogy; see also my own discussion of this in an early Christian context here: Chris L. de
Wet, The Unbound God: Slavery and the Formation of Early Christian Thought, Routledge
Studies in the Early Christian World (Abingdon; New York, NY: Routledge, 2018), 42–48,
doi.org/10.4324/9781315513058. On the substantiality of the soul in Nemesius, see Petru
C. Nedelcu, “Substanțialitatea sufletului uman la Nemesius din Emesa [in Romanian with
an English summary: ‘The Substantiality of the Soul in Nemesius of Emesa’s Works’],” Revista
Transilvania 3–4 (2015): 105–116, https://revistatransilvania.ro/wp‑content/uploads/2015/12/
14_Petru_Ciprian_Nedelcu.pdf.
9 Nat. hom. 3 (Morani 42.11–13); Sharples and van der Eijk, On the Nature of Man, 84.

212 de wet
they give to the heaven and the sun and anything else of that kind the
title of “generator,” and “father.”
… τῆς γενέσεως ἀρχὰς ἄν τις οὐχ ἥκιστα θείη τὸ θῆλυ καὶ τὸ ἄρρεν, τὸ μὲν ἄρρεν
ὡς τῆς κινήσεως καὶ τῆς γενέσεως ἔχον τὴν ἀρχήν, τὸ δὲ θῆλυ ὡς ὕλης …. ἄρρεν
μὲν γὰρ λέγομεν ζῷον τὸ εἰς ἄλλο γεννῶν, θῆλυ δὲ τὸ εἰς αὑτό· διὸ καὶ ἐν τῷ ὅλῳ
τὴν τῆς γῆς φύσιν ὡς θῆλυ καὶ μητέρα νομίζουσιν, οὐρανὸν δὲ καὶ ἥλιον ἤ τι τῶν
ἄλλων τῶν τοιούτων ὡς γεννῶντας καὶ πατέρας προσαγορεύουσιν.10
Thus, for Nemesius, before trying to understand the dynamics of desire, plea-
sure, and sex, the basic principle of male dominance over the female should be
accepted as being part of the ordo naturalis, a principle which is reflected, most
importantly, in the ideal domination of the soul as craftsman or master over the
body as instrument or slave. The reliance here on Plato and Aristotle imbues
Nemesius’s work with an androcentrism that is very common in most ancient
philosophical and medical writings.11 Nemesius accepts Aristotle’s notorious
“flower pot” theory,12 as Caroline Whitbeck describes it,13 in which the women
serves as the “earth” or “vessel” in which the foetus is planted. Associating
the female with ὕλη, in the Platonic sense, also implies that she is associated
with the weaknesses of corporeality. Not surprisingly, Nemesius therefore uses
ancient gender presuppositions, based on androcentrism, to inform his discus-
sion about the relationship between the soul and the body.
The implication of such a view on the rule the soul should exercise is that
inner dominance (i.e., the soul over the body or the rational soul over the
irrational) is required if external forms of dominance (i.e., male over female
or slaves, or human over animal) are to be successful. And Nemesius actually
makes this very same point when referring to the effects of the Fall on Adam’s
relationship with the animals. Nemesius explains:
10 Gen. an. 716a4–7, 13–16 (lcl 10–11); see also Gen. an. 727b32ff., 729a11ff.; on this text in
Nemesius, see Sharples and van der Eijk, On the Nature of Man, 100.
11 See, more generally, Helen King, Hippocrates’ Woman: Reading the Female Body in Ancient
Greece (London; New York, NY: Routledge, 1998).
12 On the specificities and nuances of Nemesius’s appropriation of Aristotelian biology, see
esp. Teun Tieleman, “The Use of Aristotle’s Biology in Nemesius’ On Human Nature,” Jour-
nal of Ancient Philosophy 15, no. 2 (2021): 170–189, doi.org/10.11606/issn.1981–9471.v15i2p
170–189.
13 Caroline Whitbeck, “Theories of Sex Difference,” Philosophical Forum 5, no. 1 (1973): 54–
80; see also Daryl McGowan Tress, “The Metaphysical Science of Aristotle’s ‘Generation of
Animals’ and Its Feminist Critics,” Review of Metaphysics 46, no. 2 (1992): 307–341, https://
www.jstor.org/stable/20129334.

Let so much be said regarding the present condition of our life, since of
old none of the other animals dared harm man, but all were servants, sub-
ordinate and obedient, so long as he controlled his own emotions and the
irrationality within him. But when he did not master his own emotions
but was mastered by them, he was also mastered by the wild beasts exter-
nal to him, as might be expected. For together with sin came harm from
these. That this is true is clear from those who have followed the best life.
For they were seen to be unconquerably masters over the attacks of wild
beasts, as Daniel of lions and Paul of the bite of the viper.
καὶ ταῦτα μὲν ὡς πρὸς τὴν νῦν κατάστασιν τοῦ καθ’ ἡμᾶς βίου λεγέσθω, ἐπεὶ τό
γε ἀρχαῖον οὐδὲν τῶν ἄλλων ζῴων ἐτόλ μα καταβλάπτειν τὸν ἄνθρωπον, ἀλλ’ ἦν
αὐτῷ πάντα δοῦλα καὶ ὑποτεταγμένα καὶ πειθήνια, ἕως ἐκράτει τῶν οἰκείων
παθῶν καὶ τῆς ἀλογίας τῆς ἐν αὐτῷ. μὴ κρατῶν δὲ τῶν ἰδίων παθῶν, ἀλλὰ
κρατούμενος ὑπ’ αὐτῶν, ἐκρατήθη καὶ παρὰ τῶν ἔξωθεν εὐλόγως θηρίων· συν-
εισῆλθε γὰρ τῇ ἁμαρτίᾳ καὶ ἡ παρὰ τούτων βλάβη. ὅτι δὲ τοῦτό ἐστιν ἀληθὲς,
δῆλον ἐκ τῶν τὸν ἄριστον μετελθόντων βίον· κρείττους γὰρ ἀδηρίτως ὤφθη-
σαν οὗτοι τῆς τῶν θηρίων ἐπιβουλῆς, ὡς λεόντων μὲν ὁ Δανιήλ, Παῦλος δὲ τοῦ
δήγματος τῆς ἐχίδνης.14
The main result of the Fall and sin was a loss of cosmological dominance, as was
initially commanded in Gen. 1:28. When psychic dominance fails, social and
cosmological dominance will also not be achievable, as per Nemesius’s reason-
ing. When the wild animals master Adam, it functions as a correlate for when
the irrational parts of the soul, and the body and its appetites, master the ratio-
nal soul. This is the same as being a slave to the body or to the passions – the
animals in this section are indeed called “slaves” (δοῦλα). Moreover, the lack of
psychic dominance renders the human subject in an animal-like state, or even
worse. The practice of virtue and the cultivation of the soul, therefore, also
improves the individual’s capacity for dominance, both internally and exter-
nally, which explains why some biblical heroes (and later, also, some ascetics)
were able to miraculously master wild and ferocious animals.15
The domination of the soul over the body thus requires knowledge of bodily
constitution, or mixture. Nemesius subscribes to the basic Galenic physiolog-
ical principle that the body is constituted of four humours, namely black bile,
14 Nat. hom. 1 (Morani 14.18–15.3); Sharples and van der Eijk, On the Nature of Man, 49.
15 See also the enlightening study of Judith Perkins, “Animal Voices,”Religion & Theology 12.3–
4 (2005): 385–396, doi.org/10.1163/157430106776241204.

