Manual of Classical Erotology (De figuris Veneris)
General
Manual of Classical Erotology (De figuris Veneris)
Erotic literature; Sex customs -- Greece; Sex customs -- Rome
It was not out of voluptuousness, but for decency’s sake that Jews,
who had renounced their nation, had their prepuce redressed over the
gland, as they did not wish it to be seen that they had been
circumcized, so they took means to get their bare gland recovered.
“And they made for themselves new prepuces” (_Maccabees_, I., 1., 15),
“Is there anyone that has been brought to believe, circumcized? Let
him not recover his gland” (_Corinthians_, I., vii., 18). Celsus, _De
Medicina_, VII., ch. 25: “If the gland is bare, and it is desired for
convenience sake to recover it, this can be effected, but more easily
with a child, than with a grown man, more easily with the man born so,
than with the man who has been circumcized after the custom of certain
people. After having explained the method of cure applicable to men,
with whom it is a natural accident,” Celsus continues: “With people
that have been circumcized, the skin must be detached behind the crown
of the gland. This operation is not very painful as the prepuce being
loosened, you can draw it with the hand back to the pubis without any
loss of blood.
Then the loosened integument is drawn once more over and beyond the
gland. This done the verge is dipped frequently into cold water, and
then covered with a plaster, which has a strong tendency to minimize
inflammation. As soon as it is quite free from inflammation, the verge
is to be bandaged from the pubis to the annular incision; the skin is
then drawn over the gland, but kept separate from it by a plaster. In
this way the lower part of the skin grows on again, while the upper
part heals without adhering.” From this passage it would appear that
at the time of Celsus the method of laying bare the gland which
afterwards prevailed with the Jews was not discovered yet, by which,
according to Buxtorf (Dictionnaire Talmudique), after the prepuce has
been cut away, the circumcisor takes hold of the remaining skin
between the thin edges of his thumb nails, and draws it forcibly back.
If this practice had been customary it would have been superfluous to
separate the prepuce with the scalpel. I conjecture from this, that
the Jews were called _recutiti_ from having this skin of the gland
drawn back, which, not being done, the circumcision was not considered
complete; but Celsus makes me doubt this.
Footnote 95:
Julius Caesar Scaliger, _Poetica_, book I., p. 64:
“One of these infamous dances was the * *** ** meaning wriggling
the haunches and thighs, the _crissare_ of the Romans. In Spain
this abominable practice is still performed in public.”
Footnote 96:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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