"Circumcision" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... is worthy of note that many eminent physicians now advocate the custom of circumcision, claiming that the removal of a little of the foreskin induces cleanliness, thus preventing the irritation and excitement which come from the gathering of the whiteish matter under the foreskin ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... 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 easily persuaded that Paul was not a sincere ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther
... 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 away. ...
— The Life of St. Paul • James Stalker
... admitted to the privileges of manhood, supposed to be an institution peculiar to the Australians, is found among the Kowraregas, but whether it extends throughout Torres Strait is uncertain. This initiation is not at Cape York and Muralug accompanied by the performance either of circumcision or the knocking out of a tooth, as in many parts of Australia. The boys, usually three or four in number, are chased about in the bush during the day by some of the men decked out with feathers and other ornaments, and at night retire ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray
... of Good Hope on November 22, and steered a course towards Cape Circumcision, which was the first object for which they were directed to search. They soon found the weather very cold, when warm clothing was issued; and having encountered a heavy gale, with hail and rain, which drove them far to the eastward ...
— Captain Cook - His Life, Voyages, and Discoveries • W.H.G. Kingston
... they be blest by the conversion and restoration of Israel! Why do we expect the Jews to abandon their national customs and distinctions? The Abyssinian church said that they claimed a descent from Abraham; and that, in virtue of such ancestry, they observed circumcision: but declaring withal, that they rejected the covenant of works, and rested on the promise fulfilled in Jesus Christ. In consequence of this appeal, the Abyssinians were permitted to ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... 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 found and preserved ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... having left Egypt in a sedition;(160) as being true types of the Christians in their ancient factiousness;(161) considers Moses to be only on a level with the early Greek legislators;(162) regards Jewish rites like circumcision to be borrowed from Egypt; charges anthropomorphism on Jewish theology,(163) and declines allowing the allegorical interpretation in explanation of it;(164) examines Jewish prophecy, parallels it with heathen oracles,(165) and claims that the goodness not the truth of a prophecy ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... followed him. Now 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 ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... 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 ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson
... was a pattern or example to them, he has made plain; for instance, in the beginning of this chapter, in the third verse and following, he says: "For we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God, and glory in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh: though I myself might have confidence even in the flesh: if any other man thinketh to have confidence in the flesh, I yet more: circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... spiritual religion intended to suit a 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 and of the chosen of the flock, we may see a design not merely connected with the religious faith ...
— Consolations in Travel - or, the Last Days of a Philosopher • Humphrey Davy
... on 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 opened yet, Till for eloquence you hail him, And swear that he has the angel met That met the ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... reply to the observations of Monsieur le Monier, in the memoirs of the French Academy of Sciences for 1776, respecting what Captain Cook alleged in the account of his second voyage, of the non-existence of Cape Circumcision, said to have been discovered by Bouvet in 1738. As the subject, though exceedingly well treated by Mr Wales, is in itself of scarce any importance, and has long lost interest among scientific enquirers, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... came under that denomination. I then desired them to hold a consultation, and see what was necessary to be done in order to become a Musselman, as some of their tenets could not be practised by us. That, as to circumcision, God had made us unfit for that. That, with respect to drinking wine, we were poor cold people, inhabitants of the north, who could not exist without it. They consulted together accordingly, and in about three weeks issued a fetham, declaring that circumcision ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... people attached to so singular a procedure, we may be guided by the ideas associated with this act in outlying corners of the world at the present time. On these grounds we may surmise that the motive underlying this, and other later methods of blood-letting, such as circumcision, piercing the ears, lips, and tongue, gashing the limbs and body, et cetera, was the offering ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... 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 Religion. When seventeen years of age he was baptized and received the combined name of ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... may be at a distance from a moral precept, and therewith bring souls under the law. Thus he did with some of old; he did not make the Galatians fall from Christ by virtue of one of the ten words, but by something that was aloof off; by circumcision, days, and months, that were Levitical ceremonies; for he knows it is no matter, nor in what Testament he found it, if he can therewith hide Christ from the soul—'Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing. For I testify again to every man ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... of 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 ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVI, 1609 • H.E. Blair
... the world.[480] They eat and sleep separately. Though immoderate in sexual indulgence, they refrain from all intercourse with foreign women: among themselves anything is allowed.[481] They have introduced circumcision to distinguish themselves from other people. Those who are converted to their customs adopt the same practice, and the first lessons they learn are to despise the gods,[482] to renounce their country, and to think nothing of their parents, children, and brethren. However, they take ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... fact gained in importance to an extraordinary degree during the exile, having severed itself completely, not merely from agriculture, but in particular also from the sacrificial system, and gained entire independence as a holy solemnity of rest. Accordingly, it became along with circumcision the symbol that bound together the Jewish diaspora; thus already in the Priestly Code the two institutions are the general distinguishing marks of religion [)WT Genesis xvii. 10, 11; Exodus xxxi. 13] which also continue to subsist under circumstances ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... of the Passover, being in the month of Nisan. This was a cause of joy to Israel, for he was eager to triumph over his enemies face to face, and he could not wait eight other days for the Feast of the circumcision. So he set a supper fit for a king: the fore-leg of a sheep and the fore-leg of an ox, the egg roasted in ashes, the balls of Charoseth, the three Mitzvoth, and the wine, And by the time the supper was ready the midwife had been summoned, ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine
... 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 ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... must be observed indeed that in common speech the term Malay, like that of Moor in the continent of India, is almost synonymous with Mahometan; and when the natives of other parts learn to read the Arabic character, submit to circumcision, and practise the ceremonies of religion, they are often said men-jadi Malayo, to become Malays, instead of the more correct expression sudah masuk Islam, have embraced the faith. The distinction will appear ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... James Inquires, [sic] "What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith and have not works? Will his (dead) faith save, him?" Or we may add, can his dead baptismal regeneration do it? As the apostle of the Gentiles declares, that circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God: so as baptism occupies the place of circumcision, baptism is nothing and the want of it nothing, unless accompanied with a sincere, ...
