"Circumcision" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Caffre tribes south of the Zambesi practice circumcision ('boguera'), but the rites observed are carefully concealed. The initiated alone can approach, but in this town I was once a spectator of the second part of the ceremony of the circumcision, called "sechu". ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... to complain of. Hadrian had broken faith with them; he had failed to rebuild their Temple as he had promised, and now (about the year 130), to make matters worse, he was beginning a systematic persecution of their religion. He forbade circumcision, the study of the Torah, the keeping of the Sabbath, the ordination of disciples, in short everything that went to express the Jewish religion. The Jews determined upon war. But even before the outbreak ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... latter principle. The universal prevalence of the idea of God, and the feeling of obligation to obey and worship God, belong to the first order of facts; the general prevalence of expiatory sacrifices, of the rite of circumcision, and the observance of sacred and holy days, belong to the latter. To the last class of facts the observance of the Christian Sabbath, and the rites of Baptism and the ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... she died in her own female calling, Choked up with man, and gorged with circumcision. As for Sebastian, we must search the field; And, where we see a mountain of the slain, Send one to climb, and, looking down below, There he shall find him at his manly length, With his face up to heaven, in the red monument, Which his ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... resided in Spain, he copied some portraits of illustrious women, in a style said to approach Titian. His own portrait, painted by himself, charmingly colored, and full of life and nature, is in the Florentine Gallery. His best work was a picture of the Circumcision, intended for the Cathedral at Antwerp, but he did not live to finish it, ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner
... proper hue of orient light. And merely in respect to his prime gift, Not in reward of meritorious deed, Hath each his several degree assign'd. In early times with their own innocence More was not wanting, than the parents' faith, To save them: those first ages past, behoov'd That circumcision in the males should imp The flight of innocent wings: but since the day Of grace hath come, without baptismal rites In Christ accomplish'd, innocence herself Must linger yet below. Now raise thy view Unto the visage most resembling Christ: For, in her splendour ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... this question. The lorde commaunded that the Iues shuld make gardes in the quartiers of their garments / and to put vppon the garde / a ribande of yelow silcke / &c. My question now is. Whi the lorde did commaunde / that the Iues shuld differ from the gentils / not in circumcision only / but euen in their garments also? Euen for this cause verily / that they shuld be taught euen by their gardes also / that they wer gods peculiar people / and that they shulde separate themselues from ...
— A Treatise of the Cohabitation Of the Faithful with the Unfaithful • Peter Martyr
... than to the Petrine doctrines. In his hands Mosaism became spiritualized until it really lost its identity, and was transformed into a code fit for the whole Roman world. And we do not doubt that if any one had asked Jesus whether circumcision were an essential prerequisite for admission to the Messianic kingdom, he would have given the same answer which Paul afterwards gave. We agree with Zeller and Strauss that, "as Luther was a more liberal spirit than the Lutheran divines of the succeeding generation, and ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... whereby thou shalt rise to high rank with the kings of the Jinn and rule them, even as thou rulest mankind; [and to that end I would have thee come with me and be present at the festival of my son's circumcision;[FN196]] for that the Jinn are agreed upon the manifestation of thine affair.' And she answered, ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... signified a planter and was therefore descriptive of the kind of work done is shown by the words of Paul himself: "For he that wrought effectually in Peter to the apostleship of the circumcision, the same was mighty in me toward the Gentiles" (Gal. 2:8). And again, he says to the Corinthians, "If I be not an apostle unto others, yet doubtless I am to you; for the seal of mine apostleship are ye in the Lord" (1 Cor. 9:2). In another place he says to the same church, "Though ye have ten ...
— The Last Reformation • F. G. [Frederick George] Smith
... were admitted into covenant with God by circumcision when eight days old. Gen. xvii.10, 14, so, too, when the Jews admitted proselytes into their communion, they not only circumcised all the males, but baptized all, male and female, ...
— The Church Handy Dictionary • Anonymous
... infant baptism, or deny that the Christian covenant includes children, and that the parent is bound to dedicate them to God. Hence the objection brought against infant baptism can, with equal propriety, be urged against circumcision; for the latter is the type of the former. In baptism Christ places Himself in true organic relations to the child, and thus opens up to it the sources from which alone the Christian life can ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... better taste, which was not immediately relished, he published what were afterwards called his masterpieces. These are six prints in the style of these masters, merely to prove that Goltzius could imitate their works, if he thought proper. One of these, the Circumcision, he had printed on soiled paper; and to give it the brown tint of antiquity had carefully smoked it, by which means it was sold as a curious performance, and deceived some of the most capital connoisseurs of the day, one of whom bought ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... of religion the two things were inseparably bound together; the fury of the Hebrew prophets, for example, is continually proclaiming the extraordinary "wrath" of their God at this or that little dirtiness or irregularity or breach of the sexual tabus. The ceremony of circumcision is clearly indicative of the original nature of the Semitic deity who developed into the Trinitarian God. So far as Christianity dropped this rite, so far Christianity disavowed the old associations. But to this day the representative Christian churches still make marriage into ...
