charles

Every reference I see to asceticism and the monastic life acts as if it only started in the fourth century. But this seems counter-intuitive because there must have been celibacy movements in the previous age. Why don't we know about them?

Toto

The monastic life would only have started after Christianity stopped being an underground cult and could go out and openly build monasteries.

The Acts of Paul and Thecla is dated to the second century, and promotes celibacy. There is a fail amount of praise for chastity in Paul's letters, although he is not absolute.

It's been a while since I looked at Uta Ranke-Heineman's Eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven (or via: amazon.co.uk). As I recall, she blamed all of the anti-sex attitudes of the Catholic Church on the gnostics, because they rejected the physical world.

Toto

This could be true.

popgoestheweasel

There is an argument in one of the Church Fathers. I forget which it is. But it says to the effect that Christianity is unlike the pagan philosophers who preached mere celibacy. I don't think that Christianity could have merely preached sexual abstention. It isn't radical enough for this new religion which swept the world. I always think people and traditions start off radical in their youth and then cool down, not the other way around.

Also I am having a hard time visualizing how an underground movement could have monasteries. To Toto's point then - is there any evidence that the orthodox had any churches at all before the fourth century? I know they had Church Fathers, but it always struck me that the monastic movment was only in Syria and Egypt. There were no monasteries in Italy and Greece in the third century. So where there any third century orthodox Christians or just third century orthodox Church Fathers?

I have always had difficulties seeing any evidence for churches, monasteries or any kind of real ecclesiastical body before the time of Constantine.

Toto

There is a "house church" that was preserved at Dura Europos, which can be dated to 256 CE. It did have some colorful murals, but is otherwise very simple, compared to the more elaborate synagogue there, or the Mithraeum.

But a church is not a monastery, so your question does not make a lot of sense.

stephan huller

I actually think that there is something to the question about the third century Church. I think it can be connected with mountainman's beliefs and even aa5784 and the rest of the people I normally diss who say that the Ante Nicene Church Fathers are fictitious.

I have often wondered who Irenaeus is addressing with this lectures. Did he write for lay Christians? I don't think so. So let us suppose that Irenaeus was writing for someone like Demetrius - i.e. bishops, members of the ecclesiastical hierarchy - who are being warned about 'tell tale signs' of heretical beliefs and groups (which is what Against the Heresies really is all about i.e. how to hunt, catch and kill heretics see the closing words of Book One).

The question is then how deep did Catholic beliefs penetrate the Church? Were the beliefs expressed in Irenaeus's writings already there or imposed upon Christian communities? I don't know the answer to that question. I think on some level Irenaeus couldn't completely 'make up' a whole new doctrine and force it on people. But could his writings anticipate the way Nicaea was devleoped (i.e. allowing the Alexandrians to determine the dating and the nature of the Easter service against another faction within the Church while at the same time imposing on the Alexandrians the beliefs and practices in another respect i.e. the humanity of Jesus, his atual crucifixion etc.?) Again I think so but I can't be sure.

Nicaea I think had a precedent for Imperial involvement in Christianity in the nexus of Irenaeus, Marcia, Commodus, Hyacinthus, Callistus and the Popes of the Severan age.

The curious thing as I mentioned before is that Irenaeus never develops a doctrine on the issue of ritual self-castration. Some would argue that's because it didn't exist. But why then the concentration of Christian eunuchs in the Imperial court? How did Irenaeus and the rest of those Christians he mentions in Book iv chapter 30 manage to get into the inner circle of Commodus? All indications indicates that it had something to do with being a eunuch (Marcia is the link - Hyacinthus, her 'husband' Eclectus was a eunuch - is Eclectus the Eclecta of the third letter of John? Is Eclecta a parallel to the confusion over Hilaria/Hilarion that we see in later Christian eunuch literature?).

In other words, I might guess (I can't know this definitively) that Irenaeus left the issue of self-castration alone because there already was a standing Imperial decree against it. In other words, secular law took care of that problem. Clearly it was a subjective decision as to whether a particular individual's castration was 'legal or illegal.' The government couldn't execute someone for being a eunuch. What they seemed to be aiming at is a community like the Marcionites or the Alexandrian Church who might have been 'producing' lots of eunuchs.