— American Lutheranism Vindicated; or, Examination of the Lutheran Symbols, on Certain Disputed Topics • Samuel Simon Schmucker
... great feasts every year; on the anniversaries of his birth, his circumcision, his coronation, and his marriage. Sitting upon his throne of state, all his kindred, barons, and stage-players, attend in great ceremony and in rich attire; the highest order being dressed in green, the second in red, and the third in yellow, all girt with ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... persons whom I have met here, is Ferhat Pasha, formerly General Stein, Hungarian Minister of War, and Governor of Transylvania. He accepted Moslemism with Bem and others, and now rejoices in his circumcision and 7,000 piastres a month. He is a fat, companionable sort of man; who, by his own confession, never labored very zealously for the independence of Hungary, being an Austrian by birth. He conversed with me for several hours on the scenes in which he had ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... tribal marks (totemism, circumcision, tattooing, scarification), and religious dedication are devices by which, consciously or unconsciously, the men escape from the tyranny of the maternal system. We cannot assume that these practices originate solely or largely in dissatisfaction, for the men would feel the advantage of a combination ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas
... an arrant fraud, the Prohibs fall back upon the Bible. You may prove five hundred different religious dogmas by the Bible, but Prohibition is not one of them. Bro. Homan declares that the Old Testament prohibits the drinking of wine. It does not; but it does not make circumcision obligatory, and a sin of omission is as bad as a sin of commission. If Bro. Homan proposes to be guided by the Old Testament I beg to suggest that he is overlooking a very important bit. The Old Testament commands no class of people to abstain from wine, except the Jewish priesthood, and ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... poorely: they 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 going further into the ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 10 - Asia, Part III • Richard Hakluyt
... 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 was not customary ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... ordeal had grown into something that constituted the great barrier of his life, so that one passed over to the other side as quite a different being; it was something after the fashion of the mysterious circumcision in the Bible, a consecration to new things. And now the whole thing was just a spitefully ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... 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 the ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... contrary to the end of the Sabbath observance: since man abstains from other works on the Sabbath day in order that he may occupy himself with works connected with God's service. For this reason, according to John 7:23, "a man [*Vulg.: 'If a man,' etc.] receives circumcision on the Sabbath day, that the law of Moses may not be broken": and for this reason too we read (Matt. 12:5), that "on the Sabbath days the priests in the temple break the Sabbath," i.e. do corporal works on the Sabbath, "and are without blame." Accordingly, ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... none of His"; "If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema"; "Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not that Jesus Christ is in you—except ye be [Greek: adokimoi], counterfeits?" "In Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but faith which worketh by love." Such sentences throw a flood of holy and searching light on the sense in which St Paul "took them all for granted." And the Prayer Book is in true harmony with both parts ...
