The opinions [are] quite various, but such that they seem able to be recalled to two heads. Some, indeed, say the circumcision is called “second” in respect of a prior [circumcision] in the same man. And these [are] threefold. The first is [that] of the old Anabaptists, who — in St. Augustine (quaest. 6) — said the same man was truly and simply circumcised twice; and therefore [could] also be baptized twice. The second is [that] of the old Apostates and deserters of the Jewish religion. These, in the manner which I taught [on] 1 Macc. ch. 1, buried [covered over] the former circumcision by a new extension of the foreskin; and this extension was called ἐπισπασμόν [epispasmon, “a drawing-over”] — that is (as St. Epiphanius says in [his] book On Weights and Measures), δευτέρα ἐπιτομή [deutera epitomē], “a second circumcision.” The third is [that] of Rabbi Eliezer (ch. 29) and Rabbi Solomon [Rashi] and other Rabbis, who explain this “second circumcision” from the [things] which they do in their circumcision today. Now they do chiefly three [things]: first, they cut off the foreskin; then they stretch and fold back the membrane, and that action is called by them פְּרִיעָה [periah, “uncovering”]; thirdly, they suck the blood from the wound itself, and that sucking is called מְצִיצָה [metsitsah]. They say, therefore, [that] all the Israelites, as to the first action, were always circumcised in the wilderness, but not as to the second; and that this [second] was now performed, and therefore called a “second circumcision.”
But the text itself overthrows all these expositions. For [it] says [that] those who had been circumcised before, and [those circumcised] now, were different [men] — especially at v. 6 & 7. Then, how ridiculous [is] the first of these! How could one and the same [man], who long ago lost [his] foreskin and received no other by any art’s aid, be circumcised again? The second, indeed, sets up a circumcision not properly [so] called, but a catachrestic [misapplied] one. For that new extension of the foreskin is not a circumcision, but a deletion and removal of circumcision; and therefore [it] is also called ἐπισπασμὸς [epispasmos]; and those who applied it [were] called ἐπίσπασται [epispastai, “drawers-over”], in Hebrew משוכים [meshukim, “drawn ones”], and by certain [writers] — and by the expositors of Persius, and Baronius following them (tom. 1) — recutiti, as [being] again covered with skin. But this last name of recutiti seems rather to be assigned to all the circumcised by those very Poets. For the Prior [poet, Martial] says (bk. 7[/11]), against Caelia:
“Lest thou flee the loins of the recut Jews.” [Martial]
The Later [poet], Satire 5 [Persius]:
“Thou movest thy lips in silence, and turnest pale at the recut sabbaths.” [Persius 5.184]
And in the same manner Sidonius:
“[He] bears the beginnings of the recut Jews.”
For the particle “re-” does not always import repetition, but sometimes also its negation — [the thing] which is affirmed by the simpler word. For, by way of example, “to unseal” [resignare] and “to uncover” [retegere] something is not to seal and cover [it] again, but to not let what was sealed and covered be such [any longer]. And in the sacred Translator of the Bibles, reprobus is not “again probus [approved],” but improbus [wicked]; and among all [writers], reprobare is to not approve, and therefore also to reject. So, then, recutitus too is not one who received the foreskin-skin again, but one who lost the [skin] which he had—
(col. 498 — right column; printed “505”)
—so that he who has [his] foreskin, and whose skin is whole, is called cutitus [skinned]; and, on the contrary, [the circumcised is] recutitus. And that Translator could have learned this from that very Martial too (bk. 9), where he spoke of a mule that had an ulcerated and broken skin:
“Nor the recut [broken] neck of a burst mule.” [Martial]
But, to return to the matter: perhaps someone will say [that] not the drawing-forward of the restored foreskin itself is called the “second circumcision,” but a new cutting-away of the same [foreskin now] drawn-forward and renewed. Now that [this] can be done, Suárez indeed denies (tom. 3, disput. 30, sect. 1, fol. 366); yet the thing itself shows [it], and the examples of Symmachus, and of those whom Bar-Cochba circumcised a second time (in the Talmudists, tractate Gittin, ch. 5), and Epiphanius (in the cited place). And then [it] would not badly be called a “second circumcision”; yet that the Israelites were circumcised by Joshua in that [way] cannot be said — because that drawing-forward would have bound all those Israelites by the highest crime, on account of which they would have been no less unworthy of the promised land than their Fathers, and worthy of a most-immediate destruction. For [it] was done — as Epiphanius says in the cited place — πρὸς ἀπαρνησείαν, καὶ ἀφανισμὸν τῶν πατέρων χαρακτῆρος [pros aparnēseian kai aphanismon tōn paterōn charaktēros] — that is, “for the denial of God himself, and the abolition of the character [mark] of the Fathers.” Which no one did except a deserter from the true religion, and one plainly impious and utterly wicked — such as those who by the French and Italians (unspeakable!) are today called “Renegades.” But how would the Lord have long borne so great and so horrendous and execrable a crime for so many years in the desert? How would neither Moses nor Joshua have done or muttered anything against it hitherto?
Furthermore, the third opinion also takes “circumcision” quite improperly. For that periah [uncovering] is not circumcision, but an action following it. And thus a “third circumcision” could also be posited — namely, the metsitsah [sucking] itself; nay, anyone could call whatever other accessory action a “circumcision” — for example, even that [action] which I once saw them employ: the pouring of wine into the mouth of the already-circumcised infant, and [its] carrying before the Torah in the Synagogue, and a prayer, and other like [things] — so that thus a fourth and a fifth “circumcision” would be made [too]. But, to deal [with it] in a word: for these Israelites the foreskin either had already before been cut off in the desert, or not. If [it] had — then [there] would now have been no need of knives, and those so sharp; for the membrane would only have had to be drawn back and folded over (for today too the circumcisers do that with [their] nails, for which reason they are seen to have the nails of [their] thumbs longer). If [it] had not [been cut] — then a true circumcision was now employed, and the knot [is] not yet untied: why is it called “second”? Also in this opinion [there] is this [element] of difficulty — that [it] would have to be explained why the circumcision had before been made without the periah; especially since the Jews themselves say [that] it [periah] is not necessarily connected with it [circumcision], but is connected [only so] that the edge of the membrane may more decently and soundly remain [in place], as Abulensis says (q. 12). The Talmud indeed says (tractate Yebamoth ch. 8, and in the chapters of Eleazar) [that] the perfect manner of circumcising was not handed down to Abraham, but now to Joshua himself. But although, as regards the allegory, that [is] most truly asserted by the older Rabbis (as will be said below) — and by the more recent [ones] — yet, as regards the words [literally], [it] is not rightly taken. For who [would deny] to that great patriarch of the Israelite nation, the highest friend of God, [who was] the first both circumcised and [the beginner] of the true [manner] of performing this bodily circumcision—
(col. 499 — left column; printed “506”)
—[who would] deny [that] the true [manner], divinely handed down, [of performing this bodily circumcision belonged to Abraham]? Who [would deny it] to Isaac and Jacob? Who to Moses and Aaron? [It is] therefore to be concluded [that] in no way [is it] to be said [that] the same individual men were circumcised twice.
The other head of opinions is, that the circumcision is “second” in respect not of individuals, but of the whole people. But that people [is] either considered [as] different-and-different [ones], or [as] one and the same. [As] different, indeed, when some say [that] on that night on which [they] emigrated from Egypt, a great many of the Egyptians too were circumcised at the same time; and so the circumcision of the Israelites which was arranged by Joshua is called “second,” because through it a great many of the Egyptians too were circumcised at the same time. But how could that night — occupied with so many and so various affairs and cares — be spent in the circumcision of so many? Why, at the very point of the journey — and of a journey to be completed most swiftly — were so many wounded? How could they have advanced afterward? Others regard the one and only Israelite people, and some of them say [that] first, on that same night of the emigration, a great many Israelites were circumcised; but they are refuted in the same manner as those who [said] the Egyptians were circumcised entirely [that night]; and by this argument besides — that a cause would have to be assigned why so necessary a token of the divine law, and mark of the [chosen] nation, for so many [people], was deferred to that last night. Had Pharaoh forbidden [it]? Nowhere is [it] said. Had [it] been the negligence of the Israelites themselves, or a contempt of the divine precept? Neither is this cause [of the omission] anywhere insinuated. Secondly: otherwise St. Augustine (q. 6) — namely, [that] in the Israelite people some had been circumcised, others not; and these [uncircumcised], indeed, [had been] either born in the wilderness or [had] come out of Egypt; but [that] those latter [ones] paid the penalties both of [their] contempt of circumcision and of other sins by a sad destruction, while those born of them [were] now circumcised, Joshua [being] the author; and so the circumcision is called “second,” because the same people was circumcised in respect of some [members], [while] in respect of others [it] was now being circumcised. “One,” he says, “and the same people was in some [members] circumcised, in some not circumcised. Therefore [it] was said ‘Again,’ [so] that [it was] circumcised again — not the man, but the people [that was] re-circumcised.” And a little [after]: “No single man, one in number, is twice circumcised, but the people, which had already been circumcised in some [members], but in some was still uncircumcised.” [It] is a rather subtle exposition, yet perhaps not sufficiently consonant. For in the same people [there] were some already adult in age, others younger but who grew up afterward: is it not rightly said [that] the same people “grew up again”? And if [it] is said [so], could [it] not thereupon be said a hundred times to “grow up,” and likewise to “be circumcised”? For always in a great people [there] is a succession and perpetuation of that kind. Nay, on the same day and the same hour [it] could be said [that] the same people eats and drinks a second, third, fourth, and fifth [time], or oftener — because in it some are already eating, others not yet, but different [ones] after others. Thirdly — [it] is easier, and more like the truth, [the view] which Lyra brought forward and Masius nearly approves: [namely] that this circumcision is called “second,” a solemn [one], and public, of many persons at once; and that the first was [that] which Abraham once employed for the circumcising of himself and his whole household (Gen. 17). But this would be not a second, but a third circumcision. For (Gen. 34) [was there] not a solemn—
(col. 500 — right column; printed “507”)
—and public [circumcision] of many, by which all the citizens of the city of Shechem, and their sons, were circumcised? Did they not [thereby] openly go over into the people of God and the rites of Abraham? And [it] would much more be called a third, or rather a fourth [circumcision], if [what] Radak among the Jews — and, among our own, Tertullian in the book against them — teaches were true: [namely] that a great multitude of the Israelites omitted that ceremony in Egypt, but that Moses, taught on the way at his own peril, circumcised all those at once. Fourthly: Radak, however, does not look back to any past circumcision, but [to] the repeated acts of circumcising in this very [event]. For some were being circumcised after others. But in that manner, as often as — in a certain order of time — more [people] were circumcised, [there] would so often be a “second” circumcision. But why not a third, a fifth, a sixth, and so on, according as more or fewer succeeded [one another]? And in the circumcising of Abraham’s [household] and of the Shechemites [it] would also, in like manner, have been “second.”
[It] is therefore to be said [that], in our Latin text, [it] is called “second” — yet not with such regard to number that another could be a third, a fourth, and so on — but only by reason of iteration and repetition, after that rite of circumcision had been utterly intermitted for some interval of time; so that “second circumcision” is the same as “iterated, repeated, and — after a long interval — recalled and renewed.” [It] is proved, first, from the cause subjoined at vv. 5, 6, 7 — when [the text] says [that] of old, and indeed at the very Egyptian departure, the Israelites had been circumcised, but that this rite had ceased in the wilderness, and yet [was] not to be utterly omitted, but now to be repeated and used in the accustomed manner. Secondly: this the version of the Seventy also signifies, in which [it] is ἐκ δευτέρου [ek deuterou, “a second time”], which in Augustine (in the cited place) is always translated “again.” Thirdly: the Hebrew phrase signifies mere iteration, at v. 2: “Return, circumcise the sons of Israel a second time.” For that [phrase] “return, circumcise” means the same as “repeat the circumcision, recall it into use, return to that former rite of circumcising.” Yet for שוב [shuv] — that is, “return” — the Seventy seem to have read ישב [yashav], “to sit”; because at v. 2 they say κάθισας ποίησαι [kathisas poiēsai, “sitting, make”]. And [as for] what is added, “a second time,” [it] is the same as “again,” or “repeatedly.” For שנה [shanah] means “to iterate.” And therefore this iteration requires a former use, which was afterward interrupted and [now] is begun again — whether [it] be begun properly [as] a second, or [as] a third, or fourth, and so on. For even if [it] were the hundredth iteration, [it] would still be “iterated,” and — in the manner now explained — “second”; and of it the same words could be said which were here spoken to Joshua by the Lord (v. 2). Abulensis does not indeed confirm [it] with arguments, yet affirms this very thing in fact (q. 15 & 43).