Editing Sodomy (section)

=== Justinian I and Byzantine power politics of late antiquity ===
The primarily sexual meaning of the word ''sodomia'' for Christians did not evolve before the 500s AD. Byzantine Emperor [[Justinian I]], in his novels no. 77 (dating 538) and no. 141 (dating 559) amended to his [[Corpus iuris civilis]], was the first to declare that Sodom's sin had been specifically same-sex activities and desire for them in order to create homosexual scapegoats for recent earthquakes and other disasters of his time (see [[Extreme weather events of 535-536]]), but most of all to enact anti-homosexual laws that he used upon personal as well as political opponents in case he could not prove them guilty of anything else.

Justinian's were not the first Roman laws prohibiting homosexual behavior. Earlier such measures had been included in the ''[[Lex Scantinia]]'' dating from 149 BC and the ''[[Lex Julia]]'' dating from 17 BC, both constituting the death penalty for homosexual behavior. Allegations exist that even before ''Lex Scantinia'' such laws existed, but direct evidence of these laws has been lost<ref>''[[wikipedia:Valerius Maximus|VALERI MAXIMI]] FACTORVM ET DICTORVM MEMORABILIVM LIBRI NOVEM'', volume VI, section V ff</ref><ref>Article on ''struprum cum mastulo'' by W. Kroll in Pauly-Wissowa (ed.), ''Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft'', 1921</ref><ref>On ''supplicium fustuarium'', public beating to death for same-sex behavior in Rome long before ''Lex scantinia'', see [[Polybios]], ''The Histories'', volume VI, chapter 37</ref><ref>See article ''Päderastie'' by M. H. E. Meier in Ersch & Gruber (eds.), ''Allgemeine Encyclopädie der Wissenschaften und Künste''</ref><ref>[[wikipedia:Theodor Mommsen|Theodor Mommsen]], ''Römisches Strafrecht'', 1899, p. 703f (in English as ''Roman Criminal Law'')</ref><ref>Wilhelm Rein, ''Das Criminalrecht der Römer von Romulus bis auf Justinianus'' ("Roman Criminal Law from Romulus up to Justinian I"), 1844, p. 864</ref><ref>Gisela Bleibtreu-Ehrenberg, ''Tabu Homosexualität - Die Geschichte eines Vorurteils'' ("The taboo of homosexuality: The [[history]] of a prejudice"), 1978, p. 187</ref>. While sticking to the death penalty by beheading as punishment for homosexuality, Justinian's legal novels heralded a change in Roman legal paradigm as in that he introduced a concept of not only mundane but also divine punishment for homosexual behavior. Individuals might ignore and escape mundane laws, but they could not do the same with divine laws if Justinian declared his novels to be such.