rol.
According to the author of the treatise just quoted, circumcision would
be nothing more than a remedy to repair the evils that a faulty
construction of the human body developed in certain climatic conditions.

With the Israelites it is observed as a religious rite, although they
are not strangers to the physical benefits that circumcision confers
upon them; the fact that even where no prepuce exists, as sometimes
happens, the circumciser nevertheless goes on with the rite, being
satisfied with drawing a few drops of blood from the skin near the
glans, stamps the operation essentially as being a religious rite.
Persecutions have signally failed to suppress its performance by those
of the Hebrew faith. Beginning with the decree of Antiochus, 167 B.C.,
which consigned every Hebrew mother to death who dared to circumcise her
offspring, they have not ceased to suffer in defense of their rite.
Adrian, among other repressive measures, forbade circumcision; under
Antonine this edict was still enforced, but he afterward recalled it and
gave to the Hebrews the right of observing their religious rites. Marcus
Aurelius, however, revived the edict of Adrian. Heliogabalus, who
ascended the Roman throne in the year 218 A.D., was himself circumcised.
During the reign of Constantine all the laws that interfered with
Hebraic rites were renewed, with the addition that any Hebrew who should
circumcise a slave should suffer death. Under the sway of Justinian, in
the sixth century, the persecutions against these people were so
oppressive that a Hebrew was not allowed to raise or educate his own
child in the faith of his fathers. In the seventh century, the augurs
having prophesied the ruin of the Roman Empire by a circumcised race to
the emperor Heraclius, the persecutions were renewed against these
unfortunate people. In this century, Hebrews refusing baptism suffered
banishment and confiscation of all their property; they were obliged to
renounce the Sabbath, circumcision, and all Hebraic rites if they wished
to remain. About this period the success of the Saracens induced
persecutions of the Hebrews in Spain, where their children were taken
away from them that they might be raised in the Christian religion. In
the fifteenth century they suffered the greatest persecution and
martyrdom at the hands of the Spanish Inquisition. The persecutions
above cited were national and governmental persecutions levelled
directly at the Jewish nation