214 de wet
yellow bile, blood, and phlegm.16 The constitution of the bodily mixtures, how-
ever, has an influence on human behaviour, and could impede the soul’s ability
to dominate the body:
How, then, do certain natural faults and excellences come upon men?
Truly it happens because of the bodily mixture. For as men are naturally
healthy and diseased because of the mixture, so some who naturally have
bitter bile are ill-tempered, others are cowards, others lewd. But some
men conquer and overcome: clearly they conquer their mixture. But it is
one thing that conquers, another that is conquered: so mixture and soul
are different things. For the body is an instrument of the soul: if it is suit-
ably constituted, it works with it and is itself in a suitable condition. But
if it is in an unsuitable condition it impedes the soul, and then the soul
has a need of resources to fight against the unsuitability of the instrument
and, unless thoroughly self-controlled, it will be perverted together with
it, just as a musician will go wrong together with the distortion of his lyre,
unless he first brings it into good condition. So there is also a need for the
soul to take care of the body in order to make it an instrument fitting for
itself. This it does through reason and [formation of] character …
πῶς οὖν φυσικαί τινες κακίαι καὶ ἀρεταὶ τοῖς ἀνθρώποις ἕπονται; τοῦτο ἀληθῶς
ἐκ τῆς τοῦ σώματος κράσεως γίνεται. ὡς γὰρ φυσικῶς ὑγιεινοὶ καὶ νοσώδεις
εἰσὶν ἐκ τῆς κράσεως, οὕτω τινὲς φυσικῶς πικρόχολοι ὄντες ὀργίλοι εἰσίν, ἄλλοι
δειλοί, ἄλλοι κατωφερεῖς. ἀλλ’ ἔνιοι κρατοῦσι καὶ περιγίνονται· δῆλον δὲ ὅτι
τῆς κράσεως κρατοῦσιν. ἄλλο δέ ἐστιν τὸ κρατοῦν καὶ ἄλλο τὸ κρατούμενον·
ἄλλο ἄρα κρᾶσις καὶ ἄλλο ψυχή. ὄργανον γὰρ ὂν τὸ σῶμα τῆς ψυχῆς, ἐὰν μὲν
ἐπιτηδείως κατασκευασθῇ, συνεργεῖ τῇ ψυχῇ καὶ αὐτὸ ἔχει ἐπιτηδείως· ἐὰν
δὲ ἀνεπιτηδείως, ἐμποδίζει, καὶ τότε χρεία τῇ ψυχῇ πραγμάτων ἀπομαχομένῃ
πρὸς τὴν ἀνεπιτηδειότητα τοῦ ὀργάνου, καὶ ἐὰν μὴ σφόδρα νήψῃ, καὶ συνδια-
στρέφεται αὐτῷ, καθάπερ μουσικὸς συνεξαμαρτάνει τῇ τῆς λύρας διαστροφῇ,
ἐὰν μὴ πρότερον αὐτὴν καταστήσῃ καλῶς. διὸ καὶ χρεία τῇ ψυχῇ τῆς ἐπιμελείας
16 Nat. hom. 4 (Morani 44–47); Sharples and van der Eijk, On the Nature of Man, 87–91. On
Nemesius’s reliance on Galenism, see esp. Véronique Boudon-Millot, “De l’ homme et du
singe chez Galien et Némésius d’Émèse,” in Les pères de l’ église face à la science médicale de
leur temps, ed. Véronique Boudon-Millot and Bernard Pouderon, Théologie historique 117
(Paris: Beauchesne, 2005), 73–88; Armelle Debru, “Christianisme et galénisme: le mouve-
ment volontaire chez Némésius d’Émèse,” in Les pères de l’ église face à la science médicale
de leur temps, ed. Véronique Boudon-Millot and Bernard Pouderon, Théologie historique
117 (Paris: Beauchesne, 2005), 89–104.

τοῦ σώματος, ἵνα καταρτίσῃ αὐτὸ ὄργανον ἐπιτήδειον ἑαυτῇ. τοῦτο δὲ ποιεῖ διά
τε τοῦ λόγου καὶ τῶν ἠθῶν …17
The relationship between the humours, temperaments, and human behaviour

was accepted by numerous other early Christian authors.18 Another early Syr-
ian Christian author, John Chrysostom (ca. 349–407 ce), held a similar view
with regards to the humours and temperaments. “This body of ours, so short-
lived, and small, consists of four elements [στοιχείων]: namely that which is
warm, that is, of blood; of what is dry, that is, of yellow bile; of what is moist,
that is, of phlegm; of what is cold, that is, of black bile. And someone must
not think that this topic is foreign to the spiritual principles we are discussing”
(Καὶ γὰρ τὸ σῶμα τὸ ἡμέτερον τὸ βραχὺ τοῦτο καὶ μικρὸν ἐκ τεττάρων συνέστηκε
στοιχείων, θερμοῦ μὲν τοῦ αἵματος, ξηροῦ δὲ τῆς χολῆς τῆς ξανθῆς· καὶ ὑγροῦ μὲν
τοῦ φλέγματος, ψυχροῦ δὲ τῆς μελαίνης χολῆς. Καὶ μή τις ἀλλότριον ἡμῶν εἶναι νομι-
ζέτω τοῦτον τὸν λόγον).19 Chrysostom assumes that humoural balance is a sign
of health, and this functions as the foundation for his thought on the pitfalls
of excess and luxurious living, as well as appreciating the good order of things
established by God.
Nemesius clearly agrees, and notes that the mixture of the body should be
conquered by the soul. Self-control (or general sobriety; νήφω) is key in this
regard. Avoiding excess and that which leaves the mixtures in a state of unbal-
ance will result in psychic health. Reason and character, that is, λόγος and
ἦθος, respectively, are the main driving factors in conquering the mixture of
the body. The regulation of one’s food intake, for instance, was very important
to ensure humoural balance, as well as one’s environment and other lifestyle
habits.20 “[P]eople may find themselves with an unfavourable bodily temper-
ament either through the general environment or through the preferred life-
style of their parents or through themselves being damaged by luxuriousness,”
Nemesius explains, “so that poor constitutions may sometimes be brought from
an intended beginning, and providence is not altogether responsible for such
things” (συμβαίνει καὶ κράσει σώματος οὐκ εὐτυχεῖ περιπεσεῖν ἢ τῷ κοινῷ τοῦ περι-
18 John Wilkins, “Meals in Ancient Medicinal Texts,” in t&t. Clark Handbook to Early Chris-
tian Meals in the Greco-Roman World, ed. Soham Al-Suadi and Peter-Ben Smit (London;
New York, NY: t&t. Clark, 2019), 341–353, doi.org/10.5040/9780567666420.0036.
19 Stat. 10.4 (pg 49.113.7–12); my own translation.
20 Marius Tofan, “Alimentaţie şi sfinţire. Influenţa calităţii alimentelor asupra vieţii duho-
vniceşti în De Natura Hominis a lui Nemesius din Emesa,” [in Romanian with an English
summary: “Food and Sanctification: Influence of Food’s Quality on the Spiritual Life in
Nemesius of Emesa’s De Natura Hominis”], Revista Teologica 23.3 (2013): 108–129.

