Page:Researches into the Early History of Mankind and the Development of Civilization.djvu/226

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"We may circumcise with anything, even with a flint, with crystal (glass) or with anything that cuts, except with the sharp edge of a reed, because enchanters make use of that, or it may bring on a disease, and it is a precept of the wise men to circumcise with iron, whether in the form of a knife or of scissors, but it is customary to use a knife." Now as Professor Lazarus, a most competent judge in such matters, remarked to me with reference to this question, the mere mention of a practice in the Rabbinical books is not good evidence that it ever really existed, seeing that their writers habitually exercise their fertile imaginations in devising cases which might possibly occur, and then argue upon them as seriously as though they were real matters of practical importance. But there are observed facts, which tend to bring these particular ordinances out of the region of fancy, and into that of fact. As to the prohibition of the use of the reed knife, it is to be noticed that this (in the form of a sharp splinter of bamboo) was the regular instrument with which circumcision was performed in the Fiji islands. And as to the use of the stone circumcising knife, it is stated by Leutholf, who is looked upon as a good authority, that it was in use in Æthiopia in his time,—"The Alnajah, an Æthiopian race, perform circumcision with stone knives." "Alnajah gens Æthiopum cultris lapideis circumcisionem peragit." This would be in the sixteenth century. And though the modern Jews generally use a steel knife, there appears to be a remarkable exception to this custom; that when a male child dies before the eighth day, it is nevertheless circumcised before burial, but this is done,