68 CEREMONIAL INSTITUTIONS. 



ment of tlieir slavery to him. Hence, when Movers says 

 that among the Phoenicians circumcision was &quot; a sign of 

 consecration to Saturn/ 7 and when proof is given that of 

 old the people of San Salvador circumcised &quot; in the Jewish 

 manner, offering the blood to an idol,&quot; we are shown just 

 the result to be anticipated as eventually arising. 



That this interpretation applies to the custom as made 

 known in the Bible, is clear. We have already seen that 

 the ancient Hebrews, like the modern Abyssinians, prac 

 tised the form of trophy-taking which necessitates this mu 

 tilation of the dead enemy; and as in the one case, so in the 

 other, it follows that the vanquished enemy not slain but 

 made prisoner, will by this mutilation be marked as a subject 

 person. That circumcision was among the Hebrews the 

 stamp of subjection, all the evidence proves. On learning 

 that among existing Bedouins, the only conception of God 

 is that of a powerful living ruler, the sealing by circumcision 

 of the covenant between God and Abraham becomes a 

 comprehensible ceremony. There is furnished an explana 

 tion of the fact that in consideration of a territory to be re 

 ceived, this mutilation, undergone by Abraham, implied 

 that &quot; the Lord &quot; was &quot; to be a god unto &quot; him; as also of 

 the fact that the mark was to be borne not by him and his 

 descendants only, as favoured individuals, but also by slaves 

 not of his blood. And on remembering that by primitive 

 peoples the returning double of the dead potentate is 

 believed to be indistinguishable from the living potentate, 

 we get an interpretation of the strange tradition concerning 

 God s anger with Moses for not circumcising his son: 

 &quot; And it came to pass by the way in the inn, that the Lord 

 met Moses, and sought to kill him. Then Zipporah took a 

 sharp stone, and cut off the foreskin of her son, and cast it 

 at his feet.&quot; There are further proofs that circumcision 

 among the Jews was a mark of subordination to Jahveh. 

 Under the foreign ruler Antiochus, who brought in foreign 

 gods, circumcision was forbidden ; and those who, persever- 



