So far as the fifth passage is concerned, Stark declares castrated eunuchs to be certainly intended, and blames the editor of Philo (Mangey) for wishing to read for ἀπὸ τῶν νοσούντων τὴν ἀληθῆ νόσον ἀνδρογύνων (with the men-women, those that are sick of the true disease) τὴν θήλειαν νόσον (the feminine disease). He says in his note 30.: “Mangetius (a mistake for Mangey) reponit θήλειαν. Quare hoc fieri, non dicam debeat, sed ne oporteat quidem, non video. Nam νόσος ἀνδρογύνων idem est, quod νόσος θήλεια. Si igitur haec vox verbis superioribus adiiciatur, iners atque inutilis appareat et pleonasmum vanum efficiat, necesse est: τὸ ἀληθῆ contra, quod ille demit, non vacuum ceteris additur verbum, ut eo perspicue demonstraretur, hic verum morbum seu illud corporis vitium esse intelligendum, quod viros exsecando paritur, nec hanc animi labem, qua contaminati solum muliebria patiuntur, quaequae iisdem verbis nuncupatur, ut loci mox laudandi docebunt.” (Mangetius restores θήλειαν—feminine. I cannot see why he should do this; in fact he had no business to do so whatever. For νόσος ἀνδρογύνων (disease of men-women) is the same thing as νόσος θήλεια (feminine disease). So if this expression is added on to the preceding words, it can only appear redundant and useless and make a silly pleonasm. Τὸ ἀληθῆ (the word true disease) on the other hand is not otiose when added to the other words. It shows distinctly that the true disease or notorious vitiation of body was meant to be understood, that which arises from castrating men, and not merely the taint of mind that makes the men whom it affects endure the treatment proper to women, and which is called by the same name,—as will be shown in passages to be cited presently.)
These last words evidently refer to the third passage, where we read: Θήλειαν δὲ νόσον ταῖς ψυχαῖς ἀπεργαζόμενος καὶ ἀνδρογύνους κατασκευάζων (infecting the mind with feminine disease, and turning men into men-women), for Stark himself explains the νοῦσος θήλεια (feminine disease) as being identical with the ἀνδρογύνων νόσος (disease of men-women). So he is bound to explain this sentence too as a Pleonasmus vanus (silly, useless, pleonasm), for as a matter of fact those suffering from νοῦσος θήλεια are men-women (ἀνδρόγυνοι). But if a pleonasm is found in these latter words, it is difficult to see why there should not be one equally well in the fifth passage.
Yet for all he says, it is far from being demonstrated that this pleonasm is useless and silly. The sequence of thought is evidently this: Common Eros (Love) infects the soul (ψυχή) with the νοῦσος θήλεια, rousing the insatiable craving to play the part of the woman, to be pathic in fact; and then, this craving being indulged, the man becomes a man-woman (ἀνδρόγυνος). As long as he goes on practising the vice of the pathic, he is sick of the νοῦσος θήλεια, and so it is perfectly correct to speak of the νοῦσος θήλεια ἀνδρογύνων (feminine disease of men-women). A man-woman, that is a person who suffers coition to be consummated with him as with a woman, and concurrently also consummates coition with women as a man, or at any rate has the ability to do so,—this anyone may quite well be, without suffering for all that from the νοῦσος θήλεια. For instance he may be constrained by force to be a pathic, or may regard it as a way of earning money, like the male prostitutes of Greece and Rome; and in that case has no interest further in the vice of the pathic as such. On the other hand if he is urged to it by prurigo ani impudica (lascivious itch of the anus), this is sheer lubricity, not to be expected in a sensible, healthy-minded man. It can only be the consequence of a morbid condition of temperament and body. Such a man is the victim of νοῦσος θήλεια, the craving to be a woman! This is just the position taken in the fifth passage, as the subsequent words show quite plainly.
But granted that Philo actually wrote in this fifth passage τὴν ἀληθῆ νόσον ἀνδρογύνων (the true disease of men-women), would a bodily defect, castration, be signified by the expression? Certainly not. We could then take it in no other way but this, “he began with the men-women, who suffered from the true disease,” and should be constrained to ask, “what disease?”,—a definite disease being manifestly intended, as the addition of the definite article (τὴν) shows. But this would imply that men-women who were not suffering from this particular disease were not excluded from visiting the Temple. Yet most certainly Philo would never make any such statement. However Stark translates with Mangey: Exorsus a vero semivirorum morbo laborantibus that is, “he began with those suffering from the true disease of men-women”, from which it would follow that there were other persons who suffered from the apparent disease of the men-women, or no reason exists for the special emphasis the definite article gives.
Really the question all along is not of castrated persons at all, and cannot be, if the sense of the whole passage is taken into account; for these (castrated persons) are specially and separately forbidden access to the Temple in the next sentence,—a fact which nothing but the introduction into the text of the conjunction γὰρ (for) by Mangey, (following a MS. it is true), has obscured. The words as they stand are Θλαδιὰς [γὰρ] καὶ ἀποκεκομμένους τὰ γεννητικὰ ἐλαύνει, (he expells all eunuchs, those with strangled testicles, and those with amputated). So if the men-women who suffered from the νοῦσος θήλεια were actual eunuchs, this would indeed be a Pleonasmus vanus et ineptus (silly and idle pleonasm). Stark has evidently been led to maintain the opinion he does, and to blame Mangey’s emendation, which is in any case justified, by a mistake as to the construction of the sentence. Stark construed νοῦσον ἀνδρογύνων (disease of men-women), whereas the construction requires: τὴν ἄρχην ποιούμενος ἀπὸ ἀνδρογύνων, τῶν νοσούντων τὴν θήλειαν (ἀληθῆ) νόσον (beginning with men-women,—those that were sick of the feminine—true—disease), the latter words being simply in apposition to ἀνδρογύνων.