— God The Invisible King • Herbert George Wells
... In a sketch for a "Baptism of Christ" tall angels hold the garments in the early traditional way; on one side two play the lute and the violin, while the two on the other side have a trumpet and an organ. He has sketches for the Ascension, Resurrection, Circumcision, and Entombment, repeated over and over again with variations, and one of S. Bernardino preaching in Venice (where he was in 1427). Jacopo delights even more in fanciful and mythological than in sacred subjects. A tournament with spectators, a Faun riding a lion, a "Triumph of Bacchus" ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps
... Achan, and the silver of Iscariot, thou root of all evil!' And he rushed on, yelling, 'Down with the circumcision! Down with the blasphemers!'—while the poor girl ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... through the Spirit. 47. Therefore the Law will never, in all eternity, be abolished, but will remain, either to be fulfilled by the damned, or already fulfilled by the blessed. 48. These pupils of the devil however, seem to think that the Law is temporary only, which ceased under Christ even as circumcision did." (Drews, ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... dream, around this righteous suffering servant of the Eternal, the nations gathered, to be taught of God. The souls to whom He gave power to become the sons of God became the family of the Heavenly Father, in which there was "neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free, but Christ was all and in all." In this holy brotherhood of the children of the All-Father, we moderns take our places round our elder brother; feeling sure that we ...
— The Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible • R. Heber Newton
... mist of self-opinion have gathered round you, and that not a step can be made in advance without the torch of proof. That course only can be beneficial which we select with clear judgment. To repeat the words of {163} the creed, to perform circumcision, or to be prostrate on the ground from the dread of kingly power, can avail nothing ...
— Rulers of India: Akbar • George Bruce Malleson
... body mutilations among the Manbos is ornamentation. The one exception is circumcision which will be ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... letter, Ay ken it sea well, as nea man ken better. As far example: on the day of Chraist's nativity, Ay see a bab in a manger and two beasts standing by: The service whilk to Newyear's-day is assaign'd Bay the paicture of the circumcision ay faynd: The service, whilk on Twalfth-day mun be done, Ay seeke bay the mark of the three kings of Cologne. Bay the devil tenting Chraist ay find whadragesima: Bay Chraist on the cross ay serch out gude-fraiday. Pasch for his mark ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley
... the false apostles troublers of the church because they taught circumcision and the keeping of the Law as needful unto salvation. They insisted that the Law must be observed in every detail. They were supporters in this contention by the Jews, with the result that those who were not firmly established in faith were ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther
... race; and its completion was the signal for the exhibition of God's grace to both alike. The work of Christ was not for the children of Abraham, but for the children of Adam. "As in Adam all died, so in Christ shall all be made alive." The Gentiles did not need to undergo circumcision and to keep the law in order to obtain salvation; for the law was no part of salvation; it belonged entirely to the preliminary demonstration of man's failure; and, when it had accomplished this service, it was ready to vanish ...
— The Life of St. Paul • James Stalker
... piercing of the clouds; the fall of the hut, the fall of the rain." Obviously, too, the act of placing high up in trees the two stones, which stand for clouds, is a way of making the real clouds to mount up in the sky. The Dieri also imagine that the foreskins taken from lads at circumcision have a great power of producing rain. Hence the Great Council of the tribe always keeps a small stock of foreskins ready for use. They are carefully concealed, being wrapt up in feathers with the fat of the wild dog and of the carpet snake. ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... not hear of the compromises that heathendom, lately entered into the bosom of the faith, claimed as its due consideration. It refused to sacrifice a single feature of its simple dogmatism, of its essential ceremonies, such as circumcision and Sabbath rest. Moreover, in the period following close upon the fall of the Temple, a part of the people still nursed the hope of political restoration, a hope repudiating in its totality the proclamation of quite ...
