tert. 'Hyrcanus, fays he, having fubdued the Idumeans, granted them permiffion to continue in their territory, if they would confent to be circumcifed, ⚫ and conform to other Jewish laws; they, thro' their 'affection to their native country,fubmitted to undergo circumcifion, and to live in other refpects as Jews, and from this period they were Jews.' The paffage then in Jeremiah, upon which the plea for the fuperior antiquity of circumcifion among the Egyptians is built, inftead of establishing that point, rather confirms our opinion that circumcifion was of earlier use among the Jews than among them, if it was ever at all a national rite with them. Nay, may be improved to increase the fufpicion that Herodotus, and others after him, were mistaken in relating it as fuch.

III. Once more, it is infifted on as a ftrong prefumption, that circumcifion was earlier known in Egypt, that it was not injoined by God to Abraham till he had refided in that country. To this purpose, Mr. Voltaire, having obferved that Abraham had been circumcifed before the Jews fpoken of in the book of Jofhua, (though, as was remarked, he made his circumcifion terminate in himself, and not pafs

+ Antiq. 13. 9. I.

*If Suidas be appealed to in behalf of its general use among the Egyptians, because he, under the word waos in his Lexicon, hath thefe words, Οι δε Αιγυπτιοι ψωλοι λεγονται είναι, τότ' εστι περιτέλ

nuevo. It is easy to answer, he may describe their state in his own age, through their obedience to Mahomet. As heathens, it had ceased to be univerfal among them long before his time, according to Mr. Voltaire himself, who rightly obferves, Phil. Diction. page 131. "The Latin Authors gave the Jews the epithets of Curti, Apellae, &c. and ' not the Egyptians.' So Horace, Catullus, Martial, Juvenal, thereby denoting, they alone in their days were circumcifed in a national capacity.

to his pofterity till Joshua's time) proceeds and fays, + Abraham, having travelled into Egypt, which had, for a long time, been a flourishing monarchy, governed by a powerful king, circumcifion may 'not improbably be fuppofed to have obtained in a • kingdom of fuch antiquity, before the Jewish nation C was founded.' And the author of the Characteris ticks had led the way to him here, for he expreffeth himself thus, Abraham had been a guest and inha'bitant of Egypt, (where hiftorians mention this to ' have been a national rite) long ere he had received any divine notice or revelation concerning this af 'fair.'

But, befides that there is reason to look upon all as arrant fiction, which we are told about Egypt's being the feat of a powerful monarch for many ages before Abraham, and that there is fome appearance, circumcifion, when it obtained there, was only a facerdotal rite, instead of a national one, upon which fuppofition, the use of it would be lefs catching to strangers that were not of priestly rank, it cannot at all be justly concluded, from God's not inftituting circumcifion till after Abraham had been in Egypt, that he had seen it there, and on seeing it, contracted, as is pretended, a fondness for it; for why then should its injunction have been delayed for twenty years after his return from fojourning there, and not have been commanded while he stayed in the country, or foon after he came back? The natural account of its appointment at that feafon plainly is, not that he was then disposed to practise it † Phil. Dict. ubi fupra, page 129, 130.

Shaftesbury's Characteristics vol. 3. page 52, 53.

in imitation of the Egyptians, (for condefcenfion in God to fuch a weakness would have operated the injunction of it fooner, as the biafs and propenfity to it must have been stronger, the shorter the interval from his communication and intercourse with the Egyptians) but that then God revealed his intention of beftowing on his pofterity, by a fon whom Sarah should bear to him, the land of Canaan. Upon this account, he at that time, and not before, appointed circumcifion to be a token of his covenant with him, Gen. xvii. 5-14. There is then no cause to think circumcifion was ordered to Abraham from a regard to fome prepoffeffion he had imbibed in its favour during his abode in Egypt.---This hypothesis of our author, however, is alfo liable to other difficulties befides fuch as arife from confidering the diftance of time between Abraham's refidence there, and God's inftitution of the rite to him and his family. For Mr. Voltaire roundly afferts, That the Egyptians at firft circumcifed both male and female 'children, though he makes them, in process of time, to have discontinued this operation on the females, and at length to have limited it to priests, aftrologers, and prophets.' I may therefore afk him if God gave the command to Abraham because he was inclined to tread in the steps of the Egyptians, why did he not order the ceremony to be performed upon his female, as well as upon his male iffue, and upon his domeftics of the one fex, as well as the

