A more general concern appears in the Niclaean Canons and
the so-called Apostolic constitutions which contain statutes against self-made
eunuchs both among the laity and the clergy.

Moreover, the sources indicate that self-castrationwas sometimes adopted
by male ascetics to allay suspicion which might otherwise arise from their
living with female ascetics.

Indeed, the tacit approval with which Justin regards his Alexandrian
youth is exceptionalin the extant Christiansources.The second/third century
apocryphalActs ofJohn presents another young man who, upon converting


to Christianity, "took the sickle and cut off his private parts." When he
ran to John to show what he had done, the apostle displayed little char-
ity toward the man's first act as a Christian:it was rather "the devices of
Satan" that had made him "cut off [his] unruly members as if this were
a virtuous act.


y.After all, if a teacher as revered as Origen
was believed to have castrated himself, or a figure as revered as Melito,
Bishop of Sardis, was referredto as "the eunuch, living wholly in the Holy
Spirit,"30 if such an epithet could appear on a Christian gravestone,3'
or
and self-castrationhad already been a technique of long-standing in non-
Christian devotional circles,32it is not so surprising that many young
Christians,"young men hot with the faith" who "possessa passion for self-
control, though not according to knowledge,"33 thought it admirable to use
a knife or sickle in the service of their zeal.



addition to the testimony of Basil who, as quoted above, was
alarmedby the spread of "many such men" in the Church, Epiphanius
of Salamis observed by 377 that "not a few" monks in Egypt had "dared
to make themselves eunuchs."43 describes one Transjordaniansect, the
He
who
Valesians,
exceptfor a few... when they take someoneas a disciple,
are all castrated
as long as he has not yet been castrated does not partake animalflesh.
he of
But once they have persuaded forcedhim to be castrated, then he par-
or
their own this
takesof anythingwhatsoever.... They not merelydiscipline
way, but oftenimposethe sameon strangers entertained
passingthrough, by
them as guests.



The third and fourth-centuryphenomenon of the virgines the
subintroductae,
spiritual female friends and students of certain male ascetics and clerics,
seems to have been a survival from such communities of travelers (and
didaskaleia) an earlier period. Eusebius records a letter describing the
of
actions of a council at Antioch (268) brought against Paul of Samosata
who, besides teaching objectionable doctrine, was known to keep such
women in his household; his presbyters and deacons allegedly kept such
company as well.56Cyprian addressed a similar situation at Carthage, ca.
250


The Practice and Prohibition of Self-Castration in Early Christianity
Author(s): Daniel F. Caner
Source: Vigiliae Christianae, Vol. 51, No. 4 (Nov., 1997), pp. 396-415
Published by: BRILL