Editing Circumcision and law (section)

=== Judaism ===
{{See also|Brit milah}}
There are ancient religious requirements for [[circumcision]]. The [[Hebrew Bible]] commands [[Jew]]s to circumcise their male children on the eighth day of life, and to circumcise their male [[slavery|slaves]].<ref>{{bibleverse||Genesis|17:11–12|HE}}</ref>

Laws which ban circumcision are also ancient. The [[Ancient Greece|ancient Greeks]] prized the foreskin and disapproved of the Jewish custom of circumcision.<ref name="Hodges2001">{{Cite journal |last=Hodges |first=Frederick M. |year=2001 |title=The Ideal Prepuce in Ancient Greece and Rome: Male Genital Aesthetics and Their Relation to Lipodermos, Circumcision, Foreskin Restoration, and the Kynodesme |url=http://www.cirp.org/library/history/hodges2/ |url-status=live |journal=Bulletin of the History of Medicine |volume=75 |issue=3 |pages=375–405 |doi=10.1353/bhm.2001.0119 |pmid=11568485 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181120091617/http://www.cirp.org/library/history/hodges2/ |archive-date=20 November 2018 |access-date=22 January 2008 |s2cid=29580193}}</ref> [[1 Maccabees]], 1:60–61 states that [[Antiochus IV Epiphanes|King Antiochus IV]] of [[Syria]], the occupying power of [[Judea]] in 170 BCE, outlawed circumcision on penalty of death,<ref>[[1 Maccabees]], 1:60–61</ref> one of the grievances leading to the [[Maccabean Revolt]].<ref name = "Miller">{{Cite ssrn |last=Miller |first=Geoffrey P. |date=Spring 2002 |title=Circumcision: Cultural-Legal Analysis |ssrn=201057 |quote=Ritual circumcision of boys is a durable tradition. Jews of ancient times refused to abandon the practice despite enormous pressure to do so. In 167 BCE the Seleucid emperor Antiochus IV, as part of a campaign to Hellenise the Jews, condemned to death every Hebrew who allowed a son to be circumcised. The Jews responded with the Maccabean revolt, a campaign of [[guerrilla warfare]] which resulted in major victories for the rebels and, eventually, a peace treaty which restored Jewish ritual prerogatives.}}
</ref>

According to the ''[[Historia Augusta]]'', the [[Roman Empire|Roman]] emperor [[Hadrian]] issued a decree which banned circumcision in the empire,<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Ideal Prepuce in Ancient Greece and Rome |url=http://www.cirp.org/library/history/hodges2/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181120091617/http://www.cirp.org/library/history/hodges2/ |archive-date=20 November 2018 |access-date=12 September 2004 |website=www.cirp.org}}</ref> and some modern scholars argue that this was a main cause of the Jewish [[Bar Kokhba's revolt|Bar Kokhba]] revolt of 132 CE.<ref>See, e.g., Alfredo M. Rabello, The Ban on Circumcision as a Cause of Bar Kokhba's Rebellion, 29 ISRAEL L. REV. 176 (1995) (Arguing that the Bar Kokhba rebellion against Roman rule was primarily motivated by the superimposition of foreign religious standards, rather than by some important notion of independence or sovereignty).</ref> The Roman historian [[Cassius Dio]], however, made no mention of such a law, instead, he blamed the Jewish uprising on Hadrian's decision to rebuild [[Jerusalem]] and rename it [[Aelia Capitolina]], a city dedicated to [[Jupiter (god)|Jupiter]].

[[Antoninus Pius]] permitted Jews to circumcise their own sons. However, he forbade the circumcision of non-Jewish males who were either foreign-born slaves of Jews and the circumcision of non-Jewish males who were members of Jewish households, in violation of Genesis 17:12. He also banned non-Jewish men from converting to Judaism.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Kraus |first=Matthew |date=29 March 2004 |title=Review of: Jews and Gentiles in the Holy Land in the Days of the Second Temple, the Mishna and the Talmud |url=http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2004/2004-03-29.html |url-status=live |journal=Bryn Mawr Classical Review |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180412202942/http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2004/2004-03-29.html |archive-date=12 April 2018 |access-date=4 September 2016}}</ref> Antoninus Pius exempted the Egyptian priesthood from the otherwise universal ban on circumcision.

[[Constantine the Great]] made it illegal to circumcise Christian slaves, and punished the owners who allowed it by freeing the Christian from slavery.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Schäfer |first=Peter |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tdKCAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA182 |title=The History of the Jews in the Greco-Roman World |publisher=Routledge |year=2003 |page=182 |isbn=978-1-134-40317-2 |quote=Constantine forbade the circumcision of Christian slaves, and declared any slave circumcised despite this prohibition a free man}}</ref>