A manifold cause is wont to be adduced. And the first, indeed, [is] from Radak, and before him from the Talmudic Rabbis (tractate Yebamoth ch. 8): [that] the circumcision was intermitted by the Israelites because through the whole 40 years in the desert the wind Boreas [the North wind] never blew. For since it is wont to scatter the gathered clouds, and [since] there would have been danger lest it also blow away that [cloud] which was the Leader and coverer of the Israelites’ camp, therefore [they say] the Lord forbade it to blow. Now this wind is as much an enemy to clouds as it is a friend to wounds and blows, so that by its breeze those [wounds] can easily be healed and grow together; and for that cause [they say] it is watched-for by the Jews who are about to circumcise, that it may bring the fitting medicinal power to the circumcised member. [These] are fables! [For:] could that cloud, which the Angel guarded and governed, be scattered by Boreas? Are there not other winds more vehement than it, especially in that wilderness? If, when infants are born, the eighth day be present, and Boreas does not blow — is the circumcision to be deferred? And what would be done in those places to which — Aristotle [being] witness — Boreas does not reach? They teach indeed [that] some of the winds are more or [less than others]—
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—[whether] wholesome or harmful — Hippocrates, and Galen (bk. 3 of the Epidemics), [and] John Baptist Montanus (tractate 3, On the pestilent fever, ch. 12). But [that] Boreas [is] so propitious to wounds, though it be most cold — I know of no one who teaches [this], unless perhaps for this [reason]: that, just as it wards off putrefaction from raw or cooked flesh, so in the cut-around part it suffers none to arise. For so also by Philo (bk. 3, On Moses) [it] was said [that] the northern winds invigorate most greatly. See Abulensis (q. 54 & 55).
Another cause the Scholastic History [Comestor] adduces: the fault and negligence of the parents themselves, who took no care that [their] sons be circumcised. And that seems able to be proved: first, from St. Augustine, who (quaest. 6) accuses their disobedience — not that by which in the desert they variously murmured against God (as [it] seemed to that best Commentator on Genesis, ch. 17, disp. 4) — but that by which they omitted the circumcision itself. For thus he speaks: “They who went out of Egypt begot sons in the desert, and neglected to circumcise them, because they were disobedient to the law of God.” Secondly, from Rupert (bk. on Joshua, ch. 15), who also proves this from Amos. Thirdly, from the Seventy themselves, who seem to say [that] those very [men] who went out of Egypt were not [themselves] circumcised, and therefore also took no care to circumcise their [sons]. For thus they say: ἀπερίτμητοι ἦσαν τῶν ἐξεληλυθότων ἐξ Αἰγύπτου [aperitmētoi ēsan tōn exelēluthotōn ex Aigyptou] — that is, “They were uncircumcised, of those who had gone out of Egypt.” And again: ἀπερίτμητοι ἦσαν οἱ πλεῖστοι αὐτῶν τῶν μαχίμων τῶν ἐξεληλυθότων ἐξ Αἰγύπτου, οἱ ἀπειθήσαντες τῶν ἐντολῶν τοῦ θεοῦ [aperitmētoi ēsan hoi pleistoi autōn tōn machimōn tōn exelēluthotōn ex Aigyptou, hoi apeithēsantes tōn entolōn tou theou] — that is, “Uncircumcised were most of those warriors who had gone out of Egypt, who had disobeyed the commands of God.” Which words [say] what else than that some — nay, very many — of those who had left Egypt and were now in the number of the fighters were without circumcision? But how would that sin never have been touched — [with] neither penalty nor any reproof, [however] slight — in the whole Scripture? How, by Moses, in so great a people, [for] so many years, [would it have been] so silently borne and dissembled? Certainly [there] were other, much lighter [faults], and much less necessary [to punish], which neither he nor God bore patiently — such as the collection of wood on the sabbath (Num. 15), [and] the complaint about thirst and fatigue (Exod. 15, 16, 17). But to St. Augustine [it] is to be said [that] he [was] led into that opinion by the version which is read in today’s common Greek [texts], and which — as regards this present difficulty — is similar, and as it were the same, [as] that which I cited [as] the [version] corrected from the Seventy. For after he had cited that version, he subjoins to it the words which are objected. Yet the mind of the Seventy themselves [is] other. For they always understand the sons of those who went out of Egypt. Thus [it should be read] ἀπερίτμητοι ἦσαν (ὑιοὶ) τῶν [aperitmētoi ēsan (huioi) tōn], etc.; and afterward: ἀπερίτμητοι ἦσαν οἱ πλεῖστοι (ὑιοὶ) αὐτῶν τῶν μαχίμων [aperitmētoi ēsan hoi pleistoi (huioi) autōn tōn machimōn] — “Uncircumcised were most of the sons of those very fighters” — as can be understood not obscurely from v. 7. Rupert too followed St. Augustine; but his reasoning from the prophet [Amos] will be explained afterward elsewhere — as [it] has also already been to some extent explained [at] Acts 7. See Ribera there; and, concerning the sin of the omitted circumcision, Abulensis (q. 52).
