The practice of self-emasculation in honour of a divinity was a common feature in the worship of Chronos, of Cybele, and doubtless of many other among the earlier recipients of religious adoration; it is referred to (and not in terms of reprobation) at Matthew xix. 12. It has descended to modern times--witness the fanatical sects in Russia; and even persons of high intellectual calibre (as, for instance, Origen) have submitted to it. What men regarded as honourable and meritorious in themselves, they would be not unlikely to impose also on their children. The existence of such ascetic practices among partially civilised nations must not be lost sight of in the present connection; as helping us to comprehend the mental religious attitude of primæval man. There can be little question that here we find our correct explanation of the origin and wide prevalence of circumcision. We are, however, no longer permitted to regard this as a hygienic custom, but simply and solely as a relic of barbarism; dating from an immemorial antiquity, long anterior to the first historical records, and when man was little, if at all, removed from savagery. The venerable age of the prescriptive rite, as well as the various social and religious phases through which the peoples adopting it have since successively passed, have effectually spiritualised it and have shed around it a certain halo of sentimentalism; but should not be suffered to obscure the only rational conception of its primary significance. The sacrificial character of the act among the Israelites was indicated by a former custom of placing a pot of dust in the room where the ceremony was to take place; that, as we read in the third chapter of Genesis, being the allotted food of the serpent. The practice seems to have continued down to a recent period, but now to have fallen into disuse. We thus clearly see that, beside being the sign of the covenant with the tribal deity, there was also involved the idea of a propitiatory sacrifice to the awful evil demons. The most clear instance of circumcision as an act intended to conciliate an offended divinity, or malignant spirit, appears in the strange story of Zipporah at Exodus iv. 24; where the vicarious nature of the rite is also plainly set forth. There is no apparent reason for identifying the Lord ('Adonai'); who sought to slay Moses, with Jahve; from whom Moses had just parted upon excellent terms. And there can be little doubt that Samael, to whom the scapegoat was subsequently offered (Lev. xvi. 20), or some similar dread power of darkness, is here meant.[6]