RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Circumoisioa Cistercians
have arisen; it is easier to explain the other significances a& secondary to this than to explain it as secondary to any of them; and the conclusion is confirmed by the fact and phenomena of " female circumcision" (improperly so called), i.e., the cutting off of the internal labia, which is almost, if not quite, as common as the male mutilation and as a rule accompanies it— a fact which has gen'erally been ignored and its significance strangely overlooked.
In the circumcision of Hebrews and Jews three things are noteworthy: (1) Its marked religious significance; (2) the early age at which
Hebrew the operation is performed; (3) the and Jewish absence of all trace of a female muti-
Circum- lation. Evidence is not at hand to cision. prove indisputably whether these features are original or secondary. The Biblical data are scanty, and when they were committed to writing primitive practises were already followed because they were " the custom of the fathers." Circumcision is stated to be " a token of the covenant " and the covenant itself, and its institution is attributed to the Almighty (Gen. xvii. 10 — 11). It was regarded as the indispensable requisite to the right relation with God, participation in his worship, and a share in his favor being exacted of " strangers " and slaves (Gen. xvii. 12-14; Ex. xii. 43-48) — in later times of proselytes. The popular mind went a step further and looked upon circumcision as the guaranty of the divine fa.;or, a conception strenuously combated by the prophets (Jer. iv. 4, vi. 10, ix. 25-26; Ezek. xliv. '9; cf. Deut. x. 16, xxx. 6). These ideas appear in the New Testament (Acts vii. 8, 51, XV. 1; Rom. ii. 28-29, iv. 11). Indications are not lacking, however, that in its origin and early significance Hebrew circumcision did not difTer from that of other peoples.* If the statement that " Ishmael was thirteen years old when he v.'as circumcised (Gen. xvii. 26) preserves an old and true tradition, it indicates that the age in early times was the usual one of maturing manhood. The account of a general circumcising at Gilgal in the time of Joshua (Josh. v. 2-9) has still more the mark of an old tradition, which the scribe who wrote it down thought necessary to explain in the light of the custom of his own time (verses 4-7 being generally considered an interpolation); if so, it evidences that the Hebrews originally circumcised at the same age as other peoples, and the circumcision of a number at one time, with the hint of a special place of circumcision, is in accord with custom frequently found (cf. B. Stade, in ZATW, vi., 1886, pp. 132-142). The use of flint knives (cf. Ex. iv. 25) is also noteworthy, being f circumstance not uncommon, even after better '•iithng tools have been obtained, and indicating, pei-haps, the antiquity of the practise. The Dinah story (Gen. xxxiv.) makes circumcision a prerequisite to marriage. The passage Ex. iv. 24-26, commonly called (with sHght reason) J's account
^ Cf. Stade, quoted in Ploas, Knabenbeschneiduna, D. 12: In preexilic time circumcision in Israel was solely a tribal mn; only in the Exile did it acquire the significance of a religious symbol (Heb. oth)."
of the origin of circumcision, is evidently a mutilated and incomplete fragment of a longer narrative, and the text of what is preserved is uncertain. Its mining is well-nigh unintelligible and it affords no sectire basis for inference. Yet, if anything is clear from it, it is a connection between circumcision and marriage or the sexual Hfe (for an interesting discussion of this passage, tracing parallels with the use made of the severed foreskin by various tribes, cf. H. P Smith, in JBL, xxv., 1906, pp. 14-24).
Charles C. Sherman.
Bibliography: The literature is enormous, but much of it may be dismissed as " freakish," the subject being one which has naturally proved attractive to erratic minds; almost all of the more serious treatises consider the practise too exclusively from the Biblical or Jewish point of view. The best treatment in existence is that of H. Ploss, in Das Kind in Branch und Sitte der Volker, 2d ed., Leipsic, 1884, vol. i., pp. 342-394, with which should be compared the chapter on Der Abschluss der Kinderjahre, vol. ii., pp. 411-446. The same author's Geschichtliches und Efhnologisches uber Knabenbeschneiduna, Leipsic, 1885 (reprinted from Archiv fiir Geschichle der Medicin und medicinische Geographic, viii., 1885), is a partial repetition of what is contained in the earlier work with not much that is new. An article. Die Beschneidung, by R. Andree, in Archiv fiir Anthropologic, xiii (18801, pp. 53-78, is worth consulting with Ploss, who by no means exhausted all the material available when he wrote. Since then a large amount of valuable matter has accumulated in the pages of anthropological and ethnographical journals, the works of special investigators, and books of travel. The studies of the natives of Australia by Baldwin Spencer, F. J. Gillen, A. W. Howitt, and others may be specially mentioned. Die Beschneidung in ihrer geschichtlichcn, ethnographischen, religidsen und mcdicinischen Bedeutung, ed. A. Glassberg, Berlin, 1896, is a sane treatment of various phases of the subject. The works on the Mosaic law, Old Testament theology, Hebrew archeology, and the Biblical commentaries may be consulted for the conventional treatment; and for Jewish conceptions and practises, JE, iv. 92-102.