Thus, I'll reiterate that in order to understand the culture of the Middle Ages we have to divest ourselves, if only temporarily, of our modern prejudices. As Judith Herrin put it: she, an unbeliever, had to 'temporarily suspend unbelief' when dealing with late antique history. And two modern prejudices, lurking under some learned remarks on 'Circumcision' thread, are particularly insidious because, while as natural to us as the air we breathe, they had but little currency in the Middle Ages - hence the potential for misunderstandings. Ours is a (1) dialectic, (2) materialistic culture. (1) Dialectic: given two different entities, we live in the firm belief that they will be at war with each other. Other possibilities - that they may be complementary, and/or subordinate to each other - are hardly considered, yet these were precisely the possibilities that the medieval mind found most attractive. Thus, pace Abelard, the 'materialism' of Jewish belief and and its spiritualization by Christians' need not be at odds with each other. To the contrary, Biblical texts from my previous posting and countless others show that the physical circumcision was a sign ('sacrament' means just that) of a spiritual reality. It is, then, rather difficult to see how Baptism makes 'of course' circumcision 'useless and spiritually dangerous' and perhaps Tom Izbicki, indulging to my weakness for specific references and primary sources, will give us some texts in point, in addition to his unquestionably impressive, but a bit vague, 'sermons', 'Sentence commentaries' and 'some work in this area'.

The second modern prejudice is materialism, the firm belief that there is nothing beyond what we can see or touch or smell. Hamlet, who knew better and had his doubts, was straight out of the Middle Ages, an age that feasted on spirituality (superstructures or mental constructions to the modern mind). To the medieval mind just about anything, not only the Scripture, could have four senses: read Alcuin's dialogue between Pippin and himself. In our materialistic culture circumcision is often considered a simple physical process, done for medical or hygienic reasons and based on the steadfast conviction that, Jewish or Gentile, a foreskin is a foreskin is a foreskin. The same literal-mindedness also surfaced in Hadrian's edict as reported by Prof. Alfredo Rubello as reported by Jeffrey Woolf, and Hadrian, blind as a bat to any significance circumcision had for the Jews, was not a man of the Middle Ages.

To a man of the Middle Ages reality could be understood at different levels. The circumcision of Jesus was, like that of any Jewish male, a sign (sacrament) of belonging to God and to the Jewish people. In addition to that, Christians saw in Christ's circumcision - the first spilling of is blood - a foreshadowing of Christ's death on the cross, when He offered himself victim for all mankind. Ambrose, commenting on the Gospel account of Jesus' circumcision (Luke 2.2) saw the cutting off of the flesh as a sign of purification from sin (nam et circumcisio purgationem significat delictorum).