Circumcision of Jesus
The circumcision of Jesus is an event from the life of Jesus, according to the Gospel of Luke chapter 2, which states:
The eight days after his birth is traditionally observed 1 January. This is in keeping with the Jewish law which holds that males should be circumcised eight days after birth during a Brit milah ceremony, at which they are also given their name. The circumcision of Christ became a very common subject in Christian art from the 10th century onwards, one of numerous events in the Life of Christ to be frequently depicted by artists. It was initially seen only as a scene in larger cycles, but by the Renaissance might be treated as an individual subject for a painting, or form the main subject in an altarpiece.
The event is celebrated as the Feast of the Circumcision in the Eastern Orthodox Church on 1 January in whichever calendar is used, and is also celebrated on the same day by many Anglicans. It is celebrated by Roman Catholics as the Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus, in recent years on 3 January as an Optional Memorial, though it was for long celebrated on 1 January, as some other churches still do. A number of relics claiming to be the Holy Prepuce, the foreskin of Jesus, have surfaced.
Biblical accounts[edit]
Luke's account of Jesus's circumcision is extremely short, particularly compared to Paul the Apostle's much fuller description of his own circumcision in the third chapter of his Epistle to the Philippians. This led theologians Friedrich Schleiermacher and David Strauss to speculate that the author of the Gospel of Luke might have assumed the circumcision to be historical fact, or might have been relating it as recalled by someone else.[2]
In addition to the canonical account in the Gospel of Luke, the apocryphal Arabic Infancy Gospel contains the first reference to the survival of Christ's severed foreskin. The second chapter has the following story: "And when the time of his circumcision was come, namely, the eighth day, on which the law commanded the child to be circumcised, they circumcised him in a cave. And the old Hebrew woman took the foreskin (others say she took the navel-string), and preserved it in an alabaster-box of old oil of spikenard. And she had a son who was a druggist, to whom she said, "Take heed thou sell not this alabaster box of spikenard-ointment, although thou shouldst be offered three hundred pence for it. Now this is that alabaster-box which Mary the sinner procured, and poured forth the ointment out of it upon the head and feet of our Lord Jesus Christ, and wiped it off with the hairs of her head".[3]
Scene from a German painted wood altarpiece
Mid-18th-century Russian icon
