stephan huller

As many readers of this forum know I have always thought that Christianity only makes sense as a eunuch cult. The attire of the orthodox priesthood was taken over from the eunuch priests of Artemis. The Catholic priesthood clearly developed from a tradition which embraced castration (probably the Marcionites). There is the example of Origen which is now taken as some sort of historical aberration.

The reality is that I was doing some research to complete my new book on Polycarp (which is basically a reworking of something I sent to Robert Price and David Trobisch over ten years ago) and I was going through the contents of the Life of Polycarp I kept noticing the manner in which Pionius stresses Polycarp's aversion to women and marriage. All of this made me think that Polycarp might indeed have been a eunuch.

There is a long discussion about virginity (παρθενίαν) where Polycarp apparently distinguished between three types of chastity. The first two types are fairly general descriptions of the chaste state, the kind of stuff we are used to. But what is described as the third and best type can only make us believe that Polycarp was himself a eunuch. We read:

But the third kind which practises a chastity victorious in every feat----what superiority has it not over the others! What desirable and laudable honour does not belong to the kind of continence and virginity, which shakes off and (so to speak) casts away all the shackles of the lower life, and with light bound and agile step outruns and overleaps the feats already described! For it evinces greater determination in the person who adopts it, than the being content with one alone or the desisting after experience, and it proclaims superior power in God who bestowed it. For that it is voluntary on the part of the man who so chooses, and that it is a gift of God whose is the power, our Saviour showed when He said that men made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake, and that all men could not receive this word. [Life of Polycarp 14]

Now I know what the response to this discovery will be from my detractors (at least the reasonable ones) - Pionius is a late unreliable source. But I think that this discovery withstands that criticism because there are certain features in the Letter to the Philippians for instance which supports the general idea of an affinity between Polycarp and Marcionitism despite stories of his hatred for the sect.

This is often the reality of 'real life.' The existence of a conflict between an individual and the tradition which reared him doesn't necessarily argue against an underlying similarity or affinity between the rebel and the thing he rebels against. Sometimes these conflicts are personality driven. We just don't know.

The reality is that I am quite confident given all the things said in the Life of Polycarp and all the things UNSAID by Irenaeus about his master Polycarp that Pionius is indeed giving an accurate description of Polycarp's support of ritual castration. I think we can safely put the name Polycarp in our list of ancient Church Fathers that were eunuchs. Indeed the important legendary reference to the flames of the pyre at Polycarp's martyrdom not affecting his flesh is clearly borrowed from the martyrdom account of the eunuch prophet Daniel. The idea that eunuchs were impervious to flames is also recycled as we noted in the story about Pope Demetrius of Alexandria in Severus of Al'Ashmunein's History of the Coptic Patriarchs. Demetrius is explicitly identified as a eunuch in that text.

So our list of Christian eunuchs now looks like this:

1. Jesus (Tertullian Monogamy 5. 6)
2. St. Mark (Philosophumena, VII, xxx)
3. St. Paul (Tertullian Monogamy 3)
4. St John (Tertullian Monogamy 17 ‘spado’; Jerome vol. vii. p. 655 ‘eunuchus’; cf. Leucius Acts of John)
5. All the disciples except Peter (De Monogamia 8.4)
6. 'Marcion' and the Marcionite priesthood - (Tert Against Marcion 1.1; 1:29; 4. 11; 4.17; Origen Commentary on Matthew 15.3)
7. the Egyptian contemporaries of the unnamed Alexandrian in Justin's report (Justin I Apol. 29)
8. Polycarp (Life of Polycarp 14)
9. Valentinus (Clement of Alexandria, Stromata iii.13-14) and presumably many Valentinians
10. Basilides and the Basilidians (Strom. iii. 508 ff.)
11. Athenagoras of Alexandria who calls the unmarried state eunouchía, and the unmarried man eunuoûchos (Suppl. 33-34)
12. Julius Cassianus (Clement of Alexandria, Stromata iii.13-14)
13. Montanus (Jerome Epist. 41.4)
14. Hyacinthus the Christian teacher of Marcia the concubine of the Emperor Commodus (Philosophumena 5.7)
15. Marcus Aurelius Prosenes from procurator of the wine-cellar under Commodus to chief chamberlain of Septimius Severus.
16. Carpophorus identified as "from the household of the Emperor" (Hipp. Ref. 9.12)
17. Pope Demetrius of Alexandria
18. Origen of Alexandria
19. Proculus Toracion Christian who healed Septimius Severus and stayed on his household until his death.
20. The eunuchs of the court of the Emperor Diocletian

