Willravel

martinguerre: It's my understanding that the move in Roman law towards and outright ban on homosexuality was in major part influenced by the major leadership realizing that the Roman family unit was breaking down (which also was influenced by Roman men marrying non-Roman women).

That's one of the issues that triggered the famous census from Luke 2--to find out how many honest-to-gosh Roman citizens they actually had in the empire. It was common belief that purity in national blood-line kept the empire strong (sound kinda familiar?) and hence there were not only incentives (such as limited or reduced military service time, tax incentives, etc.) for Romans to marry Romans and produce Roman offspring (and not get their sexual gratification solely from gay [pre- and post-pubescent] relationships) but punitiive measures put into place (later on as it became more epidemic). So there is also the "pragmatic" side of it, a sort of social engineering aspect at work as well (probably even more so than the "ethical" side of the effort...since ethics were deemed situational at best after a point).

So far as the instigation of homosexual bans outright, it's problammatic to date the first examples. I would say, given human nature and the superstitious bent of people in general, even pagan religions recognized the "unnaturalness" of such relationships and shunned them more from fear of retribution from the deities than for moral grounds. But what Paul said is right (or at least I believe it), that God has placed a "natural law" upon the hearts of all people (or at least most people everywhere from a social standpoint) that recogized certain "do's and don'ts" as universal. And natural selection seems to agree about such matters, giving no procreative blessing to gay relationships, only the passing on of a mindset rather than pure unadulterated universality. (But I digress...)

I'm sure there are standardized/codified laws or regulations that pre-date the Hebrew bans against homosexuality. But again, they probably do not have the same basis as Mosaic Law (God said it's taboo). And so far as Paul is concerned, I think his arguments to the NT Christians were not so much stoic ethics (although they may have sounded like pure stoic rhetoric) than echoing the OT laws (which still weren't a bad code of ethics and/or guide for living...except for the extreme measures which kept Israel on the straight and narrow, like stoning for practically every infraction. Even Jesus "surpassed" those in His Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-8). But it was about relationship with God first...then others...then self.

By the way, I guess by "stoic standards" John the Baptizer would have been able to join them (no alcohol, strict dietary regiment, ascetitcism [sic] and isolation). Or the community where they found the Dead Sea Scrolls a few decades back (Kumran Community?).
My understand of Stoicm is better from a psychological aspect, instead of historical or religious. I understand Stocism as one of the most influential of all therepeutic philosophies in ancietn Rome. The Stoics were philosophers and scientists, making great advances in science and logic. Stoicism taught two interconnected things: (1) absolute determinism and (2) the complete extripation of the emotions. Stoics believe in foreordained occournces in life (tyche). They also believed that they were in control of their mental world, so feeling unhappy about misfortune is our fault and may be corrected by Stoic teaching. Strong positive feelings are also to be avoided because they lead to overvaluation of things and people, and thus a potential unhappiness should they be lost. Here’s the concession: Stoicm was like Christianity, and it’s popularity in the Roman Empire aided the reception of, and also influenced, Christian thought. Stoicm was universalist intead of elitist. Stoics believed that the universe was ruled by reason, or logos, and permeated by spirit, or [I]pneuma. Determinism was easier to accept if one thought that the universe was wise and rationally working out an ultimately good plan.

What you have to bear in mind is Stoicism, with it’s emphasis on divine wisdom and human submission, has elements that can be assimilated easily to Christian belief. In the fourth century, Christianitywas a simple faith, lacking a supporting philosophy. St. Augistine (340-430) integrated faith and philosophy into a powerful Christian world view that would dominate all aspects of medieval thought until the thirteenth century. Here is a quote from St. Augustine that illustrates the combinance of Christian Stocism:
Time to take a rest.