Is The Canonical Epistle of Jude Decrying Contemporary Ritual Castration Practices Within Christianity?

Let' look at the context of the passage cited by Clement in To Theodore:

And angels that kept not their own principality, but left their proper habitation, he hath kept in everlasting bonds under darkness unto the judgment of the great day. Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them, having in like manner with these given themselves over to fornication and gone after strange flesh, are set forth as an example, suffering the punishment of eternal fire.

Yet in like manner these also in their dreamings defile the flesh, and set at nought dominion, and rail at dignities ... But these rail at whatsoever things they know not: and what they understand naturally, like the creatures without reason, in these things are they destroyed. Woe unto them!

For they went in the way of Cain, and ran riotously in the error of Balaam for hire, and perished in the gainsaying of Korah. These are they who are hidden rocks in your love-feasts when they feast with you, shepherds that without fear feed themselves; clouds without water, carried along by winds; autumn leaves without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots; Wild waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, for whom the blackness of darkness hath been reserved forever.

Here is Clement's original citation of Jude:

For these are the "wandering stars" referred to in the prophecy, who wander from the narrow road of the commandments into a boundless abyss of the carnal and bodily sins. For, priding themselves in knowledge, as they say, "of the deep things of Satan", they do not know that they are casting themselves away into "the nether world of the darkness" of falsity, and boasting that they are free, they have become slaves of servile desires.

The assumption has always been that Jude is attacking homosexuality but notice the repeated image of 'fruitlessness' or 'bareness' which immediately precedes the 'wandering star' reference in Jude:

clouds without water, carried along by winds; autumn leaves without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the root; Wild waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame

Now let's take each image separately:

clouds without water carried along by winds

autumn leaves without fruit twice dead, plucked up by the roots

Wild waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame (αἰσχύνας)

κύματα ἄγρια θαλάσσης ἐπαφρίζοντα τὰς ἑαυτῶν αἰσχύνας

What is almost never noted is that αἰσχύνας can mean 'shameful (parts)' i.e. genitalia. The word which precedes this reference ἐπαφρίζοντα is made up of two parts epi and aphrizó. Aphrizo is the root for the name of the goddess Aphrodite and on of the most famous stories about Aphrodite 'the foaming' goddess in antiquity also involves castration. Hesiod (179 - 190) declares that:

And Heaven came, bringing on night and longing for love, and he lay about Earth spreading himself full upon her.1 Then the son from his ambush stretched forth his left hand and in his right took the great long sickle with jagged teeth, and swiftly lopped off his own father's members and cast them away to fall behind him. And not vainly did they fall from his hand; for all the bloody drops that gushed forth Earth received, and as the seasons moved round she bore the strong Erinyes and the great Giants with gleaming armour, holding long spears in their hands and the Nymphs whom they call Meliae all over the boundless earth. And so soon as he had cut off the members with flint and cast them from the land into the surging sea, they were swept away over the main a long time: and a white foam spread around them from the immortal flesh, and in it there grew a maiden.

I am not the first to connect the passage in Jude with Hesiod. The language is unmistakable. But every time someone writes a paper on the parallels they don't know where to 'go with it.'

Everyone wants to believe Jude is talking about homosexuality because it is a kind of 'perversion' we can identify with. We have the same 'problem' today. Yet if you look carefully, the author is not saying that the heretics here are doing the same thing as those 'sodomists' of Sodom and Gomorrah. 'Jude' is merely listing a number of groups in history who engaged in 'shameful practices.' The angels who fell from heaven, Sodom and Gomorrah all of whom were 'like' the modern castrating heretics but not exactly like them.

It should be noted that Clement cites Julius Casinos as citing a very similar metaphor for eunuchs - "the prophet have said that they are 'not an unfruitful tree,' using the tree as an illustration of the man who chooses to emasculate himself of any such notion."

A little later Clement says on his own authority that "a eunuch, then, does not mean a man who has been castrated, nor even an unmarried man, but a man who is unproductive of truth. Formerly he was "dry wood," but if he obeys the word and observes the sabbaths by abstaining from sins and keeps the commandments, he will be in higher honour that those who are educated in word alone and fail to do what is right." This last argument sounds especially similar to what is presented in To Theodore especially as it is introduced with the idea that "For a eunuch is not justified merely because he is a eunuch, and certainly not because he observes the sabbath, if he does not keep the commandments."

Indeed immediately after these words Clement stresses again:

On this account a "eunuch shall not enter into God's assembly," that is, the man who is unproductive and unfruitful both in conduct and in word; but blessed are those who have made themselves eunuchs, free from all sin, for the sake of the kingdom of heaven by their abstinence from the world.

Yes to be sure Clement does reference 'sexual licentiousness' in association with the Carpocratians. Yet it is clear that the original attribution was by Irenaeus. Clement is just going along for the ride.

