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Circumcision in the Ancient world

The oldest documentary evidence for circumcision comes from Egypt. Tomb artwork from the Sixth Dynasty (2345 - 2181 BC) shows men with circumcised penises, and one relief from this period shows the rite being performed on a standing adult male. The Egyptian hieroglyph for "*****" depicts either a circumcised or an erect organ. The examination of Egyptian mummies has found both circumcised and uncircumcised men.
Circumcision was common, although not universal, among ancient Semitic peoples. The Book of Jeremiah, written in the sixth century BC, lists the Egyptians, Jews, Edomites, Ammonites, and Moabites as circumcising people. Herodotus, writing in the fifth century BC, would add the Colchians, Ethiopians, Phoenicians, and Syrians to that list.
Except in the portrayal of satyrs, lechers, and barbarians, ancient Greece artwork portrayed penises covered by foreskins. In the aftermath of Alexander the Great's conquests, Greek dislike of the circumcised ***** led to a decline in the incidence of circumcision among many peoples that had previously practiced it. The writer of 1 Maccabees wrote that during the Seleucid Empire, many Jewish men attempted to hide or reverse their circumcision so they could exercise in Greek gymnasia.
Cultural pressures to circumcise operated throughout the Hellenistic world: when the Judean king John Hyrcanus conquered the Idumeans, he forced them to become circumcised and convert to Judaism, but their ancestors the Edomites had practiced circumcision in pre-Hellenistic times.


Male circumcision in the Greco-Roman world

According to Hodges, ancient Greek aesthetics of the human form considered circumcision a mutilation of a previously perfectly shaped organ. Greek artwork of the period portrayed penises as covered by the foreskin (sometimes in exquisite detail), except in the portrayal of satyrs, lechers, and barbarians.[1]
The 1st century Jewish author Philo Judaeus[2] defended Jewish circumcision on several grounds, including health, cleanliness, fertility and as a symbol of "the excision of all superfluous and excessive pleasure" [3]Maimonides argued that circumcision was instituted for moral reasons, 'for perfecting what is defective morally' [4] See also "Circumcision: A Jewish Inquiry," Midstream 38 (January 1992) pages 20-23 [5]. (history)
This dislike of the appearance of the circumcised ***** led to a decline in the incidence of circumcision among many peoples that had previously practiced it throughout Hellenistic times. In Egypt, only the priestly caste retained circumcision, and by the second century, the only circumcising groups in the Roman Empire were Jews and Proselytes and some Christians, Egyptian priests, and the Nabatean Arabs. Circumcision was sufficiently rare among non-Jews that being circumcised was considered conclusive evidence of Judaism (or Early Christianity and others derogatively called Judaizers) in Roman courts—Suetonius in Domitian 12.2 [6] described a court proceeding in which a ninety-year-old man was stripped naked before the court to determine whether he was evading the head tax placed on Jews and Judaizers. The first-century AlexandrianApion denounced circumcision as a barbaric custom in his diatribe against the Jews, notwithstanding that it was still practised among the Egyptian priestly caste.
Roman satirists including Horace and Juvenal equated the exposure of the glans that results from circumcision to its exposure during erection, and they caricatured Jewish men as being lustful or lecherous, sometimes in an incestuous or homosexual sense, often implying that Jewish men had unusually large penises and were of great sexual potency.
Techniques for restoring the appearance of an uncircumcised ***** were known by the 2nd century B.C. In one such technique, a copper weight (called the Judeum pondum) was hung from the remnants of the circumcised foreskin until, in time, they became sufficiently stretched to cover the glans. The first-century writer Celsus described two surgical techniques for foreskin restoration in his medical treatise De Medicina. [7] In one of these, the skin of the penile shaft was loosened by cutting in around the base of the glans. The skin was then stretched over the glans and allowed to heal, giving the appearance of an uncircumcised *****. Jewish religious writers denounced such practices as abrogating the covenant of Abraham in 1 Maccabees and the Talmud[8]. Because of these attempts, and for other reasons, the Pharisees, ca. 100, added two more steps to the Biblical rite of circumcision:
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• Brit Peri'ah, which went beyond the relatively simple and Biblical trimming of excess foreskin, and stripped the mucosal lining of the foreskin back to the coronal sulcus.
• Brit Mezizah, by which the trained rabbi ("mohel") sucks the wound made by the circumcision.

