69 ἀσέλγεια in Mark 7:22 below), 43 times by Clement of Alexandria, 34 times by Origen, 17 times by Eusebius, 34 times by Athanasius, 40 times by Cyril of Alexandria, 44 times by Basil of Caesarea, 23 times by Epiphanius, and 306 times by Chrysostom. The patristic writers use the word in both sexual and non-sexual senses. Its most common single use in the patristic period is in quotes from Gal 5,19. In the patristic writers (such as Theophilus of Antioch, Ad Autol. 3.3.12), ἀσέλγεια forms part of a standard trio of vices with πορνεία and μοιχεία, all three ostensibly sexual in nature. It arguably parallels Boswell’s “triple prohibition”: οὐ πορνεύσεις, οὐ μοιχεύσεις, οὐ παιδοφθορήσεις found in Barnabas (19.4), the Didache (2.2), Clement of Alexandria (Prot. 10.108.5.2; Paed. 2.10.89.1.2), and Athanasius (Synt. 1.5.1-2)11. (Boswell notes that John of Damascus uses ἀρσενοκοιτίας as the third element in his trio of sexual vices in Sacra parallela 2.11.) In his sermon On the Passover, Melito uses the triple combination of ἀσέλγεια, πορνεία, and μοιχεία (364). He then describes as ἀσελγέστερα (388) cases where “father cohabits with his child, and son with his mo- ther, and brother with sister, and male with male, and each man neighing after the wife of his neighbor” (389–94). Occasionally, ἀσέλγεια is spliced into quotes from sin lists where it does not belong in the original text, such as Origen does with Col 3,5 in Contra Celsum 5.49.26, and Basil does with Eph 5,3 in Ennaratio in prophetam Esaiam 14.283.3. Curiously, out of the few allusions to Mark 7,21-2 by patristic writers, Epiphanius (Haer. 2.359.13) is the only writer who includes the word ἀσέλγειαι, quoting it along with only the sins of πορνεία, μοιχείαι, καὶ τὰ τούτοις ὅμοια as a trio of sexual vices like Boswell’s. Basil answers the question, “What is ἀσέλγεια?” by describing it as “an attitude of the soul that neither possesses nor can endure the pain of discipline (ἀθλετικόν)” (Regulae Brevius Tractae, Q. 67). He defines ἀσέλγεια as a “readiness to indulge in any pleasure.” It may be observed that no Jewish or early Christian writer before 200 AD ever uses both ἀσέλγεια, and any overt term for homosexual beha- vior, in the same document. Paul uses ἀρσενοκοίτης in 1 Corinthians and 1 Timothy, but does not use ἀσέλγεια in those letters. He uses ἀσέλγεια in Romans, 2 Corinthians, and Ephesians, but not ἀρσενοκοίτης or παιδεραστία (although Romans 1 does refer to the behavior in question). The same is true in 1 and 2 Peter and Jude: 2 Peter refers to Sodom and J. Boswell, Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality: Gay People in Western 11 Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century (Chicago - London 1980) 103, n.42.