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έχοντος ἢ ἐξ ἑκουσίας διαίτης τῶν γεννησάντων ἢ καὶ αὐτῶν ἐκείνων ἀπὸ τρυφῆς
διεφθαρμένων, ὥστε καὶ τὰς κράσεις ἐξ ἑκουσίας ἀρχῆς ἔσθ’ ὅτε φαύλας κατασκευ-
άζεσθαι καὶ μὴ τὴν πρόνοιαν πάντως αἰτίαν εἶναι τῶν τοιούτων).21 Human agency
is, for Nemesius, one of the crowning characteristics of the human subject,
and Nemesius places great emphasis on human free will (προαίρεσις).22 The
regulation of the body by the soul is therefore a matter within the power of
the individual subject, and making the correct lifestyle choices and raising
one’s children in the appropriate manner will result in a favourable psychic
disposition. The advice is therefore quite practical in demonstrating how the
soul might govern the body as an instrument. When Nemesius states that the
human being is a microcosm or a “little world” (μικρός κόσμος),23 it implies
that the same principles of domination in the cosmos should also apply to
the human subject, and that there is a direct and dynamic correlation between
these two concepts. Let us now consider more closely how the notions of desire,
pleasure, and sex operate in Nemesius’s thought.
2.2 The Psychic Dynamics of Desire, Pleasure, and Sex

Nemesius adopts, broadly speaking, a Platonic view of the soul then, as we have
seen. However, he also accepts an Aristotelian view, specifically from his eth-
ical works, that the soul may be divided into rational and non-rational parts.
The non-rational part of the soul, furthermore, is also divided into two parts:
one that can be controlled by reason and one that cannot. The former part, that
which can be controlled by reason, is further subdivided into a desirous and a
spirited part (τό ἐπιθυμητικὸν καὶ τὸ θυμικόν).24 This view of the different subdi-
visions of the soul is rather complex, and Sharples and Van der Eijk note that
21 Nat. hom. 41 (Morani 116.14–18); Sharples and van der Eijk, On the Nature of Man, 199–200.
22 See Streck, Das schönste Gut, 39–44; Sabine Föllinger, “Willensfreiheit und Determina-
tion bei Nemesios von Emesa,” in Körper und Seele: Aspekte spätantiker Anthropologie,
ed. Barbara Feichtinger, Stephen Lake, and Helmut Seng, Beiträge zur Altertumskunde
215 (München: K.G. Saur, 2006), 143–157. On providence in Nemesius, see esp. Robert
W. Sharples, “Nemesius of Emesa and Some Theories of Divine Providence,” Vigiliae Chris-
tianae 37, no. 2 (1983): 141–156, doi.org/10.1163/157007283X00151. The relationship between
soul and body, and the role of providence and free will, are also the structuring themes
in the monograph of David L. Dusenbury, Nemesius of Emesa on Human Nature: A Cos-
mopolitan Anthropology from Roman Syria, Oxford Early Christian Studies (Oxford; New
York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2021), doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198856962.001.0001.
23 Nat. hom. 1 (Morani 15.6); Sharples and van der Eijk, On the Nature of Man, 50; see also
Dusenbury, Nemesius of Emesa on Human Nature, 70.
24 Nat. hom. 17 (Morani 75.9); Sharples and van der Eijk, On the Nature of Man, 132. For a
fuller elaboration, see also Nat. hom. 15–16 (Morani 72–75); Sharples and van der Eijk, On
the Nature of Man, 125–131.

it goes beyond Aristotle’s conceptualisations, rather rearranging the Platonic

psychological tripartition; this, Nemesius may have appropriated directly from
Galen, who also accepted similar divisions.25
Desire (ἐπιθυμία), of course, lies in the desirous division of the non-rational
part of the soul. And then Nemesius divides this part even further, into another
two parts, namely that which is related to pleasure (ἡδονή) and that which is
related to distress or pain (λύπη), “for a fulfilled desire brings pleasure, an unful-
filled one distress” (γὰρ ἡ ἐπιθυμία ἡδονὴν ἐμποιεῖ, ἀποτυγχάνουσα δὲ λύπην).26
Nemesius thus clarifies the relationship between desire and pleasure. He also
notes that there are four types of desire, namely the desire for good, bad,
present things, and future things. Nemesius also accepts desire as a type of
affection, or πάθος. Affection (πάθος) itself consists, according to Nemesius
(relying on Stoicism), of desire, pleasure, fear, and pain (τὸ πάθος εἰς τέσσαρα
διαιροῦσιν, ἐπιθυμίαν ἡδονήν φόβον λύπην).27 The move to a Stoic framework of
affect is significant:
Bad affections come to be in the soul for the following three reasons:
bad training, ignorance and a bad state of the body. For if we are not
brought up well from childhood so as to be able to master our affections,
we fall into immoderation about them. From ignorance bad decisions are
implanted into the rational element of the soul, so that we think that bad
things are good and good things bad. Sometimes bad affections are the
result of a bad state of the body: for those with bitter bile are irascible,
and those heated and moist in their bodily mixture are prone to sexual
activity. A bad habit is to be cured by a good habit, ignorance by learning
and knowledge, while a bad state of the body is to be cured bodily, chang-
ing it as far as possible into a mean bodily mixture by a suitable mode of
life, by exercise, and by drugs if we need them as well.
ἐγγίνεται δὲ τὰ φαῦλα πάθη τῇ ψυχῇ διὰ τριῶν τούτων, διὰ κακῆς ἀγωγῆς, ἐξ
ἀμαθίας, ὑπὸ καχεξίας. μὴ ἀχθέντες γὰρ καλῶς ἐκ παίδων, ὡς δύνασθαι κρα-
τεῖν τῶν παθῶν, εἰς τὴν ἀμετρίαν αὐτῶν ἐκπίπτομεν. ἐκ δὲ τῆς ἀμαθίας φαῦλαι
κρίσεις τῷ λογιστικῷ τῆς ψυχῆς ἐμφύονται, ὡς οἴεσθαι τὰ φαῦλα χρηστὰ εἶναι
καὶ τὰ χρηστὰ φαῦλα. γίνεται δέ τινα καὶ ἐκ τῆς τοῦ σώματος καχεξίας· ὀργίλοι
γάρ εἰσιν οἱ πικρόχολοι καὶ καταφερεῖς οἱ θερμοὶ καὶ ὑγροὶ τὴν κρᾶσιν. θερα-
πευτέον δὲ τὸ μὲν κακὸν ἔθος ἔθει καλῷ, τὴν δὲ ἀμαθίαν μαθήσει καὶ ἐπιστήμῃ,
25 Sharples and van der Eijk, On the Nature of Man, 10.