</DD></DL>Circumcision was an important issue for first century Jews and Christians. Flavius Josephus in Jewish Antiquities book 20 [9], chapter 2 recorded the story of King Izates who decided to follow the Law of Moses at the advice of a Jewish merchant named Ananias. He was going to get circumcised, but his mother, Helen, who herself embraced the Jewish customs, advised against it on the grounds that the subjects wouldn't stand to be ruled by someone who followed such "strange and foreign rites". Ananias likewise advised against it, on the grounds that worship of God was superior to circumcision (Robert Eisenman in James the Brother of Jesus claims that Ananias is Paul of Tarsus who held similar views) and that God would forgive him for fear of his subjects. So Izates decided against it. However, later, "a certain other Jew that came out of Galilee, whose name was Eleazar", who was well versed in the Law, convinced him that he should, on the grounds that it was one thing to read the Law and another thing to practice it, and so he did. Once Helen and Ananias found out, they were struck by great fear of the possible consequences, but as Josephus put it, God looked after Izates. As his reign was peaceful and blessed, Helen visited the Jerusalem Temple to thank God, and since there was a terrible famine at the time, she brought lots of food and aid to the people of Jerusalem.
There was also division in Pharisaic Judaism between Hillel the Elder and Shammai on the issue of circumcision of proselytes. See also Circumcision in the Bible#In rabbinic literature
The Council of Jerusalem in Acts of the Apostles 15 addressed the issue of whether circumcision was required of new converts to Christianity. Both Simon Peter and James the Just spoke against requiring circumcision in Gentile converts and the Council ruled that circumcision was not necessary. However, Acts 16 and many references in the Letters of Paul show that the practice was not immediately eliminated. Paul of Tarsus, who was said to be directly responsible for one man's circumcision in Acts 16:1-3 and who appeared to praise Jewish circumcision in Romans 3:2, said that circumcision didn't matter in 1 Corinthians 7:19 and then increasingly turned against the practice, accusing those who promoted circumcision of wanting to make a good showing in the flesh and boasting or glorying in the flesh in Galatians 6:11-13. In a later letter, Philippians 3:2, he is repored as warning Christians to beware the "mutilation" (Strong's G2699). Circumcision was so closely associated with Jewish men that Jewish Christians were referred to as "those of the circumcision" (e.g. Colossians 3:20) [10] or conversely Christians who were circumcised were referred to as Jewish Christians or Judaizers. These terms (circumcised/uncircumcised) are generally interpreted to mean Jews and Greeks, who were predominate, however it is an oversimplification as 1st century Iudaea Province also had some Jews who no longer circumcised, and some Greeks (called Proselytes or Judaizers) and others such as Egyptians, Ethiopians, and Arabs who did. According to the Gospel of Thomas saying 53, Jesus says:
<DL><DD>"His disciples said to him, "is circumcision useful or not?" He said to them, "If it were useful, their father would produce children already circumcised from their mother. Rather, the true circumcision in spirit has become profitable in every respect."" SV [11]</DD></DL>Parallels to Thomas 53 are found in Paul's Romans 2:29, Philippians 3:3, 1 Corinthians 7:19, Galatians 6:15, Colossians 2:11-12.
In John's Gospel 7:23 Jesus is reported as giving this response to those who criticized him for healing on the Sabbath:
<DL><DD>Now if a man can be circumcised on the sabbath so that the Law of Moses is not broken, why are you angry with me for making a man whole and complete on a sabbath? ( Jerusalem Bible) </DD></DL>This passage has been seen as a comment on the Rabbinic belief that circumcision heals the ***** (Jerusalem Bible, note to John 7:23) or as a criticism of circumcision

Male circumcision in the Renaissance

Europeans, with the exception of the Jews, did not practice male circumcision.
The Church issued a papal bull in 1442 that prohibited the practice of circumcision for all Christians

Male circumcision in East Africa

Male circumcision in East Africa is a rite of passage from childhood to adulthood, but is only practiced in some nations (tribes). Some peoples in East Africa do not practice male circumscision (for example the Luo of western Kenya). There is no incidence of child circumcision in indigenous tribes of this part of the world.
Amongst the Gikuyu (Kikuyu) people of Kenya and the Maasai people of Kenya and Tanzania, male circumcision has historically been the graduation element of an educational program which tought tribal beliefs, practices, culture, religion and history to youth who were on the verge of becoming full fledged members of society. The circumcision ceremony was very public, and required a display of courage under the knife in order to maintain the honor and prestige of the young man and his family. The only form of anesthetia was a bath in the cold morning waters of a river, which tended to numb the senses to a minor degree. The youths being circumcised were required to maintain a stoic expression and not to flinch from the pain.
After circumcision, young men became members of the warrior class, and were free to date and marry. The graduants became a fraternity which served together, and continued to have mutual obligation to each other for life.
In the modern context in East Africa, the physical element of male circumcision remains (in the societies that have historically practiced it) but without most of the other accompanying rites, context and programs. For many, the operation is now performed in private on one individual, in a hospital or doctor's office. Anesthesia is often used in such settings. There are tribes however, that do not accept this modernized practice. They insist on circumcision in a group ceremony, and a test of courage at the banks of a river. This more traditional approach is common amongst the Meru and the Kisii tribes of Kenya.
Despite the loss of the rites and ceremonies that accompanied male circumcision in the past, the physical operation remains crucial to personal identity and pride, and acceptance in society. Uncircumcised men in these communities risk being "outed", and subjected to ridicule as "boys". There have been many cases of forced circumcision of men from such communities who are discovered to have escaped the ritual.