Partial or complete amputation of the external sexual organs is an ancient practice that is not limited to Judaism or Islam. Between II and V centuries A.D. (the famous Dark Age) the obsessive desire to flee from sin and temptation led to several men infected by the christian disease, to self castration.
One of the most influential figures of the christian sickness, and perhaps the most famous example was the theologian Origen, an early father of the christian church who according to Eusebius, castrated himself following the text of Matthew 19:12.
His disciples say unto him, If the case of the man be so with his wife, it is not good to marry. And he said unto them, All men cannot receive this saying, save they to whom it is given.
For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother's womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven's sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.
Matthew 19:10-12.
Although today christian dogma is officially opposed to sexual mutilations such as castration, a variety of christian religious sects have arisen down through the ages whose members have imitated the act of self-mutilation performed by Origen. They practiced sexual mutilation, including partial or complete amputation of the testicles and penis. The underlying motivation for castration was that sexuality led to damnation. Circumcision may follow similar reasoning.
In this way, castration was a method used to secure a place in "Heaven", fleeing from the "vices of the flesh" and specifically the "sin of lust". The self-emasculation was understood by christians as an act of maximum "piety", as well as a practical demonstration of their detachment from the "earthy and mundane world". The body was despised as a source of vices, and was seen as a mere "shell" to contain the "only truly immortal thing of man", his soul. But at the same time the body tied the soul to the world, constantly forcing it to deal with "temptations", for example, the female body.
The fact that there are 72 eunuchs to be found in the list of christian saints indicates the special place castration has earned in traditional Christianity. The christian apologist Justin Martyr and (ca. 114-168 AD), described in a writing a case of a christian stripling of Alexandria, who requested the Roman governor permission to be castrated, a request that was denied, since castration had been banned by Roman Law, but which, according to Justin, the young man tried publicly demonstrate his high christian morality.
These are just few examples among many. Castration soon become a widespread practice in ancient christianity. At the beginning of the third century, they were even some advocates of self-castration in this context, as a man called "Sextus", author of a moralistic book, where he defended castration as an optimal means to achieve christian perfection. Those supporters of castration saw it as indisputable proof of spiritual predisposition of castrated people to "holiness" and to the chaste and "pure life".
Many monks, who inevitably must follow a life distanced from "world", would be among the advocates of genital mutilation. Draws attention the case of valesians, monks of Transjordan, mentioned in the famous treatise Panarion (378 AD), written against the heresies of Epiphanius of Salamis, obscure group of monks whose hermetic community self-castration was understood as the only valid means of ascending to Heaven, and therefore as absolutely mandatory in accordance with the Christian idea that the more the body suffers, the happier the soul. Even in their exaggerated obsession to "salvation from sin", not only for themselves, but for other mortals, they castrated by force a few unfortunate men who approached, incautiously, to their monasteries.
Christian castration expanded rapidly during Byzantine Empire. Even in Italy, up until the end of the 18th Century, about four thousand boys were emasculated each year, with the pope’s benediction, to supply the choirs of Europe with castratos. Today, in some Sicilian villages, it is till possible to find antique shops selling old signs reading, “Boys castrated here for a modest price”.
Despite this seemingly universal Christian tendency towards castration, there is no other Christian country where castration was more wide-spread than Russia. During the 18th Century, a deep mystical movement swept through the Russian Empire with André Ivanov, a rebellious member of the sect of flagellants, who in 1757 reacted against the perceived licentiousness of the Klysty, and founded the sect of the Skoptzy, or Castrates. He launched the new sect by castrating himself and then thirteen of his disciples. This sect continues this practice to the present day. Proselytizing among unsuspecting peasants, the leaders of this sect promised converts that redemption would follow mutilation.
This is just an example of how christian
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| European Knights of important religious and military orders (which tended to come from families of German nobility from the kingdoms of Western Europe) should have an excellent physical constitution. Unfortunately, christianity´s emasculation doctrine forced them to take a vow of celibacy, condemning their valuable White/European genes to extinction. The same was for the White/European nuns.
Bibliography:
-George C. Denniston, Marilyn Fayre Milos, Sexual Mutilations: A Human Tragedy, Plenum Press, New York, 1997. |
