I shall have to give it a read then.
Regarding the excerpt that I mentioned before, here is something...
Similarly, in his fourth sermon on Genesis, he states, as an example of God's philanthropia ("love of mankind"), "God also linked them together by their natural needs--linked them as if by an unbroken bond when he encircled them with the chain of desire. you see how sin [at the Fall] led to woman's subjection, but how God, so ingenious and wise, used these things for our benefit."
There is no hint here (as opposed to Western Fathers whom we studied in Chapter One) of sexual attraction being evil, or inevitably tainted with lust of "concupisence," the common Western translation of epithymia. [33] Rather, it is an intregal part of our human nature, which is still basically good after the Fall. And since it is natural and God-given, its proper expression is meant to be enjoyed; as Chrysostom says, in commenting on Romans 1:26-27,"For genuine pleasure (gnesia hedone) [35] is that which is according to nature... Here... he sets the pleasure according to nature which they would have enjoyed with more sense of security and greater glad-heartedness, and so would have been far removed from shameful sins."
Moreover, it is this very sexual desire (epithymia) which God has given to preeminently express and accomplish human unity, whether or not it results in the issuance of children: "The child is a bridge connecting mother to father, so the three become one flesh... But suppose there is no child; do they then remain two and not one? No, since their intercourse effects the joining of their bodies, and they are made one, just as when perfume is mixed with ointment."
...It is noteworthy that Chrysostom does not lable the intercourse occuring during fornication as unclean; rather, it is the misdirected use of a good thing which is evil... Such misuse results from choosing to entertain sinful attitudes, yielding to promptings to sin, which then make someone's life and will unclean (at least temporarily, until the cleansing of repentance)... "To sin is rather a matter of violence than of constraint. For God has implanted in our nature a charm (philtron) in order that we would love one another... Do not blame natural desire (epithymia). Natural desire was bestowed with a view to marriage and to the procreation of children, not with a view to adultery and corruption."
[33] epithymia means "desire, lust, concupiscense"; or "desire, longing, good or indifferent"; or specifically "sexual desire, without the connotation of sin" (Lampe, p. 524). It only means "lust" when the "desire" becomes, through misuse of the will, inordinate and compulsive...
[35] hedone = "enjoyment, pleasure... properly of sensual pleasures"... Lampe gives one definition of hedone as "sexual pleasure" which is "legitimate" and "natural" and quotes this very passage from St. John Chrysostom as an example of this use of the word...
--David C. Ford, Women and Men in the Early Church: The Full Views of St. John Chrysostom, (St. Tikhon's Seminary Press, 1996), pp. 47-49
I only included footnotes when it helped to make sense of what Mr. Ford was saying. Also, Mr. Ford seems to have been very selective in what he quoted (in a good way), perhaps to avoid a scandal among more conservative types, perhaps so as not to lose the reader's attention or go off into too many digressions, or who knows why else. Anyway, for an example, he quoted Homily 12 on Colossians in the above quote, where St. John mentions intercourse as making two into one, but there is an even more powerful statement made by St. John in that particular homily:
"And how become they one flesh? As if thou shouldest take away the purest part of gold, and mingle it with other gold; so in truth here also the woman as it were receiving the richest part fused by pleasure, nourisheth it and cherisheth it, and withal contributing her own share, restoreth it back a Man."
As I said in a previous post, this book totally changed the way I looked at certain aspects of this issue (and I used to be quite firm in my stance on those aspects of the issue).