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τὴν δὲ καχεξίαν ἰατέον σωματικῶς, μεθιστάντας αὐτὴν ὡς οἷόν τε εἰς τὴν μέσην
κρᾶσιν ἁρμοζούσῃ διαίτῃ καὶ γυμνασίᾳ καὶ φαρμάκοις, ἐὰν καὶ τούτων δεηθῶ-
μεν.28
Nemesius’s advice is once again rather logical and practical. Bad affections may
arise from various reasons, including upbringing and training, ignorance, and
humoural imbalance in the body (Nemesius speaks of καχεξία, which may refer
to bad health or unhealthy habits). We have a similar list in Plato’s Timaeus
86B–87B, where he speaks about the diseases of the soul.29 This solution to
bad affections, which include bad desires and bad pleasures, then, constitutes
a wholistic approach to psychic wellbeing. The answer for Nemesius is not only
medical (i.e., treating humoural imbalance). A healthy individual is one con-
ducts him- or herself well, continues to cultivate the rational soul through study
and contemplation, maintains a healthy regimen, and settles in a favourable
environment. All of these will result in a favourable psychic and bodily compo-
sition or mixture (κρᾶσις). Nemesius therefore advocates the use of opposites,
which was very common in medical practice. Galen famously said that “oppo-
sites are the cure for opposites” (τὰ ἐναντία τῶν ἐναντίων ἰήματα εἶναι).30 This is
directly relevant to one’s sexual activity as well, since a bodily state that is too
moist (and hot) will result in excessive sexual desire, which may be detrimental.
He is also not against the use of medicine, as in the case with some other early
Christians, especially the ascetics. Here is one of several instances where Neme-
sius could have made a case for ascetic practice, yet he does not, and this is
significant, as will be shown in the next section. For Nemesius, health concerns
balance, a good state between body and soul, without any excess (ἀμετρία). It
stands to reason that excessive ascetic practice, as was common in the desert
parts of Syria, would not necessarily be considered as “healthy” practice in this
sense. It does not necessarily imply that Nemesius considered ascetics as being
unhealthy, but he is clearly less concerned with them. Nemesius does appreci-
ate ascetic contemplation.31 We will return to this issue in the conclusion of this
article. Thus, desire and pleasure are not negative affections in themselves –
rather, one should focus on cultivating a lifestyle that will result in good desires
and good pleasures.
29 Sharples and van der Eijk, On the Nature of Man, 132n657.
30 Galen, In Hippocratis librum de articulis 8 (Kühn 18a.675.3–4); see also Nemesius, Nat. hom.
5 (Morani 46–54); Sharples and van der Eijk, On the Nature of Man, 91–99.

In section 18 of Nat. hom.,32 Nemesius speaks specifically about the plea-

sures, and as expected, he continues with his process of classification. There
are two types of pleasures – those of the soul and those of the body (αἱ ψυχι-
καί, αἱ σωματικαί). The pure psychic pleasures involve only the soul, and here
he refers to study and contemplation. The bodily pleasures involve both the
body and the soul, and this is where eating and sexual intercourse (συνουσία) is
listed. He also notes that a pleasure of the body alone cannot exist – rather,
there are only affections (here πάθη) of the body of which the individual is
not aware or cannot control, such as nocturnal emissions (which was a major
problem in early Christian monastic thought).33 The word πάθη here seems to
carry a different sense to what was stated in section 17 of Nat. hom. Any plea-
sure has to be located in the soul, Nemesius argues, because pleasure includes
sensation (αἴσθησις), one of the faculties of the soul.34 Pleasure itself is com-
plex and has many senses: there can be good and bad pleasures, true and false,
those that involve thought and knowledge. Most importantly, of the pleasures
that include the body, in which sensation is experienced – and here one would
include sexual activity – Nemesius lists natural and unnatural pleasures.
It is also at this point where Nemesius’s position as a Christian intellectual
becomes more apparent, as he states:
Of what are called bodily pleasures some are both necessary and natural,
without which life is impossible, such as nourishment which satisfies a
need and necessary clothing: some are natural but not necessary, such as
natural and lawful sexual intercourse. For this contributes to the survival
of the whole race, but it is possible to live without it in abstinence. But
some pleasures are neither necessary nor natural, such as drunkenness
and lewdness and gorging beyond need. For these neither contribute to
the continuance of our race, as does lawful sexual intercourse, nor to the
maintenance of life, but even harm them. But one who lives a godly life
should pursue only those pleasures that are both necessary and natural,
while he who comes after him in the second rank of virtue may pursue
those that are natural but not necessary in a way, to a degree, at a time
and at a place which is fitting: others are altogether to be avoided.
33 See, for example, Inbar Graiver, “The Dangers of Purity: Monastic Reactions to Erotic
Dreams,” in Dreams, Memory and Imagination in Byzantium, ed. Bronwen Neil and Eva
Anagnostou-Laoutides, Byzantina Australiensia 24 (Leiden; Boston, MA: Brill, 2018), 17–
34, doi.org/10.1163/9789004375710_003.
34 See Nat. hom. 6 (Morani 56.5–20); Sharples and van der Eijk, On the Nature of Man, 102.