— Jewish History • S. M. Dubnow
... labelled with their tickets and furnished with their descriptions; but the three classes are already sharply separated in Mr Arnold's mind, and we can see that only in the Philistine who burns Dagon, and accepts circumcision and culture fully, is there to be any salvation. The anti-clerical and anti-theological animus is already strong; the attitude dantis jura Catonis is arranged; the jura themselves, if not actually graven and tabulated, ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... to have preferred to use flint instruments for surgical purposes, at any rate for the opening of bodies and for circumcision. Many flint instruments have been ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Jehovah met Moses and his Kenite wife, Zipporah, and their child, at a khan. Jehovah was anxious to slay Moses, nobody ever knew why, so Zipporah appeased Jehovah's wrath by circumcising her boy with a flint. 'A bloody husband art thou to me,' she said, 'because of the circumcision'—an Egyptian, but clearly not a Kenite practice. Whatever all this may mean, it does not look as if Zipporah expected such rites as circumcision in the faith of a Kenite husband, nor does it favour the idea that the sacra of Moses ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... their Opinion is, that some of the Serpents Kindred would kill some of the Savages Relations, that should destroy him: They have thousands of these foolish Ceremonies and Beliefs, which they are strict Observers of. Moreover, several Customs are found in some Families, which others keep not; {Circumcision.} as for Example, two Families of the Machapunga Indians, use the Jewish Custom of Circumcision, and the rest do not; neither did I ever know any others amongst the Indians, that practis'd any such thing; and perhaps, if you ask them, what is the Reason they do so, they will make you no ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson
... making it known to their contemporaries, incidentally disclose to us the following circumstances:—Christ's descent and family; his innocence; the meekness and gentleness of his character (a recognition which goes to the whole Gospel history); his exalted nature; his circumcision; his transfiguration; his life of opposition and suffering; his patience and resignation; the appointment of the Eucharist, and the manner of it; his agony; his confession before Pontius Pilate; his stripes, crucifixion, and burial; his resurrection; his appearance after it, first to Peter, ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... Hinted the vast advantages which they Might probably attain both in the end, If they would but pursue the proper way Which fortune plainly seem'd to recommend; And then he added, that he needs must say, ''T would greatly tend to better their condition, If they would condescend to circumcision. ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... should be examined by a physician. The cause of the bed-wetting is frequently discovered to be produced by anatomical abnormalities which render circumcision imperative. In these cases no method of treatment will succeed until circumcision ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume IV. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • Grant Hague
... mutilations is particularly clear cut and leaves little room for doubt. The noses and ears of oriental women have been pierced for generations without number, yet girls are still born with these parts entire. Circumcision offers another test case. The evidence of laboratory experiments (amputation of tails) shows no inheritance. It may be said without hesitation that mutilations are not heritable, no matter how many generations ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... transformation of the chrysalis, in the buried seed bursting into the bud and blossom of the spring, in the transformation of the winding sheet of winter to the many tinted robes of spring. We see it all through the Bible in the symbol of circumcision, with its significance of death and life, in the passage of the Red Sea and the Jordan leading out and leading in, and in the Cross of Calvary and the open grave of the Easter morning. We see it in every deep spiritual life. Every true life is death-born, and the deeper the dying the truer the living. ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson
... was of a lofty character. He rejected the divine inspiration of the Vedas and the whole Hindu mythology. He taught that there was no virtue in outward observances such as shaving the head, ceremonial purity and impurity, and circumcision among Muhammadans. He condemned the worship of idols and the use of sect-marks and religious amulets, but in all ordinary matters allowed his followers to conform to usage in order to avoid giving ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... people dine at home, keeping the day with family reunions. But the day after! Ah-heigh! That is the first of Carnival, and all the theatres are opened, and there is no end to the amusements—or was not, in the old time. Now, they never begin. A week later comes the day of the Lord's Circumcision, and then the next holiday is Easter. The Nativity, the Circumcision, and the Resurrection—behold! these are the three mysteries of the Christian faith. Of what religion are ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... IV. has least of the character of church festival music. The Biblical matter consists of a single verse from the Gospel of Saint Luke, ii. 21, which relates the circumcision and naming of Jesus. Not much material could be worked out of this, and Bach has almost entirely set aside all adjuncts from the liturgy. No Christmas hymn, indeed no true chorale, is introduced in it.... This section, therefore, bears ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... Nor in the land of their captivity 420 Humbled themselves, or penitent besought The God of their forefathers, but so died Impenitent, and left a race behind Like to themselves, distinguishable scarce From Gentiles, but by circumcision vain, And God with idols in their worship joined. Should I of these the liberty regard, Who, freed, as to their ancient patrimony, Unhumbled, unrepentant, unreformed, Headlong would follow, and to their gods perhaps 430 Of Bethel and of Dan? No; let them serve Their enemies who serve idols with God. ...
