To: Greg or e who wrote (41924 ) 9/21/2013 1:09:06 PM From: Solon Read Replies (2) | Respond to "a mature man and an underage boy or teenager, usually 7 to 20 years old – was legal, and was considered to be something noble" That is wrong. Under 12 was taboo in Classical Greece.Question: What is your fascination with Greek culture and the pederasty they practiced as (to them) a moral practice? Just wondering. There are hundreds of cultures that practiced (and still practice) all sorts of (to us) cultural oddities.had sex with her, then drank his own sperm saying: "Thus we ought to do, that we may live." The sect even claimed that when Jesus at the Last Supper spoke of eating his flesh and drinking his blood, he was referring to this practice."Those early Christians were a randy bunch! You do know that Epiphaneus was a Saint, don't you?? Would that persecutor of persons ever lie?? The Gospel of Eve is known only from one or two short quotations from the great heretic-hunter Epiphanius (310/20 - 402), bishop of Salamis. He tells us that it was used by certain Gnostic sects with lurid and bizarre beliefs and sexual practices. Epiphanius' testimony carries weight, because he admits that he himself fell in among them. He reports that they shared their women in common. They celebrated sexual orgies in which partners were swapped. Coitus interruptus was the normal practice. Semen was collected and offered to the Lord as the body of Christ, before being consumed. The Gnostics also consumed women's menstrual blood. The theology behind the lechery was anything but world-affirming. It varied from one sub-sect to another. In outline the material world was ruled by an evil "archon" or intermediate deity. The bodily flesh belonged to this archon, and would not be raised up. The power of the soul was found in semen and menses. But allowing semen to beget children in this world would play into the hands of the evil archon. So if by accident a woman fell pregnant, the sect would abort the foetus. They would pound it in a mortar, mix it with honey and spices, and eat it. The beautiful women in the sect used to set themselves out as bait to recruit new followers. Some formed a male elite called Levites, who did not have sex with women but only with each other. Jesus himself, they said, was the first teacher of these practices. He took Mary (probably Magdalene) to a mountain, took a woman out of his side and had sex with her, then drank his own sperm saying: "Thus we ought to do, that we may live." The sect even claimed that when Jesus at the Last Supper spoke of eating his flesh and drinking his blood, he was referring to this practice. Poor Epiphanius prayed to God, resisted the women, and freed himself from the sect. He then reported them to the bishops, who drove eighty of them from the city." New Testament Apocrypha ,The Panarion of St Epiphanius , Oxford University Press, 1990.
