Ifrael, and partly of the heathen colonies which the kings of Affyria planted there from remote parts of their dominion,) if it be confidered, that they occupied a greater portion of the country than the Jews, whom he never speaks of by name at all; and that it is altogether unlikely any Jews* would ever make fuch an acknowledgment as he ascribes to thofe Syrians, that they learned circumcifion from the Egyptians? Moreover, many other things concur, to leffen the weight of these testimonies, in favour of the more early practice of circumcifion among the Egyptians than among the defcendants of Abraham, and to evince that we cannot reasonably argue from them, + It is allowed by Sir John Marsham himself, that Herodotus, (who was born about the beginning of Xerxes's reign,) scarce knew the name of the Jews, they having only returned, a fhort time before his travels, from being captive in Babylon, Canon Chronic. 4to. p. 150. Suppofing therefore the Jews, ftrictly fo called, had been intended by him where he says, The Syrians in Palestine confefs they learned circumcifion from the Egyptians, (as indeed Jofephus applies the paffage to them without fcruple, because it ferved his purpose against Apion; See part 1. fect. laft,) much regard could not have been due to his relation of their accounts about the original of the rite, when his acquaintance with them is allowed to have been fo lame and imperfect. • Diodorus Siculus makes the Jews, on their expulfion from Egypt and fettlement in the country about Jerufalem, to have enacted rites wholly different from the rest of mankind, through their abhorrence of them, as will appear afterwards; which must particularly hold with regard to the Egyptians, who he fays drove them out of their country as impious and hated by the gods; now this does not look like borrowing circumcifion from the Egyptians, and then acknowledging it. Tacitus likewife fays Hift. 5.4. Mofes, that he might attach the nation to him⚫ self for ever, appointed them new rites, contrary to the rest of men; there all things are profane which we esteem facred, and all things on the other hand are permitted among them, which to us are unlawful,' ་ that the Egyptians were examples and inftructors to the Jews in the use of it. The Greek and Latin hiftorians univerfally, even they who lived after greater freedom of intercourse with the Jews was opened by the fuccefs of the Macedonian and Roman arms, and after greater advantages were thereby enjoyed for more accurate and exact information about them, have fallen into fo grofs blunders, when they treat of the affairs of this nation, as forbid our implicite and fecure reliance upon them, when they pretend to fay how or whence circumcifion obtained among them. For the truth of this, I may appeal to all who are acquainted with Trogus Pompeius as epitomized by Juftin, with Strabo, Diodorus Siculus, and Tacitus, to omit others. For, are we not told by one or other † of these authors, that Mofes was an Egyptian priest, and that he built Jerufalem with its temple, having taken poffeffion of the country fince called Judea, which was at that time wholly defolate; that the Jews practifed excifion upon* their females; that Ifrael having ten fons divided his people over whom he reigned into fo many kingdoms, and bestowed one upon each of them, the people being all called Judaei from Judas one of his fons, who died after the divifion; that Mofes arrived with a number of thofe men, who were banished from Egypt for the leprofy by the advice of an oracle, at mount Sina, in the country of Damaf + See Justin 36. 2. Strabo ubi fupra, Diod. Sicul. edit. Rhodom. P. 901. Taciti Hift. 5.2. &c. Exтoμa. Strabo, p. 761. and compare Note above page 283, -but exтoμia was exprefsly forbid the Jews; See Levit. xxii. 24. apud Sept. cus, after enduring hunger feven days in their paffage through the deserts of Arabia; that he stole the facra or gods of the Egyptians; that after Mofes's death, his fon Arvas, being priest to the Egyptian facra, was immediately made king; that the Jews confecrated in their temple the effigy of an afs, in memory of a fervice which they received from a herd of fuch brutes, when they were in the utmoft diftrefs through thirst, in that journey, by fhewing them fprings of water; that Mofes gave the priests greater fhares in the divifion of the lands, that, receiving more ample revenues, they might give more affiduous and close attention to religious offices; and like things, which I believe none will now maintain to be realities? Withal, the accounts they give of the Jewish affairs, are contradictory and inconfiftent with one another, of which inftances † may be feen below. I cannot point them out all. Juftin makes Mofes fprung from Jofeph, Ifrael's youngest son, who was a ftranger in