§ 19.
We now proceed to consider the passages from the historian Herodian (170-240 A.D.). He relates[376]:
“Now he (Antoninus) had two generals, of whom the one, an oldish man but stupid and quite unacquainted with state affairs, was yet held to be a good soldier; his name was Adventus. The other who was called Macrinus, was not inexperienced in forensic practice and possessed besides some knowledge of law. Now the latter Antoninus frequently assailed in public with gibes, saying he was neither a soldier nor a man, going so for as positive insult. For having heard that he led a somewhat free life, and abominated scanty, rough eating and drinking (in which Antoninus as a hardy soldier took a pride), and wore a woman’s cloak or other elegant raiment, he accused him of ἀνανδρία and θήλεια νοῦσος (unmanliness and feminine disease), and was constantly threatening to put him to death. Macrinus could not endure such treatment and was very much exasperated. And this was the result ... etc.” Here ἀνανδρία and θήλεια νοῦσος (unmanliness and feminine disease) are laid to Macrinus’ charge by Antoninus by way of insult, but it is not in any way stated that he had become actually impotent or Pathic. True ἀνανδρία (unmanliness) is frequently used of the Pathic, but here it refers simply to a womanish way of life in connexion with eating and drinking, whilst the θήλεια νοῦσος (feminine disease) is inferred from the female costume, a thing in which, as we have seen, the Pathics delighted[377].
Stark indeed gives the following note on the passage: “Ego quidem impotentiam virilem et illam morbosam in sexum sequiorem degenerationem, quae per animi mollitiem aeque ac per corporis mutationem se prodit, hic accipiendam esse credo, nec video, cur interpres labem illam qua muliebris tolerantiae viri maculantur, intellectam velit.” (In fact I consider we must take to be here meant impotence and that morbid degeneration towards the inferior sex which betrays itself at once by effeminacy of mind and bodily deterioration; at the same time I see no reason for a commentator thinking that specific pollution to be signified whereby men are affected who suffer themselves to be treated as women.) However if only Stark had chanced to read through the succeeding 13th. chapter of Herodian as well, he would have found Antoninus only meant to put upon the man an ordinary coarse jest; for he there makes the very same reproach against the Centurion Martialis, whose brother he had had executed a few days previously; αὐτῷ τε τῷ Μαρτιαλίῳ ἐνύβρισεν, ἄνανδρον αὐτὸν καὶ ἀγεννῆ καλῶν καὶ Μακαρίνου φίλον, (And he insulted Martialis himself, calling him unmanly and ignoble and a friend of Macarinus.) In any case the passage shows that even at that period Paederastia was held to be dishonourable and the name of Pathic involved an insult.
The Church Historian Eusebius Pamphili (264-340 A.D.) relates in his Life of Constantine[378] that on a part of the peak of Mount Lebanon stood a Temple of Venus: “Therein was a school of vice for licentious persons of every description, for all such as dishonoured their bodies in various ways; womanish men, that are no men at all, abrogated their natural dignity and propitiated the goddess by θήλεια νοῦσος (feminine disease); and again unlawful unions of women, lecherous embraces, abominable and abominated acts, were indulged in in this Temple, as in a spot where neither law nor religion held good. And there was no one to overlook their doings, for no respectable man dared go near the place.” Now to any one examining the whole drift of the passage, it cannot for a single moment remain doubtful that by θήλεια νοῦσος is here meant some particular form of vice; and the words of the text are such that, even if the expression only occurred here and nowhere else at all, absolutely no other meaning could be assigned to it but that of the vice of the Pathic. We have already shown that the words ἀκόλαστος (licentious person), πράξις, πράττειν (action, to act) are used of the Pathic, whilst the phrase τὸ σεμνὸν τῆς φύσεως (natural dignity) finds its explanation in the τὸ φύσεως νόμισμα (custom of nature) of Philo, and γύννιδες (womanish men) is interpreted in Zonaras[379] by ἀνδρόγυνος (man-woman), μαλακός (soft, effeminate), and in Eustathius[380] by θηλυδρίας μὴ εὖ διακέιμενος πρὸς τὰ ἀφροδίσια (womanish man, one not properly behaved with regard to love),—meanings the real force of which we have elsewhere verified, but which most certainly are not to be taken as implying actual castration, as Stark (§ 16) thinks. Indeed the last named says, commenting on the passage of Eusebius: “Haec verba non solum de mera morum atque cultus mutatione muliebri rationi magis congrua, intelligi posse, sed etiam per veram evirationem genitalium truncatione confectam aptissime explicanda esse, cum verborum series et Eustathii, Hesychii ac Zonarae atque Valesii auctoritas me suadet, tum multo magis illud monet, quod in cultu Veneris virorum exsectionem solemnem fuisse compertum habemus. Sin autem contenderis, viros tales exsectos et effeminatos etiam muliebria passos esse, ego quidem non repugno, exploratam vero rem esse atque ratam, ex ipsis auctoris verbis non liquet.” (That these words may be understood not merely of a simple change of mode of life and habit to one more closely assimilated to the female type, but that they are most suitably to be explained as implying an actual effemination of the individual produced by amputation of the genitals, both the context of the passage and the authority of Eustathius, Hesychius, Zonaras and Valesius induces me to believe, and still more am I led to this view by the fact we already know, viz. that the castration of men was customary in connection with the cult of Venus. But if you further maintain that such men so castrated and effeminated submitted to the treatment proper to women, I do not deny it; I only say that this point is not duly ascertained and certified on the showing of the Author’s own words.)