It is also VERY tempting to begin to suspect that Irenaeus was a eunuch. There are two telling pieces of information (a) his loyalty and devotion to Polycarp must have been confirmed by his following the path of ritual castration and (b) that Irenaeus infers that he and his fellow Christians sat in the court of Commodus (AH iv.30) implies like many of the others just listed in this category that he was likely a eunuch too. I need one more piece of information to confirm Irenaeus but I thought it was worth sharing with everyone.

Davka

FYI - eunuchs have their testicles cut off, not their penises.

mountainman

Thanks. I removed it.

spamandham

"It", or "them"? :Cheeky:

mountainman

It was an ASCII operation

spin

Have you thought about a good therapist? This post is a disturbing reflection on its writer: a prolonged effort to misunderstand what the quoted writers said and a willingness to literalise relatively clear metaphor (at least in the references from Tertullian's "On Monogamy" -- all the rest are built on the basis of Tertullian supplying the central coherence [Jesus, Paul, John, all but Peter, Mark] to the thesis).


spin

spamandham

For those who view 'crucified' as symbolic rather than referring to Roman crucifixion, could it be referring to castration?

"When they came to the place called the Skull, there they crucified him, along with the criminals—one on his right, the other on his left."

"At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had ever been laid." :constern01:

"For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin" :constern02:

bacht

Is it really so far-fetched? I thought both eunuchs as courtiers and self-castration by priests of the goddess were well-established historically. Adding metaphysical dualism, why couldn't some fringe Jews or God-fearers go under the knife voluntarily?

stephan huller

Therapy. Well if you mean that I take seriously (a) the Marcionite tradition (b) frequent identifications in Tertullian that the Marcionites took an interest in castration (c) that Ephrem notes that the Marcionites took an interest in Daniel the eunuch prophet (d) that Daniel the eunuch prophet's example of withstanding flames shows up in the account of Demetrius (who claims to be a eunuch) and Polycarp's martyrdom and (e) an underlying interest in castration rituals in Alexandria dating from Justin's Apology to long after Origen, I think it is a lead worth following.

If Christians advocated marriage and sexuality as a blessing from God it would make no sense to assume that there might be a castration cult at the heart of Christianity. Given that almost every ancient writer who ever writes on the subject assumes in some form that marriage is slavery, sexuality a sin and monasticism a blessed state it is not unreasonable to assume that some people took Matthew 19:12 literally. As such I feel no embarrassment following leads that have been dropped by traditional scholarship who feel shamed at Origen's example.

No members of my family have any connection whatsoever with Christianity. I stumbled upon the religion as an alien life form. As such I don't stop when the answers become 'strange.' I have no vested interest in preserving a 'familiar' form of Christianity practiced by mommy, daddy and my ancestors.

My question is always - has there been a comprehensive study of castration rituals within Christianity? No, there has not. Most research is carried out by people with an agenda - i.e. homosexuals trying to find 'like minded' believers in antiquity. As I am neither gay nor Christian, I feel I have a unique objectivity to carry out research in this field which is both objective and of interest to many people.

If you can't handle the implications of this research, please turn to another channel.

Stephan

stephan huller

The Skopsky http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skoptsy clearly wanted to remake humanity without ANY sexual organs at all - i.e. like the angels. I think this is the intimation of Jesus's original rejection of Salome's question in Luke 11:27 (see Gospel of the Egyptians). I think that even for women paps and pussy had to be removed or sealed up. Note the continued rite of female circumcision in Egypt.

That the Skoptsky continued or preserved older orthodox traditions this can be argued too.