hundred millions, the holy catholic universal Roman church has within its pale near fixty, millions, which amounts to more than the twenty-fixth part of the inhabitants of the known world.

CIRCUMCISION.

HERODOTUS, in relating what he had

heard from the Barbarians, among whom he travelled, mentions some fooleries, and most of our modern travellers do the like: he, indeed, does not require his readers to believe him, when he is giving an account of Gyges and Candaule; of Arion's being saved by a dolphin; of the consultation of the oracle, to know what Croesus was doing, with its answer that he was then boiling a tortoise in a covered pot; of Darius's horse neighing first, which gave his master the empire; and of a hundred other fables, which children are highly delighted with, and rhetoricians insert in their collections: but when he speaks of what he has seen, of customs which he has inquired into, of antiquities which he has examined, he then speaks to men.

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"The inhabitants of Colchis," says he, in the book Euterpe," appear to come originally from Egypt. This opinion I hold more from my "own observation than from any hear-say; for "I found that in Colchis the ancient Egyptians were remembered much more than the ancient "customs of Colchis in Egypt.

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"Those people who dwell along the Pontus "Euxinus said they were a colony settled there by Sesostris; this I conjectured of myself, not

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only from their swarthy complexion and friz. "zled hair, but because the people of Colchis, Egypt, and Ethiopia are the only people on "earth who have practised circumcision from "time immemorial: for the Phoenicians and "the inhabitants of Palestine own that they "adopted circumcision from the Egyptians. "The Syrians, now seated on the banks of the "Thermodon and Pathenia, together with the "Macrons their neighbours, acknowledge, that "it is not long since they conformed to this Egyptian custom. It is chiefly by this that they are perceived to be of Egyptian ori"ginal.

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"As to Ethiopia and Egypt, this ceremony being of a very ancient date among both na"tions, I cannot say which was the original; however, it is probable that the Ethiopians "took it from the Egyptians; as, on the other

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hand, the Phoenicians, by their traffic and "intercourse with the Greeks, have abolished "the custom of circumcising new-born children."

It is clear from this passage of Herodotus (1), that

(1) Whether the ceremony of circumcision was first introduced into the world by the Jews or by the Egyptians, has been much contested, and is not very material to the cause of religion. It is sufficient for us to know that God instituted circumcision as a covenant to Abraham and his seed, without giving our selves the trouble of enquiring whether it had been ever adopted by other nations. It seems, however, to be certain, that no nation except the Hebrews practised it universally. The priests, indeed, were

obliged

that several nations had taken circumcision from Egypt; but no nation has ever said that they derived it from the Jews. To which then must the origin of this custom be attributed, to that nation from whom five or six others acknowledge they hold it, or to another nation much inferior in power, less commercial, less military, hidden. in a nook of Arabia Petrea, and which has never been able to introduce the least of its customs in any nation?

The

obliged to be circumcised, but the rest of the people were left to their liberty. M. Voltaire has adopted the opinion of Le Clerc upon this subject, which makes the Hebrews to have derived this ceremony from the Egyptians; and he has alfo made use of the very argument of that learned writer, viz. The improbability that the Egyptians should borrow such a ceremony from so contemptible a nation as the Hebrews. But were the Hebrews so contemptible in the time of Joseph? Or how could they be so contemptible after their departure from Egypt, when the inhabitants of that country beheld the Deity operating miracles in their favour? Besides, our author is mistaken, when he says that the Jews were not circumcised the whole time they resided in Egypt, viz. two hundred and five years. The scripture tells us, that those "who came "out of Egypt had been circumcised," but were dead; and those who had been born in the Desert, were not circumcised," because they were separated from other nations, and had no necessity for any mark to distinguish them, till they entered the land of Canaan. Then Joshua circumcised all the people, and the Lord said unto him, "This day have I rolled "away the reproach of Egypt from you," "oppro"brium Egypti ;" the plain sense of which is not, as our author says, I have delivered you from what was a reproach to you among the Egyptians; but I

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have

The Jews say that they were first received into Egypt by way of compassion and charity; now is it not very probable, that the little people adopted a practice of the great people, and that the Jews joined in some of their masters cus

toms?

Clement of Alexandria relates that Pythagoras, when travelling in Egypt, could not gain admittance to the mysteries till he was circumcised; consequently there was no being an Egyptian priest without circumcision. This priestly order subsisted when Joseph came into Egypt; the government was of great antiquity, and the old ceremonies of Egypt were observed with the most scrupulous preciseness.

The Jews acknowledge that they continued in Egypt two hundred and five years; they say that in all that time they were not circumcised; this shews that, during those two hundred and five years, the Egyptians did not borrow cir cumcision from the Jews: is it then to be supposed that they borrowed this custom, after the Jews, according to their own testimony, run away with all the vessels which they had so kindly

lent

have delivered you from what rendered you like the Egyptians, and redounded to your shame and confusion, by cutting off a little of the foreskin, which was not observed by that unclean and uncircumcised nation. Is not this a more natural construction than that of our author? Besides, what occasion was there for delivering them from what had been a reproach to them among the Egyptians, when they had quitted Egypt, and were gone to reside in another country? They had no need to mind the reproach of the Egyptians in the land of Canaan.

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lent them? Will a master adopt the principal mark of his slave's religion, after robbing him, and running away? Human nature is not of

such a make.

The book of Joshua says, that the Jews were circumcised in the Desert: "I have delivered 46 you from what was a reproach to you among "the Egyptians (1)." Now what else could this reproach be to people hemmed in between the Phoenicians, Arabians, and Egyptians, but that for which those three nations despised them? How is this reproach removed? by taking away from them a little of the foreskin. Is not this the natural import of that passage?

The book of Genesis says that Abraham had been circumcised before; but Abraham having travelled into Egypt, which had, for a long time, been a flourishing monarchy, governed by a powerful king, circumcision may not improbably be supposed to have obtained in a kingdom of such antiquity, before the Jewish nation was formed. Farther, the circumcision of Abraham terminated in himself; it was not till Joshua's time his posterity underwent that ceremony.

Now, before Joshua, the Israelites, by their own confession, came into many of the Egyp tian customs; they imitated that nation in several sacrifices and ceremonies, as in fasting on the eve of Isis's feasts, in ablutions, in shaving the priests heads, likewise the burning of incense, the branched chandelier, the sacrifice of the red heifer, the purifying with hysop, the abstaining from

(*) Our translation has it: "I have rolled away "the reproach of Egypt from off you." Josh. v. 9.