— Paradise Regained • John Milton
... particular climate and a particular state of the Jewish nation, rather a dress or clothing of the religion than forming a constituent part of it, a system of discipline of life and manners rather than an essential part of doctrine. The rites of circumcision and ablution were necessary to the health and perhaps even to the existence of a people living on the hottest part of the shores of the Mediterranean. And in the sacrifices made of the first fruits ...
— Consolations in Travel - or, the Last Days of a Philosopher • Humphrey Davy
... The circumcision and the naming of Christ have many times been painted to express the first of the sorrows of the Virgin, being the first of the pangs which her Son was to suffer on earth. But the Presentation in the Temple ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson
... its condemning power through our whole being, until we come to realize the full extent of its meaning in the great, 'Put off the old man; put on the Lord Jesus,' and what 'the putting off of the body of the flesh, in the circumcision of Christ,' is. Yes, all that is of nature and the flesh, all that is of our own doing or willing or working—our very life, must be put off and given unto the death, if God, as the Holy One, is to make Himself ...
— Holy in Christ - Thoughts on the Calling of God's Children to be Holy as He is Holy • Andrew Murray
... whole law, knowing, as they did, how their Master respected every tittle, every iota of the law; that he had come to fulfil the law, and to reestablish the theocracy; how could they possibly think of the idea of abolishing Sabbath and holidays, circumcision and ablutions, all and everything, to be guided by the phantom of hope, love, and faith, against which James argues in his epistle with all the energy of his soul? Those inexperienced saints did not know that the Pharisean doctors held similar ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... but even from the knowledge of the Pagan world. The slow and gradual abolition of the Mosaic ceremonies afforded a safe and innocent disguise to the more early proselytes of the gospel. As they were, for the greater part, of the race of Abraham, they were distinguished by the peculiar mark of circumcision, offered up their devotions in the Temple of Jerusalem till its final destruction, and received both the Law and the Prophets as the genuine inspirations of the Deity. The Gentile converts, who by a spiritual adoption had been associated to the hope of ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... God and Abraham's seed. 'I have known him, that he may command his children and his household after him, that they may keep the way of the Lord to do righteousness and judgment' (Gen. xviii. 19). Of this Covenant, the outward sign was the rite of circumcision. Renewed with Moses, and followed in traditional opinion by the Ten Commandments, the Sinaitic Covenant was a further link in the bond between God and His people. Of this Mosaic Covenant the outward sign was the Sabbath. It is of no moment for our present argument whether ...
— Judaism • Israel Abrahams
... COR. vii. 18-24.—"Is any man called being circumcised? let him not become uncircumcised. Is any called in uncircumcision? let him not be circumcised. Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God. Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called. Art thou called being a servant? care not for ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... think, transmitting from the dead to the living the qualities of the former, is close kin to, and, in my opinion, is probably derived from, a worship of the generative principle. When we take into consideration the fact that circumcision, extensio clitoridis, and other phallic rites are exceedingly common and prevalent among these negroes, this opinion has ...
— Religion and Lust - or, The Psychical Correlation of Religious Emotion and Sexual Desire • James Weir
... curiosity, or merely out of frolic, I cannot affirm,) a party of them came into my hut, and gave me plainly to understand that the object of their visit was to ascertain, by actual inspection, whether the rite of circumcision extended to the Nazarenes (Christians) as well as to the followers of Mahomet. The reader will easily judge of my surprise at this unexpected declaration; and in order to avoid the proposed scrutiny, I thought it best to treat the business jocularly. I observed to them, that it ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... do not circumcise their children; circumcision is practised only in the mountain by those members of the Shehab family who ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... incorrectly translated in both these instances; for, according to learned commentators, it is not the thigh, but the phallus that is meant; such tact having, in the opinion of the Rabbins, been introduced for the purpose of doing honour to circumcision. ...
— Aphrodisiacs and Anti-aphrodisiacs: Three Essays on the Powers of Reproduction • John Davenport
... design of the Old Testament and Moses himself pointed to him, and, in opposition to the spiritual teaching of Moses, they have been seduced into the carnal and sensual by the devil; they have set their trust and their hopes, not upon God, but upon the fleshly circumcision and upon the visible house of God, worshipping the Lord in the temple almost like the heathen. But the Christian raises himself above the flesh and its lusts, which disturb the faculties of knowledge ...
