When Peter Abelard (1079–1142) was castrated by the order of his wife's uncle, he turned to the example of Origen of Alexandria, a third-century Church father who purportedly castrated himself in a fit of religious zeal. Abelard argued that his own castration made him a more appropriate teacher for nuns, because it alleviated his sexual tensions and temptations. While scholars continue to debate the accuracy of the traditional account of Origen's self-castration, Abelard's understanding of that tradition reflects an ongoing tension within Christianity regarding the role of sexuality in Christian life. This tension is evident in the ways early Christian perceptions of castration changed in response to the shifting locus of sexual anxiety in Christian communities. The ‘eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven’ of Matthew 19:12 probably represent celibate, childless men, reflecting the Matthean community's desire to reconcile the commandment to be fruitful with an apocalyptic skepticism about the value of marriage and reproduction. Such a reading is supported by rabbinic discussions of castration, in which the primary concern is the eunuch's inability to produce offspring. But with the decline of eschatological expectation, this characteristically Jewish exegesis was replaced in the gentile Church by readings focused on earthly sexual immorality, intended both to condemn illicit sexual practices within the Church and to defend the Church from accu-sations of such practices from the outside.