-1- Eunuchs and the Postgender Jesus: Matthew 19:12 and ...

compelled to recognize the validity of the impulse that lead to Christian castration, they
refused to accept the act of castration itself. The emasculated form of the eunuch that
populated the religious landscape around them became a scapegoat for the difficulty they
had when confronting the practice of religious castration in their midst. On the one hand,
they set out to declare all Christian practitioners of castration and their followers heretical,
a move particularly inspired by Epiphanius.
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On the other hand, they vituperatively set out to attack ritual castration among the galli.
The invective directed against the galli is particularly harsh. Augustine speaks of “shameful
rites” and “obscenities” that were “gross and immodest” (City of God ii.5) and “more
unseemly than all scenic abomination.” (City of God vi.7) There is little doubt about what
was troubling Augustine:
But in whatever way their sacred rites may be interpreted, and whatever reference they
may have to the nature of things, it is not according to nature, but contrary to nature,
that men should be effeminates. (City of God vi.7)
Especially troubling to Augustine is the gender-blending that these priests represented.
These effeminates [the galli] no later than yesterday, were going through the streets and
places of Carthage with anointed hair, whitened faces, relaxed bodies, and feminine
gait, exacting from the people the means of maintaining their ignominious lives. (City
of God vii.26)
It was as much the outward appearance and feminine behavior of these priests as it was
their physical emasculation that was distressing, both combining to reinforce the sense of
gender transgression.
Gender Transgression and the Kingdom of Heaven
A “eunuch on account of the kingdom of heaven” certainly was a contentious figure
throughout Christian history. Clearly, earlier interpreters struggling for control over the