deibription could be given them ftcm tlie It appears from Josephus {Afd. xiii, 9) that wImbH^ canus subdued the Idumseans, he forced ttMm to fat circumcised on pain of expatriation. This shows Ihst they had at least disused the rite. Bat that is bsI wonderAil, if it was only a custom, and not a nnfiriMl religious ordinance; for, as Michaelis obMrDsa, tk disuse of it may have dated from the edict of Ajiie- chus Epiphanes, of which it is said (1 Mace i, 41, 42). " The king Antlochns wrote to all his kington that all should be one people ; and that all should keep the ordinances of his country ; and all the nations aoqn- esced according to the word of the king." The rath? obscure notices which are found in Jeremiah and Ese- kiel of the circumcision of the nations who were in iuk- mediate contact with Israel admit of a natural into- pretation in conformity with what has been already adduced (Jer. ix, 25; Ezek. xxxi, 18; also xxxii, 19, etpcusm). The difficulty turns on the new mortd «f made of the term* " uncircumdsed,'' to mean amply impure. The passage in Jeremiah is thus translated by Ewald : " Behold, the days come that I visit aD the uncircumdsed circumcised ones; Egypt and Ju- dah, Edom, and the children oi Ammon and Moab; and all the dwellers in the wilderness that are shaves on the temples : for all the heathen are undrenmcbed, and so is all the house of Israel micirciunciaed in heart" The shaving of the temples appears to be s religious custom of the 'same kind : Herodotos (Hi, 8) ascribes it to the Arabs generally, and Joaephos rather strangely regards the epithet rpoxoKovpiStCi in the sb- dent Greek poet Choerilus (e. Ap, i, 22), as a descrip- tion of his own countrymen. Knowing that the Egyp- tians were circumcised, it no longer remains doabtfrd how the reprocuh t^Egt/pi (Josh, v, 9) should be inta- preted.
How for the rite of drenmdsi<m spraad over the south-west of Arabia no definite record subsists. The silence of the Koran confirms the statement of Abulicds (Hittor. AfUe-Idatnicaj p. 180, ed. Fleischer, 1881) thst the custom is older than Mohammed, who, it would appear, in no respect regarded it as a religions rite. Nevertheless it has extended itself with the Mohsis- medan foith, as thou^ it were a positive ardinanoe. Pococke (Specimen Hist, Arab, p. 809) dtes a traditioB, which ascribes to Mohammed the words, " Circum- cision is an ordinance for men, and honourable in wom- en." This extension of the rite to the other sex might, in itself, satisfy us that it did not come to those nations from Abraham and Ishmael. We have already seen that Abyssinian circumdsion has the same pecu- liarity ; so that it is every way probable that Southmt Arabia had the rite from the same source or influence as Ethiopia. In fSut, the very dosest relations are known to have subsisted between the nations on the opposite coasts of the Eed Sea. Another passage of Abulfeda (Afmcdes Muslemicij i, 92) gives spedfic m- formation on this subject. In the battle of Ohod, in the third year of the Hegira, " Hamza, the unde of the Prophet, committed great slaughter. When Sabbs' ben-Abd-ul-Usz&, whose mother was a drcumciser in Mecca, passed by him, Hamza called out, Come oo, you son of a she -drcumciser [resectrieis flgmpAo- rum2 V* The form of the word proves that this was strictly the trade of the old woman, and that the cus- tom, as applied to fomales, was no iimovation of those days. Niebuhr had ocular demonstration of female circumcision in Arabia (Travels^ ii, 251).
Pococke quotes the ecclesiastioU historian Fbilos- torgius for the foct that the Himyarite Arabs circnm- cise their children on the eighth dag. He adds a pss- sage from Al Gasz&U, in which the writer ssys thst the Arabs differ fhnn the Jews as to the time ; for tii^y postpone it until the child has teeth, which he thinks safer. Finally, he dtes Ibn Athir, who^ writing of the times antecedent to Mohammed, says that the Arabs were accustomed to circumcise between the tenth and
CmCUMCBIOlT
34Q
CIRCUMCISION
Alieenth yens. The origiii of the ciistom amongst this large section of those Gentiles who follow it* is to be Ibnnd in the Biblical record of the drcnmoision of Ishmael (Gen. XTii, 25). Josephns relates that the jT^iiiUna cironmcise after the thirteenth year, becanse Ishmael, the founder of their nation, was drcomcised ai that age ^Aitt. 1, 12, 8; see Lane's Mod, Eg, ch. ii). Though Mohammed did not enjoin circumcision in the Koran, he was circumcised himseli; according to the custom of his country; and circumcision is now as common amongst the Mohammedans as amongst tlie Jews.
The statement of FhHostorgius may receive light ftom the Arab historians, who relate (Jost, Getehu^ der ItraeBtmj v, 286 sq.) that about a centuiy before the Christian era, several Jewish sovereigns reigned in the region called Sheba by the Jews, and Yemen by the modems, where the Himyarites (or Homerita) dwelt. The few fiicts preserved show that they were not close observers of the Mosaic law, and the sus- picion might arise that they were called Jews chiefly ftom their having received Jewish circumcision. We have, however, a collateral evidence of much impor- tance, to prove that the influence acting on them had really come from Judsa; namely, it is well known that in Abyssinia a nation called the Falasha still ex- ists, which has veiy thoroughly adopted the Jewish religion, insomuch as to have invented legends that allege their descent from the Hebrews. They possess the Old Testament in tlie Ghees language and charac- ter, but their own language is said to be quite alien fhnn the Hebrew ; fiicts which prove that they were really protehfiA hy the Jews at some early period. See Abtssinia. At that same time, it is credible, the Hebrew feith met with similar success on the opposite coast of the Bed Qea. Jost believes that, during the war of Uie Maccabees, great numbers of Jews migrated into Arabia; and it is certain that in later times they were very numerous in Yemen, and their influence great, Wherever they were settled proeUytes must have been made ; and great seal was doubtlMS used to induce them to drcumctse their childem duly accord- ing to the Mosaic rite. We can then quite understand PhUostorghis's fkct, if we are allowed to suppose that he spoke loosely of *' the Himyarites" dobig that which was done by a great many it them. An interesting story is told by Josephus — the date so late as the reign of the Emperor Glanidius (Ant, hil, 2)— how Izates, the yoong king of Adiabene, and his mother Helena, were converted by Jewish teachers to a belief in the one true God, the God of the Hebrews : and how, when Izates was desirous of being circumcised, and his mother dreaded that it would alienate his subjects, his Jewish instmctor Ananias warmly seconded her views, with a heart like that of Paul; telUng hfan that if he was re- solved to imitate Jewish institutions, he could, without being circumcised, adore the true divinity; and that this was fax more important than circumcision. At the time he satisfied. the young monarch; but after- wards, another Jew, named Eleazar, csme fttmi Gali- lee, and inveighed so strongly on the impiety ^ his disobedience, that, without more delay, Izates submit- ted to the rite. It is evident that, in a controversy of this sort, the more narrow-minded teacher had the ad- vantage; and, in consequence, it appears that "pros- eljTtes of ri^teousness*' were always circumcised (Ju^ dith xiv, 10, and Tadt. Hi^ v, 6). The fiieOity with which whole nations have adopted the practice fixmi the Mohammedans proves that it is not so serious an obstacle to the spread of a religton as some have thought it (see the Pemty Cffdopoediay s. v.).