Herodotus and Philo Judaeus have related that it prevailed to a great extent among the Egyptians and Ethiopians. The former historian says it was so ancient among each people that there was no determining which of them borrowed it from the other. Among the Egyptians he says it was instituted from the beginning. Shuckford says that by this he could not mean from the first rise or original of that nation, but that it was so early among them that the heathen writers had no account of its origin. When anything appeared to them to be thus ancient, they pronounced it to be from the beginning. Herodotus clearly meant this, because we find him questioning whether the Egyptians learnt circumcision from the Ethiopians, or the Ethiopians from the Egyptians, and he leaves the question undecided, merely concluding that it was a very ancient rite. If by the expression "from the beginning," he had meant that it was originated by the Egyptians, there would not have been this indecision: and it is known that among heathen writers to say a thing was "from the beginning," was equivalent to the other saying that it was very anciently practised. Herodotus, in another place, relates that the inhabitants of Colchis also used circumcision, and concludes therefrom that they were originally Egyptians. He adds that the Phoenicians and Syrians, who lived in Palestine, were likewise circumcised, but that they borrowed the practice from the Egyptians; and further, that little before the time when he wrote, circumcision had passed from Colchis to the people inhabiting the countries near Termodon and Parthenius. Diodorus Siculus thought the Colchians and the Jews to be derived from the Egyptians, because they used circumcision. In another place, speaking of other nations, he says that they were circumcised, after the manner of the Egyptians. Sir J. Marsham is of opinion that the Hebrews borrowed circumcision from the Egyptians, and that God was not the first author thereof; citing Diodorus and Herodotus as evidences on his side.