NATURE — the way a thing grows or is constituted, from phyō, 'to grow'; the root of 'physics' and 'physical'. The phrase para physin, 'contrary to nature', is Stoic ethical vocabulary, common in Hellenistic Jewish writers such as Philo and Josephus, and it stands at the centre of the most contested paragraph in Romans (1:26-27). ⚠ One datum both sides of that argument cite: Paul uses para physin once more in the same letter, at 11:24, of GOD grafting a wild olive branch into a cultivated tree 'contrary to nature' — so in his usage the phrase is not automatically a term of absolute moral condemnation. The library reports the readings and does not vote. → first discussed at Rom 1:26