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τῶν δὲ σωματικῶν καλουμένων ἡδονῶν αἱ μέν εἰσιν ἀναγκαῖαι ἅμα καὶ φυσι-
καί, ὧν χωρὶς ζῆν ἀδύνατον, ὡς αἱ τροφαὶ αἱ τῆς ἐνδείας ἀναπληρωτικαὶ καὶ τὰ
ἐνδύματα τὰ ἀναγκαῖα· αἱ δὲ φυσικαὶ μέν, οὐκ ἀναγκαῖαι δέ, ὡς αἱ κατὰ φύσιν
καὶ κατὰ νόμον μίξεις· αὗται γὰρ εἰς μὲν τὴν διαμονὴν τοῦ παντὸς γένους συντε-
λοῦσιν, δυνατὸν δὲ καὶ χωρὶς αὐτῶν ἐν παρθενίᾳ ζῆν· αἱ δὲ οὔτε ἀναγκαῖαι οὔτε
φυσικαί, ὡς ἡ μέθη καὶ ἡ λαγνεία καὶ αἱ πλησμοναὶ τὴν χρείαν ὑπερβαίνουσαι·
οὔτε γὰρ εἰς διαδοχὴν τοῦ γένους ἡμῖν συμβάλλονται, ὡς ἡ κατὰ νόμον συνου-
σία, οὔτε εἰς σύστασιν τῆς ζωῆς, ἀλλὰ καὶ προσβλάπτουσιν. τῷ τοίνυν κατὰ θεὸν
ζῶντι μόνας μεταδιωκτέον τὰς ἀναγκαίας ἅμα καὶ φυσικὰς ἡδονάς· τῷ δὲ μετ’
ἐκεῖνον, ἐν δευτέρᾳ τάξει τῶν ἀρετῶν τεταγμένῳ, ταύτας τε καὶ τὰς φυσικὰς
μέν, οὐκ ἀναγκαίας δὲ μετιτέον μετὰ τοῦ προσήκοντος καὶ τρόπου καὶ μέτρου
καὶ καιροῦ καὶ τόπου, τὰς δὲ ἄλλας φευκτέον παντὶ τρόπῳ.35
Rather than a solely ontological classification of pleasure, here we have a more

ethically structured scheme, and one in which Nemesius actually gives con-
crete advice to a Christian audience. The division of the pleasures into nec-
essary and natural, unnecessary and natural, and unnecessary and unnatural,
comes from Epicurus.36 But Nemesius, here, gives it a very specific Christian
flair. He uses the example of food and clothing for that which is necessary and
natural, “lawful” sexual intercourse for that which is unnecessary but natural,
and drunkenness and lewdness for that which is unnecessary and unnatural.
The implication is that the latter assumes an excess of those pleasures which
are unnecessary but natural. The use of the term λαγνεία is interesting in this
regard. Unlike many other early Christian authors, Nemesius hardly uses the
term πορνεία. He uses it once in section 5, quoted above.37 In Nemesius I sus-
pect πορνεία is used in the technical sense as “prostitution”. He also refers twice
to licentiousness (ἀκολασία), both instances in the context of intentional faults
and free will.38 In these contexts, ἀκολασία is a disposition (ἕξις) of vice exer-
cised by the individual’s free will, while being temperate (σωφρονεῖν) is a power
(δύναμις) of virtue also exercised by free will. In its most basic sense, λαγνεία
simply means copulation. However, it is not difficult to denote the sense in
which Nemesius means it here. He frames λαγνεία with excessive drinking
(μέθη) and excessive eating or eating beyond what is needed (αἱ πλησμοναὶ τὴν
χρείαν ὑπερβαίνουσαι) – that is, gluttony. The term λαγνεία therefore refers to
36 Epicurus, Ep. Men. 127ff.; as cited in Sharples and van der Eijk, On the Nature of Man, 135.
37 See Morani 55.6.
38 See Nat. hom. 30 (Morani 96.2–4); Sharples and van der Eijk, On the Nature of Man, 172;
Nat. hom. 41 (Morani 119.11–19); Sharples and van der Eijk, On the Nature of Man, 203.

excessive sexual activity, which is assumed to be unnatural and unlawful. In

Nemesius, λαγνεία is then probably the equivalent of what πορνεία might be in
other Christian writers, like Chrysostom, for instance.39 This trinity of vices –
drunkenness, lechery or salaciousness, and gluttony – should also be seen as a
logical unit, as is often the case in other early Christian works.40 Overindulging
in wine and fine food renders the bodily humours in a state of disarray, with
heat and moisture running in excess. This excess heat and moisture results in
excessive sexual lust, which, as we have seen, Nemesius himself states in Nat.
hom. 2.41 Thus, λαγνεία stands in stark opposition to κατὰ φύσιν καὶ κατὰ νόμον
μίξεις. Lawful sexual intercourse, here, probably refers to biblical rather than
general Roman law. Natural (and lawful), in this instance, is therefore not so
much a matter of quality but quantity.
Nemesius then gives some prescriptive advice on which pleasures are suit-
able for which people in the church. His reference to “those who live a godly
life” (κατὰ θεὸν ζῶντι) and those “in the second rank of virtue” (ἐν δευτέρᾳ
τάξει τῶν ἀρετῶν) refers to the common distinction between virgins and monks
who practice abstinence (ἐν παρθενίᾳ ζῆν) and those following the way of mar-
riage. In Christian Syria, this distinction within the church was quite acute.
Chrysostom’s entire treatise, De virginitate,42 is devoted to praising the benefits
of the virginal life to that of marriage, which is described as a form of slav-
ery.43 In monastic circles, too, this type of division was common. In the Syriac
Liber graduum, or Book of Steps, there is also a distinction between the Per-
fect (‫ܐ‬煯‫ ;ܓܡ̈ܝ‬gmīrē) and the Upright (焏‫ܢ‬焏 ̈ ‫ ;ܟ‬kēnē).44 The Perfect are ascetics
who have wholly renounced the world and its pleasures, and have taken an
oath of celibacy and practice the most rigorous ascetic regime.45 The Upright
39 On πορνεία in Chrysostom, see Chris L. de Wet, Preaching Bondage: John Chrysostom and
the Discourse of Slavery in Early Christianity (Oakland, CA: University of California Press,
2015), 220–270, doi.org/10.1525/9780520961555.
40 See, e.g., Aline Rousselle, Porneia: On Desire and the Body in Antiquity, trans. Felicia Pheas-
ant (New York, NY: Barnes & Noble, 1996), 129–193; Teresa M. Shaw, The Burden of the Flesh:
Fasting and Sexuality in Early Christianity (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1998), 27–160; De
Wet, “Preacher’s Diet,” 410–463.
41 Morani 25.20–26.6; see the discussion in the previous section of this article.
42 John Chrysostom: On Virginity; Against Remarriage, trans. Sally R. Shore, intro. Elizabeth
A. Clark, Studies in Women and Religion 9 (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1983).
43 Chrysostom, Virg. 41.1.11–15 (sc 125.236–237).
44 See, for instance, mēmrē 2–3 of the Liber graduum; in The Book of Steps: The Syriac Liber
Graduum, trans. and intro. Robert A. Kitchen and Martien F.G. Parmentier, Cistercian
Studies 196 (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 2004), 13–38, as well as xxxix–xliv
for a general discussion of perfection and uprightness.
45 See Robert A. Kitchen, “Disturbed Sinners: In Pursuit of Sanctity in the Book of Steps,”