Again, I can't say that I know enough to be considered an 'expert' on this but the comforting fact is no one has studied this. The assumption is that Christianity always just took the call to be a 'eunuch for the sake of the kingdom' allegorically but the evidence from the earliest period suggests otherwise.

Indeed whenever I read a Jewish author advancing the plain meaning of the Torah (Ibn Ezra, R. Ishmael) I always feel reassured that these arguments are sensible. You always have to stop and really wait a long time to agree with any allegorical interpretation of a text. Origen is always accused of being an allegorist. But why not here? Why does he accept a 'literal' reading of Matthew 19:12 (with respect to reports of his self-castration)? Why does he agree with the Marcionite interpretation (which he is says is literal here) but then why doesn't this passage appear in Luke which we are told is the Marcionite gospel?

It is so utterly perplexing it is hard not to become a conspiracy theorist. We aren't getting good information from any of the Church Fathers about what is actually going on in the period. No one is giving us an 'on the ground' report about Christianity in the second and third centuries. It's all a question of the 'right interpretation of scripture.' The only one who tells us anything 'real' is Celsus and Origen only gets around to telling us about his book when he (Origen) is about to knock off.

charles

I found this discussion of eunuchs in the Jewish tradition quite interesting: http://epistle.us/hbarticles/eunuchs1.html I know no way of knowing how accurate any of this information is

The Hebrew word saris (Strong, #5631; plural: sarisim) in the OT derived from the Akkadian sha reshi, meaning lit. “he who is head, chief,” referring initially to court officials who served the king.13 Yet sha reshi also came to be used in the expression “turn into a eunuch,” and especially after 1000 B.C. both Akkadian and Hebrew words were increasingly used in a specialized sense to refer to castrated officials.14 Saris appears 47 times in the OT, including 4 times as rab-saris and 6 times as sar-hassarisim, (both meaning “chief eunuch”),15 although many Bible scholars are hesitant about identifying any eunuchs in the OT narrative, especially in Israel and among later Jewish exiles.16 In English translations, one finds a full range extending from the New English Bible (1970), which translates saris/sarisim as “eunuch(s)” in every instance, to the Contemporary English Version (1995), which avoids using “eunuch(s)” entirely, preferring general terms like “officer(s)” or official(s).” Of 16 English translations inspected,17 most display an overly conservative skepticism, although many acknowledge eunuchs in Queen Jezebel’s harem (2 Kings 9:32), in the Babylonian court (Dan 1) and Persian court (Est 1-7), and in Isaiah’s two prophecies about sarisim (Isa 39:7, 56:3-5). Assyriologist Kirk Grayson notes that castration has been “virtually taboo in modern [secular] scholarship,” eliciting “very few serious studies,” even though eunuchs have been identified as an important institution in China, Turkey, Mediaeval Islam, Byzantium, Greece, the Hellenistic world, later Roman times, Achaemenid Persia, the Medes, Urartu, the Hittites (the last two empires located in what is now modern Turkey), Babylonia and Assyria; and in many of these civilizations the proportion of eunuchs found among officers was particularly high.18 Bible scholars have tended to believe that because of Deut 23:1, which banned genitally wounded males from joining the Israelite worshipping community, castrated males would never have been allowed in Israel.19 Yet, one has to notice how harshly Jeremiah condemns the people, who had forsaken Yahweh to serve foreign gods; and therefore they shall now serve strangers in a foreign land (Jer 5:19). They stole and murdered, committed adultery and practiced perjury (7:9), and brought detestable idols into the Temple and sacrificed their children on pagan altars (7:30-31). Also, because they had not kept the Sabbath, the Lord said he would ‘set Jerusalem afire’ (17:27). After breaking so many ‘Ten Commandments,’ even, would Israel really care about Deut 23:1? Instead, it is far more likely, as Taylor and Snaith suggest, that the rulers of Israel began employing eunuchs in imitation of their powerful neighbors (an inclination they long held, cf. 1 Sam 8:5),20 beginning with Jezebel in the Northern Kingdom of Israel21 and then this practice is observed again with the final kings of the Southern Kingdom of Judah. With regards to the Jews taken into captivity, one must never forget that castrating captives for royal court service was standard practice for their conquerors. Most eunuchs were captured in war, received as tribute, or kidnapped in slave raids (note that even Jewish youths were so abducted, Joel 3:4-6).22