— The Gospels in the Second Century - An Examination of the Critical Part of a Work - Entitled 'Supernatural Religion' • William Sanday
... the gods. In this persuasion certain of the Aztec priests practised complete abscission or entire discerption of the virile parts, and a mutilation of females was not unknown similar to that immemorially a custom in Egypt.[147-2] Such enforced celibacy was, however, neither common nor popular. Circumcision, if it can be proven to have existed among the red race—and though there are plenty of assertions to that effect, they are not satisfactory to an anatomist—was probably a symbolic renunciation of the lusts of the flesh. The same cannot be said of the ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton
... their idols at the time of the Spanish conquest were cut up by means of knives of obsidian, which they obtained from the lavas of their volcanoes. In the Bible we have several traces of the same universal custom. The Jews seem to have performed the rite of circumcision with flint implements, for we read in Exodus that Zipporah, the wife of Moses, took a sharp stone for that purpose; and the phrase translated "sharp knives" in Joshua v. 2—"At that time the Lord said unto Joshua, Make thee sharp knives, and ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... and Windich says he has never come across one before either. We also found about a dozen pieces of wood, some six feet long and three to seven inches wide, and carved and trimmed up. All around were stones put up in the forked trees. I believe it is the place where the rite of circumcision is performed. Barometer 28.84; thermometer 60 ...
— Explorations in Australia • John Forrest
... feare the noyse of a peece, for with one Caliuer you shall make an hundred of them runne away: Wee coulde not perceyue any religion they had, but after wee were informed that they helde the law of Mahomet, for the two boyes that wee tooke from of the land, shewed vs their circumcision: There we found no fruit of Tambaxiumes, but great numbers of Parrats, Medicats, and Turtle Doues, whereof we killed and eat many. The second of December we burned our sconse, and fourteene of our men ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 10 - Asia, Part III • Richard Hakluyt
... hearers, and I know of no other promise the reader can have in mind. This position is amply supported by after-developments. "While Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Spirit fell on all them that heard the word. And they of the circumcision that believed were amazed, as many as came with Peter, because that on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy Spirit. For they heard them speak with tongues, and magnify God. Then answered Peter, Can any man forbid the water, that these should not be baptized, who have received the ...
— The Spirit and the Word - A Treatise on the Holy Spirit in the Light of a Rational - Interpretation of the Word of Truth • Zachary Taylor Sweeney
... bawle you!" cries Harry Martin, "you have brought us to this condition, (58) You must be canting and be plagued, with your Barebones petition, (59) And take in that bull-headed, splay-footed member of the circumcision, That bacon-faced Jew, Corbet, (60) that son of perdition!" ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay
... with his servants, that he trusted them with arms. Are slaveholders willing to put swords and pistols into the hands of their slaves? He was as a father among his servants; what are planters and masters generally among theirs? When the institution of circumcision was established, Abraham was commanded thus; "He that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every man-child in your generations; he that is born in the house, or bought with money of any stranger which is not of thy seed." And to render this command with regard to his servants ...
— An Appeal to the Christian Women of the South • Angelina Emily Grimke
... frugal existence was disturbed and terminated by an untoward event. The renowned and holy Sheikh made a feast to celebrate the circumcision of his sons. That the merriment of the auspicious occasion and the entertainment of the guests might be increased, Sherif, according to the lax practice of the time, granted a dispensation from any sins committed during the festivities, ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... to be enough of the wood of the true cross, said Erasmus, to make a ship; there were exhibited five shin-bones of the ass on which Christ rode, whole bottles of the Virgin's milk, and several complete bits of skin saved from the circumcision of Jesus. ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... are of Age to answer for themselves would soon learn the Principles of our Faith, and might be taught the Obligation of the Vow they made in Baptism, and there's little Doubt but Abraham instructed his Heathen Servants who were of Age to learn, the Nature of Circumcision before he circumcised them; nor can we conclude much less from God's own noble Testimony of him, 'I know him that he will command his Children and his Household, and they shall keep the Way of the Lord.'"[3] Sewall believed that the emancipation of the slaves should be promoted to encourage ...
— The Education Of The Negro Prior To 1861 • Carter Godwin Woodson
... thy works too. The style of thy works, the phrase of thine actions, is metaphorical The institution of thy whole worship in the old law was a continual allegory; types and figures overspread all, and figures flowed into figures, and poured themselves out into farther figures; circumcision carried a figure of baptism, and baptism carries a figure of that purity which we shall have in perfection in the new Jerusalem. Neither didst thou speak and work in this language only in the time of thy prophets; ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne
... was only in appearance. You must leave out all about His Baptism, Circumcision, and Crucifixion. They ...
— The Prayer Book Explained • Percival Jackson
... TYPES. The rite of Circumcision, practised in Old Testament times, was a type of Baptism; and the Passover was a type of the ...
