Transsexualism in Early Christianity

[Charles Wilson]

Were eunuchs, in general, treated in much the same way as transsexuals are now (for better or worse)?

I believe you are correct, Ben, although I might have to bring in some of my speculations, not always appreciated here, into the discussions.

On the view that "Saul/Paul" originally was built around the Syrian Procurator Mucianus, involved in his own little Bitch-Feud with Vespasian, we find later, after Vespasian is securely on the Throne:

Suetonius, 12 Caesars, "Vespasian":

"Though Licinius Mucianus, a man of notorious unchastity, presumed upon his services to treat Vespasian with scant respect, he never had the heart to criticize him except privately and then only to the extent of adding to a complaint made to a common friend, the significant words: "I at least am a man."

Mucianus was:

A. A very powerful person in the Roman Empire
B. At least very effeminate
C. A Eunuch
D. All of the above

I vote "D". YMMV.

CW

[Secret Alias]

Philo maintains that the law excludes from the sacred assembly “those whose generative organs are crushed or cut off, who...refashion the masculine [ἄρρενα] type into a feminine form [θηλύμορφον]” (Spec. 1.324– 325). Josephus likewise urges his audience to drive off “those who have deprived themselves of their manhood [ἄρρεν]” because “their soul has become effeminate [τεθηλυσμένης]” (Ant. 4.290–291)

[Secret Alias]

Eunuchs in India:

Hijras are a group of male-born emasculates or “born eunuchs” who wear feminine clothing, adopt feminine names, are associated with a power to bless or curse fertility, and perform in public and in households following births.

[Charles Wilson]

SA --

Was Marcus Agrippa a eunuch? From your book, you tell of a parade around young Marcus where the participants, for example march with spears that have no head, etc. If he were indeed a eunuch then there was a limit as to how much power a eunuch could have.

[Secret Alias]

The taking of feminine names was apparently quite common in world history and - like Hyacinth, the eunuch mentioned in the Marcia narrative told by Hippolytus, often named themselves after flowers. https://books.google.com/books?id=i0sFR ... 22&f=false

[Secret Alias]

Was Marcus Agrippa a eunuch?

Hard to imagine a king of the Jews with deformed genitals. But he never had children and married his sister. Very curious story where nothing seems to fit really. If he had a functioning organ, why no children? Why marry his sister? Why was his sister carrying on with Titus? Nothing seems to add up really.

[Secret Alias]

When I was citing that material from the ancient Problems text about eunuchs I assumed it was a bunch of nonsense. But apparently a lot of it is true. I think whether or not a eunuch could be identified as 'female' depended on the age they decided to be castrated.

https://books.google.com/books?id=kViJy ... 22&f=false

[Secret Alias]

Apparently the ancient (and castrated) gala priest(esses) adopted female names - https://books.google.com/books?id=6Zw-A ... as&f=false https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gala_(priests) I've always suspected that 'to the Galatians' was not a geographic reference but yet another terminology with the strange 'Latinized-Greek' suffix that permeates early Christian writing.

[Secret Alias]

The point is of course was Christianity limited to a 'bourgeois morality' message - i.e. be nice to one another, be reasonable, be kind - or was there something radically new at the heart of the religion. While most people don't associate 'transsexualism' with early Christianity, I see it at the heart of monasticism and the reason why it was uniquely positioned to become the preferred monarchian religion of the Empire. When you think about it 'monk' (= monachos) the earliest mention I know of is the Gospel of Thomas line "and they shall become a single one (μοναχός)." There is a fascinating article by Miroshnikov which became a chapter in his study on Platonism in the Gospel of Judas Thomas and you see an immediate connection with monasticism. Clearly the 'oneness' principle goes beyond merely being solitary but unifying every binary principal in the universe - i.e. being neither male nor female. https://books.google.com/books?id=mmdjD ... el&f=false I think that in earliest Christianity this 'abstract principal' had to be embodied in something tangible, touchable.