In fact, after studying historical evidence for the extensive and widespread use of eunuchs in harem supervision and serving the king in other ways (personal service, guards, generals and governors23) in the Neo-Assyrian (883-609 B.C.), Neo-Babylonian (626-539 B.C.) and Achaemenid24 Persian (559-330 B.C.) empires, that largely controlled the ancient Near East during the period of the Divided Monarchy (Israel and Judah) and then later during the Exile and also investigating all references to saris/sarisim in the OT, (See appendix online, “Searching for Eunuchs in the OT”), this writer has come to the following conclusions: (1) There is insufficient historical proof for eunuchs in early Egypt and therefore that Potiphar and pharaoh’s chief cupbearer and chief baker were “eunuchs” (Gen 37:36, 39:1, 40:2,7; NEB: “eunuch[s],” NRSV: “officer[s]”). (2) However, it is likely that Jezebel, princess from Tyre, a cosmopolitan city with merchant ties to Assyria,25 whom Ahab took as his pagan queen in the 9th century B.C., introduced eunuchs as harem and (possibly) other court servants in the Northern Kingdom of Israel (cf. 2 Kings 9:32). (3) It is also likely that when saris suddenly reappears as a title among the court retinues of Jehoiachin (or “Jeconiah,” Jer 29:2) and Zedekiah (Jer 39:1-2, 41:16-17) near the end of the Southern Kingdom of Judah (ca. 608-586 B.C.), this referred to eunuchs and not simply royal “officials,” for which other Hebrew terms were in use and available without carrying the taint of castration. (4) Noting the numerous historical examples of eunuchs serving the king abroad and as military officers, the sarisim who accompanied Nebuchadnezzar II to Judah (bet. 604-586 B.C.) were also most likely eunuchs (2 Kings 18:17, Jer 39:3,13; NRSV: “Rab-saris”). (5) Most agree that the sarisim mentioned in Nebuchadnezzar’s court (Dan 1; REB: “chief eunuch,” but NRSV: “palace master”) and in Xerxes II’s court (Est 1-7) were eunuchs. (6) Everyone agrees that Isaiah’s two prophecies, one declaring that sons of Judah would be made eunuchs (Isa 39:7) and the other overturning Deut 23:1 and now inviting all Jewish eunuchs who loved God to rejoin the worshipping community (Isa 56:3-5). Still, most interpreters close their eyes to the fact that both passages strongly anticipate that certain Jews taken in Exile were castrated … but who? (7) Most certainly Daniel and the other handsome, high-born youths whom Nebuchadnezzar took to Babylon to serve as personal aides in his court (Dan 1) were castrated, and Nehemiah as royal cupbearer to Artaxerxes I (Neh 1:11) was also certainly a eunuch. Mordecai, who ‘sat at the king’s gate’ of Xerxes II’s palace, might also have been a eunuch, as was the case with royal doorkeepers (Est 2:21, 6:10).