— To My Younger Brethren - Chapters on Pastoral Life and Work • Handley C. G. Moule
... Scripture. The words chosen to press it express much pain and pains, much torment and labour. It is not so easy and trivial a business to forsake sin, or subdue it, as many think, who only think it easy because they have never tried it. It is a circumcision of the foreskin of the heart, and you know how it disabled a whole city, (Gen. xxxiv.) and how it enraged the heart of a tender mother, Exod. iv. 26. It is the excision or cutting off a member, and these the most dear and precious, ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... 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 ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay
... is in shape and appearance, though not in colour, almost exactly like the grenadier's shako of the last century. In addition to this priceless trophy, V. also gave us samples of the cattle bells, both wooden and metal, ivory ear ornaments, bead bracelets, steel collars, circumcision knives, sword belts, and other affairs of like value. But I think that the apogee of his kindliness was reached when much later he heard from the native tribes that we were engaged in penetrating the ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... were malicious in offending at the ceremonies as 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, ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... Christmas Day 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 ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... 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 ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... 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
... opposite tendencies at work in connection with it. On the one hand there is a disposition to smooth matters, to drop the harsher practices, to let an animal victim suffice where a man used to be sacrificed, to let the man off with some slight mutilation, such as circumcision; or to allow poor people to offer a less costly victim than the former custom claimed—the rite, in fact, becomes civilised, and adapts itself to the feelings of a humaner period. On the other hand there is a tendency to add to the value of the offerings, ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... Wisdom into one glorious building. Christ, God's Holy Wisdom, includes all of us, why should we exclude each other? He was sent for the salvation of China and Japan and India as well as for that of the Jews and Greeks. Well, let us quarrel no more about the "circumcision" while a milliard of human beings are still waiting to hear for the first time the name of Jesus Christ—yea, for the first time after two thousand years! Let the present time be the new Pentecost for us all. I speak to you, the ...
— The Agony of the Church (1917) • Nikolaj Velimirovic
... was 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." ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... our plan shall be fully executed. We must either admit 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 proceed ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... ethics and morality as the only religion that he needs, send him to a tribunal that damns him. "Tell me," says St. Paul, "ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law? The law is not of faith, but the man that doeth them shall live by them. Circumcision verily profiteth if thou keep the law; but if thou be a breaker of the law, thy circumcision is made uncircumcision." If man had been true to all the principles and precepts of natural religion, it would indeed be religion ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd
... kneeled, and a blow of the yatagan severed his head from the body. His crime was apostasy from the Mohammedan faith. He was an obscure Armenian, and while under the influence of alcohol had abjured the faith of his fathers, and declared himself a Mohammedan. He had not submitted, however, to the rite of circumcision before he repented of his rashness. The penalty of apostasy being death, he fled to Greece. In about a year, impatient to see his widowed mother, he returned in a Frank dress, but was soon recognized, imprisoned, tortured to induce ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume I. • Rufus Anderson
... Nyssen says that his festival followed close upon those of Christmas, S. Stephen, S. Peter, S. James, and S. John. We read in an oration ascribed to S. Amphilochius, that he died on the day of the Circumcision, between the Nativity of Jesus Christ and His Baptism. S. Gregory Nyssen says that the Feast of Lights, and of the Baptism of Jesus Christ, was celebrated some days after that of His Nativity. The other S. Gregory takes notice of several mysteries which were ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... 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 ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... true disciple, Peter followed Christ's lead, and though 'they of the circumcision' were struck with amazement, he said to himself, 'Who am I, that I should withstand God?' and opened his heart to welcome these new converts as possessors of 'like precious faith' as was demonstrated by their possession of the same Spirit. Would that Peter's willingness to recognise all who ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... 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". Just at the dawn of day, a row of boys of ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... dark clouds of conceit and the 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
... that are sick; wherefore, little children are whole, for they are not capable of committing sin; wherefore the curse of Adam is taken from them in me, that it hath no power over them; and the law of circumcision is done away ...
— The Book Of Mormon - An Account Written By The Hand Of Mormon Upon Plates Taken - From The Plates Of Nephi • Anonymous
... phymosis. Gonorrhoeal paraphymosis and phymosis. Effect of circumcision. Protrusion of the glans through an ulcerated opening in the prepuce. Congenital hypospadias. Ulcerated perforations of the urethra. Congenital epispadias. Urethral fistula, stricture, and catheterism. Sacculated urethra. Stricture opposite the bulb and the membranous ...
— Surgical Anatomy • Joseph Maclise
... steadfastness abides in the will of God and the doctrines of Christ is demonstrated in the teachings of Barnabas to the church at Antioch. There was some contention in the church over circumcision, and heavy persecutions from without, and many were being moved from the true faith. Barnabas exhorted that with purpose of heart they cleave to the Lord. Steadfastness is a firm, fixed purpose ...
— How to Live a Holy Life • C. E. Orr
... 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 has been selected with better ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson
... slaughter and devastation, unaccompanied by any views of policy or plans of administration. The people were—and indeed still are—passionately attached to their old customs, which even a king rarely ventured to disturb (though Tshaka is said to have abolished among his subjects the rite of circumcision, which is generally practised by the Kafirs); and it was probably as much the unwillingness to have their customs disturbed as the apprehension for their land that made many of the tribes oppose to the advance of the Europeans so obstinate a resistance. Though they feared the firearms of the whites, ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... membrane, by means of which, and of its nervous substance, it becomes most extremely sensitive, and is the principal seat of pleasure in copulation. The outer covering of the glans is called the preputium (foreskin), which the Jews cut off in circumcision, and it is fastened by the lower part of it to the glans. The penis is also provided with ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
... 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 ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton
... some beautiful "stories" representing the "Marriage of the Virgin," the "Salutation," the "Adoration of the Magi," the "Circumcision of Christ" and the ...
