Even a brilliant thinker like Origen (paradoxically, a master of allegorical interpretation) fell prey to such literalism and had himself castrated. Ironically, this actually made him ineligible for the priesthood, according to the earliest Judeo-Christian tradition, for “He whose testicles are crushed, or whose male member is cut off, shall not enter the assembly of YHWH.”18 In both Jewish and early Christian tradition, no individual could be a priest, rabbi, or spiritual teacher unless he was “whole.”
