“Bete TRAVELS TOODISCOVERH 
tend to any. It would have been otherwife, if the era 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 epocly in their hi- 
ftory, whilft it was probable that they adopted: circumcifiom 
“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. 
7 . 
.3 
Ir feems to me very extraordinary, that, if circumcifion 
was originally a Jewifh invention, all thofe 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 fince the 
14ooth year before Chrift, they have been in the clofeft con-: 
nection with the Jews. This would rather make me believe, 
that the rite of circumcifion went northward from the plain 
of Mame, for it certainly made no progrefs fouthward from : 
Egypt. We fee it obtained in Arabia, by Zipporah*, Mofes’s — 
wife, circumcifing 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 fin that attended the omiflion of this operation in Egypt, 
but God had faid to Abraham 1, “ The foul that is not cir- 
cumcifed fhall be cut off from Ifrael.” ms 
Tur Tcheratz Agows,; who live between ‘Lafta and Be- 
-gemder, in an exceedingly fertile country, are not circum- 
cifed ; 
” 
er ; : ; 
* Exod. chap. iv. ver,-25.. ’ Gen chap. xvii. ver. 14s 
s ¢. i 
