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127 pages

English

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In the first century Roman Empire at fourteen, the legal age of manhood, Jacobus' father contracted him to relatives in Sicily as an apprentice learning his Jewish family's shipping business. Being what the Greeks called a "natural eunuch," he found himself living with two "cut eunuch" Carthaginian slaves who eventually became his lovers. As his apprenticeship progressed, the family recognized his natural leadership abilities surpassed his age. By sixteen he developed a strategy to enter the India trade which succeeded beyond expectations. He also become the second "spouse" of his cousin, the director of Aetna Shipping. Everything in his life changed when his brother-in-law, Simon from Cyrene, was awoken one night by a frightening vision causing some of the family, with their Judeo-Indian partners to take Simon to Jerusalem for Passover.

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Publié par	Book Venture Publishing LLC
Date de parution	09 août 2018
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781641668026
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	2 Mo

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JACOBUS

A Eunuch’s Faith

BOOK 1 The Apprentice

PAUL TRITTIN
Copyright © 2018 by Paul Trittin.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below.
BookVenture Publishing LLC 1000 Country Lane Ste 300 Ishpeming MI 49849 www.bookventure.com Hotline: 1(877) 276-9751 Fax: 1(877) 864-1686
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Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Control Number 2018940487 ISBN-13: Softcover 978-1-64166-800-2 Pdf 978-1-64166-801-9 ePub 978-1-64166-802-6 Kindle 978-1-64166-803-3
Rev. date: 06/23/2018

