There are two institutions which helped to define the Orthodox Christianity in the Middle Period of the Byzantine Empire (from the 7th to the 11th century AD). Monasticism was one of them. The development of ecclesiastical eunuchs is another. The place of religious eunuchs in this period is one of great interest. There is an increase in both the establishment of eunuchs in the overall ecclesiastical structure of the Byzantine Church and in the hagiographical stories (known as vitas, or lives) of this time period.
This is quite a marked difference to the strong disdain that was being applied to eunuchs in the Early Byzantine Period (4th to the 7th century AD) . During this earlier period, eunuchs were damned for their lack of genitalia. Just a few centuries later, they are being glorified for that same absence. One of the questions from this time period in Byzantine history is whether castration came to be seen as a type of ascetic discipline. After all, a monastic in the Byzantine Empire were given to all types of self-mortification (scourging and extreme fasting immediately spring to mind). These practices were viewed as a means to strip the world away to get to the true part of self from the person. Castration may have been viewed in a similar light.
One of the first things that should be clarified in any study of eunuchs is to examine what is meant by the term eunuch itself. Since language helps to shape our reality, it is important to develop a perspective of the term itself. In our modern world the word eunuch has solely related to a medical condition or procedure. However, in the ancient world the term was multifaceted. Its usage could convey a multitude of meanings, from that of the castrated male to that ...
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Brown, Peter. The Body and Society: Men, Women and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1988.
The Interlinear Hebrew-Greek-English Bible. Translated and edited by Jay P. Green Sr. Vol. 4. Second Edition. Reprint, London: Trinitarian Bible Society, n.d.
Kuefler, Matthew. The Manly Eunuch. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2001.
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Ringrose, Kathryn. The Perfect Servant: Eunuchs and the Social Construction of Gender in Byzantium. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2003.
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This paper will discuss the well published work of, Pomeroy, Sarah B. Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves: Women in Classical Antiquity. New York: Schocken, 1975. Print. Sarah B. Pomerory uses this book to educate others about the role women have played throughout ancient history. Pomerory uses a timeline to go through each role, starting with mythological women, who were called Goddesses. She then talks about some common roles, the whores, wives, and slaves during this time. Pomerory enlightens the audience on the topic of women, who were seen as nothing at the time. Men were seen as the only crucial part in history; however, Pomerory’s focus on women portrays the era in a new light.
Most classical society’s political and social organization revolved around the idea of patriarchy, a male dominated social system. This system exacerbated the inherit difference between men and woman and assigned gender roles based on these observations. Men were generally regarded as superior to woman therefore given greater religious and political roles as well as more legal rights. As the natural inverse, women were subordinated and seen as week; their main roles reproductive and domestic. Information about patriarchy in the classical era, though abundant, was, for the most part, written by men, therefore history does not give us an accurate depiction of women’s viewpoints. Four societies of the classical era, India, China, Greece, and Rome, adopted a patriarchal system, however, due to many factors, each developed identifiable characteristics.
...yne A. The HarperCollins Study Bible New Revised Standard Edition . New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1993. 1645-1722. Print.
Women in antiquity did not have an easy lot in life. They had few, if any, rights. Surviving early records of the civilizations of antiquity from ancient Greece, Egypt, China, and Rome suggest the diversity of women’s roles differed little from region to region. There were a few exceptions, mostly concerning women of nobility and the city-state of Sparta. Excluding the rare instances mentioned most antique women were generally limited on education, mobility, and almost all possibilities interfering with domestic or childbearing responsibilities. The limited social roles of women in antiquity suggest the perceived c...
The Middle Ages were a time of expanding and experimenting sexually for the people. Religious figures who had taken vows of celibacy had children, sometimes with more than one woman. Even some popes of the time had illicit affairs. However, adultery was often condoned, especially in knights, because the Chivalry Code expected of them certain “actions”:
These three articles give the modern reader a sense of what sexuality was in Ancient Rome. These articles reinforce that sexuality is important in human societies. They show that how you did or did not do sexual activity was very important and under scrutiny like in Western societies today. Though these articles are using limited resources to make conclusions, they do their best to help the reader make sense of sexual Roman society.
Harris, Stephen. Understanding The Bible. 6 ed. New York City: McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages, 2002. Print.
Collins, John J. A Short Introduction to the Hebrew Scriptures. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2007.
Kohlenberger, III, John R. and Barker, Kenneth L., eds. Zondervan NIV Bible Commentary: An Abridgement of the Expositors Bible Commentary. Chicago: Zondervan Publishing House, 1994.
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