[Bill]

I appreciate your concern for historical accuracy. There are several corroborating evidences that I noticed during research. 1. Contemporaries of Origen in daily contact noticed physical changes which correspond to the operation and became suspicious. 2.Demetrius gave Origen's operation as reason for refusing ordination to an otherwise well qualified person. 3. Origen later explained that he did it in order to be able to teach women. 4. Origen gave descriptions of the physical problems associated with this condition that are consistent with reality and extensive enough to suggest personal experience. In considerattion of my point #3: A Russian religious group called the Skoptsky, which practiced the same sexual mutilation as Origen and the Galli, were spiritual consultants to the Romanov family before the Bolshevik revolution (the most famous member of this group was named Rasputin). The Skoptsky were known to be enthusiastically favored by the women in the Romanov family. After the execution of the Romanovs by the Bolsheviks a piece of jewelry worn by one of the women was found to contain a picture of a Skoptsky member. It seems relevant to me, on the day that we have the most openly socialist leader of our country, that the religious instruction being received by the Romanovs immediately prior to the Communist government comes through the same type of people as the religious instruction contained in our Alexandrian Bibles most prominent in the Christian churches.