Eunuchs As Homosexuals, Detailed Historical References

Homosexual/Eunuch: Historical Findings

Mathew 19 identifies Jesus providing instruction on marriage, in doing so the question of whether those who share an affinity, or "saying" with that of the woman. Jesus , describes the eunuch as that type of individual in which he instructed as not being good to marry. "But he said to them, “all cannot accept this saying, but only those to whom it has been given” [Matthew 19:10 and 11]. Scholars tend to think that Matthew 19:12 speaks of people apart from the normal heterosexual relationships because of the question the disciples asked. The surgically altered eunuch is outside the normal heterosexual relationship and is more aptly explained by: “eunuchs who are made eunuchs by men.” Then there are “eunuchs who are eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake.” Monks and priests who have either taken a vow of celibacy and /or castrated are outside normal heterosexual relationships. But who is the eunuch that is outside normal heterosexual relationships and is “born thus from his mother's womb?” Jesus Christ who is the Messiah, the Christ, the son of God, or the son of man, provided his opinion of the way society should treat those who were eunuchs, which were individuals outside of normal heterosexual relationships. Regarding the eunuch by stating “He who is able to accept it, let him accept it.” Jesus understood and gave our church clear direction on the principals that our faith should hold in regard to our beliefs, attitudes and practices associated with the eunuch and that was of acceptance. In all fairness, he is speaking on marriage to a woman, and a eunuch not being a good candidate for marriage to a woman. This scripture did not touch on any other type of union between two people. Ecclesiastes 4:9-12, instructed “Two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor. For if either of them falls, the one will lift up his companion. But woe to the one who falls when there is not another to lift him up.Furthermore, if two lie down together they keep warm, but how can one be warm alone? ”

Jesus describes three types of eunuchs in Mathew 19, of which the first description are what historical scholars have identify in the historical archive as "born eunuchs".  Born Eunuchs as Jesus instructs are "so born in their mother's womb" Mathew 19, 10:12.  This category includes homosexual men and women, along with hermaphrodites, asexual and other types of conditions where there is a in-born condition in which separate and/or "cut-off" the eunuch lust and desire toward woman.   Wisdom of Sirach, one of the apocryphal books included in the Catholic Bible, says that embracing a girl makes a eunuch groan with nausea. It also says that a eunuch has no more desire to have sex with a girl than a righteous man has to use violence. Wisdom of Sirach, one of the apocryphal books included in the Catholic Bible, says that embracing a girl makes a eunuch groan with nausea [Wisdom of Sirach 30:20]. It also says that a eunuch has no more desire to have sex with a girl than a righteous man has to use violence [Wisdom of Sirach 30:20].

Now, as noted, the category of eunuch included not only born eunuchs, which are gay men, but also man-made eunuchs.   For the purposes of circumventing the law and satisfy their sexual lusts for other men by having sex with men who had been made eunuchs in advance, through injury to their reproductive organs. This, I can only say, evil practice is first mentioned to my knowledge by Herodotus, as a custom in Sardis in western Asia Minor in the early 6th century BC [Herodotus III 48-49, 92].  In fact, none of the eunuchs mentioned in the Hebrew scriptures or in any other ancient text prior to Jesus are ever called "born eunuchs", because until about the sixth century BCE nearly all people who were called eunuchs were born that way.  Some men by birth have a nature to turn away from women, and those who are subject to this natural constitution do well not to marry. These, they say, are the eunuchs by birth.

In Sardis, the city where silver and gold coins were invented, attractive boys and young men were castrated in order to satisfy the lusts of wealthy customers throughout the Mediterranean. These boys were called ektomias, meaning "the ones who are cut."  Prior to Herodotus, institutional castration is cited -- if at all -- only as a punishment for sexual crimes such as rape and, in some circumstances, adultery [ Ancient Egypt, Laws of Manu Book VIII, Emperor Chu-Kung, Roman republican laws (all according to Richard Millant, Les Eunuques à Travers les Ages, Paris: Vigot Frères, 1908, pp. 101-103].  The Assyrian laws give "being made a saris" along with facial disfigurement as a punishment for the adulterous lover of a married woman (as long as the husband is willing to punish his wife likewise with facial disfigurement), and for a male passive partner in a homosexual act [Middle Assyrian Laws § 15, 20. See note 73 (Section 3)].  Assuming that "being made a saris" meant being castrated (which is not necessarily the case), then the Assyrian laws would represent the only text prior to the fifth century BCE in which castrated men are called eunuchs.  