The third cause Masius (in this place and on Gen. 17) [and] Pererius (disput. 4) hand down: [that it] was not the fault of those parents, but a penalty — while this burned their minds, that by the omission of circumcision they saw—
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—their children in a manner excluded from the promises made to Abraham. And this they gather from Num. 14 v. 33: “Your sons shall be wanderers in the desert forty years, and shall bear your fornication, until the corpses of the fathers be consumed in the desert.” But this “bearing of the parents’ fornication” is nothing else than, generally, to pay certain penalties, and to endure some bitter [things], on account of the parents’ fault. But if [one] ask specifically what those penalties are, or what bitter [things], not the circumcision itself, but rather that wandering — and the long staying in the desert — is intimated; so that the latter part of this sentence indicates the cause of the former. Truly indeed, if this rite had ceased for the burning of the parents’ minds with some grief, then certainly [it] ought not to have [begun to cease] before the parents had bound themselves by those sins and this penalty had been appointed for them, nor [ought it to have continued] after all [of them] had been driven out of life. But immediately, as soon as they left Egypt, no one afterward was circumcised (as was said, q. 2), and before the crossing of the Jordan no one [was] — although of those who had sinned [there] was not even a single survivor at the very crossing of the torrent Zared (Deut. 2 v. 14). Besides, the circumcision would have had to be either forbidden to them by some command, or taken away by some other necessity. For otherwise [it] would not have been a penalty, if [they] had omitted [it] willingly and compelled by nothing; or, if [it] had been a penalty, [it] would have had [an] accompanying voluntary fault — in that manner in which the penalties of sins are sometimes called “sins” [poena peccati], as in Rom. 1. But in these parents those authors acknowledge no fault which was omitted on account of the omitted circumcision. By these arguments [there] is also refuted [the one] to whom this opinion pleased — Calvin; especially since he too confesses [that] Moses would not have borne so great a slackness. [There] is also refuted his disciple Francis Junius, when in [his] annotation on this chapter he writes so affirmatively: “This is the most open and most true reason why that age lacked circumcision — namely, the most shameful obstinacy of the parents, by which they breathed [longed for] Egypt.”
The fourth cause Major forges out of the school of the Theologians (bk. 4, disput. 1, quaest. 5): a divine dispensation. But whence [is] that known? Where [is it] handed down? If the Rabbis’ fiction set down before had any [degree] of probability, [it] could now be said consonantly [that] — by that very [fact], that the Lord had restrained the wind propitious to healing the wounds — [he] would seem to have given a power of neglecting the circumcision. But that [fiction] was exterminated above.
The fifth [cause], which could come into someone’s mind, Abulensis set down (quaest. 20): [that] the Israelites were not obliged to the observation of the law itself in the wilderness. But either that is asserted by no one, or — as regards this ceremony of circumcision indeed — it agrees with the already-rejected opinion of Major. Yet [for] a fuller refutation of it, if [it] be at heart to anyone, let him betake himself to that cited question of Abulensis, and likewise to the eleventh and the 22nd.