Egypt, but Strabo represents him to have been one of the Egyptian priests. Justin, Diodorus, and Tacitus, fpeak of the Jews as expelled from Egypt, because they laboured under the leprofy, which was indeed a very common charge, wherefore Jofephus takes great pains to confute it, in his first book against Apion, fect. 25. &c. (and this by the bye is an additional argument no conclufion can be drawn to his fcepticism and infidelity, from those modes of expreffion that have been made a handle for the charge, as was before obferved, part 1. fect. 2. fince about their being infected with the leprofy, and therefore driven out of Egypt, he also uses one of them, 'But about these things let every one think as he pleases.') But Strabo makes the departure of Mofes, and of those who under his conduct removed from Egypt into the country where Jerufalem afterwards was built, to have been voluntary, and to have proceeded from his diffatisfaction with the Egyptian established rites, and his fuccefs in perfuading not a few well-minded perfons vyvaμovac Opws, that the Egyptians erred in likening the Divinity to beasts Why then should any take up with Herodotus's ftory, that the Egyptians were the authors of circumcifion to all other nations, and that the Syrians in Palestine, or the Jews themselves, confeffed they had learned it from them, as fome oracular affertion, who wrote when the Jews were lefs known to the Greeks, or truft to thefe later writers Diodorus and Strabo as infallible here, who have been led into fo egregious miftakes concerning them in other points?. -- Further, I might obferve that Herodotus's manner of expreffing himself fhews fome uncertainty where the practice of circumcifion first prevailed, fince he fays, whether the Ethiopians or Egyptians ufed it fooneft he could not tell, though for the rea both wild and tame, and the Libyans and Greeks in reprefenting gods under the fimilitude of men, for there was only one Deity called Heaven, which comprehended the earth, and fea, and all things. Juftin makes the people who went out of Egypt under Mofes, to have been originally from the country of Damafcus, where Damafcus, Azel, Adores, Abraham, and Ifrael, fucceffively fwayed the fceptre, though they afterwards fettled in Egypt; but Strabo makes them defcendants from the Egyptians themselves, as Tacitus tells us fome were of this opinion, and faid they poured out, on account of the immenfe numbers in Egypt, into the neighbouring lands, under the command of Judas and Hierofolymus. Juftin fays that from the time of Arvas, Moles's fon, the royal and facerdotal offices were among them united, Diodorus, Eclog. 40. that they never had a king, Strabo, p. 762. that Alexander, whose fons Hyrcanus and Ariftobulus Pompey only fubdued, was the first who made himself a king inftead of a priest. And to add no more, whereas fome affirmed, (as Plutarch we know has done,) that the Jews worshipped Bacchus, Tacitus denies this, and applies himself to refute it.—And shall we leave the Sacred Books, to follow perfons who are at fuch variance and oppofition with one another, in our ideas about the Jews? T fon he mentions, he inclined to think it was earliest received among the Egyptians; therefore, there is more room to fufpect he might be deceived in fome of his accounts about the place of its rise, and order of its propagation.-But, to pass this, it is eafy for us to explain how Diodorus and Strabo were led to affirm the Jews learned circumcifion from the Egyptians, for we difcover in them an imagination that the Jews were a colony from Egypt, or a people of Egyptian extraction and pedigree, like the Colchians and others who migrated from that country. Now, upon this fuppofition, it was very natural for them to derive fimilar custom which prevailed among any them from the Egyptians, and to pretend that in it they followed their example, whom they looked on as their progenitors. But that notion being a miftake, fince the Jews were not fprung from Egyptian ancestors, although they refided long in the land of Egypt, and went out thence to fettle in Canaan, it is evident little deference can be due to the affertion of these writers, that they borrowed the practice of this ceremony from the people of Egypt, as it was only a native effect of their error about their original. Again, though the Colchians, who are supposed to be the Cafluhim of Mofes, are faid, by Herodotus, to have been circumcised from the beginning, being a colony from Egypt, there arifes a ftrong prefumption against their practice of this rite at the time of their fettlement, and, by consequence, against * Lib. 2. 104. Φαίνονται μεν γαρ εοντες οι Κόλχοι Αιγύπτιον, Diodor. Sicul. fupra, and Dionyf. de Situ Orbis, and Eustathius, agree with him in calling them a colony from Egypt. |