It must simply be kept in mind when reading them, that the word eunuch did not mean "castrated man" in the ancient world as some of these authors assume. Even Ringrose, who recognizes that "the term eunuch in late Antique and Byzantine sources was broader and more nuanced than the simple phrase 'castrated man' seems to imply," and that it could include "men who were lacking in sexual desire," [ Kathryn M. Ringrose, "Living in the Shadows: Eunuchs and Gender in Byzantium," in Third Sex, Third Gender: Beyond Sexual Dimorphism in Culture and History, ed. by Gilbert Herdt, New York: Zone Books, 1996, p. 86] still assumes that the personality characteristics attributed by ancient authors to eunuchs, such as excitability and lack of self-discipline, were due to "the physiological effects of castration." [Ringrose, p. 93].  Yet these types of personality traits are familiar negative stereotypes of gay men.

It is a very little-known fact that there was a category of men in the ancient Mediterranean who were called "natural" or "constitutional" eunuchs. [Matthew 19:12; Digest of Justinian 50.16.128.] It is even less known that these eunuchs are defined in early third-century Roman laws as having no physical defects -- at most they had a peculiar mental orientation [Digest of Justinian 21.1.1.9 in conjunction with 21.1.5-6 and 21.1.38.7].  They were evidently what we call "born homosexuals." In the laws, they are differentiated from castrated men and others, who do have physical defects. Natural eunuchs were entitled to marry women, adopt, and bequeath property, since "there is no bodily defect present as an impediment to that"[Digest of Justinian 1.7.2.1, 1.7.40.1, 23.3.39.1, 28.2.6], while castrated men were prohibited from doing all these things. Nonetheless, Juvenal had found that "when a eunuch marries a woman, it is hard not to write satire" [ Juvenal 1.22].

The seventh century Visigothic Code ultimately solved the ambiguity around natural eunuchs by ordering the castration of every man guilty of a homosexual act[Visigothic Code 3.5.5] -- which certainly gives the Spanish obsession with cojones a whole new dimension. The closet was thus constructed, and with it a new definition of masculinity as well -- based not on the fulfillment of the procreative role, but rather on the preservation of bodily integrity. A male was now identified merely by an intact penis and testicles.  Augustus Caesar's law against adultery likewise prohibited intercourse with "males,"[Institutes of Justinian 4.18.4]  and may well have provided the impetus for a widely-attested wave of castrations in the early empire -- in order to supply sex partners who were not "male."[Seneca, De ira 1.21; Juvenal 6.371-373, 10.306; Martial 6.2, 9.6.4, 9.8.5; Statius, Silvae 4.3.16; Suetonius, Nero 28, Domitian 7] 

Pliny the Elder assigned eunuchs and hermaphrodites to the "third gender called half-male," saying this category also included men whose testicles were destroyed, either by injury or by natural causes [Natural History 11.49]. Thus Pliny distinguished between eunuchs and men whose testicles were destroyed even while categorizing them together, along with hermaphrodites, as third-gendered half-males.

Now, in addition to being spiritual authorities and palace servants, eunuchs had a traditional role as sexual passives. Because they were not "male," this behavior was legal in both pagan and Biblical law throughout all prior history. A sympathetic historian in the time of Constantius II noted that the emperor himself was sexually devoted to his eunuchs, courtiers, and wives; while, "content with these, he was never defiled by any transverse or unjust lust" [Sextus Aurelius Victor, Epitome of the Caesars, 42.19]. It was Constantius, a Christian, who issued the aforementioned decree implicitly recognizing homosexual marriage (as long as it did not involve a "male" partner in a passive role). Remember that this decree was issued in a period when palace eunuchs were powerful and influential in the imperial court. 

Implications of Homosexual/Eunuch on Church

Since the evidence weigh heavy in support that eunuchs are gay men, the number of gay men identified as such in the Bible skyrockets. Potiphar, the gay Egyptian official who bought Joseph as a slave; the killers of Jezebel; the black gay court official Ebedmelech, who saved the prophet Jeremiah from the dungeon; the gay court officials of Nebuchadnezzar who raised Daniel; the gay servants who plotted against Esther's father and the other gay servants who exposed the plot; the gay court official from Ethiopia whom Philip baptized; not to mention gay military leaders from Israel, Judah, Assyria, and Babylonia. 

Moreover, gay people mirror in themselves the divine union of maleness and femaleness that is traditionally thought to be the image of the Creator. After all, the image of the Creator is male and female, according to Genesis 1:28.

Historical Literature 

Marmon's Eunuchs and Sacred Boundaries, Millant's Les Eunuques à travers les Ages, Ringrose's article "Living in the Shadows: Eunuchs and Gender in Byzantium" in Third Sex, Third Gender, Jaffrey's The Invisibles, and Nanda's Neither Man nor Woman, are all excellent resources for historical information about eunuchs.