Circumcision and Law - History

History

There are ancient religious requirements for circumcision. The Hebrew Bible commands Jews to circumcise their male children on the eighth day of life, and to circumcise their male slaves (Genesis 17:11-12).

Laws banning circumcision are also ancient. The ancient Greeks prized the foreskin and disapproved of the Jewish custom of circumcision. 1 Maccabees, 1:60–61 states that King Antiochus IV of Syria, the occupying power of Judea in 170 BCE, outlawed circumcision on penalty of death. one of the grievances leading to the Maccabean Revolt.

According to the Historia Augusta, the Roman emperor Hadrian issued a decree banning circumcision in the empire, and some modern scholars argue that this was a main cause of the Jewish Bar Kokhba revolt of 132 CE. The Roman historian Cassius Dio, however, made no mention of such a law, and blamed the Jewish uprising instead on Hadrian's decision to rebuild Jerusalem as Aelia Capitolina, a city dedicated to Jupiter.

Antoninus Pius permitted Jews to circumcise their own sons. However, he forbade the circumcision of non-Jews that were either foreign-slaves or non-Jewish members of the household, contrary to Genesis 17:12 He also made it illegal for a man to convert to Judaism. Antoninus Pius exempted the Egyptian priesthood from the otherwise universal ban on circumcision.