— An Explanation of Luther's Small Catechism • Joseph Stump
... misturn more," said the messenger. "The morrow after Holy Innocents a second fit of the palsy took him as he stood at the altar at mass, and they bare him home to die. And the eve of the Circumcision [December 31st, 1384], two days thereafter, the good ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... and that is, that, in order to be perfect, a man's life must be as pronounced on the negative side as the positive, in its denials as in its affirmations, and that it is futile to attempt to obey God unless one at the same time renounce all co-partnery with the devil. Circumcision is the symbol of this renunciation, and it is only as such it has any radical spiritual significance. Till he was circumcised, it is said, God did not speak to Abraham in Hebrew. Not till then is sacredness of speech, any more than sacredness of life, possible. Doubtless ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... primitive churches, Acts viii. 12, and xvi. 15, though only the males were circumcised under the Old Testament, is a rule for our baptizing of women as well as men, they being all one in Christ, Gal. iii. 28. So the admitting of infants to the first initiating sacrament of the Old Testament, circumcision, because they with their parents' were accounted within the covenant of grace by God, Gen. xvii., is a rule for us now to admit infants to the first initiating sacrament of the New Testament, baptism, because infants are federally ...
— The Divine Right of Church Government • Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London
... his Poverty, Power, Family, &c. The Proes or Boats here. Raja Laut the General, Brother of the Sultan, and his Family. Their way of Fighting. Their Religion. Raja Laut's Devotion. A Clock or Drum in their Mosques. Of their Circumcision, and the Solemnity then used. Of other their Religious Observations and Superstitions. Their ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various
... from birth that the rite of circumcision could be dispensed with. He was thus one of the thirteen men born perfect in a way.[51] Adam begot him in his likeness and image, different from Cain, who had not been in his likeness and image. Thus Seth became, in a genuine sense, the father of the human ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... history of the modern church. His influence was so great as to lead very many of the young men of Germany to embrace the vital doctrines of Christianity. His father was a Jewish peddler, Emanuel Mendel, and the boy was named David at circumcision. Various forces co-operated in directing his mind toward the Christian religion; of which we might mention the philosophy of Plato, the Romantic School, and above all, Schleiermacher's Discourses on ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... some time; and that having a mind to marry the daughter of the high priest, he had himself been circumcised; but that not being able to obtain her, he quarrelled with the Jews and wrote against circumcision, and against the observation of the Sabbath, and against all the legal ordinances.—Author.] [Much abridged from the Exam. Crit. de la Vie de St. ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... own imaginations, and mixing them with those divine openings, brought forth a monstrous birth, to the scandal of those that feared God, and waited daily in the temple not made with hands, for the consolation of Israel; the Jew inward, and circumcision in spirit. ...
— A Brief Account of the Rise and Progress of the People Called Quakers • William Penn
... presentation from the emperor to the church of a great silver table, and, in conjunction with his son Charles and his daughters, of golden vessels belonging to the table of five hundred pounds' weight. This great gift was followed, on the Feast of the Circumcision, with a superb golden corona to be suspended over the altar. It was ornamented with gems, and contained fifty pounds of gold. On the Feast of the Epiphany he added three golden chalices, weighing forty-two pounds, and a golden ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... scene, or was just coming. The teachers who affirmed, or insinuated, that Jesus Christ could be reached only through the ceremonial law, were now to be reckoned with. The converts were disturbed, or soon might be disturbed, by being told that proselytism to Moses, sealed by circumcision, was a sine qua non in order to a valid hope of salvation through the Gospel; that the man awakened from his paganism must be at least something of a Jew to be anything of a Christian; that the door was not absolutely open between ...
— Philippian Studies - Lessons in Faith and Love from St. Paul's Epistle to the Philippians • Handley C. G. Moule
... living according to them, and to follow the king's laws, and the Grecian way of living. Wherefore they desired his permission to build them a Gymnasium at Jerusalem. [15] And when he had given them leave, they also hid the circumcision of their genitals, that even when they were naked they might appear to be Greeks. Accordingly, they left off all the customs that belonged to their own country, and imitated the practices of ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... these youngsters. Such Christian names as Trinity, Heart of Jesus, Nativity, John of God, Conception, Ascension, Incarnation, are common enough, but these had scarcely prepared me to meet with a fellow-creature named—well, Circumcision! Besides the people, there were dogs, cats, turkeys, ducks, geese, and fowls without number. Not content with all these domestic birds and beasts, they also kept a horrid, shrieking paroquet, which the ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... both creeds are impartially condemned. "They are good riders who keep aloof from the Veda and Koran."[655] Caste, circumcision and idolatry are reprobated. The Hindu deities and their incarnations are all dead: God was not in any of them.[656] Ram, it would seem, should be understood not as Ramacandra but as a name ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... had deceived the people (1535-6). Other writers and preachers questioned the doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation, and advocated many heresies condemned by the early Church, some of them going so far as to insist on the revival of circumcision ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... and most instructive, is the rite practised by the Kikuyu of British East Africa,[30] who require that every boy, just before circumcision, must be born again. "The mother stands up with the boy crouching at her feet; she pretends to go through all the labour pains, and the boy on being reborn cries like a babe ...
