The oldest extant version of The Gospel According to St. Matthew is in Greek. Some have claimed that it was originally written in Aramaic, although there doesn't seem to be any strong evidence that it was. Matthew 19:12 in the original reads:
εἰσὶν γὰρ εὐνοῦχοι οἵτινες ἐκ κοιλίας μητρὸς ἐγεννήθησαν οὕτως, καὶ εἰσὶν εὐνοῦχοι οἵτινες εὐνουχίσθησαν ὑπὸ τῶν ἀνθρώπων, καὶ εἰσὶν εὐνοῦχοι οἵτινες εὐνούχισαν ἑαυτοὺς διὰ τὴν βασιλείαν τῶν οὐρανῶν. ὁ δυνάμενος χωρεῖν χωρείτω.
The word translated as 'eunuch' is εὐνοῦχοι [eu̓nou͂khoi in the Roman alphabet]. Its sole meaning in the Greek of the period is a human male whose testicles have been removed or are non-existent. There is no metaphorical meaning, such as some contemporary religious types would like us to believe. There was little use of metaphor in Greek of the period. Words meant their denotative meaning. A 'eunuch' was not someone who was celibate. It was not a word that could mean a 'high government official.' It meant someone without testicles. "Born from their mother's womb" would indicate those who were anorchic. They were born 'male,' but did not have testicles and did not go through male puberty. (About one in 20,000 males are anorchic.)
While most early Christians, especially those in the Eastern Mediterranean, interpreted it literally, there was great reluctance among those of Roman background. Eunuchs were much more common in the East and were often in high positions. In the West they were rare and mostly lowly slaves (although a number of eunuchs are well attested in the early Western church). The Council of Nicaea (325 CE) was dominated by Western representatives who were terrified of castration. The first canon that they adopted was a prohibition of self-castration by the clergy.
Attitudes toward castration and eunuchs continued to vary between west and east for centuries afterwards. Many prominent Christians in the east were eunuchs, including three Patriarchs of the Orthodox Church. Theophylaktos, Bishop of Ohrid (the major city in modern Bulgaria at the time), wrote in the early 12th century that, while self-castration was anathema, the castration of a young boy by his parents to maintain his celibacy was a devout Christian act. Theophylaktos' brother was a eunuch and a cleric at Hagia Sophia. Many clerics in the eastern church were eunuchs, as were many government officials. They were frequently castrated by parents when they were young to enhance their future prospects.
Within the western church, clear mentions of eunuchs have gradually been written out and replaced by ambiguous terms for high officials. Ask your local minister whether or not Daniel was a eunuch. Unless he's Eastern Orthodox, he's likely to deny the possibility. There are even theological articles in various journals stating that he was not. That he was a eunuch (if he existed) was not denied until relatively recently. See my recent post:
The Book of Daniel
http://forums.eunuch.org/showthread.php ... -of-Daniel
Other than the εὐνοῦχοι found in the Greek original of Matthew, there were other words referring to castration and eunuchs. Here's a quotation from one of my recent reads:
"Even the vocabulary associated with eunuchs varies in both Greek and Latin. While one can find at least twenty different verbs for castration in Latin, Greek has at least seven terms related to these figures besides eunouchos, including: spadōn (tear, tear off, or remove), tomias (cut, castrate, or geld, that is, often of a nonhuman animal), ektomias (cut out, cut away, or sever), thlibias (squeeze, crush, press, or bruise), thladias (or thlasias, crush or bruise), ithris (eunuch), and apokopos (cut off)."
__________
Marchal, Joseph A. 2020. Appalling Bodies: Queer Figures Before and After Paul's Letters. New York: Oxford University Press, p. 80.
