Add to this the very popular public baths, used by the masses, which were considered little better than “houses of prostitution under a respectable name”; the gymnasiums, where many young and old men exercised in the nude, and which became dens of homosexuality; and the festivals, which were often just public sexual orgies. The situation became exactly as that described in the apostle Paul’s letter to the Roman Christians. Referring to those who ‘rendered sacred service to the creation rather than the Creator’ and who followed the then-current morals, he wrote: “God gave them up to disgraceful sexual appetites, for both their females changed the natural use of themselves into one contrary to nature; and likewise even the males left the natural use of the female and became violently inflamed in their lust toward one another, males with males, working what is obscene.” (Rom. 1:24-27) Paul’s description was shockingly accurate, for the moral depravity of the Graeco-Roman world led to one of the most disgusting practices in history​—the sexual abuse of young boys by older men. This filthy practice was glorified by poetry and plays, and the whole society was infected with it.

At the time, Nero was the Caesar, and his shocking moral outrages are well known. He arranged the lewdest of entertainment. He even “married” a young man “with all the forms of regular wedlock.”a

According to the writings of Juvenal, one homosexual, who at an older age was rejected by his lover, pleaded: “What’s my best move now after all these wasted years and disappointed hopes? The bloom of life will wither too soon, our miserable span on earth is running out: While we drink, while we’re calling out for garlands and perfumes and girls, old age creeps up on us, unregarded.”