"Circumcision was a federal rite, annexed by God as a seal to the covenant which he made with Abraham and his posterity, and was accordingly renewed and taken into the body of the Mosaical constitutions. It was not a mere mark, only to distinguish the Hebrews as the seed of Abraham from other nations; but by this they were made the children of the covenant, and entitled to the blessings of it; though if there had been no more in it than this, that they who were of the same faith should have a certain character whereby they should be known, it would have been a wise appointment. The mark seems to be fitly chosen for the purpose; because it was a sign that no man would have made upon himself and upon his children, unless it were for the sake of faith and religion. It was not a brand upon the arm, or an incision in the thigh, but a difficult operation in a most tender part, peculiarly called flesh in many places of scripture. That member which is the instrument of generation was made choice of, that they might be an holy seed, consecrated unto God from the beginning; and circumcision was properly a token of the divine covenant made with Abraham and his posterity that God would multiply their seed, and make them as the stars of heaven."[19] Ludolf, in his History of Ethiopa, after comparing the circumcision of the Jews with that of the Abyssinians, says: "This puts us in mind of the circumcision of females, of which Gregory was somewhat ashamed to discourse, and we should have more willingly omitted it had not Tzagazabus, in his rude Confession of Faith, spoken of it as a most remarkable custom introduced by the command of Queen Magneda; or had not Paulus Jovius himself, Bishop of Como, insisted in the same manner upon this unseemly custom. This same ceremony was not only used by the Habisenes, but was also familiar among other people of Africa, the Egyptians, and the Arabians themselves. For they cut away from the female infants something which they think to be an indecency and superfluity of nature. Jovius calls it Carunniculam, or a little piece of flesh; Golius, an oblong excrescence. The Arabians, by a particular word, called it Bedhron, or Bedhara, besides which they have many other words to the same purpose. Among their women it is as great a piece of reproach to revile a woman by saying to her, O Bandaron: that is, O Uncircumcised, as to call a man Arel, or Uncircumcised, among the Jews. The Jewish women in Germany, being acquainted by their reading with this custom, laugh at it, as admiring what it should be that should require such an amputation." CHAPTER VII. _Androgynous Deities--Theories respecting the Dual Sex of the Deity--Sacredness of the Phallus--Sex Worship--The Eastern Desire for Children--Sacred Prostitution--Hindu Law of Adoption and Inheritance--Hindu Need of Offspring, and especially of a Son--Obsequies of the Departed._