PREFACE
March 23, AD2018
Since the decision by the United States Supreme Court which declared same-sex marriage legal, there has been a more intense bombardment of gays and issues related to their rights. Emotionally the USSC decision did little to extinguish the flames of the firestorm ignited by the Stonewall Uprising in New York City in 1 969.
Those of us . . . who through no fault of our own . . . have been ridiculed, shunned, and even told we were unwanted in our home churches, became believers in exile. We had no choice regarding our sexual identity. We were born gay. Even Jesus recognized the psychological phenomenon, ‘born eunuchs’ are not attracted to females (Matthew. 19:12). He said it would be better for us not to marry. In the history of the United States it was only during slavery and the Civil Rights Movement that one minority of our population has been so targeted like homosexuals have been recen tly.
For 4200 years eunuchs (homosexuals and gays) have been a troublesome minority to a powerful and demanding majority. The opposition has been led sometimes by faith communities, sometimes by civic groups, and often by legislators. Regardless of what they have been called they have been misunderstood, maligned, and murdered. Eunuchs and gays have held some of the most prestigious positions and provided society with creative genius, but even that has not made them acceptable among traditional societies, especially ecclesiastic organizations and Faith Communit ies.
The chasm between gays and the Faith Communities gained broad public attention after the Stonewall Uprising. The conflict recently increased because of the emotional and divisive issue of same-sex marriage. That decision has not resolved the problem within the traditional religious communities. Conflict over eunuchs is not new to either this generation or to this nat ion.
There is value in noting the diversity of this global minority in the first century, for it was the mid-point between the first legal trial involving eunuchs in the twenty-first century BC and the twenty-first century AD when marriage was declared legal for all. What had we learned in the last twenty-one hundred years that influenced our treatment of this minority? It will be the work of another researcher to do a comparative study between our present population and the ‘homosexual eunuch’ population in the first cent ury.
Jacobus, A Eunuch’s Faith is a historical novel in multi volumes that consider the interaction of three great events in the western world during the first century which still affect us today. They were like siren calls that Paul Trittin, the author, could not res ist.
The first great event was the consolidation of small, individual kingdoms into the great Roman Emp ire.
The second great event paralleled the growth of the Roman Empire, in part the result of those military conquests. It was the rapid expansion of a newly global shipping trade created through the creative efforts of artisans and businessmen and their growing ‘world’ consciousness and new mobile leadership. In Jacobus, Aetna Shipping is a prominent maritime business headquartered in Syracuse, Sicily, that was eager to become a major player in the Mediterranean world and beyond. It was owned by a group of very successful Jewish businessmen comprised of one extended fam ily.
Those two events required an immense labor force which would be made up primarily of slaves, which often included man-made eunuchs, and those men whom the Greeks identified as ‘born’ eunuchs. All three groups were pronounced society’s los ers.
The third stimulus was the impact a new religious teacher, Jesus of Nazareth, and his Jewish followers would have on the future political and moral climate of the region. The Jews had always been a thorn in the flesh of the Romans, so the Jewish leadership fearfully kept close watch on the new prop het.
Trittin’s narrator for his story is Jacobus Didymus BarSirach, a young, precocious, Jewish boy. After a somewhat traumatic but privileged childhood and early youth, he presents this account of his efforts to successfully combine love, trade, faith, and an immense work force in an era of rapid change caused by the interaction of these three, great, dynamic for ces.
At the legal male adult age of fourteen, his father apprenticed him and his brother to the family-owned shipping company’s labor force. Josephus, Jacobus’ twin, was interested in math, science, and engineering and was assigned to work at the local office of Aetna Shipping located in Valencia, Spain. Jacobus was apprenticed as a ship builder and then assigned to the Dolphin, a trading ship calling on ports throughout the Mediterranean. His exceptionally mature judgment often made him suspect by members of the crew and fellow maritime traders, but his success record was undenia ble.
Growing up as homosexual eunuchs there were moments of high drama like when the BarAbraham twins were ‘caught’ enjoying their penises together. Like many children, their father’s unrealistic shock and response made a lasting impression. The one positive result of this early experience is that later it enabled Jacobus to be more keenly aware of the physical and emotional needs of the majority of a ship’s crew. Both twins were motherless from birth and grew up in a home devoid of nurturing and affection from their father. Consequently, when Jacobus observed love and trust among the slaves and eunuchs who so often were underestimated and misunderstood, he was amazed. His father’s choice to basically ignore the Jewish religion did little to prepare him for the Jewish faith lived out by his relatives in Aetna Shipping’s leadership. Some of the family even became involved in a surprising way with the new branch of Judaism they referred to as ‘The W ay.’
From five to seven million men, one-fourth of the estimated male population of the Roman Empire during the first century, were slaves and at the bottom of society with no rights. Many lost all semblance of individuality and endured greater indignity when they were intentionally castrated, made eunuchs, to assure greater security for their owners, but gave them no value for breading. This created an immeasurable degree of suffer ing.
Using conservative numbers, there were three to five million castrated and born eunuch slaves who were physically or psychologically unable to parent children. There were a minority of female slaves used to bear children who would grow up slaves and also lose all semblance of their own individuality, especially when sold off at a very early age.
Why would an author choose this as the environment for a precocious, sheltered, sexually struggling, rich kid to learn how to become a man? Trittin has an answer. Since eunuchs were first legally identified in 2100 BC, they have often been treated as less than human or at least half-males without moral regard. Trittin wanted us to see eunuchs . . . all three kinds which Jesus recognized in Matthew 19:10-12 of the Christian Bible . . . presented as ‘different’ but equally valuable human beings. He believes they should be recognized for their unique spiritual insights, human sensitivity, and creativity and perceived to be as valuable as are heterosexuals even though they should not be expected to marry a person of the opposite gender. It is his desire that all eunuchs be recognized as possessors of God given possibilities instead of being viewed and treated as subhuman or moral derelicts. Trittin’s goal is to help correct the problem of misidentification and false inferiority of eunuchs of all ty pes.
Through a story that is first centered on the love between twin brothers, Trittin discreetly reveals four sexual experiences of a ‘normal’ young eunuch or any maturing male youth might experience. Too often the typical negative reactions by parents and some contemporaries have had frightening and intimidating results. Without explanation or discussion, the negative reaction is often interpreted to mean anything sexual is dirty and off-limits. Jacobus, made an interesting observation regarding those experiences. “It was a learning I carried through much of my adult life. What I’m doing or want to do might not be wrong, but if other people who don’t like it, learn what I’m doing or want to do, I’m in trouble.” The tension caused by conflict that occurred between the twins and their father, is never resolved, just tolera ted.
Life expectancy in the Empire during that century averaged between twenty-five and thirty years, and adult responsibilities had to begin at a young age. At fourteen boys were considered men and could get married and begin to procreate. Jacobus often questioned his father’s inability to understand him and his brother and his unwillingness to discuss sexual