WE may use the name Hagioi provisionally, as designating at all events a large class of Jews, whose views are reflected in apocalyptic literature like the Book of Enoch, and who must be kept distinct in thought from the Christiani of Justin, and from the stricter adherents of the Temple and the Law. In many respects they appear analogous to the Essenes or Hosioi according to the recent investigation of Lucius.173
169 Tryph. 63. Cf. 135, 138. 170 10. 2,3
171 These seem Gnostic thoughts. 2 See 2. 433 M. on Deut. 28.43. 172 See 2.433 M. on Deut. 28.43
The first nota of this class of Jews of the Diaspora is the negative, but significant one, the silence with respect to Circumcision, or the reduction of it to a spiritual symbol. How great the temptation was towards the end of the first century to renounce or to disguise this badge of membership in the national covenant, may be inferred from the details of the exaction of the Jewish fiscus. 174 But this was an apostasy in the eyes of the teachers of the Law; a
Palestinian authority, Eleazar of Modin, declared that he who was guilty of epiplasmos forfeited his blessedness or his part in he ‘world to come,’ even though he were [79] instructed in the Law, and was of pious conversation.175 Those who concealed, or who
disavowed this national covenantal note, incurred excommunication from the ancient congregation of Israel, and must have found it impossible long to maintain a distinctive and superior position in face of uncircumcised Gentiles, who boldly announced that circumcision was no longer a sacrament, but was to be understood in an allegorical sense, of the interior disposition of the man. The stern denunciations of their strict compatriots and the taunts of Greeks like Justin must have tended to drive a multitude of waverers in one direction, on a path from which there was no return. Justin tells the Jews they must receive the truth from him, an uncircumcised man. The circumcision of the flesh was given for a distinctive sign, to mark out the Jews for suffering. It was not necessary, otherwise Adam and Abel, and Enoch, and Noah, and Melchizedek would have had it. Abraham was blessed in uncircumcision, because of faith. Women cannot receive the rite, which again proves that it is but a ‘sign,’ not a ‘work of righteousness.’ Justin cries out, as usual mistaking clamour for argument, ‘the blood of that circumcision is obsolete!’ He admits that Christ was circumcised, but not that. He might be justified, but that He might perfect the divine economy.176 It does not occur to
Justin to explain how fleshly circumcision, which he argues against from the Prophet Jeremiah, was nevertheless a part of the divine economy at the time of Christ’s birth. Christians, he says, have received the ‘second [80] circumcision,’ by means of the ‘sharp stones’ of the discourses of the Apostles on the sharp-cornered stone! And so their hearts have been circumcised from all wickedness.177
The writer of the ‘Epistle of Barnabas’ reasons in a similar way, adding some foolish conceits of his own. Experience teaches that the soundest reasoning on any religious or political subject falls ineffective when the public mind is preoccupied with passions and interests adverse to the truth; and, on the other hand, that the feeblest sophisms are acceptable
whenever they fall in with prevailing passions and interests. The confident assertion that the circumcision was abolished must have been good news to multitudes of Jews of the period, could they believe it to be true. Some passages of the Old Testament gave a colour to the assertion. Moreover; the teaching of facts lent its powerful aid towards this revolution in thought. Educated Jews, brought into converse with many races, bad to explain to themselves the fact that the sacramental sign was not peculiar to them, but was shared by Egyptians, Edomites, Syrians. If circumcision was the seal of the covenant between Jehovah and the people of His possession, how came it that heathen bore the same? If the thing signified was different in the two cases, then the thoughtful mind must be the more forced back upon the inner significance, to grasp it as the core of genuine religion. At the present day, when our
174 The improfessi, Sueton. Dom. 12. See Graetz, Gesch. 4. 79; B. Bauer, Christus, &c., 240.
175 On the other hand, see the neglect of Circumcision by the Jew Ananias in his teaching of King Izates, Joseph.
Ant. 20. 2.4. Cf. Strabo, p. 760; Verisimilia, by A. Pierson and Naber, Amstelod., 1886, p.11. 3 Tryph. 19. 23, 24. 67.
176 Tryph. 19.23.24.67. 177 Tryph.114
knowledge of the world has so vastly opened out, and every well-informed Christian is aware that not only is circumcision practised far and wide among the native peoples of the great continents and the islands, but that ideas which he was [81] taught to consider the exclusive property of his faith, are shared by barbarians as native religious traditions, he is forced from the ground of old apologetic to seek some broader basis for his faith. And so, we apprehend, it is probable that when our era opened, there were multitudes of Jews in the Diaspora whose interest in maintaining the circumcision of the flesh had long been from various causes weakened, and who were ready to be drawn into the current of that revolution which we almost see in course of accomplishment in perusing the exultant pages of Justin Martyr. We simply note, however, the attack made upon the validity of the rite by him and by the author of the ‘Epistle of Barnabas,’ and the general silence elsewhere observed on the subject.178