Here is the original quote in Stromata (which begins with a discussion of the true meaning of being a eunuch for the sake of the kingdom of heaven):

These then are the doctrines of the excellent Carpocratians. These, so they say [emphasis mine], and certain other enthusiasts for the same wickednesses, gather together for feasts (I would not call their meeting an Agape), men and women together. After they have sated their appetites (" on repletion Cypris, the goddess of love, enters," as it is said), then they overturn the lamps and so extinguish the light that the shame of their adulterous "righteousness" is hidden, and they have intercourse where they will and with whom they will. After they have practiced community of use in this love-feast, they demand by daylight of whatever women they wish that they will be obedient to the law of Carpocrates-it would not be right to say the law of God. Such, I think, is the law that Carpocrates must have given for the copulations of dogs and pigs and goats. He seems to me to have misunderstood the saying of Plato in the Republic that the women of all are to be common. Plato means that the unmarried are common for those who wish to ask them, as also the theatre is open to the public for all who wish to see, but that when each one has chosen his wife, then the married woman is no longer common to all.

In his book entitled Magica Xanthus says: "The Magi think it permissible to have sexual intercourse with mothers and daughters and sisters, and that wives are to be held in common, not by force and in secret, but both parties may agree when one man wishes to marry another's wife. "Of these and other similar sects Jude, I think, spoke prophetically in his letter- "In the same way also these dreamers" (for they do not seek to find the truth in the light of day) as far as the words "and their mouth speaks arrogant things."

Yet Clement's argument is unbelievably weak. The quote from Carpocrates has nothing to do with his own beliefs but rather is a citation of practices of Persians. The source for where Clement has 'heard' these beliefs associated with those of Carpocrates is clearly Irenaeus who writes:

They practise also magical arts and incantations; philters, also, and love-potions; and have recourse to familiar spirits, dream-sending demons, and other abominations, declaring that they possess power to rule over, even now, the princes and formers of this world; and not only them, but also all things that are in it. These men, even as the Gentiles, have been sent forth by Satan(5) to bring dishonour upon the Church, so that, in one way or another, men hearing the things which they speak, and imagining that we all are such as they, may turn away their ears from the preaching of the truth; or, again, seeing the things they practise, may speak evil of us all, who have in fact no fellowship with them, either in doctrine or in morals, or in our daily conduct. But they lead a licentious life, and, to conceal their impious doctrines, they abuse the name [of Christ], as a means of hiding their wickedness; so that "their condemnation is just," when they receive from God a recompense suited to their works.

4. So unbridled is their madness, that they declare they have in their power all things which are irreligious and impious, and are at liberty to practise them; for they maintain that things are evil or good, simply in virtue of human opinion. They deem it necessary, therefore, that by means of transmigration from body to body, souls should have experience of every kind of life as well as every kind of action (unless, indeed, by a single incarnation, one may be able to prevent any need for others, by once for all, and with equal completeness, doing all those things which we dare not either speak or hear of, nay, which we must not even conceive in our thoughts, nor think credible, if any such thing is mooted among those persons who are our fellow-citizens), in order that, as their writings express it, their souls, having made trial of every kind of life, may, at their departure, not be wanting in any particular. It is necessary to insist upon this, lest, on account of some one thing being still wanting to their deliverance, they should be compelled once more to become incarnate. They affirm that for this reason Jesus spoke the following parable:--"Whilst thou art with thine adversary in the way, give all diligence, that thou mayest be delivered from him, lest he give thee up to the judge, and the judge surrender thee to the officer, and he cast thee into prison. Verily, I say unto thee, thou shalt not go out thence until thou pay the very last farthing." They also declare the "adversary" is one of those angels who are in the world, whom they call the Devil, maintaining that he was formed for this purpose, that he might lead those souls which have perished from the world to the Supreme Ruler. They describe him also as being chief among the makers of the world, and maintain that he delivers such souls [as have been mentioned] to another angel, who ministers to him, that he may shut them up in other bodies; for they declare that the body is "the prison." Again, they interpret these expressions, "Thou shalt not go out thence until thou pay the very last farthing," as meaning that no one can escape from the power of those angels who made the world, but that he must pass from body to body, until he has experience of every kind of action which can be practised in this world, and when nothing is longer wanting to him, then his liberated soul should soar upwards to that God who is above the angels, the makers of the world. In this way also all souls are saved, whether their own which, guarding against all delay, participate in all sorts of actions during one incarnation, or those, again, who, by passing from body to body, are set free, on fulfilling and accomplishing what is requisite in every form of life into which they are sent, so that at length they shall no longer be [shut in the body.[Irenaeus AH xxv.3,4]

Yet this account sounds suspiciously similar to his original report about the Marcosians. Almost every aspect here is duplicated from the account before, only now the Carpocratians are explicitly associated with sexual depravity.

Is it possible that Irenaeus originally sought to link the tradition of St. Mark at Alexandria with 'Marcus' and his cult of 'redemption' but Clement and others in the Egyptian church developed 'Carpocrates' as a distraction? Hippolytus can certainly be employed to support this idea. But let's go back to the same point we have made earlier.

While homosexuality has (or had) a social stigma as recently as a few years ago, being associated with castration in contemporary antiquity was very bad for your health. There was a death sentence associated with the practice.

We see Alexandrians at the time of Justin being drawn toward the idea. Julius Casian seems to be drawn towards crossdressing and then there is Origen's well known status as an influential Alexandrian Christian eunuch. Alexandria was a center of Christian castration. Clement's idea of arguing for a group of Alexandrian heretics who engage in orgies might well be a well-calculated diversion which almost had Irenaeus fooled ...