The sixth cause is, that circumcision was a certain token and mark, as it were, which distinguished the Hebrews from the other nations; and therefore, since in the wilderness those [Israelites] were alone, [there] was no need of it [in order] that they might be mutually recognized. So [says] Theodoret (on Genesis, quaest. 67, and on this book, quaest. 2). Where,—
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“Where,” he [Theodoret] says, “when they themselves were freed from the servitude of the Egyptians, and led [their] life in the desert, [God] did not require that this law be kept, nor exact penalties for transgression — because they lived among themselves, not mingled with foreign nations: they had no need of the sign of circumcision. But afterward, when he brought them into the promised land, he commanded [them] to be circumcised, lest through association with strangers [their] piety be undermined. For if it happened that anyone was led astray, [it] was easy — the mark being examined — to be received [back] into the flock; just as sheep marked with some sign, if they stray, are found [again].” And Damascene (bk. 4, On the Faith, ch. 26): “Circumcision,” he says, “was given before the law, after the blessings and the promise, as a sign — that [it] might distinguish him [Abraham] and his children and home-born [servants] from the nations among whom they dwelt.” [It] is an argument, that when the Israelites for 40 years dwelt apart by themselves in the desert, and had no commerce with any other nation, of those who were born in the desert absolutely none was circumcised; but after Joshua brought them across the Jordan, then at last they were circumcised, and [there] arose a “second law” of circumcision. For in the time of Abraham the law of circumcision was given; then for 40 years in the desert it ceased; and secondly again God gave the law of circumcision to Joshua after the Jordan was crossed. For in the book of Joshua [it] stands thus written: “But about this time, the Lord said to Joshua: Make thee knives of stone from the sharp rock, and, sitting, circumcise the sons of Israel a second time.” And, a few [words] intervening: “For forty and two years Israel dwelt in the Battaritid [Paran] wilderness; and for that cause many of the sons of the warriors, who had gone out of the land of Egypt [and] who had least obeyed the commands of God, were uncircumcised — [those] to whom [God] also affirmed [that] they would by no means see that good land, flowing with milk and honey, which the Lord had promised by oath to give to their Fathers. And into their place he substituted their sons, whom — because they had not been circumcised on the way — Joshua circumcised.” From which [it] is clear [that] circumcision was a sign which distinguished Israel from the Nations among whom [he] dwelt. St. Jerome, toward the end of bk. 1 of [his] Commentary on Galatians (ch. 3), when — as I cited above (q. 2) — he had said [that] no one was circumcised in the desert, subjoins: “For they lived alone, without admixture of another nation. As soon as the people crossed the bank of the Jordan, and poured itself, a Jewish swarm, into the land of Palestine, circumcision — [being] necessary — provided against the future error of the intermixture of the Gentiles.”
But first: when [there] is some law to which several duties and ends are set, it does not on that account remit its force and bond because some one of those ends ceases; for on account of the others — which are still in vigor and press — that law [is] to be kept. But now not only the distinction of the Israelites from other peoples was set for the law of circumcision, but also several other [ends], of which [it] was said (Gen. 17) when its end was explained — but especially the divine worship, and the expiation of original sin. Then, even if the law had only one end, [yet] when that ceases only negatively (as the Theologians say), its obligation is not dissolved. Thirdly, not even in their own Judea — after, the wars being settled and all the enemies subdued and exterminated, they had possessed it in tranquillity — would it have been [necessary] to circumcise them. For then no nation [was] mingled with them, none from whom it were needful to be distinguished, joined [to them] for at least some time. For Josephus too (bk. 1 against Apion) praises the Jews for this very [thing], that in their [own] land they are pure, and [free] from all—
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—filth of foreigners’ [in-]mixture; and that because with other nations [there] is to them no ἐπιμιξία [epimixia] — that is, [no] intermingling. And truly, if circumcision were considered not as [it] is a symbol of divine worship and obedience, [it] could seem a mark little apt to distinguish the Jews from others — since others could be marked with the same, and afterward several were [so] marked [as circumcised], such as the Egyptians, Arabs, and others of whom [Gen. 17]. And then, moreover, because [it is] not on the forehead, face, breast, arms, or [any] other honorable and easily-conspicuous part, but on that [part] which inborn shame — [implanted] by nature — forbids even to uncover and show by a word. See Abulensis (quaest. 56). But if [it] were to happen that the nations should embrace Judaism, [there] would then be no necessity of circumcision.
