kissing Christians

Christian kissing

A lot of people don't realize this, but there was a lot of kissing among Christians in the first several centuries after Christ and some were passionate about it. People in the church greeted each other by embracing and kissing. This seems to have been true for people of both the same sex and of the opposite sex, also.

Very Surprising: Perpertua, Hermas, Tertullian and Clement

There kissing enough kissing in the early church that it would be quite surprising to us, even with the knowledge that Romans often kissed in greeting. Here are two Christian martyrs as they are commonly depicted in Christian art. These two were of several Christians martyred in March 203. But the early Christians didn't produce this image we see to make us think they were lesbians.

Instead, the Acts of Perpetua, an eyewitness account, tells us that the five martyrs were wounded by animals. After being wounded, and just before being executed by the sword, Perpetua and the others kissed each other. And many Christian artists choose to depict the embrace, rather than the martyrdom.

Saturus was one of the martyrs put to death on the same day, with Perpetua. He and she both had visions of their deaths and reception in heaven. In the vision of Saturus, the group of the martyrs after death sees the Lord and elders with Him, and kisses them all. In the vision of Perpetua, she is a gladiator fighting with the devil. She then defeats him. Afterwards, she kisses her trainer and a glorious man who is called the "master of the gladiators," which seems to be a depiction of Christ. Then, he "kissed me and said to me: Daughter, peace be with you."

By the way, in the picture above, Felicity is a slave of the family. It is true that the Romans did kiss among the same sex in friendship, but they almost never kissed slaves, except when they were using them sexually. In this case, the gospel has made the slave a kissable person, that is, a friend or a sister, rather than just a slave. So it was with embracing and kissing the sisters.

Among the Romans, it was common to embrace and kiss a female family member, but men kissing females outside the family was only done between lovers. For the Christians, the kissing was a sharp way of indicating that they were family, in a way perhaps somewhat hard to believe.

Very common

Kissing in greeting was so prevalent that the Latin word "salutare" (to greet) acquired the meaning of "to kiss" in the French, Spanish and Rumanian languages because of this longstanding greeting practice.

Worship incomplete without kissing

Tertullian was an early church father. He wrote, "What prayer is complete if separated from the holy kiss?"

People come to like this greeting

Ray Pritchard is a pastor and president of Keep Believing Ministries. About kissing among Christians, he writes,

I’ll never forget my first trip to St. Petersburg, Russia with John and Helen Sergey. When the men of the Temple of the Gospel greeted John, one after another they hugged him and warmly kissed him on the cheek. The women did the same for Helen. And so it was in every church we visited. I even got kissed a few times. Let me tell you, it’s a very strange experience for an uptight American to have a Russian brother give you a bear hug and then smack you on the cheek. But after awhile, I liked it! See also . . .

On the mouth

Professor of Religion Michael Penn was struck by references in the early Christian literature to the kissing in church. He says:

"As you can imagine, my friends have many of their own theories for why I spent years studying kissing. . . As I discovered that early Christian women and men often kissed each other, in church, on the lips, my vision of early Christianity radically changed. . .

[I]n the Greco-Roman world, kissing often was seen as involving a transfer of spirit; when you kissed someone else you literally gave them part of your soul. The early church expanded on this and claimed that, when Christians kissed, they exchanged the Holy Spirit with one another.

One has to ask. What kind of kissing are we talking about here? A peck on the cheek? Lips to lips? Or more passionate?

Almost always lip to lip. The amount of passion depended on the participants. Two of my favorite second-century Christian references allude to overly enthusiastic kisses."

It seems pretty clear that the early Christians kissed on the mouth. For example, around 250 A.D. Cyprian says,

Cyprian to Sergius and Rogatianus, and the rest of the confessors in the Lord, everlasting health. I salute you, dearest and most blessed brethren, myself also desiring to enjoy the sight of you, if the state in which I am placed would permit me to come to you... What more pleasant and sublime than now to kiss your lips, which with a glorious voice have confessed the Lord, to be looked upon even in presence by your eyes, which, despising the world, have become worthy of looking upon God? But since opportunity is not afforded me to share in this joy, I send this letter in my stead...(Cyprian, Epistle LXXX, c. 250)

And the evidence is that in both East and West, there was intersex kissing as well as same-sex kissing. The evidence includes the fact that Clement and Athenagoras (both of Alexandria, Egypt) tried to discourage erotic enjoyment of the kiss, and later church fathers began to forbid intersex kissing.

Christian iconography shows embracing and kissing

In the early centuries it was the practice of Christian iconography to borrow motifs from well-established pagan myths; especially in the case of sarcophagi designs. Among the motifs applicable in this way were those connected with the myth of Psyche and Eros; one of the most favoured by the Christians of Rome was the image that showed a pair embracing and kissing. Perhaps in time to come, I will locate and display some of these images.

Elements of worship

If you study the Bible with some Christians and discuss worship services, you will find that people talk about "the elements of worship." For example, it is very common in the churches of Christ to say that there are five elements of worship to be found in a normal Christian worship service. These "elements" are singing, prayer, communion, giving and teaching. And in fact, it may be that Acts 2:42 is a short list of the elements of worship--"the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer."

Now, in light of what Tertullian wrote, why is it we don't include kissing in greeting or hugging in greeting as one of the elements of worship? There is as much instruction for this as for the other elements.

Pastor Ray Pritchard says,

The usual interpretation is that the holy kiss itself is not important. The greeting is the thing, we’re told. It doesn’t really matter how you do it. Back then it was a holy kiss. Today it’s a handshake. Same thing.

Now that seems right until you think about it. A kiss is not the same thing as a handshake. Just ask any teenager. . .

They didn’t just talk about being a family, they were a family and the holy kiss served as a symbol of their love for each other. It was a holy kiss because it was exchanged between holy people. It was a holy kiss because they truly felt they were brothers and sisters in one big, happy family. The holy kiss was the normal greeting between Christians.

Augustine said of the early Christians, “They demonstrated their inward peace by their outward kiss.”

Cyril of Jerusalem said, “This kiss is a sign that our souls are united and that we banish all remembrance of injury.”

Bishop Cyprian went so far as to say Christians should be “love doves” who exchange the kiss as a mark of innocent affection.

He is the touchable God. . . We are his people. The church is his body. We do him no justice when we put up a sign that says, “Stay away. Do not touch. I want my space.” Strange as it may seem, when we greet one another with a holy kiss or holy hug, we are reenacting the very heart of our Christian faith. We are a touchable people because we are children of a touchable God.