The 8th Day of Christmas in Shakespeare's Time - January 1, Feast of the Circumcision (Series, Part 8)

THE 8th DAY of CHRISTMAS, January 1 in Shakespeare’s England as now, was the Feast of the Circumcision of Jesus,* a ritual for Jewish boys eight days after birth (hence the eight day), but also required of converts to Judaism.
[* What a way to start the new year!]

All but one of the day’s readings mention circumcision [1], first asked of Abraham as a sign of his covenant with God [2], later not required of Gentile converts to Christianity due to St. Paul’s intervention [3]. The day’s scriptures also speak of figurative “circumcision of the heart” [4][5][6], repenting of sinful attachments to earthly things that inhibit charity, or “caritas,” God-like love.

Abraham was also to circumcise male servants and household members, including Ishmael, his son by his wife Sarah’s servant Hagar, and by this all in Shakespeare’s time understood that not only Jews, but also Muslims (“Turks” and “Moors”) were also circumcised.

“Jew” or “Jewry” is mentioned about 80 times in Shakespeare, in 11 plays, most famously in The Merchant of Venice, in which Shylock (who claims at first it is in sport) wants a pound of Antonio’s flesh if he cannot repay his loan. Antonio had called Shylock a “cutthroat dog” (1.3.121), a possible metaphor [7]. Some scholars see Shylock’s desired pound of flesh as a wish to make Antonio a circumcised (or castrated) Jew of sorts and the Prince of Morocco, one of Portia’s suitors, a Muslim, assumed to have been circumcised [8].

In Othello’s suicide speech, he refers to “a malignant” and “turban'd Turk” who “Beat a Venetian”:
“I took by the throat the circumcised dog,
And smote him” (5.2.413-417).

Some see Othello as displaying “castration anxiety” [9].

Circumcision is related to, but not identical to, castration, used to create eunuchs to be less threatening servants (related to “circumcision of the heart”). Eunuchs are mentioned 15 times in 9 Shakespeare plays, including Twelfth Night [10].

[To be cont.]

INDEX for posts in this series on the TWELVE DAYS of CHRISTMAS in Shakespeare’s time (and possible influences on the plays):
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2024/12/twelve-days-of-christmas-in-churches-of.html

NOTES: All references to Shakespeare plays are to the Folger Shakespeare Library online versions: https://shakespeare.folger.edu

[1] Genesis 17, Romans 2, Deuteronomy 10, Colossians 2, Romans 4.8-14, Luke 2.15-21.
The only scripture passage of the day that does not explicitly use “circumcision” is Psalm 1, but that text speaks of the wicked as being like chaff, driven away by the wind (removed, like the foreskin):
3 For he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of waters, that will bring forth her fruits in due season: whose leaf shall not fade: so whatsoever he shall do, shall prosper.
4 The wicked are not so, but as the chaff, which the wind driveth away.

[2] Genesis 17 (Abram is also renamed by God here as “Abraham”). Many (for good reason) oppose male circumcision, and also female genital mutilation, as abusive. Uncircumcised males are at a greater risk of infection if they don’t wash thoroughly, pulling back the foreskin, so it is possible that circumcision began as a hygienic procedure but was later rationalized and made a religious ritual that, allegedly, God required.  

[3] Acts 15.

[4] Romans 2:25-29 (Geneva trans.):
25 For circumcision verily is profitable, if thou do the Law: but if thou be a transgressor of the Law, thy circumcision is made uncircumcision.
26 Therefore if the uncircumcis[ed] keep the ordinances of the Law, shall not his uncircumcision be counted for circumcision?
27 And shall not uncircumcision which is by nature (if it keep the Law) condemn thee which by the letter and circumcision art a transgressor of the Law?
28 For he is not a Jew, which is one outward: neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh:
29 But he is a Jew which is one within, and the circumcision is of the heart, in the spirit, not in the letter, whose praise is not of men, but of God.

