CIRCUMCISION (seek6m-sTzli'On), (Hob. moo-law' Gr. routroj.v), per-it-cm-al, a cutting around).
(1) History. The history of Jewish Circum cision lies on the surface of the Old Testament. Abraham received the rite from Jehovah, Moses established it as a national ordinance, and Joshua carried it into effect before the Israelites entered the land of Canaan. Males only were subjected to the operation, and it was to be performed on the eighth day of the child's life; foreign slaves also were forced to submit to it, on entering an Israel ite's family. Those who arc unacquainted with other sources of information on the subject be sides the Scriptures might easily suppose that the rite was original with Abraham, characteristic of his seed, and practiced among those nations only who had learned it from them. This, however, appears not to have been the case.
First of all, the Egyptians were a circum cised people. Vonck, followed by Wesseling (ad Ilcrod. ii :37) and by numerous able writers, al leged that this was not true of the whole nation, but of the priests only; that at least the priests were circumcised is beyond controversy. No one can for a moment imagine that they adopted the rite from the despised shepherds of Goshen: and we arc immediately forced to believe that Egyp tian circumcision had an independent origin. A great preponderance of argument, however, ap pears to us to prove that the rite was universal among the old Egyptians. as long as their native institutions flourished; although there is no ques tion that, under Persian and Greek rule, it gradu ally fell into disuse, and was retained chiefly by the priests and by those who desired to cultivate ancient wisdom.
Hcrodotus distinctly declares that the Egyptians practiced circumcision; and that he meant to state this of the whole nation is manifest (Herod. ii :37). It is difficult to suppose that the historian could have been mistaken on this point, consider ing his personal acquaintance with Egypt. Further, he informs us that the Colchians were a colony from Egypt, consisting of soldiers from the army of Sesostris. With these he had conversed (ii : to4), and he positively declares that they practiced circumcision.
The same remark will apply to the savage Troglodytes of Africa. every branch of whom. except one (the Kolobi), as Diodorus informs us (iii :31). was circumcised, having learnt the practice from the Egyptians.
Herodotus, moreover, tells us that the Ethio pians were also circumcised ; and he was in doubt whether they had learned the rite from the Egyptians, or the Egyptians from them. By the Ethiopians we must understand him to mean the inhabitants of Meroe or Sennaar. In the present
day the Coptic Church continues to practice it ; the Abyssinian Christians do the same; and that it was not introduced among the latter with a Judaical Christianity appears from their perform ing it upon both sexes. Oldendorp describes the rite as widely spread through Western Africa t6 deg. on each side of the Line,—even among natives that arc not Mohammedan. In later times it has been ascertained that it is practiced by the Kafir nations in South Africa. more properly called Rosa, or Amakosa.
How far the rite was extended through the Syro-Arabian races is uncertain. The Philistines, in the days of Saul, were however uncircumcised; so also.says Herodotus (ii Acx4), were all the Phoe nicians who had intercourse with the Greeks. That the Canaanites, in the days of Jacob, were not all circumcised, is plain from the affair of Dinah and Shechcm. The story of Zipporah (Exod. iv : 24, 25) who did not circumcise her son until fear came over her that Jehovah would slay her hus band Moses, proves that the family of Jethro, the Midianite, had no fixed rule about it. although the Midianites arc generally regarded as children of Abraham by Kcturah. On the other hand, we have the distinct testimony of Joscphus (4,114 i: 12, 2) that the I shmaelite Arabs inhabiting the district of Nabatha•a were circumcised after their 13th year : this must be connected with the tradi tion which no doubt existed among them, of the age at which their forefather Ishmael underwent the rite (Gen. xvii :23). A negative argument is more or less dangerous: yet there is something striking in the fact that the books of Moses. of Joshua. and of Judges never bestow the epithet uncircumcised as a reproach on any of the seven nations of Canaan. any more than on the Moabite, or Ammonites. the Amalekitcs, the Nlidianites. or other inland tribes with whom they came into con flict. On the contrary, as soon as the Philistines become prominent in the narrative, after the birth of Samson, this epithet is of rather common oc currence. The fact also of bringing kick, as a trophy, the foreskins of slain enemies. never oc curs except against the Philistines (t Sam 23-27). We may perhaps infer, at least until other proof or disproof is attained, that while the Philistines, like the Sidonians and the other mari time Syrian nations known to the Greeks, were wholly strangers to the practice, yet among the Canaanites, and all the more inland tribes, it was at least so far common that no general description could be given them from the omission.