222 de wet
match Nemesius’s class of those ἐν δευτέρᾳ τάξει τῶν ἀρετῶν. While Nemesius
accepts the distinction of the ranks of virtue, he does not promote one over
the other. Moreover, lawful and natural sexual intercourse is included in a life
of virtue, thereby showing a more positive evaluation of sex. Sex in itself is not
a pitfall for the believer, as long as it is done in moderation and within the
bounds of biblical and ecclesiastical prescripts. One might even argue that a
life of moderation in terms of eating, drinking, and sexual activity, was con-
sidered to be the epitome of health for Nemesius. Nemesius considers sexual
intercourse as necessary for the continuation of the human race. Interestingly
enough, Chrysostom argues for the opposite point in De virginitate and in his
homilies In Genesim. He believes that God is able to multiply the human race
without the need for sexual intercourse, just as he multiplied the angels.46
Sex is an equally complex phenomenon in Nemesius, as we especially see in
section 25 of Nat. hom.47 On the one hand, the generative or seminal faculty
resides in the part of the soul that cannot obey reason, as is seen in nocturnal
emissions. The naturalness of sex means that human beings are driven towards
it even when unwilling. The body produces sperm and may be fertile and con-
ceive without any action from soul specifically. Behind this might also lie the
problem of the unruly penis which, unlike other body parts like the hands or
feet, does not necessarily respond to rational control, but rather to lust, whether
solicited or not. Augustine also struggled with this problem, and eventually
argued that the eschatological body’s genitals will only be aesthetic and not
functional.48 In Nemesius’s thought, even though one cannot necessarily avoid
in Breaking the Mind: New Studies in the Syriac “Book of Steps,” eds. Kristian S. Heal and
Robert A. Kitchen, cua Studies in Early Christianity (Washington, D.C.: Catholic Univer-
sity of America Press, 2014), 205–220. In another religious movement of the region, namely
Manichaeism, we also have a similar division between the Elect and the Hearers (Audi-
tors); Jason D. BeDuhn, The Manichaean Body: In Discipline and Ritual (Baltimore, MD;
London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000), 1–24.
46 Virg. 14.6.77–82 (sc 125.142–145), 17.5.58–75 (sc 125.154–155); also in Hom. Gen. 15.14
(pg 53.123.29–35), 16.19 (pg 53.133.50–52), 17.1 (pg 53.134.46–47).; see also Peter R.L. Brown,
The Body and Society: Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity, Lectures
on the History of Religions, New Series 13 (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1988),
306–307.
47 Nat. hom. 25 (Morani 85.22–87.15); Sharples and van der Eijk, On the Nature of Man, 153–
157.
48 See, for instance, Civ. 22.17 (ccsl 48.835); see also Margaret R. Miles, “Sex and the City
(of God): Is Sex Forfeited or Fulfilled in Augustine’s Resurrection of Body?,” Journal of
the American Academy of Religion 73, no. 2 (2005): 307–327, doi.org/10.1093/jaarel/lfi038;
David G. Hunter, “Augustine on the Body,” in A Companion to Augustine, ed. Mark Vessey,
Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World (Chichester; Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell,

arousal, “the activity is incontestably up to us and involves the soul: for it is

accomplished through organs that are subject to impulse, and it is in our power
to abstain and conquer the impulse” (ἡ … πρᾶξις ὁμολογουμένως ἐφ’ ἡμῖν καὶ
ψυχική, καὶ γὰρ διὰ τῶν καθ’ ὁρμὴν ὀργάνων συντελεῖται, καὶ ἀποσχέσθαι καὶ κρατῆ-
σαι τῆς ὁρμῆς ἐφ’ ἡμῖν ἐστιν).49 Impulse (ὁρμή) in Nemesius is a type of thought
and a movement that may drive a person to specific action – it therefore rests
in the realm of the soul’s control. This is also why, according to Nemesius, hens,
doves, and humans are always ready for sexual intercourse, as he explains:
The female in each kind of animal accepts the male when she is able to
conceive. Therefore those that are always able to conceive always accept
intercourse, as do hens and doves and humans. But the others avoid inter-
course when they are pregnant, while a woman always admits it. For while
hens accept intercourse almost every day because they give birth almost
every day, women have free will about intercourse after conception as in
other matters. For non-rational animals are ruled not by themselves but
by nature, and receive limits and a determined season.
καθ’ ἕκαστον δὲ γένος ζῴου τότε προσίεται ἡ θήλεια τὸν ἄρρενα ὅταν δύνηται
κυΐσκεσθαι. τὰ τοίνυν ἀεὶ δυνάμενα κυΐσκεσθαι ἀεὶ προσίεται τὴν συνουσίαν, ὡς
ἀλεκτορίδες καὶ περιστεραὶ καὶ ἄνθρωπος. ἀλλὰ τὰ μὲν ἄλλα κύοντα τὴν σύνο-
δον ἀποφεύγει· γυνὴ δὲ ἀεὶ προσδέχεται. αἱ γὰρ ἀλεκτορίδες τῷ καθ’ ἑκάστην
σχεδὸν ἡμέραν τίκτειν καθ’ ἑκάστην προσίενται τὴν συνουσίαν· αἱ δὲ γυναῖκες
ὡς ἐν τοῖς ἄλλοις τὸ αὐτεξούσιον ἔχουσιν οὕτω καὶ ἐν τῇ συνουσίᾳ τῇ μετὰ τὴν
σύλληψιν. τὰ γὰρ ἄλογα τῶν ζῴων οὐκ ἀφ’ ἑαυτῶν ἀλλ’ ὑπὸ τῆς φύσεως κανο-
νίζεται, καὶ μέτρα καὶ καιρὸν ὡρισμένον δέχεται.50
The role of free will is again stressed, here, when it comes to sexual intercourse.
Women, like men, have free will and are not ruled by nature like animals. Neme-
sius does not make a judgement call here, but it seems that he is not explicitly
against sexual intercourse for recreation rather than reproduction. It should
2012), 353–364; Chris L. de Wet, “‘Illius Sponsi Thalamus Fuit Uterus Virginis’: The Womb
of Mary as Bridal Chamber in Augustine’s Thought about Sexuality,” Religion & Theology
27, no. 3–4 (2020): 299–328, doi.org/10.1163/15743012-02703007; more generally, see Taylor
Petrey, Resurrecting Parts: Early Christians on Desire, Reproduction, and Sexual Difference,
Routledge Studies in the Early Christian World (Abingdon; New York, NY: Routledge, 2015),
doi.org/10.4324/9781315695440.

