Follow the Bouncing Balls

A partial list of KNOWN eunuchs (we can't expect to know what was under their robes; the fact anyone should think Jesus and these earliest Christians was castrated and that this information has made its way down to us is very odd).

Jesus (Tertullian Monogamy 5. 6)

St. Mark - kolobodaktulos = 'mutilated finger'; finger = male member in all languages ("Philosophumena", VII, xxx)

St. Paul 'made himself a eunuch' (Tertullian Monogamy 3)

St John is first called Christi spado In Tertullian (Monogamy 17) and eunuchus in Jerome (vol. vii. p. 655). Many have speculated these ideas go back to Leucius (c. early second century CE). According to Ambrosiaster, Ad 2 Cor. 11:2, all the apostles were married except John and Paul.

'Marcion' - self-mutilated eunuch (Tert AM 1)

THEN THERE IS A HISTORICAL BLACK HOLE WITH NO REAL INFORMATION ABOUT CHRISTIANS AND CHRISTIANITY (there is an Imperial ban on castration in Domitian's rule which is strengthened in Hadrian's reign and confirmed again under Antoninus which forms the framework to our next illustration).

virtually every Marcionite presbyter was likely established as a eunuch after the example of Jesus and the Apostle.

the earliest mention of an Alexandrian Christian implies widespread use of castration rituals in Egypt. Origen was the rule not the exception. His patron Ambrose was a (reformed) Marcionite. (Justin I Apol. XXIX)

those at Rome to whom 'Clement' addressed his two treatises on virginity(? CE)

Melito of Sardis (fl 140 CE) I don't even think he was from Sardis take away one letter - the 'd' - and you have 'Melito the Eunuch' in Aramaic/Syriac which happens to be his other title

Metrodorius the Marcionite Bishop of Smyrna (d. 161 CE)

Athenagoras calls the unmarried state eunouchía, and the unmarried man eunuoûchos (Suppl. 33-34)

Julius Casianus of Alexandria interprets a number of passages in a way that suggests he could only be eunuch.

Hyacinthus of Rome (fl 150 CE) described by Hippolytus (Philosophumena 5.7) 'a presbyter, though an eunuch rather advanced in life.' He was a trusted agent of Marcia, the official concubine of the Emperor Commodus.

Origen of Alexandria(fl 220 CE)

The practical behavior of the young Origen is not unique, but neither has the spiritualizing exegesis of his later years lacked followers. In the former case, it should be recalled that we can document self-mutilation, or at least the yearning to do it, among Christians in sources as far back as the middle of the 2nd century: Justin, Apol. 1.29.7 Athanasius relates in Historia Arianorum ad monachos, Chapter 28, and otherwise frequently about an Arian presbyter Leontios, who harmed himself. In the Vita Sabae per Cyrill. Scythopolit. 41 (Cotelerius, Eccles. graecae monumenta III, 1686, pp. 284ff.) we hear the name of a monk Jacob from the great Laura in Syria. But these are not isolated cases. Epiphanius reports without a word of censure that not a few monks castrated themselves (Expos. fidei 13, p. 1095). The rules of the Canones in particular, which touch on this point again and again, give pause: Canones apost. 21-23 (=17), of the Council of Nicaea I, or the second synod of Arles 7 (hos qui se carnali vitio repugnare nescientes abscidunt, ad clerum pervenire non possunt); cf. the instruction of Pope Gelasius I to the bishops of Lucania (Migne, Latin Series LIX, col. 53). Vehement polemics against the eunuchs are contained in a letter from Basil the Great to the heretic Simplicia (No. 115 or 87, Maurin Edition III, 1730, p. 87; cf. John Damascenus, Sacra parallel. 5.27 perì eunoúchoon) and a fragment of Cyril of Alexandria against those who emasculate themselves and thereby fully and completely pervert the divine work of the pneumatikeè eunouchía (Nova patrum bibliotheca II, 1844, pp. 494-497).[Walter Bauer]

Yet let's stop right here.

Justin tells us of an Alexandrian Christian 'culture of castration' and crossdressing at the time of Antoninus Pius (c. 150 CE).

Julius Casian (c. 170 CE) seems to witness a continuation of those practices into the latter half of the second century.

Origen confirms that these traditions continued into the third century.

Now I am arguing that the Roman government was deliberately assaulting Christianity in order to transform it from these 'weird beliefs' to the normative religion we all take for granted.

How can we acknowledge an Alexandrian cult of cross-dressing eunuchs headquartered in Boucolia (the acknowledged position of the martyrium of St. Mark, the oldest Alexandrian Church) and there is this seminal event in the same region to launch Commodus' rise to power:

The people called the Bucoli began a disturbance in Egypt and under the leadership of one Isidorus, a priest, caused the rest of the Egyptians to revolt. At first, arrayed in women's garments, they had deceived the Roman centurion, causing him to believe that they were women of the Bucoli and were going to give him gold as ransom for their husbands, and had then struck down when he approached them. They also sacrificed his companion, and after swearing an oath over his entrails, they devoured them. Isidorus surpassed all his contemporaries in bravery. Next, having conquered the Romans in Egypt in a pitched battle, they came near capturing Alexandria, too, and would have succeeded, had not Cassius been sent against them from Syria. He contrived to destroy their mutual accord and to separate them from one another (for because of their desperation as well as of their numbers he had not ventured to attack them while they were united), and thus, when they fell to quarrelling, he subdued them. [Dio Cassius LXXII.4]

Come on now! Even if these rebels had nothing to do with Christianity the method of their attack would necessarily have given rise to Irenaeus and the reforms he instituted. Just open your eyes ...