The seventh [cause], therefore — in St. Thomas (3rd part, quaest. 70, art. 4), Abulensis (quaest. 20, 57, 59), Masius, Pererius (in the cited place), and others — is [that] [it] was just [reasonable] that the infants be not vexed by any cutting in the desert, because the time of setting-out was always uncertain. For when the [cloud-]leader stirred the clouds, straightway, suddenly, the baggage had to be gathered and the journey undertaken; but that would have created the greatest danger of life for those who had then been circumcised. For if (Gen. 34) the pain of this circumcision, on the third day, so broke and weakened men [who were] strong, and robust in [their very] age, that by two of Jacob’s sons a whole city could be destroyed and cut down — how great a pain, and how present a danger, would [it] have threatened for the tender little ones, whom the labor of the journey would shake and agitate? Among the Jews, even today, [it] is the custom that, if — on account of the sickness of that wound — one or two sons die to someone, he may, in the other children whom he afterward begets, wait for a firmer age for circumcising, as Rambam shows (tractate Millah, tome 2); or [because] someone on the eighth day may seem too weak to be safely circumcised, as (Exod. 12 v. 48) Lyra notes, and from him Abulensis in the same place (quaest. 57). What wonder, then, if — in the continual motion or fear of the pilgrimage through the wilderness — [circumcision] was not despised, but deferred? For those laws of God which he did not implant in nature itself, but bears [imposes] afterward either through himself or through his own [ministers], are so gentle, and accommodated to the weakness of men, that — unless [God] himself expressly, or at least the necessary end of the [laws] themselves, pronounce this — they never oblige us with danger of life. But in the law of circumcision, neither is severity of this kind explained by express words, nor is [it] gathered from its end. For here [the end] can be obtained otherwise, both from infants and from those greater in age. For those [infants], indeed, could be freed from original guilt through that remedy which, before the precept of circumcision, was applied to infants; and these [adults] could be granted pardon through the very contrition of [their] mind — as is clear from the disputation cited often on Gen. 17, and from our Suárez (tome 3, disput. 30, sect. 1). Therefore the circumcision could, without any harm, be deferred for a while — [namely,] because a fixed and firm dwelling-seat [was] either assigned or at least indicated. For I judge [that] if the Israelites had certainly and surely known [that] they would remain either at the Sinaitic or at any other stations, and would not be compelled to the journey by the cloud’s summons, then they would think about circumcision—
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—[that it was] necessarily [so]. For indeed, when the summit of Mount Sinai held Moses, the Israelites were always uncertain of the setting-out, as Abulensis also teaches (quaest. 59). If you say [that] [it] seems likely that to Moses — as [were] so many and so great other [things] — [it] was divinely revealed, [namely] that they would tarry at that mountain [only] until the tabernacle, with its vessels and ornaments, was perfected, erected, and consecrated: I answer, first, [that] perhaps [it] was not revealed. For often, to certain [men], some great [things] are revealed by God, and lesser [ones] concealed. And in the same manner that [objection] of Junius (in the cited place) would be resolved, if [it] were true [that] many years were spent by the Israelites in one place (Deut. 1:46; ch. 2:13) — but of this elsewhere. Secondly, [even] granting [that] it was revealed, [it is] likely [that] at the same time [it] was signified to him [Moses] that he should not divulge this, but keep [it] to himself, so that the people might be retained in the former care and solicitude of the journey, and never — secure of a longer station in any place — sleep on both ears. And in that manner, if anyone should understand [that] God then dispensed in the precept of circumcision, I would not think [it] to be gainsaid. For since he willed the movement of the cloud [to be] unknown and uncertain, [he] at the same time seemed openly to say [that] he was not now urging his law of circumcision, and made a power [permission] of deferring it [for] so long, until they came into that place where the cloud was absent, and did not seek the trumpet-signal of the journey from it. But if, on account of the scarcity of fine-flour, incense, wine, and like things in that desert, [it] was lawful to abstain from sacrifices during the time of those many years, as Abulensis teaches (quaest. 21) — why not also, on account of the want of fixed rest and dwelling, [to abstain] from circumcision? These [things] rightly perceived and weighed, [it is] easy [that] the [things] which Calvin objects against that exposition (fol. 20) are either denied or explained — of whom again below (quaest. 5 & 11).
But perhaps a certain cause is not to be omitted, which Theodoret hands down (quaest. 2): [that] circumcision was now omitted for this reason, that we might consider [that] those old Fathers, endowed with circumcision, perished, but that their sons — without circumcision — were led into the promised land. “So we,” he says, “who are the sons, have received the kingdom of heaven; but the Jews, who held the place of the fathers, fell away from the eternal goods, and are expelled from the kinship of the patriarchs. Therefore it was fitting [for] the Jews to understand [that] circumcision is not a necessary thing. For the Lord God, foretelling to Abraham the time of his sojourning, commanded [him] to be circumcised; but when they themselves were freed from the servitude of the Egyptians, and led [their] life in the desert, [God] did not require that this law be kept, nor exact penalties for transgression.”