A eunuch is a man who has been castrated. For many ancient cultures, eunuchs were a symbol of holiness in a mortal world. Castration therefore served as a way to become more holy and god-like. In the years of Roman antiquity, the concept of the pneuma reinforced the idea that castration consecrated a man. Oribasius, doctor to the Emperor Julian during the fourth century AD, conveyed the idea that sperm contained a very concentrated and pure air that was the basis of the male vital spirit. The vital spirit formed the more elaborate pneuma, the purest form o

In many cultures, eunuchs upheld a male role in society. In other cultures however, castration implied a change of a gender role. Li Yu's story about Jifang and Ruilang demonstrated this change in gender role for the castrated in seventeenth and eighteenth century China. Jifang, the older male in the homosexual love affair, told Ruilang that, just as many cultures throughout history believed, the loss of semen would drain a man's vitality as well as his beauty. Ruilang, out of love for Jifang, castrated himself. After his castration, Ruilang assumed the role of Jifang's eunuch concubine. He dressed as a woman, wore his hair as a woman, and even bound his feet (Li Yu, 1-3). Because of castration, the male in the story changed his gender role to that of a woman.

During the fourth century AD, Sallustius, a friend of emperor Julian, wrote about castration, saying, "But since it was necessary that the process of coming into being should stop and that what was worse should not sink to the worst, the creator who was making these things cast away generative powers into the world of becoming and was again united with the gods" (Rouselle, 125). By castrating oneself, and also by ceasing fertility, (which will be discussed later in this essay), a man was able to become closer to the gods, and therefore was more holy. The legend of Attis and the celebration of his castration also conveyed the cutting off of genitals as a way to appease the divine and become more holy. Attis was the lover of the Mother of the Gods. Despite this, it was The Mother of the Gods that castrated Attis, which ultimately caused his death. According the cult of Cybele, she did this because the nature of the divine and eternal beings wanted to "make the masculine virtue of the soul rise up to her" (Rouselle, 122). Castration, therefore, was an act that appeased the gods, and served as a method to bring a mortal man closer to divinity.

In ancient Hindu culture, the sacrifice of a man's fertility was also central to castration. This was evident through Hindu mythology, in a story about the god Œiva's experience with ascetic eunuchs. Œiva went to the forest of the eunuchs in order to show his grace to them. His image was coarse; he was naked and beast-like, dancing erotically and roaring like an animal. The eunuchs, unaware that their visitor was the god Œiva, thought that something evil had deluded the man, and advised him to cause his linga, his penis, to fall off. The god Œañkara caused the penis of Œiva to fall off. After this occurred, the world ceased to function as natural, "The sun gave no heat, purifying fire had no luster... the seasons did not come about..." (O'Flaherty). In order to bring back the world's natural cycle, the ascetics made a phallic temple to Œiva. The castration of the Hindu god ended the earth's reproduction of nature. From this myth, it is possible to surmise that castration in the ancient Hindu culture symbolized an end of reproduction and a life of infertility.

f spiritual vitality, and the loss of it therefore was detrimental to a man's spirituality. Castration served to prevent the loss of pneuma so that a man may have a spirit that was completely psychic, or holy (Rouselle, 13-15).

The motive of castration in the Christian religion was to cut off the part of the body that caused a man to fornicate and commit sin. By committing a sin, a man became less like god and was therefore less

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