344 



TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 



tend to any. It would have been otherwife, if the cera fixed 

 upon had been the reign of Menilek, fon of Solomon, when 

 they firft embraced Judaifm under a monarch. This 

 would have made a much more brilliant epoch in their hi- 

 fcory, whilft it was probable that they adopted circumcifion 

 under the countenance of Azarias, the fon of Zadok, the 

 high prieft, and the reprefentatives of the twelve tribes 

 who came with him at that time from Jerufalem. 



It feems to me very extraordinary, that, if circumcifion 

 was originally a Jewifh invention, all thole nations to the 

 fouth fhould be abfolutely ignorant of it, while others to 

 the northward were fo early acquainted with it ; for none 

 of thofe nations up the Nile (excepting the Shepherds) either 

 know or practife it to this day ; though, ever fmce the 

 1400th year before Chrift, they have been in the clofeii con- 

 nection with the Jews. This would rather make me believe, 

 that the rite of circumcifion went northward from the plain 

 of Mamre, for it certainly made no progrefs fouthward from 

 Egypt. We fee it obtained in Arabia, by Zipporah*, Mofes's 

 wife, circumcifmg her fon upon their return to Egypt. Her 

 great anxiety to have that operation immediately perform- 

 ed, fhews that her's was a Judaical circumcifion ; there was 

 no fm that attended the omimon of this operation in Egypt, 

 but God had faid to Abraham f, " The foul that is not ch> 

 cumcifed fhall be cut off from Ifracl." 



The Tcheratz Agows, who live between Lafta and Bc- 

 gemder, in an exceedingly fertile country, are not circum- 



cifed ; 



Exod. chap. iv. ver. 25. t Gen. chap. xvii. ver. 14. 



