Toto

Male circumcision was promoted in the US as a cure for masturbation (part of the work of Dr. Kellogg). I don't think that it worked. One study cited in Wikipedia reported that Vegetarianism was also promoted in the US as a cure for masturbation (by Kellogg and Graham), and seems to have been practiced by early Christians.

I would think that fasting, meditation, and refraining from meat would be more workable as an early Christian practice to control sexuality.

stephan huller

I don't see why its either or. What? Religious practices have to be effective in order to have been employed by the superstitious? I guess the traditional Catholic answer to the same problem - cold showers - is more effective?

Solo

1 Cor 7:5-9 all but exclude the possibility that Paul was castrated. He calls his chastity "a gift from God", and speaks of the need to "marry" for those who can't exercise "self-control" (like he does). The last verse shows that castration was not considered an option by Paul.

Best,
Jiri

stephan huller

And the bottom line is the Egyptian practice (shared by Copts and Muslims) has to be explained. Is it something which might have grown out of a text LIKE the so-called Gospel of the Egyptians. Yes I think so.

Toto

Perhaps because this topic is icky, I am having some problems following your logic.

Most traditional societies try to controll sexuality. Most are ineffective. Sometimes it seems that is deliberate (the Bush policy of abstinence teaching led to more teenage pregnancy.)

So there probably was a lot of early Christian preaching against sex.

But male castration is a pretty serious way of controlling sexual output. A society that made that a routine practice would die out fairly quickly, one way or another.

One thing we know, Christianity did not die out.

spin

I bet you don't believe in miracles.


spin

spin

...thinks...

spin

I mean, if god didn't want these eunuchs to die out...

stephan huller

And then there is a question of who underwent ritual castration. The lay church? No most certainly not. Tertullian makes clear it was only the members of the presbytery and then even not all. There is something in Augustine worth citing which implies that very few Montanist priests survived their initiation.

Also the description of the galli in the Golden Ass implies that ritual castration cults took place under less than ideal circumstances

spin

I must admit that castration was a well-known approach in the more ecstatic religions on the edges of Greece and in northern Syria. But I thought we were dealing with a religion whose roots are certainly Jewish.


spin