[5] Deuteronomy 10:16 (Geneva trans.):
“Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and harden your necks no more.”
(Here the hardened and stubborn neck is certainly a body metaphor for something other than the literal neck. Certain stubborn attachments to habits of the flesh – with their sometimes harmful consequences – may have been part of what was being criticized in this passage, and not merely general stubbornness.)

[6] On this point of “circumcision of the heart,” we should note the related idea of Shakespeare’s puns, especially in The Merchant of Venice, regarding “gentle” and kind Christians, and Gentiles (the Jewish label in Christian scriptures for non-Jews. Antonio says of Shylock, “Hie thee, gentle Jew.” This may hint at an insult, calling the Jew Shylock “gentle,” which sounds like “Gentile.” After Shylock exits, Antonio continues, “The Hebrew will turn Christian; he grows kind.” (1.3.190-191). “Kind” can be a reference to virtues such as those listed by St. Paul which modern translations give as  “love is patient, love is kind” (or in the Catholic translation, “Charity is patient; is kind,” 1 Corinthians 13:4) – but it can also refer to people of one’s own kind: for Jews, other Jews; for Christians, other Christians. The implication for Shakespeare is that men especially can be unkind and must learn to be more Christian to overcome unkindness, so perhaps women and eunuchs are sometimes better at being Christian than men.
https://journeys.dartmouth.edu/exploratoryshakespeare/2015/07/14/gentle-shylock-and-jessica/

[7] “Cutthroat”: circumcision cuts the foreskin around the figurative “throat” of the male member below its figurative “head.”

[8] “Circumcision is so important to The Merchant of Venice's racialization of religious identity that it introduces another circumcised male, the Prince of Morocco.” Dennis Austin Britton, Chapter 8 - “Flesh and Blood:
Race and Religion in The Merchant of Venice, The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare and Race, pp. 108 - 122. Cambridge University Press, 2021. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108684750.008
See also,
Greenstadt, Amy. “The Kindest Cut: Circumcision and Queer Kinship in ‘The Merchant Of Venice.’” ELH 80, no. 4 (2013): 945–80. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24475523.

[9] See Shadi S. Neimneh,* & Nisreen M. Sawwa, “Castration Anxiety and the Mirror Stage: A Psychoanalytic Reading of Shakespeare's Othello,” World Journal of English Language Vol. 5, No. 2; 2015.
doi:10.5430/wjel.v5n2p25
Also at https://www.sciedupress.com/journal/index.php/wjel/article/view/7226
See also Lupton, J. R. (1999). Othello Circumcised: Shakespeare and the Pauline Discourse of Nations. University of California Press. Representations, 57(Winter 1997), 73-89. Retrieved from https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2sj9q4z5

[10] In Twelfth Night, the shipwrecked Viola disguises herself as a male eunuch.


IMAGES:
Left: Titian  (1490–1576)
Sacrifice of Isaac
(Abraham, son Isaac, angel)
Circa 1542 – 1544
Santa Maria della Salute   
Public domain, via https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ec/Titian_-_Sacrifice_of_Isaac_-_WGA22780.jpg

Center: Shylock, 1911 Italian-French film poster. Fair use (public domain, 100+ years), via https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/81/Shylock_film.jpg

Right: Portrait of Abd el-Ouahed ben Messaoud ben Mohammed Anoun, Moorish ambassador to Queen Elizabeth I in 1600, sometimes suggested as the inspiration for Othello.
Artist Unknown
Elizabethan painting of the Moorish ambassador who visited Queen Elizabeth I from Barbary in 1600 to propose an alliance against Spain. It is the earliest surviving English portrait of a Muslim sitter.
circa 1600
University of Birmingham
Public domain, via https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ef/MoorishAmbassador_to_Elizabeth_I.jpg/640px-MoorishAmbassador_to_Elizabeth_I.jpg

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Disclaimer: If and when I quote or paraphrase bible passages or mention religion in many of my blog posts, I do not intend to promote any religion over another, nor am I attempting to promote religious belief in general; only to explore how the Bible and religion influenced Shakespeare, his plays, and his age.
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