Bergmann argues that the Israelites were given to like practices, and cites the incident wherein David brought two hundred prepuces--as evidence of his having slaughtered that number of Philistines--to Saul, as a mark of his being worthy to be his son-in-law. He argues that, whereas many have made that Old Testament passage to read "two hundred prepuces," it should have read "two hundred virile members" which David and his companions had cut off from the Philistines, the word _orloth_ meaning the virile member, and not the prepuce. That Israelitish circumcision could have originated from either phallic worship or any of the hero-warrior usages is untenable as a proposition, as regards the living prisoners, and is contrary to the monotheistic idea which ruled Israel, or to the benign nature of their God. The strict opposition of the religion of Judaism to any other mutilation except that of the covenant is also antagonistic to the views advanced by Bergmann, as it is well known that even emasculated animals were considered imperfect and unclean, and therefore unfit to be received or offered as a sacrifice to their deity. No emasculated man was allowed to enter the priesthood or assist at sacrifices. The whole idea of Judaism being opposed to such mutilations, their observance of circumcision and its performance can in no way have developed from either phallic or other warlike rites or usages; but we must accept its origin as a purely religious rite,--a covenant of the most rigid observance, coincident in its inception with the formation of the Hebraic creed in the hills of Chaldea.
What Herodotus or Pythagoras may have written concerning the practice among the Egyptians was written, as already remarked, some nine centuries after Moses had recorded his laws; Moses himself having come some centuries after Abraham. Herodotus is quoted as representing that the Phoenicians borrowed the practice from the Egyptians, in support of the theory that Egypt was the central nucleus from whence the practice started, and not that it traveled toward Egypt from Phoenicia. The difference in the ages, already mentioned, at which the rite was practiced--that of Phoenicia and Israel being at one time identical--shows that the testimony of Herodotus in this one particular was the result of faulty judgment, as we find the people who have borrowed the practice from the Egyptians, as well as their descendants, closely follow their practice in regard to the age at which the operation should be performed. Another evidence of the strictly religious nature of the rite, as far as the Hebrews are concerned, lies in the fact that, with all their skill in surgery and medical sciences,--they being at one time the only intelligent exponents of our science,--they never made any alteration or improvement in the manner of performing the operation. It is evident that even Maimonides, a celebrated Jewish physician of the twelfth century, who furnished some rules in regard to the operation, was held under some constraint by the religious aspect of the rite. As a summary of this part of the subject, it may be stated that the Old Testament furnished the only reliable and authentic relation prior to Pythagoras and Herodotus. From its evidence, Abraham was the first to perform the operation, which he seems to have performed on himself, his son, and servants,--in all, numbering nearly four hundred males; he then dwelt in Chaldea. In absence of other as reliable evidence we must accept this testimony in regard to its origin, causes, and antiquity.