s)
was connected with marriage, and was a preparation for connubium. It was
in Robertson Smith's words "originally a preliminary to marriage, and so
a ceremony of introduction to the full prerogative of manhood," the
transference to infancy among the Jews being a later change. On this
view, the decisive Biblical reference would be the Exodus passage (iv.
25), in which Moses is represented as being in danger of his life
because he had neglected the proper preliminary to marriage. In Genesis,
on the other hand, circumcision is an external sign of God's covenant
with Israel, and later Judaism now regards it in this symbolical sense.
Barton (_Semitic Origins_, p. 100) declares that "the circumstances
under which it is performed in Arabia point to the origin of
circumcision as a sacrifice to the goddess of fertility, by which the
child was placed under her protection and its reproductive powers
consecrated to her service." But Barton admits that initiation to the
connubium was the primitive origin of the rite.

As regards the non-ritual use of male circumcision, it may be added that
in recent years the medical profession has been responsible for its
considerable extension among other than Jewish children, the operation
being recommended not merely in cases of malformation, but generally for
reasons of health.

AUTHORITIES.--On the present diffusion of circumcision see H. Ploss,
_Das Kind im Brauch und Sitte der Voelker_, i. 342 seq., and his
researches in _Deutsches Archiv fuer Geschichte der Medizin_, viii.
312-344; Andree, "Die Beschneidung" in _Archiv fuer Anthropologie_,
xiii. 76; and Spencer and Gillen, _Tribes of Central Australia_. The
articles in the _Encyclopaedia Biblica_ and _Dictionary of the Bible_
contain useful bibliographies as well as historical accounts of the
rite and its ceremonies, especially as concerns the Jews. The _Jewish
Encyclopedia_ in particular gives an extensive list of books on the
Jewish customs connected with circumcision, and the various articles
in that work are full of valuable information (vol. iv. pp. 92-102).
On the rite among the Arabs, see Wellhausen, _Reste arabischen
Heidentums_, 154. (I. A.)

CIRCUMVALLATION, LINES OF (from Lat. _circum_, round, and _vallum_, a
rampart), in fortification, a continuous circle of entrenchments
surrounding a besieged place. "Lines of Contravallation" were similar
works by which the besieger protected himself agai