I'm reading Mike Aquilina's The Fathers of the Church, and Origen is fascinating to me for the obvious reason that he castrated himself. I was curious about what the author had to say about this and so skipped ahead to the appropriate chapter. Aquilina says Origen was among the first in speculative theology and the scientific study of Scripture. Extremely bright and holy guy, and yet even he had trouble discerning the difference between an allegorical reading and literal readings of Scripture apparently, for he took literally Matthew 9:12 ("There are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven"). Aquilina comments:
(He would surely have been better served by an allegorical reading.) In any event, some priests rightly charged that such mutilation was a grave offense against the body; they even argued that the action invalidated Origen's ordination.Oh to be defrocked and deballed all in the same year. The inhumanity of it. As my friend Ham would say "that's gotta hurt!"
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