— Fra Angelico • J. B. Supino
... 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. A woman may not see such a ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... Stephen's Day | St. John the Evangelist's Day take precedence of First Holy Innocents' Day / Sunday after Christmas. The Circumcision | ...
— Ritual Conformity - Interpretations of the Rubrics of the Prayer-Book • Unknown
... has laid the people under no tax for a nuptial benediction, there are two operations which it has appropriated, and from which it derives considerable advantages. One is tattowing, and the other circumcision, though neither of them have any connection with religion. The tattowing has been described already. Circumcision has been adopted merely from motives of cleanliness; it cannot indeed properly be called circumcision, because ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... kill the son, was readily devined by Zipporah; her son had not been circumcised; so with woman's quick intuition and natural courage to save the life of her husband, she skillfully performed the necessary operation, and the travellers went on their way rejoicing. The word circumcision seems to have a very elastic meaning "uncircumcised lips" is used to describe that want of power to speak fluently, from which Moses suffered and which ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... 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 ...
— Philippian Studies - Lessons in Faith and Love from St. Paul's Epistle to the Philippians • Handley C. G. Moule
... is very obscure; if Dr. Oppert's idea is correct, there is an allusion to the detested custom of circumcision, the performance of which was regarded as ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous
... preached by Kabir 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 offence. He abolished distinctions of ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... Nasif alYazaji the names of entertainments are as follows: Al-Jafala general invitation, opp. to Al-Nakar, especial; Khurs, a childbirth feast; 'Akikah, when the boy-babe is first shaved; A'zrcircumcision-feast; Hizk, when the boy has finished his perlection of the Koran; Milk, on occasion of marriage-offer; Wazimah, a mourning entertainment; Wakiraha "house-warming"; Naki'ah, on returning from wayfare; 'Akirah, at beginning of the ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... Might probably attain both in the end, If they would but pursue the proper way Which Fortune plainly seemed 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. ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... 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, 336ff.; St. L. ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... some civilization. His father possessed many elephants, and even some horses which were rare in those countries; money was unknown, but trade by barter was carried on regularly and by auction. Stars were worshipped; circumcision was usual. Two white families lived ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... everything he had, including his young bride's trousseau; and the sale of the goods brought thirty-five rubles. After a year's time the police came again, looking for the balance of the Czar's dues. They put their seal on everything they found. The bride was in bed with her first baby, a boy. The circumcision was to be next day. The police did not leave a sheet to wrap the child in when he is ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... 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; but since ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne
... 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
... when a Christian lad, meeting them on the sabbath in the Fischerfeld, showed himself kindly and attentive. I was consequently extremely curious to become acquainted with their ceremonies. I did not desist until I had frequently visited their school, had assisted at a circumcision and a wedding, and formed a notion of the Feast of the Tabernacles. Everywhere I was well received, pleasantly entertained, and invited to come again; for it was through persons of influence that I had been either ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... weak need building up in every possible way, as by an outdoor life, cold sponging daily, etc. If there is in boys a long foreskin, or tight foreskin, hindering the escape of urine and natural secretions of this part, circumcision may be performed to advantage by the surgeon, even in the infant a few months old. Sometimes a simpler operation, consisting of stretching or overdistending the foreskin, ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume II (of VI) • Various
... even of 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 ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but faith which worketh ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... French were poor cold people, inhabitants of the north, who could not exist without wine. For a long time the imams demurred to this plea, which involved greater difficulties than the question of circumcision: but after long consultations they decided that both objections might be waived in consideration of a superabundance of good works. The reply was prompted by an irony no less subtle than that which accompanied the ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... that the true Jews and the true Christians have but the same religion.—The religion of the Jews seemed to consist essentially in the fatherhood of Abraham, in circumcision, in sacrifices, in ceremonies, in the Ark, in the temple, in Jerusalem, and, finally, in the law, and in the covenant ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal
... this TEMPLUM DOMINI were some-time canons regulars, and they had an abbot to whom they were obedient; and in this temple was Charlemagne when that the angel brought him the prepuce of our Lord Jesus Christ of his circumcision; and after, King Charles let bring it to Paris into his chapel, and after that he let bring it to Peyteres, ...
— The Travels of Sir John Mandeville • Author Unknown
... 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 ...
— God The Invisible King • Herbert George Wells
... 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 ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson |
