act of cutting off the prepuce; a ceremony in the Jewish and Mahommetan religions, wherein they cut off the foreskin of their males, who are to profess the one or the other law.

Among the Jews, the time for performing this rite was the eighth day, that is, six full days after the child was born: the law of Moses ordained nothing with respect to the person by whom, the instrument with which, or the manner how, the ceremony was to be performed; the instrument was generally a knife of stone. The child is usually circumcised at home, where the father, or godfather, holds him in his arms, while the operator takes takes hold of the prepuce with one hand, and with the other cuts it off; a third person holds a porringer, with sand in it, to catch the blood; then the operator applies his mouth to the part, and having sucked the blood, spits it into a bowl of wine, and throws a styptic powder upon the wound. This ceremony was usually accompanied with great rejoicings and feasting, and it was at this time that the child was named in presence of the company. The Jews invented several superstitious customs at this ceremony, such as placing three stools, one for the circumcisor, the second for the person who holds the child, and the third for Elijah, who, they say, assists invisibly at the ceremony, &c.

The Jews distinguished their proselytes into two sorts, according as they became circumcised, or not: those who submitted to this rite were looked upon as children of Abraham, and obliged to keep the laws of Moses; the uncircumcised were only bound to observe the precepts of Noah, and were called noachidae.

This ceremony, however, was not confined to the Jews: Herodotus and Philo Judeus observe, that it obtained also among the Egyptians and Ethiopians. Herodotus says, that the custom was very ancient among each people, so that there was no determining which of them borrowed it from the other. The same historian relates, that the inhabitants of Colchis also used circumcision; whence he concludes, that they were originally Egyptians.

The Turks never circumcise till the seventh or eighth year, as having no notion of its being necessary to salvation. The Persians circumcise their boys at thirteen, and their girls from nine to fifteen. Those of Madagascar cut the flesh at three several times; and the most zealous of the relations present, catches hold of the preputium, and swallows it.

Circumcision is practised on women by cutting off the foreskin of the clitoris, which bears a near resemblance and analogy to the prepuce of the male penis. We are told that the Egyptian captive women were circumcised; and also the subjects of Prester John.

CIRCUMCISION is also the name of a feast, celebrated on the first of January, in commemoration of the circumcision of our Saviour.