— Ancient Art and Ritual • Jane Ellen Harrison
... I heard of the maner of their mariages, for offending of honest consciences and chaste ears, I may not commit to writing: their fasting I haue declared before. They vse circumcision vnto children of seuen yeeres of age, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation v. 4 • Richard Hakluyt
... adulterer, or he that is a preceptor of Sudras, or he that has betaken himself to the profession of arms, or he that wanders with dogs (for hunting), or he that has been bit by a dog, or he that has wedded before his elder brothers, or he that seems to have undergone circumcision,[405] he that violates the bed of his preceptor, he that is an actor or mime, he that lives by setting up a deity and he that lives by calculating the conjunctions of stars and planets and asterisms[406], are regarded as fit to be excluded from the line. Persons ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... some beautiful "stories" representing the "Marriage of the Virgin," the "Salutation," the "Adoration of the Magi," the "Circumcision of Christ" and the "Death ...
— Fra Angelico • J. B. Supino
... the medical department of the U. S. Army, has an article in Journal of the Association of Military Surgeons for September, 1903, on "Circumcision and Flagellation among the Filipinos." In regard to circumcision he states that it "is a very ancient custom among the Philippine indios, and so generalized that at least seventy or eighty per cent of males in the Tagal country have undergone the operation." ...
— History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2 • Antonio de Morga
... outraging the rights of hundreds of human beings, as moral, intellectual, immortal, fallen creatures, and in violating their relations as parents and children, and husbands and wives. And God not only connived at this appalling iniquity, but, in the covenant of circumcision made with Abraham, expressly mentions it, and confirms the patriarch in it, speaking of those 'bought with his money,' and requiring him to circumcise them. Why, at the very first blush, every Christian will cry out against this statement. To this, ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... Pisgah purg'd was the sight Of a son of Circumcision, So may be, on this Pisgah height, Bob's purblind, mental vision: Nay, Bobby's mouth may be open'd yet Till for eloquence you hail him, And swear he has the angel met That met the Ass ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... saint infatuated with metaphors and hyperboles. She talks directly with God the Father, and stammers out in ecstasy explanations of the mysteries revealed to her by the Ancient of days. Her books contain one sovereign page on the Circumcision, another magnificent one, entirely made up of antitheses, on the Holy Spirit, others, very strange, on the deification of the human soul, on its union with heaven, and on the part assigned in this operation to ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... I arrived at "Cheder" with my Bible in one hand and my dinner in the other. The boys were excited, jolly. Why? The teacher was not there. What had happened? He had gone off to a Circumcision with his wife. That is to say, not with her, God forbid! A teacher never walks with his wife. The teacher walks before, and his ...
