Genesis Vol 3.pdf - College Press

THE OLD COVENANT 17:1-27
it has been suggested that its object is to increase pro-
creative phimosis. . . . Such an object, however, is im-
probable for low stages of society- it implies an extent
of observation that is not to be assumed for savages.” 5,
“There is no clear evidence that the origin of circumcision
is to be traced to religious conceptions. It has been held
that it is connected with the cult of the generative organs
(phallic worship). . . . But each of these customs is found
frequently without the other: In India we have phallic
worship without circumcision, in Australia circumcision
without phallic worship; and this separateness of the two
may be said to be the rule. The cult of the phallus seems
not to exist among the lowest peoples.” 6. “The view that
circumcision is of the nature of a sacrifice or dedication
to a deity, particularly to a diety of fertility, appears to
be derived from late usages in times when more refined
ideas have been attached to early customs. The Phrygian
practice of excision was regarded, probably, as a sacrifice.
But elsewhere, in Egypt, Babylonia, Syria, and Canaan,
where the worship of gods and goddesses of fertility was
prominent, we do not find circumcision connected there-
with. In the writings of the Old Testament prophets it is
treated as a symbol of moral purification. Among the
lower peoples there is no trace of the conception if it as a
sacrifice. It is not circumcision that makes the phallus
sacred-it is sacred in itself, and all procedures of savage
veneration for the prepuce assume its inherent potency.”
7. Nor can circumcision be explained as an attenuated
survival of human sacrifice. “The practice (in Peru and
elsewhere) of drawing blood from the heads or hands of
children on solemn occasions may be a softening of an old
savage custom, and the blood of circumcision is sacred.
But this quality attaches to all blood, and the essential
thing in circumcision is not the blood but the removal of
the prepuce.” 8. “The suggestion that the object of de-
taching and preserving the foreskin (a vital part of one’s
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