Romans 1:26Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Thus all passions are dishonorable, but mad love for males is especially dishonorable, because in these sins the soul suffers and is humiliated more than the body in diseases. See how the apostle here too deprives the Gentiles of excuse. He says of the women, as he said concerning doctrine, that they "changed the natural use." No one can say, he says, that they reached this point because they were deprived of the ordinary manner of union. Nor can anyone say that they gave themselves to such extraordinary frenzy because they could not satisfy their lust. One can change only what one has.

Again he says that God gave them up to passions because they served the creature. Just as they were corrupted in the doctrine of God by abandoning the guidance of creation, so in life they became vile. They abandoned natural pleasure, which is easiest and most agreeable, and surrendered to pleasure contrary to nature, which is most difficult and disagreeable. This is what "exchanged" means. It shows that they left what they had and chose something else. Thus he presents nature itself as the great accuser of both sexes, for they transgressed it.

For this reason, he says, they were handed over, as to certain enemies, to the unclean desires of the flesh. Those afflicted with disease of the eyes flee the rays of the sun and chase after darkness. So also those who have injured the rectitude of their thoughts inevitably rush into intelligible darkness and fall into absurd deeds. They are inflamed by the innate desires of the flesh, not because there is in us any evil of essence or hypostasis. Rather, the desire of the flesh and the movement of innate passions are always somehow turned toward evil. If God saves, sin becomes inactive. But if He relaxes His protection, the passions prevail. As though taking someone captive, they enslave the mind to their desires.

Likewise their women also exchanged the law of their nature, obeying and honoring idols. Do you hear that their women too exchanged their own laws for lawless ones, though no one compelled them to this?

Paul says that, according to the wrath of God, this was given to the human race for idolatry: woman is inflamed with lust for woman. Whoever explains this otherwise does not understand the force of what is said. What does it mean to exchange the natural use for the unnatural, if not to abandon the first and accept the second? Thus the same part of the body is used by each sex in a way for which it was not intended. If this is the part of the body they have in mind, how would they have exchanged the natural use if it had not been given to them naturally? Above, Paul had already said that they were given over to uncleanness (see Rom 1:24), though he does not explain this in detail.

Lawlessness corresponded to impiety. For as they "exchanged the truth of God for a lie," so they changed the lawful use of desire into what is lawless. "Receiving in themselves the recompense which was due for their error." For the final punishment of this passion is dishonor. They loved with all zeal what no enemy would have attempted to do to them. They brought upon themselves a punishment to which no judge would have sentenced them. What, then, was the cause of these evils?

If, looking into a wondrous mirror, you could pierce what is hidden with your gaze, unlock the closed doors of bedrooms, and bring to light what is concealed in their depths, you would see the shameless doing what the modest cannot even look upon. You would see what it is a crime even to behold. You would see that those maddened by vicious frenzy have renounced themselves and hasten to play another's part. Seized by diseased desire, men rush upon men. What is done cannot bring delight even to those who do it.

The expression that "God gives someone up" to something is used when He leaves him without help.

God gave them over to shameful passions because they lustfully desired this. For it is said, "in the desires of their hearts" (Rom 1:24).

"For this reason," that is, for this very thing, God gave them over to a corresponding humiliation. They did not honor God, and He gave them over to passions that dishonor them. They did not serve God, who is God by nature, and He gave them over to unnatural disgraces. "The lawlessness corresponded to the impiety. For as they changed the truth of God into a lie, so they turned the lawful use of desire into an unlawful one" (Blessed Theodoret). The Apostle wishes to impress this conviction: impiety against God carries punishment within itself. It immediately casts the impious man down into extreme moral corruption. When men abandon God, God also abandons them. "But when God abandons, everything falls into disorder.

Defending natural marriage, the Apostle writes that people exchanged the natural marital relations of man and woman for relations contrary to nature within their own sex. Therefore, because of repeated sins, they receive recompense through sufferings.