If you think that Origen could say whatever he wanted and didn't have to fear persecution just lift up his robe. You know what you'd find? He was castrated.
Yes, I know this is old news but it's one of those (many!) things that scholars, owing to their mental rigidity don't actually THINK very much about.
The story is that Origen decided to chop off his testicles because he was 'misinformed' about 'the real meaning' of Jesus command about 'eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom.'
Yeah, whatever ...
Like the bozos who now pretend to be experts about Christianity have a fraction the authority that Origen did.
You see I am not ADVOCATING castration. I couldn't care less what the implications of what my discoveries are. I just THINK about things others want to ignore.
So let's suppose for a moment that at least some of the Christians in ancient Alexandria knew that Origen had either his testicles or his entire sexual organs removed likely since childhood. How did Origen the eunuch have such authority over the worldwide Christian community.
The obvious answer which no one wants to acknowledge is that there were many Christians like Origen. All the evidence suggests this. The fact that ANY Christians had undergone such an operation left them open to the death penalty.
This my friends, is the real reason why there were Christian persecutions. You can take all that BS that the Emperors 'saw the holiness' of the Christian doctrine and as 'demons' felt compelled to persecute the Church.
The real reason was the Christians were engaging in something wholly prohibited since the end of the first century.
If you want to argue that the Emperors were evil and were reacting to the light of Christ then you really have to end up defending the sanctity of castration.
Do any of the pious want to go that far? Of course not. They just want to keep projecting their own beliefs - some of them even the beliefs and practices of imbeciles like Joel Olstein - onto the beliefs of the first Christians.
As I said, I am not ADVOCATING ritual castration. I like my testicles where they are, thank you.
The point is that if we want to understand how the original Alexandrian Christianity of St. Mark of the 'mutilated finger' (kolobodaktulos) was eventually overcome by a doctrine which advocated the mass of moronic cattle $@$%^ing and making babies while the elite remained ritually celibate (or even eunuchs) you have to start asking why Origen agreed to have his testicles chopped off.
It's just that simple.
To this end as we have been developing an understanding of the text of the 'secret' Gospel of Mark let us dare to acknowledge what F F Bruce already noticed - there HAS TO BE some connection between this text and the 'Gospel According to the Egyptians' referenced by Clement which advocates not only ritual celibacy but ritual bareness which might very well have extended into ritual castration.
We have already noted that the 'addition' called LGM 1 which Clement alludes to in his letter to Theodore has two naked men engaging in some sort of 'initiation.' Morton Smith connected this reference to some sort of baptism ritual. We know that the heretical group - 'those of Mark' - had a gospel where a baptism ritual MUST HAVE occurred in this exact section of the gospel.
IF we identify the 'Marcellina' (little Marcia) who is connected with the Carpocratians (another community attached to Secret Mark) in Irenaeus with Marcia Cedonia Demetria, the beloved Christian concubine of Commodus who undoubtedly 'came to Rome' in this very period when her father, a freedman of Lucius Verus, assumed the crown - THEN it would follow that this sect was connected with ritual castration as her tutor Hyacinthus was a Christian eunuch.
Whatever the case we have also shown that the Marcionites (Aramaic for 'those of Mark') also employed a gospel which did not have the 'John the Baptism baptism' of Jesus. They were consistently identified as involving themselves with ritual castration accompanying baptism which necessarily FOLLOWED Luke 12:50 - viz. Jesus said 'I have a baptism to be baptized with' etc.
And to this end there is Origen's consistent identification of 'spiritual circumcision' with baptism which MUST HAVE HAD some rooting in SOME GOSPEL somewhere.
Oh, and let's not forget that Origen's patron Ambrose was a (former) Marcionite.
Indeed you have to admit its strange that this supposedly repentant Marcionite Ambrose basically bankrolled a eunuch to 'save' the original Alexandrian faith. Is it really that much of a stretch to think that Origen was himself another 'reformed' member of the 'those of Mark' faith trying to somehow perpetuate their faith within the imposed NT canon of Rome.
Why else were eunuchs STILL BEING created in Alexandria for generations after Origen? Why doesn't Origen come out and condemn the 'mistake' that he made in his former 'misunderstanding'?
In any event, you gotta admit - that eunuch Origen certainly had a lot of balls to keep up that game of pretending to be orthodox ...
If you are interested in reading how this observation fits within my greater understanding of the workings of Secret Mark WITHIN the contemporary Alexandrian Church please go here
If you want to read more about how Alexandrian Christianity was rooted in the Jewish traditions of Alexandria, Philo of Alexandria and more feel free to purchase my new book here
