On the Jewish Origins of Christian Monasticism

There certainly was a theological rationale for earliest Christian monasticism from the Jewish writings. It just isn't available to us now. As it stands all of it seems to appear as a 'new revelation,' suddenly and without explanation. Yet religions don’t behave this way. Even the most radical changes or innovations have to develop from the nature of the religion if they are to last.

I then asked myself how celibacy could ever be acceptable in Judaism. This is not to deny that Mark might have had some physical abnormality (as suggested in the Acts of the Pagan Martyrs with regards to Marcus Agrippa), but to find out if it was congenital or happened at a certain time, you first have to ask how it would have been regarded. You have fully explained how it would have been regarded in the new system, but what needed to be added was how the new system fitted into what was there beforehand.

Meek is a title of Moses. See Numbers XII, first part.

“Faithful” is a common way of referring to Moses in Samaritan usage, attested as far back as the records go. Note the words in John “My teaching is true”, or “his witness is true” in John. The word in Hebrew would be ne’eman. This is the same root as in Amen.

Mehayman in Syriac does NOT mean a eunuch in normal usage. This meaning in the SHORTER Payne-Smith is due to bad editing. Remember that the shorter dictionary is condensed directly from the enormous Thesaurus Syriacus. Meanings only applicable in a specific context and which are only connotations anyway are listed in the shorter version as standard meanings, quite unthinkingly. Also, some GUESSES in regard SINGLE BIBLICAL VERSES are listed as if they were certain and normal. As a general rule, ALWAYS DISTRUST THE LAST MEANING IN A LIST OF MEANINGS, unless a supporting example is quoted; and even then, be suspicious if the example is from ONE Biblical verse.

Mehayman translates the Hebrew ne’eman (NUN-ALEF-MEM-NUN), a standard epithet of Moses, “Faithful in all my house” (Numbers XII, first part). Note that Moses is called “my servant”, a technical term. I suggest a misunderstanding of an initiatory term in regard to BOTH words.

Consider also the old Rabbinic tradition that Moses didn’t need sex after the revelation at the Burning Bush or after the revelation at Sinai. The tradition is in the Tannaitic midrashim in the oldest layers, but as far as I know, is not mentioned later on. The argument is that the Shechinah was enough. There is, however, another approach. As the High Priest had to be ritually clean on the Day of Atonement when officiating in the Holy of Holies, and as Moses when in the Tent of Meeting was officiating in the Heavenly Tabernacle, Moses had to be ritually clean at all times. You know that the reason for the celibacy of some Essenes and some of the Qumran sect (I decline to decide whether they are the same) was to be ritually clean at all times. The narrow meaning of the term “kadosh” (holy) in Mishnaic Hebrew when applied to a Priest or a Priest’s wife is being for the moment completely ritually clean and thus able to eat the meat of the Priest’s portion of the sacrifices, which itself is “kadosh”. When applied to a permanent state, as when someone is termed “so and so the kadosh”, the term means being perpetually in this state and presumably celibate. The editor of the Mishnah was called “Rabbenu ha-Kadosh” our teacher or master the holy”. “Rabbenu Mosheh” is the normal way of referring to Moses. The question now is, are those that make themselves eunuchs simply those that are perpetually kadosh? If so, are the defences to literal cocklessness a misunderstanding of initiatory terms, with Moses as the initiate’s model? Such misunderstanding would have been easy at the time, with so many very strange approaches to sex or the absence of it in the environment. The misunderstanding could have become institutionalised and then projected onto earlier historical figures.

A sample of what appears in the Real Messiah order it here