=The Circumcision= is obviously dependent on whatever was regarded as the date of the Nativity, and is the result of reflection and ecclesiastical constructiveness. It is eight days after the Nativity on Jan. 1, with all Christendom, save the Armenians, who celebrating the Nativity (together with other Epiphanies of the Lord) on Jan. 6, naturally observe Jan. 13 as the day of the Circumcision. The day is not noted in the Bucherian Kalendar, nor in the Carthaginian. Baillet[56] comes to the conclusion that it appears first as appointed for general observance as a festival, about the middle of the seventh century, and in Spain, where servile work was forbidden on this day. But it would appear from the Canons of the Fourth Council of Toledo that the day was then observed with penitential features (canon 11). From the Sermons of Augustine we learn that in his time Jan. 1 was observed by Christians as a solemn fast, in protest against the licentious revelry and excesses of the pagans at this time of the year[57]. And as late as the Second Council of Tours (A.D. 567) it is enjoined that, while all other days between the Nativity and the Epiphany are to be treated (in regard to use of food) as festivals, an exception is to be made for the space of three days at the beginning of January, for which time the fathers had appointed litanies to be made ‘ad calcandam Gentilium consuetudinem.’ But it should be remarked that the canon (17) dealing with the subject has special reference to fasts to be observed by monks. It is therefore not impossible that the fast had by this time ceased to be observed by the general body of the faithful, but, in a spirit of conservatism, was regarded as proper to be maintained in the monasteries. The canon is interesting for another reason; it affords perhaps the earliest example of the use of the term ‘Circumcision’ as applied to this day, which appears in the Gelasian and Gregorian Sacramentaries simply as _Octava Domini_, _i.e._ the octave of the Nativity. In the Gelasian Sacramentary there is no emphasis in the service on the Circumcision, while the prayer called _Ad populum_ distinctly points to a prohibition against partaking of the _convivium diabolicum_ of the pagans. And a mass immediately following that for the Octave, entitled _Ad prohibendum ab idolis_, points in the same direction. The Gregorian Sacramentary shows no reference to the Circumcision in the prayers of the mass[58]. Even in the early part of the seventh century Isidore of Seville condemns the indecent gaieties indulged in on this day, and recalls the ancient injunction that the day should be observed as a fast[59]. The fourth Council of Toledo (canon 11) represents as the practice of Spain and Gaul the omission of the singing of _Alleluia_ on the Kalends of January, _propter errorem gentilium_.