Talk:Pelagius of Cordova

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[edit] POV - unsupported deletion of historically documented sexual material from article

This article has been tagged as POV due to the repeated and unsupported deletions of documentation of the attempted pederastic seduction of Pelagius by the Caliph. Haiduc 01:56, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pederasty

Pederasty is of the essence of this story, what argument is there for obhscuring it? Haiduc 00:51, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

• He was offered freedom if he converted. There was no pederasty. --evrik 00:56, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
  • There is no pederasty only because you insist on censoring properly referenced historical material demonstrating that the Caliph desired to have sexual relations with the boy and had him killed because he resisted his advances. Haiduc 00:58, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
  • I went to the Penn library and couldn't find any of the books cited so i could look at them for myself. --evrik 01:03, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
    • What a cop-out! The decent thing to do is to hold off mutilating others' research until you have verified it for yourself, not deleting it out of ignorance of the factsHaiduc 01:06, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
• Perhaps you shouldn't make contoversial edits with obscure citations that can't be verified. --evrik 01:28, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Info on pederastic nature of the conflict is everywhere

Such as, "There is the story of the ninth-century martyr Pelagius, a boy whose beauty so aroused 'Abd-al-Rahman III, the caliph of Cordoba, that he wished to enjoy its delights. The boy's refusal led to torture and death. Within decades of the boy's martyrdom narratives circulated and he began to be honored as a saint, whose cult included a Mozarabic text for Vespers, Matins, and Mass. While the stories cited by Jordan served an obvious polemical purpose for European Christians in their demonizing of the Muslims, who are pictured as prone to same-sex desire, there is more in these texts than that. "As it begins to act out its own worship of the boy-saint, the Christian community seems as much bothered by his beauty as was the caliph" (28). For "... the flattery of his beauty that is sung by male choirs ..." (27) does unavoidably bring up questions of the point of such God-bestowed male beauty, so dangerous to its bearer and to its observers, including (perhaps?) the monks chanting Pelagius's praises."[1]

and . . .

"That liturgy, he notes, focuses as intently on Pelagius's beauty as did the caliph." in "Ganymede/Son of Getron: Medieval Monasticism and the Drama of Same-Sex Desire" by V. A. Kolve in Speculum, Vol. 73, No. 4 (Oct., 1998), pp. 1014-1067

and . . .

"Pelagius retains the Christian construct of blasphemous, sodomitic caliph,. while defusing the ephebe’s troubling erotic appeal for Christian chroniclers..." in "Queer Iberia: Sexualities, Cultures, and Crossings from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance (review)" by Leora Lev, in Journal of the History of Sexuality - Volume 10, Number 1, January 2001, pp. 119-122

You should have no trouble finding these even in your school library. Haiduc 02:47, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

• I'll need some time to look at this. --evrik 13:33, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

• • Take your time. Haiduc 23:39, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
• I've been to thee libaries in Philadelphia. Anyone want to lend me a copy? --evrik ^(talk) 21:40, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

• I've just confirmed (in about five minutes, using Columbia's online e-journal library) the quotes proferred by Haiduc from Speculum and J. Hist. Sex.; they appear to be in context and support his view that the axis of pederasty has long been prominent in Pelagius' mythos, regardless of its truth. Whatever modern opinions about its veracity, it seems entirely appropriate to discuss St. Pelagius's historical context. Let's not let modern politics or mores interfere with maintaining high quality, thorough articles--and get that disputed tag off the page and reinsert the expurgated material. Citizen Sunshine 02:17, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
• Amazing that you could bring it up online ... my offer of compromise would be this ... that the article be written up first according to the catholic encyclopedia, and then have a section that discusses Haiduc's preffered version. Will that suffice? --evrik ^(talk) 17:29, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

I do not mind material from the Catholic encyclopaedia being included, but you well know we cannot privilege one source over another. But let's go ahead and present that point of view first, and then we'll detail the academic view. No problem there. Haiduc 17:33, 28 November 2006 (UTC)