224 de wet
simply be lawful and not excessive and always in the appropriate time, place,
and circumstances. We see similarities here with Galen’s views on sexual desire
and excessive sexual intercourse. As Marke Ahonen has shown, Galen notes
that animals naturally have an excessive sex drive, and hence they have a self-
regulating mechanism with which they can eject excess seed from the body.
But self-regulation, according to Galen, does not work in humans since humans
engage in excessive sexual intercourse not because they are naturally inclined
to do so, but because they seek pleasure.51
When it comes to the physiological aspects of the generative faculty, Neme-
sius relies extensively on Galen’s De semine.52 He believes that both men and
women have sperm but seems to follow Galen’s view (rather than Aristotle’s
and Democritus’s) that female sperm is uncooked and watery, and actually
serves as nourishment for that of the man. He also follows the view that
“[w]omen have all the same parts as men, but inside and not outside” (αἱ γυναῖ-
κες δὲ πάντα τὰ αὐτὰ τοῖς ἀνδράσιν ἔχουσι μόρια, ἀλλ’ ἔνδον καὶ οὐκ ἔξω),53 hence
their capacity to produce seed.54 I will not go into Nemesius’s embryology here,
as it is not directly relevant to this analysis, and much work has already been
done on this topic.55 The man’s sperm becomes fully cooked or concocted
because the veins and arteries that lead to the testicles are not straight, but full
of twists and turns, which allow the blood to become concocted into sperm.
The sperm is turned into semen in the testicles. The semen, along with air or
πνεῦμα, is then also emitted through a vein in the penis, according to Neme-
sius. After explaining this, Nemesius returns to the issue of λαγνεία, and states:
51 Marke Ahonen, “Galen on Sexual Desire and Sexual Regulation,” Apeiron 50, no. 4 (2017):
449–481, doi.org/10.1515/apeiron-2016-0043.
52 See, e.g., Galen, De sem. 1.12.3–12 (Kühn 4.555–557), 1.14.6–10 (Kühn 4.562–563), and numer-
ous others; see an extensive list and discussion in Sharples and van der Eijk, On the Nature
of Man, 153–157.
54 Thomas W. Laqueur, Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud (Cambridge,
MA; London: Harvard University Press, 1990), esp. 25–62, refers to this as the one-sex
model of sexual difference; his views have been critiqued by Helen King, The One-Sex
Body on Trial: The Classical and Early Modern Evidence, The History of Medicine in Con-
text (Farnham; Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2013). We should be careful not to assume that
Nemesius also follows a one-sex model for sexual difference.
55 See Andrey Darovskikh, “Embryology in Nemesius’ On the Nature of Man: Between Phi-
losophy and Medicine” (m.a. Thesis, Central European University, 2015); somewhat more
broadly, see Anna Usacheva, “Christian Ensoulment Theories within Dualist Psychologi-
cal Discourse,” in The Unity of Body and Soul in Patristic and Byzantine Thought, ed. Anna
Usacheva, Jörg Ulrich, and Siam Bhayro, Contexts of Ancient and Medieval Anthropology
1 (Paderborn: Brill Schöningh, 2020), 144–169, doi.org/10.30965/9783657703395_008.

“That it [semen] is transmitted also from a vein is clear from lewdness. For when
men have intercourse over a long period and use up the seminal and genera-
tive fluid, they then emit pure blood through the violent suction” (ὅτι δὲ καὶ ἀπὸ
φλεβὸς φέρεται, δῆλόν ἐστιν ἐκ τῆς λαγνείας· ὅταν γὰρ ἐπὶ πολὺ συνουσιάσωσι καὶ
καταναλώσωσι τὸν σπερματικὸν καὶ θορώδη χυμόν, τότε ὑπὸ τῆς βιαίας ὁλκῆς αἷμα
καθαρὸν ἐκκρίνουσιν).56 Thus, this further supports the fact that λαγνεία refers
to an unnatural quantity of sexual πρᾶξις. When ejaculation takes place exces-
sively, the body does not have enough time to concoct blood into sperm, and
unconcocted blood is then emitted. Nemesius is probably trying to explain the
occurrence of haematospermia, blood in the sperm, which may have numerous
causes, including trauma to the reproductive system, genitourinary infection,
inflammation, cancer, or sti’s like gonorrhea or chlamydia.57 For Nemesius, the
emission of blood from excessive sexual activity is directly detrimental to the
health of the arteries and veins involved, since he also believes that when the
arteries and veins concoct blood into semen, they receive nutrition from the
process: “The arteries and veins, then, cook the blood into seminal fluid for
their own nourishment, but the superfluity of their food becomes seed” (ἐκπέσ-
σουσι μὲν οὖν αἱ ἀρτηρίαι καὶ αἱ φλέβες τὸ αἷμα εἰς τὸ θορῶδες ὑγρόν, ἵνα τρέφωνται·
τὸ δὲ περιττεῦον τῆς τροφῆς αὐτῶν γίνεται γονή).58 Excessive sexual intercourse is
therefore unnatural in that the body was created only to be capable of concoct-
ing a certain amount semen; after this, one begins to rob the veins and arteries
of their required nutrition – a type of biological greed – not to mention the
expulsion of valuable πνεῦμα from the body.
3 Conclusions: The Medical Making of an Early Christian Sexual

Culture
Nemesius stands as a perfect example of an early Christian medical philoso-

pher or moral therapist. His knowledge of and access to Graeco-Roman medical
and philosophical texts, either directly or through intermediaries like Orib-
asius, possibly, is nothing less than astounding. In Nat. hom. Nemesius does
not simply catalogue or summarise the views of his predecessors. He care-
57 Hideki Fuse et al., “Hematospermia: Etiology, Diagnosis, and Treatment,” Reproductive
Medicine and Biology 10, no. 3 (2011): 153–159, doi.org/10.1007/s12522-011-0087-4.
58 Nat. hom. 25 (Morani 86.5–7); Sharples and van der Eijk, On the Nature of Man, 154; see
esp. Galen, De sem. 1.17.5 (Kühn 4.590).