Most, but not all, eunuchs lost all interest in sexual activity, although their sexual abilities were regularly debated in all cultures that used eunuch servants.26 Ecclesiasticus 30:20 (an Apocryphal text written ca. 180 B.C.) took note of how “a eunuch groans when he embraces a virgin” (REB). If the testicles were removed after puberty, a eunuch might still have an erection, since he continued to receive testosterone from the adrenal glands, although he was sterile; and even if boys had their testicles crushed at a young age, it was possible for some to still receive testosterone from the testicles, allowing them to have an erection. Even totally castrated eunuchs could receive anal pleasure, from the prostate gland, resulting in a climax of sorts, but without ejaculation. Therefore, some have argued that eunuchs were not castrated to prevent them from having sex with women in the harem, but rather to assure that all children born would be from the seed of the master.27 Moreover, some ancients found the smooth, hairless, hermaphroditic bodies of young eunuchs appealing; and they considered a half-man/half-woman a wondrous union of the two, combining the charms of both sexes.28 Not every eunuch was used for homosexuality, of course, but many were; and eunuchs with a youthful beauty were in great demand as homosexual partners (cf. Karl Wittfogel 1957, Johanna Fürstauer 1965, Ilse Seibert 1974, Keith Hopkins 1978, David Greenberg 1988.)29 With regards to eunuchs being used for sex by women in the harem, the Greek and Roman authors hint at nothing, nor do any other ancient sources. (They were, after all, to guard the women sexually, and might be executed for failing in this task.) However, the sexual relationship between Alexander the Great and the handsome young eunuch Bagoas (formerly the catamite of Darius III) is well documented;30 and the Roman writer Curtius Rufus (6.5.22) makes it clear that this sexual relationship was just another Persian royal practice which the Macedonian conqueror took over. Less well-known is the story of the sexual passion of King Artaxerxes (probably one of the later Artaxerxeses, II-IV) for an attractive eunuch named Tiradates; and when the eunuch died, the king plunged into deep despair; finally, when a look-alike female courtesan (high-class prostitute) was sent into his bedchamber dressed in the eunuch’s clothes, he was somewhat comforted, although he could not have sex with her.31 It should also be remembered that many hijra eunuchs of modern India offer themselves as prostitutes to men.32 Further, the Kama-sutra (“Short Sayings on Love”), a Hindu text written between the 1st and 6th centuries (and claiming to be based on much older traditions) expressed the view that all eunuchs, both those who looked effeminate and those who looked more masculine, engaged in homosexual activity to a greater or lesser degree (II.xi).33

mountainman

I think this discussion is myopic in that the celibacy of the followers of Pythagoras, Plato and even Buddha (all of whom were more well known in the Graeco-Roman literary and traditional milieu) is being entirely overlooked in the extreme haste and reckless enthusiasm to find quasi-Canonical "christian" sources. The fourth century ascetic demographic explosion outside of the cities in remote desert monasteries may also be cited. The empire was after all not chistian but dominantly Graeco-Roman or if you prefer --- simply "pagan". [Gentiles according to the authors of the NT package). The citing of Marcion relies exclusively upon the heresiologist Eusebius and is fraught with difficulties which appear insurmountable.

Jesus is not necessarily presented as a celibate.
Where precisely did Jesus often kiss Mary for example?

stephan huller

We aren't talking about celibacy we're talking about self-castration and likely of the sort where the whole penis was removed. That's why its unique religious phenomenon.

I am not sure how to react to this. YOUR mindset exclusively sees things in terms of Eusebius because he is a fourth century figure and you believe Christianity was formed in the fourth century. Focusing on Eusebius is self-serving on your part. I made no reference to Eusebius's interest in Marcion because he adds nothing new to the discussion. All the important Greek and Latin references occur in Irenaeus, Clement, Origen, Tertullian and Adamantius who are all from the second and third centuries.

Perhaps you should read Tertullian De Monogamia again.

Who cares

mountainman

But since you are dealing with the unique religious phenomenom of a Greek new testament canon (and associated Gnostic Gospels and Acts also authored in Greek originally) where do you deal with the Graeco-Roman references to castration? The WIKI page for example mentions to castration of Uranus by Saturn.




But my beliefs have nothing to do with the historical fact that the 4th century Eusebius is the source for all the 1st, 2nd and 3rd century "facts" about all the events and authors and stories which together constitute "Early Christian History before the Peace of Constantine".

It is a fact that Eusebius is our only independent source for "Marcion".

And they were all gathered together under the editorship of Eusebius in the 4th century between the years of 312 and 324 CE, as was the new testament and the greek LXX. Quite a portfolio for Eusebius's editorial and research capabilities.

I remain unconvinced that Tertullian was a real person.
I therefore value JRR Tolkien over Tertullian.

Mary?