CIRCUMCISION. Circumcision, the cutting away of the foreskin, was a rite common to a number of Semitic peoples in ancient times. It was practised by the ancient Arabs, and by the Edomites, Ammonites, and Moabites, as well as by the Hebrews. It was practised also by non-Semitic races. According to Herodotus and Philo, all Egyptians were circumcised; and according to other ancient writers the rite originated in Egypt and thence spread to the other peoples of Africa and to the Semites of Asia. In any case, as L. H. Gray saPIII(Hastings' E.R.E.), the operation was practised almost everywhere except in Europe and non-Semitic Asia. " The Indo Germanic peoples, the Mongols, and the Finno-Ugric races (except where they have been influenced by Muhammadanism) alone are entirely unacquainted with it. It can scarcely have been practised in pre-Aryan India (obviously we have no data regarding pre-Indo Germanic Europe), for there is no allusion to it in Sans krit literature, and no trace of it. in modern India, even among peoples untouched by Hindu civilization." The real reasons for the operation are difficult to deter mine. Benzinger (Encycl. Bibl.) thinks that, in general, circumcision is to be regarded as a ritual tribal mark. It marked the initiation of the full-grown man into full membership of his clan. This involved something more. " Like all other initiation ceremonies of the kind in the Semitic religions, eireunicism had attributed to it also the effect of accomplishing a sacramental com munion, bringing about a union with the godhead." It should be noted, however, that among many peoples (including the ancient Arabs) the operation has been performed upon women as well as upon men. G. A. Barton is perhaps right in saying (Hastings) that in the beginning Semitic circumcision would seem to have been a sacrifice to the goddess of fertility. " Whether it was intended to ensure the blessing of the goddess, and so to secure more abundant offspring, or whether it was considered as the sacrifice of a part instead of the whole of the person, we may not clearly determine, though the writer the former alternative as the more probable." The idea of a sacrifice seems to be pre
sent in a custom found among the Borans. " The Borans, on the southern borders of Abyssinia, propitiate a sky spirit called Wak by sacrificing their children and cattle to him. Among them when a man of any standing marries, he becomes a Raba, as it is called, and for a certain period after marriage, probably four to eight years. he must leave any children that are born to him to die in the bush. No Boran cares to contemplate the fearful calamities with which Wak would visit him If he failed to discharge this duty. After he ceases to be a Raba, a man is circumcised and becomes a Gudda. The sky-spirit has no claim on the children born after their father's circumcision, but they are sent away at a very early age to be reared by the Wata, a low caste of hunters. They remain with these people till they are grown up, and then return to their families " (J. G. Frazer). Frazer thinks that here the circumcision of the father seems to be regarded as " an atoning sacrifice which redeems the rest of his children from the spirit to whom they would otherwise belong." He thinks that the story told by the Israelites (Exodus iv. 24-29) to account for the origin of circumcision " seems also to suggest that the custom was supposed to save the life of the child by giving the deity a substitute for it." In the early days of Christianity the Judaeo-Christians wished to retain the rite of circumcision, but the Apostle Paul was instrumental in abolishing it. The Christian rite of baptism came to be substituted for it. The Jews circumcise children on the eighth day after birth (Gen. xvii. 12; Luke i. 59, di. 21), and, as in Christian baptism. the name is given at the same time. But originally in both eases the rites may be supposed to have been cele brated at a later date, when the children attained puberty. See Schaff-Herzog; Encycl. Bibl.; Chambers' Encycl.; Hastings' E.R.E.; J. G. Frazer, G.B., Pt. iii., 1912.