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2 ... I laid before them ('the acknowledged leaders', in a private meeting) the gospel that I proclaim among the Gentiles, in order to make sure that I was not running, or had not run, in vain. 3 But even Titus, who was with me, was not compelled to be circumcised, though he was a Greek.

(vv. 4-7 get a bit weird: some scholars think there are versions in early manuscripts that overtly or covertly indicate Titus was castrated, as indicated by Marius Victorinus (fl. 4th C.) -


(4 But because of false brothers/believers secretly brought in, who slipped in to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus, so that they might enslave us— 5 we did not submit to them even for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might always remain with you. 6 And from those who were supposed to be acknowledged leaders (what they actually were makes no difference to me; God shows no partiality)—those leaders contributed nothing to me.)
7 On the contrary, when they saw that I had been entrusted with 'the gospel for the uncircumcised', just as Peter had been entrusted with 'the gospel for the circumcised' 8 (for He who worked through Peter making him an apostle to the circumcised also worked through me in sending me to the Gentiles), 9 and when James and Cephas and John, who were acknowledged pillars, recognized 'the grace that had been given to me', they gave to Barnabas and me the right hand of fellowship, agreeing that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised.

25 Circumcision indeed is of value if you obey the law; but if you break the law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision. 26 So, if those who are uncircumcised keep the requirements of the law, will not their uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision? 27 Then those who are physically uncircumcised but keep the law will condemn you that have the written code and circumcision but break the law. 28 For a person is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is true circumcision something external and physical. 29 Rather, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly, and real circumcision is a matter of the heart—it is spiritual and not literal. Such a person receives praise not from others but from God.

3 Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? 2 Much, in every way. For in the first place they [the Jews] were entrusted with the oracles of God.

18 Was anyone at the time of his call already circumcised? Let him not seek to remove the marks of circumcision. Was anyone at the time of his call uncircumcised? Let him not seek circumcision.

2 Beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of those who mutilate the flesh! 3 For it is we who are the circumcision, who worship in the Spirit [of God] and boast in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in 'the flesh'— 4 even though I, too, have reason for confidence in the flesh.

If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: 5 circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee;

1 Now the apostles and the brothers/believers who were in Judea heard that the Gentiles had also accepted the word of God. 2 So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised [+/-believers] criticized him, 3 saying, “Why did you go to uncircumcised men and eat with them?” 4 Then Peter began to 'explain' it to them [by going off on a tangent, vv. 5-11]

15 Then certain individuals came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.” 2 And after Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them, Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to discuss this question with the apostles and the elders. 3 So they were sent on their way by the church, and as they passed through both Phoenicia and Samaria, they reported the conversion of the Gentiles, and brought great joy to all the believers. 4 When they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and the elders, and they reported all that God had done with them. 5 But some believers who belonged to the sect of the Pharisees stood up and said, “It is necessary for them to be circumcised and ordered to keep the law of Moses.”

24 Since we have heard that certain persons who have gone out from us, though with no instructions from us, have said things to disturb you and have unsettled your minds [some authorities added, ‘You must be circumcised and keep the law’]

3 Paul wanted Timothy to accompany him; and he took him and had him circumcised because of the Jews who were in those places, for they all knew that his father was a Greek. 4 As they went from town to town, they delivered to them for observance the decisions that had been reached by the apostles and elders who were in Jerusalem. 5 So the churches were strengthened in the faith and increased in numbers daily.

early Pauline letters were significantly revised several times in the second century when new epistles attributed to Paul were added to the older letters: first with the letter from Paul to the Ephesians and the letter to the Colossians; then again with the so-called pastoral letters (1 and 2 Timothy, & the Letter to Titus); and finally again when the Pauline letter collection, along with Acts of the Apostles, became part of the later canonical New Testament.

Hadrian's late biographer, Aelius Spartianus, as well as modern scholars, have argued convincingly that, around 132 C.E., Hadrian issued a universal decree [p. 390] outlawing circumcision, under penalty of death.60

60 Scriptores historiae Augustae: Hadrian 14.2, in The Scriptores Historiae Augustae, trans. David Magie, 3 vols. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979), 1:42–45; Alfredo Mordechai Rabello, 'The Ban on Circumcision as a Cause of Bar Kokhba's Rebellion', Israel Law Rev., 1995, 29: 176–214.

The Digest of Justinian (a legal compilation collected by learned jurists at the behest of Justinian in 533) documents that, around 140, [p. 391] Emperor Antoninus Pius at least modified the ruling of Hadrian to allow only the Hebrews to circumcise their children, while upholding the legal protections from circumcision for all other peoples:

Jews are permitted to circumcise only their sons on the authority of a rescript of the Divine Pius; if anyone shall commit it on one who is not of the same religion, he shall suffer the punishment of a castrator.64

While Pius limited the exemption to Hebrews, papyrological documents in Greek, dating from 155 to 189 C.E., indicate that complex bureaucratic mechanisms were provisionally established to grant individual exemptions to this edict for certain members of the Egyptian priestly caste.65 Few such exemptions, however, appear to have been granted. The widespread approval for the abolition of circumcision was limited by neither space nor time, for by the end of the third century, Pius's interdiction against circumcision was enhanced by the enactment of an additional legal prohibition:

Roman citizens, who suffer that they themselves or their slaves be circumcised in accordance with the Jewish custom, are exiled perpetually to an island and their property confiscated; the doctors suffer capital punishment. If Jews shall circumcise purchased slaves of another nation, they shall be banished or suffer capital punishment.66

The incorporation into the Digest of Pius's more recent revisions of the law banning circumcision would explain why the sixth-century compilers of the Digest did not include the obsolete original decree of Hadrian. ...


... fortuitously preserved in a unique Syriac text, The Book of the Laws of Countries, a dialogue concerning Bardaisan of Edessa (154–223 C.E.), written down by his pupil Philippus. Bardaisan states:

Recently the Romans have conquered Arabia and done away with all the laws there used to be, particularly circumcision, which was a custom they used. For a man of his sovereign free-will submits himself to the law laid upon him by another, who also possesses sovereign free-will. But I shall tell you another [p 404] thing too, more convincing than all the rest to fools and unbelievers: all the Jews that have received the law of Moses, circumcise their male children on the eighth day, without waiting for the coming of stars and without regard for the local law.108

Evidently, even by the beginning of the third century, the news that the Roman authorities had 'exempted' Hebrews from 'the abolition' had not yet reached this corner of the world.


Frederick M. Hodges (2001) 'The Ideal Prepuce in Ancient Greece and Rome: Male Genital Aesthetics and Their Relation to Lipodermos, Circumcision, Foreskin Restoration, and the Kynodesme', The Bulletin of the History of Medicine, Vol. 75 [Fall]: pp. 375–405, http://www.cirp.org/library/history/hodges2/


64 Digesta 48:8:11 (Mommsen, Krueger, Watson [n. 61], 4: 853); translation from Amnon Linder, ed., The Jews in Roman Imperial Legislation (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1987), p. 100.

65 Ulrich Wilcken, 'Zur Geschichte der Beschneidung. I. Die ägyptischen Beschneid-ungsurkunden', Archiv für Papyrusforschung, 1902, 2: 4–13; Paul Foucart, 'Rescrit d'Antonin relatif à la circoncision et son application en Égypte', Journal des Savants, 1911, 9: 5–14.

66 Paulus, Sententiae 5:22:3–4, in Linder, Jews in Roman Imperial Legislation (n. 64), pp. 117–20.