— Jewish Children • Sholem Naumovich Rabinovich
... himself for useful and social virtues. The mind is confounded and reason interdicted with the view of ridiculous practices and pitiable means which the ministers of the gods invented in every country to purify souls and render Heaven favorable to nations. Here, they practice circumcision upon a child to procure it Divine benevolence; there, they pour water upon his head to wash away the crimes which he could not yet have committed; in other places he is told to plunge himself into a river whose waters have the power to wash away all his impurities; in other ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier
... which is intended in Revelation (3:14), where Christ is spoken of as the Amen, the faithful and true Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God, and that which Paul means when he says that in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is worth anything, "but ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... remarkably breaks the flow of the narrative, as proof that his great principle of justification by faith was really the one only law by which, in all ages, men had found acceptance with God. Long before law or circumcision, faith had been counted for righteousness. The whole Mosaic system was a parenthesis; and even in it, whoever had been accepted had been so because of his trust, not because of his works. The whole of the subsequent divine dealings with Israel rested on this act of faith, and on the relation ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... a relish, {54} or seasoning, and give to each monk one good glass thereof, that is to say, the fourth part of one {55} for each monk—to wit, on the first, second, and third day of the feast of the Nativity, the Circumcision, the Epiphany, and the Purification of the Blessed Virgin; and the pittancer is to put spice in the said relish, and the cellarer is to provide wine and honey, and during infirmary time those who are being bled are to receive no pittance from the pittancer. Further, from the ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler
... up—in fact, "nothing was inserted that I did not fully comprehend and approve of." He was to call at Madeira for a supply of wine; to sail for the Cape of Good Hope and there refresh his men; then to look for Cape Circumcision, placed by M. Bouvet in 54 degrees South, 11 degrees 20 minutes East, to determine if it formed part of a continent, and if so to explore it, following the coast and endeavouring to get as near to the South Pole as he could without endangering his ships ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson
... Zurayk had married a black girl, one of the freed women of the Wazir Ja'afar and she had borne him a son, whom he named Abdallah, and he had promised her to spend the money in the purse on the occasion of the boy's circumcision and of his marriage- procession. So he went into his house and, as he entered, his wife saw that his face was overcast and asked him, "What hath caused thy sadness?" Quoth he, "Allah hath afflicted me this day with a rascal who made seven attempts ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... Cephas came to Antioch, I resisted him to the face, because he stood condemned. For before that certain came from James, he did eat with the Gentiles: but when they came, he drew back and separated himself, fearing them that were of the circumcision. And the rest of the Jews [the Jewish Christians] dissembled likewise with him; insomuch that even Barnabas was carried away with their dissimulation. But when I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, I said ...
— Who Wrote the Bible? • Washington Gladden
... of the ordinance imposing circumcision on the descendants of Abraham, is in these words. "And God said unto Abraham, Thou shalt keep my covenant therefore, thou and thy seed after thee in their generations. This is my covenant which ye shall keep, between me and you, and thy seed after thee; Every man child among you shall ...
— Five Pebbles from the Brook • George Bethune English
... their own children to read the Koran, but them only; it is never translated, and to servants who go to the Mosque it is all dumb show. Some servants imbibe Mohamadan bigotry about eating, but they offer no prayers. Circumcision, to make halel, or fit to slaughter the animals for their master, is the utmost advance any have made. As the Arabs in East Africa never feel themselves called on to propagate the doctrines of Islam, among the heathen Africans, ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... to enter the grove approaches the sanctuary, music and dancing are heard and seen on every side. As soon as the maidens are received, they are taken by the gree-gree women to a neighboring stream, where they are washed, and undergo an operation which is regarded as a sort of circumcision. Anointed from head to foot with palm-oil, they are next reconducted to their home in the gree-gree bush. Here, under strict watch, they are maintained by their relatives or those who are in treaty for them as wives, until they reach ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... Circumcision is practised among men, and a certain infliction on women, not, however, from religious motives, but to guard against the consequences of a disease not uncommon among them. The infliction upon women is the result of infidelity, or a sacrifice of chastity to loose gratification. As a preliminary, ...
— Observations Upon The Windward Coast Of Africa • Joseph Corry
... St. Stephen; St. John; Circumcision; Epiphany; Septuagesima; Lent; Easter and Paschal Times; ...
— The Divine Office • Rev. E. J. Quigley
... stretching westward as far as and including the tribes of the Kotawaringin. Also, in the Western Division on the Upper Kapuas and Melawi Rivers, the same usage obtains. In Bandjermasin prominent Mohammedans, one of them a Malay Hadji, told me that the Malays also practise incision instead of circumcision. The Malays, moreover, perform an operation on small girls, ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... things unlawful, and in urging of non-conformity as necessary, should they therefore contemn our being scandalised? Those that would have Titus circumcised, were they not malicious? Did they not urge circumcision as necessary? Held they it not unlawful not to circumcise Titus? Yet did the Apostle abstain because they were to be scandalised, that is, made worse and more wicked calumniators by the circumcising of Titus, as I have showed;(410) so that albeit we know not to take care for the displeasing ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... king of that country, who fully concurred with the views of the writer, the priests, jealous of admitting a foreigner into their secrets, baffled him as long as they could, referring him from one college to another, and prescribing to him the most rigorous preparatives, not excluding the rite of circumcision. [57] But Pythagoras endured and underwent every thing, till at length their unwillingness was conquered, and his perseverance ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... even the name of Socotora would not be mentioned. It is not certainly known what religion they profess, so monstrous is their belief. They hold from the Saracens the worship of Mahomet, from the Jews the use of circumcision and sacrifices, and yet give themselves the name of Christians. The males bear the name of some or other of the apostles, the most part of the women are called Mary, and yet they have no knowledge of baptism. They adore the cross, ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden |
