[There are] three chief opinions. The first is [that] of Abulensis (quaest. 23): [that] the circumcision was intermitted [for] all those forty years. The second [is that] of R. Ishmael (in R. Eliezer, ch. 29): [that they] were indeed circumcised, but without skill, or [without] the uncovering [retectio] of the foreskin — but this “uncovering” [was] already cast out in the preceding question. The last, or third, is [that] of Masius. “Nor indeed,” he says (fol. 80), “would I say, doubting, [that]—
(col. 501 — left column; printed “508”)
—[Masius, continuing:] “…in those stations at Mount Sinai, in which [there] was need to tarry both for receiving the law divinely and for constructing the sanctuary of God and the tabernacle — [that,] just as the Israelites kept the Passover according to custom, so also they circumcised their children too, as many as had been brought forth into the light either in those 47 days in which they had come from Egypt thither, or meanwhile while they lingered there.” In which words not only his opinion itself appears (denying [the total omission]), but also a twofold confirmation of the same. For, first: since [they] tarried at Mount Sinai for a whole year — if you except 12 or 13 days — not [merely] for some few days or weeks, what cause could [there] have been, that they should now omit a ceremony so necessary, and for so long a time — ever since Abraham — kept even amid the very hatreds and furies of the Egyptians? Was not the covenant entered with Abraham now, in that Sinaitic station, renewed — nay, established, and confirmed and ratified by various laws and by interposed blood? At what time, then, ought they [more] diligently and religiously to have observed the rite divinely given and prescribed to Abraham? Secondly: the Lord willed [that] another rite instituted not long before, at the very Egyptian departure — namely, the Passover — not be omitted by them, but be kept with great religion (Num. 9 v. 1); how would he have suffered the circumcision — which by long use was known to all [to be] necessary — to be passed over? For, for that reason too, concerning it — as concerning the more recent ceremony of the Passover — nothing seems to have been necessary, that the Lord should admonish [them] that it keep its former course. But the same writer [Masius] adds a third reason, as it were: for he says [that] the text of this chapter (v. 5) [means that] the Israelites were not circumcised “on the way, in going out,” or while [the people] was going out of Egypt; and [that] what was done at the stations ought to be reckoned neither [as] the setting-out on the journey, nor [as] done on the journey.
For my part, I could not deny [that] those [things] are said very probably; yet the text itself seems rather to urge us [to think] that not even then were any circumcised. For, first, [it] signifies (v. 6 & 7) [that] through all the forty years in which [the people] went and stayed to and fro in the desert, no one was circumcised — though the years would be but 39. For no cause here compels us to depart even a little from the proper use of the number set down, as was done above (ch. 4, part 2, quaest. 2). Then (v. 5 & 7) two termini, as it were, of the performed circumcision are set: one in Egypt — for those who went out thence had all put off the foreskin; the other now in Canaan — when [it was] done in like manner. [With] the years, then, intervening, no one [was] circumcised. Thirdly, clearly at v. 5 the Hebrew says: “All the people — those who were born in the desert, on the way, in going out of Egypt — they did not circumcise.” That is, “No one circumcised anyone in the desert.” Nor does [it] stand in the way, what Masius more subtly noted — [that] those who were at the stations are not said [to be] “on the way” nor “in the going-out.” For truly the whole space, both of places and of times, which was between Egypt and Canaan, is wont everywhere to be described in that manner. For because, even while they had a station somewhere, they were [still] making for elsewhere, nor was [there] a sought [permanent] seat there, they were said [to be] “on the journey and setting-out.” Just as one who sets out for another city — even if he take food in some inn, [and] pass the night, [and even if] by some sickness or—
(col. 502 — right column; printed “509”)
—by some other cause hindered he tarry a little longer — [yet] no one will deny that he is “on the way,” and setting out for another [place]. Nor indeed do the other [things] which Masius adduced draw us away from that opinion. For concerning the cause on account of which the intermission of this ceremony [lasted] so long a time, [it] will be said in the following question. Now that keeping of the Passover was done — and indeed by God’s own command — for this reason: that, since (as was said) that rite was most recent, and had never before been performed except once, [it] might now, by the very iteration, be the more inculcated, taught, and brought into custom. Otherwise concerning circumcision: for since [it] was already ancient, and by long use strengthened and established, [there] was no danger that — though [it] be interrupted for some years — it would fall away or be unlearned; especially since [there] were always many surviving circumcised [men], and some circumcisers too (of whom below, q. 7). Nay, from [the fact] that the Lord then commanded the Passover [but] was silent about circumcision, [it] could not improbably be gathered [that] it was not even employed then — especially since Masius confesses [that] its course was already cut off, from Egypt up to these Sinaitic stations.
But if [one] had to depart from the exact number of 40 years, another could say, from the text (vv. 6 & 7), [that] the circumcision then first ceased after the Israelites sinned at Kadesh-barnea, at the return of the spies. For then first the Lord threatened them with those horrible deaths and slaughters, of which [there is] mention here (Num. 14 v. 30 & following); and therefore, then too first, properly, he substituted and raised up sons — as is here said — into the place of the slain Fathers. But why do I say another could say this? Nay, Calvin has already said [it] (fol. 20) — who, however, is sufficiently refuted by the first and second argument against the second opinion. But clearly, toward the end of bk. 1 of [his] Commentary on Galatians, St. Jerome [says]: “For forty years,” he says, “in the desert no one was circumcised.”