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Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised on the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant." So said God to Abraham, establishing the covenant of circumcision, a covenant "between me and you and your descendents after you" (Genesis 17:10,14)
For centuries, Jewish boys have regularly been circumcised when they are eight days old (Genesis 17:12). An unusual challenge to circumcision developed, however, in the Hellenistic period (after about 133 B.C.E*). Hellenistic and Roman societies widely practiced public nakedness. But they abhorred baring the tip of the penis, called the glans. To expose the glans was considered vulgarly humorous, indecent or both. This combination of attitudes could be—and often was—devastating for circumcised Jews. Enjoying oneself in a Greek gymnasium or Roman bath, where nudity was de rigueur, was a popular and stylish pastime. Here politics was discussed and business deals concluded. Athletic contests and exhibitions were also conducted in the nude. Participation in athletics was often a prerequisite for social advancement. Yet a circumcised penis effectively precluded this participation.
Consequently, for hundreds of years some Jews underwent a surgical procedure known as epispasm—an operation that "corrected" a circumcised penis. Some might call it circumcision in reverse. From references and allusions to the procedure in classical and rabbinical literature, it appears that epispasm [CIRP Note: επισπασμοσ, epispasmos] reached its peak of popularity in the first century C.E.
The New Testament reveals bitter conflicts over circumcision among the followers of Jesus, conflicts expressed also in attitudes towards epispasm practiced by Jews. Paul, who thinks circumcision useless, nevertheless forbids epispasm: "Was any one at the time of his call already circumcised? Let him not seek to remove the marks of circumcision," he advises the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 7:18).
Numerous written sources from the second century B.C.E. to the early sixth century C.E. speak about epispasm and attitudes toward it.
During these centuries, foreskins assumed an importance they have rarely had before or since. The Roman emperor Hadrian (117-138 C.E.) loathed circumcision as much as castration—both were unnatural, an offense against the Greek idea of natural beauty of the human body—and outlawed both.1
Males who wished to conceal an exposed glans had several options. Dioscorides, a first century C.E. physician to Nero's troops and master of herbal lore, helped those who, though not circumcised, had a defectively short foreskin. He suggested applying thapsia, an herb that causes swelling.2 this would not work, Dioscorides recognized for those who were circumcised.
Soranus, author of a second-century C.E. medical text, prescribed a different method for correcting defectively short foreskins in infants: The baby's nurse should pull the foreskin forward over the glans and tie it with a thread. "For if gradually stretched and continuously drawn forward, it easily stretches and assumes its normal length an covers the glans and becomes accustomed to keep the natural good shape."3
A simple surgical procedure called infibulation, was another option for a defectively short foreskin. A surgeon would pierce the foreskin to receive a light wooden pin called a fibula.4 With the fibula inserted the foreskin was held neatly closed. Infibulation was supposed to improved the voice and health of adolescent boys, but Celsus, the author of a medical text from the first century C.E., doubts the therapeutic value of infibulation for this purpose.
Infibulation could also be used by those who had been circumcised. Some circumcised Jews concealed their circumcision by drawing the skin around the penis forward and securing it with a fibula—or with twine. Martial, the Roman poet, ridiculed an infibulated Jewish slave5 and derided another Jew whose fibula fell out at the bath.6
The Cadillac of correctives, however, was clearly epispasm: "If the glans is bare and the man wishes for the look of things to have it covered, that can be done," Celsus assured his readers.7 It was a variation of an operation recommended for congenitally short foreskins. For congenitally short foreskins, the surgeon would tie forward the foreskin, Soranus recommended, and cut the sheath of skin around the penis just in front of the pubic bone. When the wound healed, the surgeon would remove the twine.
