Who were the first practicing gay bishops in history? Who were the first married gay men in the history of Catholicism?   Paulinus of Nola (ca. 352-431) is a candidate for the first gay bishop (singular) to be recorded in history. We know about Paulinus because he wrote popular homoerotic verse, so popular and so homoerotic in fact that the Church couldn’t cover it up or deny their bishop’s sexuality after his death. There is no evidence that Paulinus married his love.  

• The First Married Gay Bishops in History

  But who were the first recorded practicing gay bishops (plural) and were they ever married? Will we ever know? It stands to reason that we won’t because the Church will have destroyed all evidence of their existence. But what if the Church failed to destroy every remnant of evidence from a time before it banned practicing homosexuals and married men from its hierarchy? What if, one day a Masters student, conversant with some relevant primary sources and recent works about sexuality, tombs and tomb sculpture was studying a text about a succession of bishops and it became highly apparent that two of them (at least) had been gay and practicing homosexuality with each other in the mid sixth century? What if there were some evidence that they married? Our research shows that these bishops would qualify as the first gay, married bishops in history.    This is exactly what happened when a Masters student was reading The Lives of the Holy Fathers of Mérida. The bishops in question were Paul and Fidelis and they held the bishopric of Merida, Spain, in a gay dynasty-like succession from ca 535-565. What were the clues in The Lives of the Holy Fathers of Mérida?  What other circumstantial evidence exists to strengthen their claim to be the first married gay bishops in history? It is gathered in this article and published online for the first time ever on Xomba    St. Peter by Lorenzo Monaco dated 1405 - There is no evidence that Saint Peter was gay but if he was the evidence would have been destroyed.        Bishops Paul and Fidelis of Merida: The First Married Gay Bishops in History  

• Male Homosexuality in Ancient Greece

  The Lives of the Holy Fathers of Mérida leaves its readers in no doubt that both bishop Paul and his successor bishop Fidelis were of Greek origin. Conveniently (or inconveniently if you’re intent on rewriting History) there is abundant evidence that male homosexuality was not only widely practiced in Ancient Greece but was the norm. For instance, Greek vases dating from the fifth century BC commonly depict male homosexual relationships. They also illustrate the model of the typical homosexual couple – an older bearded man and a younger clean-shaven younger man. This model was still prevalent in Greece almost a thousand years later where it was recorded by the Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus (quoted below). Bishop Paul and his successor Fidelis conformed in at least their age difference to this model.    

• The Acquiescent Attitudes of the Visigoths

  The bishopric of Mérida was in Visigothic Spain. Spain was where the Romans eventually gave the Visigoths a homeland in 569 after a long migration which started in 376 when the Hun took over their original homeland and the Goths were forced to cross the Danube into the Roman Empire. During this period, although Romans were coming to discriminate against homosexuals it seems that the Visigoths had contrasting acquiescent attitudes towards social, religious and sexual behaviours by members of their own society and outsiders who joined it. The Visigothic attitude towards religious practices and the social position of women will form the content of future articles in this series of articles entitled History Truth and Reconciliation, now to look at their acquiescence concerning male homosexuality.    

• Proof that the Goths Accepted Male Homosexuality

  Gothic society according to a rare fragment about them by Jordannes “Feared death but admired the wound”. If we read about the migration of the Goths, Ostrogoths (Eastern Goths) and Visigoths (Western Goths) we find societies which accepted new peoples into their ranks and treated them as equals and fellow Goths – as long as they had something to offer their number. During the Visigoths long migration from the lands of southern Russia and Hungary, over the river Danube and around Greece, into Italy, France and finally Spain, the most important attribute of men who joined them, as suggested by the Jordannes fragment, was their ability to fight. Their sexuality had nothing to do with that. This is precisely witnessed by the early homophobic historian Ammianus Marcellinus, writing about the Goths military build up in Thrace 377:   The Gothic chief Farnobius… was roaming at large… and had with him the Taifali, who had recently joined him… I have been told that these people of the Taifali are so sunk in gross sensuality that among them boys couple with men in a union of unnatural lust, and waste the flower of their youth in the polluted embraces of their lovers. (Ammianus Marcellinus 31.9)   The same acceptance was still a part of Visigothic society in Merida a few hundred years after Marcellinus. However, by now the Visigothic upper classes had nominally converted all of their society from Arian Catholicism to Orthodox Roman Catholicism and their society’s acquiescence towards other religious practices, the social position of women and male homosexuality was something which writers were instructed to cover up. Fortunately (or unfortunately if you don’t agree with the equality of the sexes, religions and sexualities) the writer of The Lives of the Holy Fathers of Mérida was unable to do this thoroughly.    