226 de wet
fully selects his material and constructs his own anthropological vision of the
human subject as a beautifully complex creature, a “little world” in itself, stand-
ing in an equally complex intermediary position between God and the cosmos.
Sexuality plays an important role in Nemesius’s anthropology, especially in his
psychology. The nature and dynamics of the soul and its relation to the body is
concretised by mirroring it with ancient gender relations and kyriarchal rela-
tions. Just as men need to rule over their women and slaves, even over the
cosmos, so too should the soul dominate the body as its instrument and subject.
From what has been examined in this article, we can now make a few impor-
tant conclusions about how Nemesius medically constructs his own vision of
an early Christian sexual culture. First and foremost, Nemesius clearly adopts
a more moderate approach to Christian practices of virtue as related to asceti-
cism. Nemesius found himself perhaps in one of the most ascetically vibrant
and diverse contexts of Late Antiquity, namely Syria. Despite this, in his mag-
num opus Nemesius neither truly gives ascetic advice nor shows preference for
one form of ascetic practice over another. He does refer to those living the godly
life of virginity, and tells them what to avoid, but also refers to those in a sec-
ond rank of virtue, the married or marriageable, and gives similar advice and
more allowances. This moderate approach to Christian virtue was very much
at home in the urban centres of Roman Syria. Another example of someone
following such a moderate approach is John Chrysostom in Antioch and later
Constantinople.59 This view allowed urban Christians to marry, have sex and
children, and eat and drink in moderation for one’s health. Nemesius is per-
haps even more moderate than Chrysostom. His views about lawful and natural
sexual intercourse appear more liberal and positive than those of Chrysostom.
Desire, pleasure, and sex have their place and recreational sex is not exactly
frowned upon by Nemesius. The health of the soul was the main concern, and
nothing should affect the soul’s health negatively. Some have argued that the
gynaecology of Soranus,60 who was more suspicious of the health benefits of
sex, especially for women, may have been more influential in Christian ascetic
circles.61 But here we see that Nemesius adopts Galen’s view and also assumes
that a healthy person is sexually active.
On a micro-level, we also see the diversity of sexual discourse and culture
even within urban Syria itself, as is evident from the differences between Neme-
59 De Wet, “Preacher’s Diet.”

60 Soranus’ Gynecology, trans. Owsei Temkin (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University
Press, 1956).
61 E.g., Rousselle, Porneia, 95–102.

sius and Chrysostom, for instance. Nemesius’s work might have been more
palatable for a broader and diverse audience. The question of the audience of
Nat. hom. is complicated in itself. But if we assume, as Isabella Sandwell has
shown for Antioch,62 that religious identity in the region should not be consid-
ered as being fixed and static, we might consider that Nat. hom. was accessible
to Christians and non-Christians alike. This may also explain the lack of much
reference to Christian asceticism and monasticism.
Second, we also notice a potent element of naturalisation in Nemesius’s sex-
ual discourse. Sexual activity must always be lawful and natural. There exists,
therefore, a congruence between the ordo naturalis and the ordo Dei. Naturali-
sation, however, should not be understood as implying a difference in the type
or quality of sexual engagement. Kyle Harper has argued that in Late Antiquity
the stance toward same-sex passion, in relation to nature, was seen as a change
in quality.63 Nemesius does not say much about same-sex passion, although
we might assume he would include it in the category of λαγνεία. However, for
Nemesius’s part, natural and unnatural sexual intercourse never becomes a
matter of a different quality. It always referred to excess. Using medical litera-
ture, especially Galen, Nemesius shows that the human body has been created
with certain limits and boundaries, also with regards to sex. Too frequent ejac-
ulation, for instance, starves and damages the arteries that need to concoct
semen. Excessive sexual activity is therefore a violence against one’s own bod-
ily nature. It does not matter who the sexual partner, or the ὕλη, was. So, while
he does seem to allow sex for recreation, it remains a fine line to tread so as not
to become excessive and, thus, unnatural.
Finally, the extensive mapping of the human soul and body in works like
Nat. hom. also shows the imperialising and totalising tendencies of early Chris-
tian discourse, as Averil Cameron has shown.64 In his construction of a specific
Christian medical and sexual culture, he appropriates the cultural capital of the
Graeco-Roman world, especially Plato, Aristotle, and Galen, and makes then
part of a new Christian medical-philosophical (and sexual) vision. It is there-
fore no surprise that, today, in the monastery of the Great Lavra, on Mount
62 Isabella Sandwell, Religious Identity in Late Antiquity: Greeks, Jews and Christians in Anti-
och, Greek Culture in the Roman World (Cambridge; New York, NY: Cambridge University
Press, 2007).
63 Kyle Harper, From Shame to Sin: The Christian Transformation of Sexual Morality in Late
Antiquity (Cambridge, MA; London: Harvard University Press, 2013), 146.
64 Averil Cameron, Christianity and the Rhetoric of Empire: The Development of Christian Dis-
course, Sather Classical Lectures 55 (Berkeley, CA; London: University of California Press,
1994).

228 de wet
Athos in Greece, there is a mural of a tree of Jesse which, at its base, as the earth,
several Greek and Roman philosophers are depicted, including Plato, Aristotle,
and, indeed, Galen.65
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Religion & Theology 28 (2021) 206–232 Religion

Nemesius of Emesa on Desire, Pleasure, and Sex

Chris L. de Wet | orcid: 0000-0002-2628-2013

Nemesius of Emesa – early Christian sexuality – ancient sexuality – desire – pleasure –

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2021 | doi:10.1163/15743012-bja10027

1 Introduction: The Medical Turn in Early Christian Studies

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by investigating the views of Nemesius, the bishop of Emesa in Roman Syria

(2015): 260–296, doi.org/10.1515/zac-2015-0022; eadem, Death in the Eastern Mediterranean

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2 Nemesius on Desire, Pleasure, and Sex

The most important trajectory in Nemesius’s work is the relationship between

2.1 The Importance of Psychic Domination

The body is the instrument of the soul and it is divided up in correspon-

τὸ δὲ σῶμα τῆς ψυχῆς ὄργανον ὑπάρχον ταῖς ψυχικαῖς δυνάμεσι συνδιαιρεῖται.

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The relationship between the humours, temperaments, and human behaviour

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2.2 The Psychic Dynamics of Desire, Pleasure, and Sex

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it goes beyond Aristotle’s conceptualisations, rather rearranging the Platonic

25 Sharples and van der Eijk, On the Nature of Man, 10.

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In section 18 of Nat. hom.,32 Nemesius speaks specifically about the plea-

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Rather than a solely ontological classification of pleasure, here we have a more

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excessive sexual activity, which is assumed to be unnatural and unlawful. In

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arousal, “the activity is incontestably up to us and involves the soul: for it is

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3 Conclusions: The Medical Making of an Early Christian Sexual

Nemesius stands as a perfect example of an early Christian medical philoso-

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59 De Wet, “Preacher’s Diet.”

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York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Online: doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511895

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nian with an English summary: ‘The Substantiality of the Soul in Nemesius of

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