Epispasm on a circumcised penis required a somewhat more difficult operation: The surgeon would cut around the glans freeing the sheath of skin surrounding the shaft of the penis, pull the skin forward and dress the wound carefully so that the skin would reattach to the glans leaving a foreskin. At a time before effective anesthesia, a man inclined to try this procedure had Celsus' assurance that it was "not so very painful."8
Epiphanus, the fourth century C.E. churchman, tells of a man who was circumcised twice, once as a Samaritan and again as a Jewish proselyte. In the course of the discussion, Epiphanus mentions a spouthisteros, a special implement for performing epispasm. He tells up, "If you can make circumcision uncircumcision, do not marvel at some being circumcised twice."9
Some Jews probably submitted to epispasm because they shared the common Greek and Roman revulsion toward circumcision. Even if they did not, however, societal institutions and attitudes exerted strong pressure against remaining circumcised. Jews of means naturally wanted to participate in gymnasium and bath. Not only were these a chief means of recreation, they also functioned as hubs for business. If Jews exercised or bathed while circumcised, they offended their gentile neighbors and submitted themselves to incredulous ridicule; if they did not attend, everyone knew why—and talked about it. Either way their business would suffer.
Other factors also encouraged epispasm.
Athletics constituted a chief avenue of social advancement for underclass boys. Greek cities competed with each other to grant citizenship to promising boys and to sponsor them at the games. Since athletes exercised and competed without clothes, this avenue was denied to those who were circumcised. What city would sponsor an obscenity?http://www.cirp.org/library/restoration/hall1/
After the Jewish revolt against Rome in 66-70 C.E., punitive measures against Jews were more easily enforced against those who could be identified because they were circumcised. Suetonius tells of an old man claiming exemption from the most hated of these measures, a two drachma tax to fund the worship of Jupiter. The court stripped the old man in court, found him to be circumcised and fined him.10 A Jewish man could escape such oppressive measures and the stigma attached to them by submitting to epispasm.
Obstacles to citizenship in Greek cities like Alexandria also encouraged Jews to undergo epispasm.11 In Alexandria and perhaps in other cities formed on the Greek model, citizenship and the important privileges that went with it were granted only to ephebes, those trained for citizenship in the ephebaion. Since local law forbade Jews becoming citizens and since ephebes regularly exercised naked in the gymnasium, a Jew who appeared naked with a circumcised penis was unable to circumvent the law. Some Jews did evade the law, however; a Greek delegation from Alexandria complained about this to the emperor.12
Greek and Roman abhorrence of circumcision produced a variety of predictable reactions among Jews. Those who stood vigorously against Greek culture asserted the necessity of circumcision in stronger terms than ever. The Jewish author of Jubilees interpreted Greek culture as the product of the demonic world; circumcision he tells us, lifts Jews out of the evil realm and places them directly under God's rule.13
Other Jews who accepted Greek culture attempted to explain circumcision to the Greeks—and to themselves. A certain Jew named Artapanos (third to second centuries B.C.E.) took a novel approach: Moses founded the religion of Egypt and gave circumcision to Ethiopia.14 If Egyptians and Ethiopians in following their ancestral practices still keep the teachings of Moses, why should Hebrews not keep them as well?
The first century C.E. Jewish philosopher Philo defends circumcision in Greek terms by listing physical and allegorical advantages. Circumcised men are more fertile, less vulnerable to disease and being cleaner, are more fittingly set aside as a nation of priests. In addition the heart begets the thought, which is the highest human excellence; therefore penises should be circumcised to resemble the godly heart. Moreover, circumcision represents the excision of the pleasure of sex, which bewitches the mind.15
Some Jews, faced with overwhelming societal repugnance toward circumcision, probably neglected it. Many of these Jews ceased to practice Judaism at all and quietly faded into the surrounding culture. Other neglected circumcision but actively claimed their Jewish heritage. The evidence for uncircumcised yet practicing Jews is indirect but unequivocal.
For example, Ananius, after successfully convincing Izates, prince of Adiabene, to become a Jew, argued that he should not be circumcised.16 The Jewish author of the Fourth Sybylline Oracle urged gentiles to repent and immerse themselves in water but found no need to mention circumcision. Rabbis debated whether circumcision or immersion in water really made a proselyte.17 Philo tells us that the real proselyte circumcises not his foreskin but his passions.18 Such statements are readily explained if some authorities were contending that a person could be or become a Jew without being circumcised.
Philo rebuked Jews who allegorize the law to abolish Sabbaths, feasts, the Temple and circumcision.19 The Jews interpreted the Torah to justify their neglect of circumcision, which suggests that in their own eyes they remained observant Jews.
