CIRCUMCISION ( Lat. rireamcitio, front circa/tie/dere, to cut around, from eiream, around ordere. to cut). The cutting away of the foreskin. a religious ceremony practiced by many peoples in different parts of the world. and going back to the earliest known periods of human history. It is probably a substitute for an original phallic sacrifice. Among many races the custom of cutting off the phallus of their enemies has prevailed. It is significant that the ancient Egyptians performed this mutilation only in the ease of enemies who were circumcised. In order to be cut off. the phallus must lie clean —i.e. tit to be offered. The purpose of such an offering, presumably to some god of fertility, would naturally be to increase the fruitfulness of those making the sacrifice. Just as the sacri fice of the first-born was intended to insure the life of those born later, so the offering of the phallus of sonic youth was no doubt intended to increase the fertility of the tribe. The first modification of this rite seems to have been the substitution of gelding for the removal of the phallus, the object of emasculation being at tained without the loss of life. The next 'step, at least in some eases, appears to have been such a painful mutilation as that which Nie buh• learned to know between Hejaz and Abu Aris,41, on the Arabian coast. (Consult Besehrei bung von A rabien, Copenhagen, 177.2.) While cry dangerous, this operation offered a chance of both life and virility. Finally, the removal of the prepuce was all that was required. In this form the mutilation was perpetuated either as a sign of the devotee, as a badge of priestly rank, or as a tribal mark. In the latter ease it was generally administered as a sign of puberty and of capacity for participating in the cult, admitting the young man to the rights of co habitation, and of presenting saerifices to the ancestors and the tribal gods. The rite retained somewhat of its sacrificial character even after it had been transferred to infancy, as was the ease with some peoples. That its object was to persuade the Deity to grant increased fertility was still felt in Egypt and Judea at the time of Ilerodotus and the priestly redactor of the Pentateuch. Its value as a sanitary and pro phylactic measure was probably not brought to light until it was necessary to apologize for it as a superstition.
Circumcision seems to have been practiced already among the aborigines of the Nile Valley, Nvho probably were akin to the Libyans. A man belonging to this race, gored by a bull, on one of the oldest is manifestly cireum cised. (Consult Bulletin des correspondanecs helh:niques, Paris, 1892., and Steindorff. in .Egypliora, Leipzig, 1897.) The dynastic Egyp tians probably derived the custom from them. In the Gneco-Boman period the rite may have been confined to the priesthood in Egypt, as Reitzenstein has tried to prove (Zirci religions geschiehlliche •ragrn: Strassburg, 1901). But if Ilerodotus was well informed. all Egyptians were eircumeised. Boys may have been admitted to priestly orders at the age of puberty; but whether every circumcised boy whose minnmy or likeness has been found belonged to a priestly family can neither be affirmed nor denied. The Babylonians and Assyrians do not seem to have practiced the rite. It cannot be proved that the Moabites, Ammonites, and Edomites did so be fore their invasion of Syria. The Philistines were not. •ircum•ised. But they were apparently Cretans (see CAeiron), and, according, to Egyp tian accounts, the MV(P11:1`a 11 peoples were not eireumeised. Front the fact that this peculiarity of the Philistines is strongly emphasized by the Hebrews, it may be inferred that the Cannanites practiced circumcision. They may have derived the custom from some aborigines akin to the proto-Egyptians and the Libyans, or from Egypt in a Inter tinie. It is (mite uncertain whether
the ,inns that afterwards formed the people of Israel knew the custom before they entered Palestine. The story in Exodus iv. retains the memory that the Moses elan eonsidered itself saved from threatening destruction by the adop tion of this rite from their Midianite or Kenite neighbors. The sign of Cain (the Kenite) in Gen. iv, is probably circumcision. This chapter seems to rellect an earlier attempt on the part of the Kenites to settle in Palestine. The peo ple of the northwest Arabian country of Muzri, to which the Aloses clan belonged, do not seem originally to have had the enstom. This ap pa•ently is also suggested in the story in Joshua v. here all Israel is circumcised at Gilgal, upon 'the hill of the foreskins,' to remove 'the reproach of the .Mizrinf,' which may mean the reproach cast upon the people of Aluzri by their neighbors for not. being circumcised. That the youth of Benjamin were brought to the sanctu ary called 'the hill of the foreskins' to be circum cised there can be little doubt. But the shrine and the custom are likely to have been taken over front the Canaanites. No conclusion can be drawn from Gen, xcii., except that in the Per sian the fact that Ishmaelites practiced circumcision in the thirteenth year was traced back to the mythical ancestors of both Ishmael ites and Israelites. The story of Dinah in Gen, xxxiv. suggests that the Iliv ites in Shechem were forced to accept circumcision by Israelitish tribes: but this may in reality show that the custom existed among the Ilivites and had to he amounted for. It prevailed in sonic parts of Arabia before "Mohammed; and, though not men tioned in the Noran, it has been retained by the nations accepting Islam. There is no serious objection to the assumption that everywhere in the Semitic world it goes back to Egyptian, and ultimately Libyan. influence. Whether the Col ehians ( Karki, Kashki) originally practiced •ircumcision—and this Might be taken as an in dication of its prevalence among kindred Asiatic peoples—or it was brought to them in later tithes by colonists from Syria or Egypt, cannot be It still prevails among the Mandingos. Falashas, and many Bantu tribes in Africa, where it cannot he traced back to :Moslem influence. In Central America, and among the Aztecs of ancient :Mexico. circum cision, or a somewhat similar mutilation, was practiced. It is still in use among the Teamas and Alanaos on the Amazon. The Gtaheitans, the Tongas, some Melanesians in Polynesia, and nearly all tribes in Australia, have this custom. In the present state of our knowledge, a trans mission of the rite through historic contact can not. be affirmed, and an independent develop ment front the same social and religious consid is most safely assumed.
Circumcision of females, consisting of mutila of the clitoris, is practiced in Egypt, Abys sinia, Western Africa. Arabia, and other coun tries. It was already known to Strabo. As it is very generally found where male eircumeision prevails. it is probably analogous in its history and development to the latter. The opposition to eircumcision began with some of the Hebrew prophets (Jen iv. 4; ix. 25-6). But it was the struggle reflected in the Pauline literature that eliminated this religions rite from the Christian usage, except in isolated instances, such as the Abyssinian Church. Consult: /'loss, Das Kind in It•nurh rind Niltr der Volker (Leipzig, 1884) ; Salomon, Mr Bast-km-id ung (Brunswick. 1844) ; Glasslierg. Die Itesehncidung (Berlin. 18116) : Zaborowski. in Itullclit de In Soriet nih•o pologie de Paris (1S93) ; Gunkel, in archly fUr Papyrusforschung (1902).