* Philof. Dict. page 131. Yet Strabo, who wrote in the age of Auguftus, fpeaks of it as the manner of the Egyptians in his time, as was obferved above. And Ambrofe, Bp of Milan, whose words are produced in a following note, speaks of it as their practice almost 400 years after.

other? As God did not injoin it fo extensively in regard of its fubjects to Abraham, as, according to our author, it was practised in Egypt, here certainly is a difficulty which preffes his scheme, though it may not embarrass that of others, who, while they attribute the original of circumcifion to the Egyptians, do not suppose any but males were subjected to it, because Herodotus, Agatharcides, and others, omit all particular mention that others underwent it, and use only a general expreffion *. To this alfo I may add, how will he explain, upon his principles, the variation in the time of performing the rite, that whereas the Egyptians circumcifed their children in the thirteenth or fourteenth year of their age, Abraham was directed to circumcife his, Gen. xvii. (as the Jews in like manner were commanded afterwards, Levit. xii. 3.) on the eighth day from their birth, under the pain of their being cut off from the land of the living? For if this difference, as to the time of their practising the rite from that fixed by God's ordinance to Abraham, which fome + have affirmed, be admitted by him, it must still more straiten him, who makes God to have prescribed circumcifion to Abraham and his feed, in indulgence to their propensity to imitate Egyptian manners. Neverthe

* Thus Herodotus, page 117. AifuπTION TERITαUVOVTAY.—Ta σε αιδοια περιταμνονται, &c.

Thus Ambrofe, who flourished about A. D. 382. is positive that the fourteenth year of childrens age was the time of the operation. De Abrahamo, lib. 2. fect 11. Aegyptii anno decimo quarto cir

⚫ cumcidunt mares, et foeminae apud eos eodem anno circumcidi ferun· tur, quod ab eo viz anno paffio virilis flagrare incipiat, et feminarum • menftrua fumant exordia,

lefs, though more antient writers may feem to exprefs themselves in fuch a manner as to lead us to think that the Egyptians, as well as Jews, did perform it foon after the birth, he, if I do not misapprehend him, adopts that oppofite notion, that they did it at the distance of thirteen or fourteen years from it. For he fays, The Jews imitated the cir⚫ cumcifion of the Egyptians and Arabs;' as if these two nations had obferved the fame time for it, when yet the Arabs, as we will learn from Jofephus prefently, did not perform it till about that more mature feafon of life. There is then no foundation in Scripture for + faying, that circumcifion prevailed among the

I intend Strabo, who, fpeaking of the Egyptians, fays, lib. 17. p. 824. (Almel. edit. 1180.) Και τότο δε των ζηλωμένων μάλιςα παρ' αυτοις, τα παντα τρέφειν τα Γεννωμένα παιδια, και το περιο τεμνειν, και τα θήλεα εκτέμνειν, &c Diodor. Sicul edit. Wefieling. lib. 1. p. 33. (Rhodom 24.) after mentioning that the nation of the Colchians in Pontus, and the nation of the Jews between Arabia and Syria had gone out of Egypt to feek habitations, adds, ▲ x αPA TOIS YEVETI T8T015, &c. as in page 283. Also, lib. 3. page 198. (Rhod. 15.) he fays, All the Troglodites are circumcised in the 'fame manner, Пapan, as the Egyptians, except those of them who are called Kabo, for they alone of all who dwell within those ftraits, have all the part, which in others is circumcifed, cut off with razors in childhood, ex v. To the fame purpose, Photius hath preferved a paffage of Agatharcides, in his Bibl. p. 1358. for he gives the fame account of the Troglodites in general. as was feen before, and then fays. the Koxubo, as the Greeks called them, were treated in that manner when they were children, νηπιων εντών.

Dr. Delany argues from Genefis, xvii. 3. where it is faid, Abraham circumcifed all in his house that were bought with his money,' that circumcifion did not prevail in Egypt then, because if it had, some of them would have been circumcifed before, even fuch as he had acquired in Egypt, Gen. xii. 16. alfo from Exod. ii. 6. that circum