Vince, I remember being taught at college that very early Christians got into the habit of cutting of their penises, as I recall because they were a source of sin and imperfection, rendering the penis-holder less than godlike.
Answer: that was never mainstream Xian thought in the early period, but it was practiced by a few sects, that died out quickly, for the obvious reasons. There were a lot of mystery sects in those days, some Christian, that sought to renounce all that spoke of pleasure so as to reach perfection.. But you have gotten ahold of something, so to speak, because there was a great debate in the early church as to whether male nonJewish converts to Christianity should be circumcised (at that time Christianity was considered still a part of Judaism). There is much, much in the Christian Covenant (New testament) about that very subject -- and in the days before anesthesia, the non-circumcision party won out. And it was circumcision that was one key factor in the divergence of Christianity from Judaism. Men and they will do and not do with the penis does impact on religion far more than one wants to think. And before I set off a religious controversy: "X" is a perfectly legitimate symbol used for the word "Christ." The Greek letter for what we call in English "ch" is chi, the Greek letter X. On my vestments, on many vestments and paraments, in many stained glassed windows, the X, or sometimes the chi rho, X with the top of the second line having what likes like a P which was the Greek letter for R, rho, is used as a very proper Christian symbol. From the earliest days of the Church, a symbol for Christ was the letter X. Which means all those little signs about "putting Christ back in Xmas" are foolish and uninformed, because X means Christ in Christian symbology. Vince