• An Early Attempt to Rewrite History by the Author of the Lives

  The Lives of the Holy Fathers of Mérida was written by an anonymous author, at the behest of the powers that be and under instruction to present Mérida as an Orthodox bishopric. To achieve this he left things out and explained away other matters. For instance, no mention is made of the Roman buildings – pagan temples – which would have dominated Merida. He describes several processions of resurrected saints on routes from, to and around Merida and gives directions avoiding all Roman landmarks. Go to Merida today and you’ll see for yourself how difficult it would be to direct people from one side of the city to another and ignore these pagan landmarks which still dominate the modern city.   Then there’s the not insignificant matter of when bishop Paul first meets Fidelis who had travelled from Bishop Paul’s Greek homeland with a party of merchants   [Bishop Paul] leapt from his chair and embraced [Fidelis] in the sight of all… for his heart was stirred by him. Falling upon his neck and kissing him for a long time, he wept copiously with joy. (The Lives of the Holy Fathers of Mérida IV iii,iv)   We are to believe that this wasn’t love (or lust) at first sight because as Bishop Paul explained and the writer of the Lives explained:  “[Fidelis] is a relative of mine and a very close one”. He added: “Go in the name of the Lord, without any hesitation and tell my sister that I have kept her son to console me in my exile” (The Lives of the Holy Fathers of Mérida IV iii, xi)   The author thus expects his readership to believe that Fidelis, who came to Mérida as part of a trading mission, did not know his uncle was the city’s bishop. His arrival there was virtually a miracle but at least totally coincidental. The Lives readers are expected to believe that Bishop Paul (the patron on a massive fortune bequeathed by Mérida’s richest family) did not have the means to send word to his sister in Greece and invite his nephew to stay and offer him an excellent career path.    You could argue (as eminent historians did about the thesis this article is based upon) that the greeting and the closeness of Paul and Fidelis from that time forward wouldn’t have been mentioned if the Church had anything to hide. Also that when the author added:   As soon as the [other merchants] left, the bishop had the young man tonsured and offered him to the service of Almighty God and assiduously trained him day and night like a servant of Samuel in the temple of the Lord... (The Lives of the Holy Fathers of Mérida IV iii,xi)   he wasn’t attempting to cover up the very active homosexual sex lives of Paul and Fidelis. Nor was he attempting to explain away or give a different spin to something which was common knowledge. You could argue that this reading of the Lives was guilty of seeing modern behaviour wrongly at play sixteen hundred years ago. Really, why would the writer even mention it if there was something to hide?   This brings us nicely to the irrefutable material evidence: the shared “bed sarcophagus” of Paul and Fidelis which existed at the time the Lives was written.  This is the strongest evidence of the relationship of Paul and Fidelis.  [Fidelis’s] body was placed in one and the same sarcophagus next to the body of his holy predecessor [Paul] as though [they were] in one bed honourably entombed. (The Lives of the Holy Fathers of Mérida VI)   It was not an option for the author to ignore the existence of this sarcophagus, as miracles were being performed at its site (according to later chapters in The Lives of the Holy Fathers of Mérida). In addition, the site was shared with other holy sarcophagi, most importantly that of Bishop Masona (to whom most of the Lives was dedicated). It was essential in representing Mérida as a stronghold of Catholic orthodoxy that the city have such a site. Consequently the author was forced to present the offending tomb in the sanitised version quoted above. However, with minor alterations and additions to this text the popular alternative discourse concerning this sarcophagus can be heard:   Fidelis’s body is placed in the same sarcophagus as his lover Paul. It is as though they are in the same bed now as they were in life…   The only occupants of bed sarcophagi are married couples. Thus, it is likely that in addition to being the first practicing gay bishops in history, bishops Paul and Fidelis of Mérida were perhaps the first married gay bishops too.      Quaratesi Altarpiece - Pilgrims at the Tomb of St. Nicholas of Bari by Gentile da Fabriano dated 1425.  In the National Gallery of Art (USA)   

• Select Bibliography

  Coxall, Catherine 2001. “Visigothic Attitudes. Religion, the social position of women and male homosexuality in Gothic and Visigothic societies” in Indecent Exposure: Sexuality, Society and the Archaeological Record The Cruithne Press.   Garvin, Joseph N. 1946. Vitae Sanctorum Patrum Emeritensium (The Lives of the Holy Fathers of Mérida). Chicago University Press.   Panofsky, Erwin 1992. Tomb Sculpture Its Changing Aspects from Ancient Egypt to Bernini