On Moses’ Prophethood and on Circumcision

[I]‌f a questioner asks you, “How do you know who that prophet is on whom your religion is based?” you answer him and say, “His name is Moses.” And when he asks you, “That man whose name is this—how do you know that he is the prophet of God?” answer also, “We know that he is the prophet of God by this, that the people of the world are in disagreement, and each basis of disagreement has a name, and it is a religion—one Mazdean [Zoroastrian], one Christian, one Muslim, and one Jew; if it were not for the disagreement of the four of these, they would all be one. The hearts of many people would not be in doubt, for they ought to know where the truth is, what it is, and with whom it is. But on account of those [people] who disagree [with them] each one says to the other, ‘The truth is those things on which I stand, and the false is that on which you stand.’ For this reason heart[s] fall into doubt and search is necessary, but it is not necessary to travel the whole world [for it]!” Now I thought to myself and debated with myself about this doubt in my heart: from which direction does it come? And I reached the head of the matter and observed that that doubt in my heart had arisen because of the disagreement of the people of the world. And then I observed and noticed that everything has an opposite: the opposite of night is day, that of darkness is light, and that of fire is water—and [I observed] that each opposite can be held [in check] by its own opposite. And then I said that the opposite of disagreement is [lack of] disagreement, and since my doubt came about through disagreement, it would be excised from my heart by that which contains no disagreement. Now I asked the people of the world, those opponents who are in disagreement with one another, and each one maintains, “This is the truth on which I stand, not that of yours,” and on examination of their words (not that it was necessary to assume their testimony as true), and inquiry into their words and answers, they all admitted, one by one, that God had a prophet whose name was Moses. And when I asked them, “Since you admit that God had a prophet whose name was Moses,” I asked them, “How was the prophethood of this prophet, whom God sent to mankind at that time, acceptable to those men, so that they recognized that his prophethood was genuine? For they all believed in the signs Moses performed, from among those God had vouchsafed him (and he gave signs to Pharaoh and to the people of Egypt), and all the signs and miracles that God performed through the handiwork of Moses in Egypt, at the [Reed] sea and in the wilderness, until the entry of the children of Israel into the land of the Temple. Since they all believed in these, the prophethood of Moses was confirmed by their agreement and belief.”

And if he asks you, “Now that you have confirmed [the prophethood of] Moses, [what of] these matters which you say [are] by God’s command, that is, some He has commanded, ‘Do,’ and some He has commanded, ‘Do not’—how do you know the rightness of this matter?” you answer him, “Also by the belief of these opposites.” When I asked them, “What commandments did that Moses, a prophet of God, bring to mankind?” each one held the [following] opinion, saying, “He brought this to mankind: of the commandments of God there are [some] which are admitted by the faith of the Mazdeans, with their performance of bāj¹, and by the faith of all types of Christians, namely, the matters of Sabbath, clean and unclean, quadrupeds, and [other] animals.” [Some] of these [commandments] are [also] admitted by the faith of the Muslims—such as the Sabbath and the prohibition of fat and other things, concerning which, when I asked all three opponents, “Since you confess that this matter has come from God to mankind by the handiwork of the prophet Moses, how is it that you do not act according to it?” they answered, “Someone came to us as a prophet from God, saying, ‘Leave that,’ and he brought other [commandments] for us.” [ . . . ]

And I saw that the fourth [group], called Jews, [despite] whatever the opposing gentiles maintained, [namely] that “the nonvalidity of the prophet Moses had come from God,” [the prophet] whom they [the gentiles] had abandoned, and [whose] commandments they did not observe, [yet] the Jews believed in him and carried out his commandments, because we recognized that these opponents are all broken and liars in their own faith. And they revealed their beliefs to the Jews, but the Jews persisted in their belief, saying, “This matter in which we believe is from God,” and they continued to act according to it. In this matter this people, called Jews, were upright above all [those] opposing peoples.

Now the prophethood of Moses has been established, as well as the commandments which Moses brought to the Israelites, by the acknowledgment of all four peoples² and by the fact that the three peoples upheld the truth of the Israelites, saying, “We have recognized that right is with the Israelites.” [ . . . ]

You shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin: And cut the flesh of your foreskin, that it may be a sign of the covenant between Me and you. [ . . . ]

And what is this “foreskin,” and from where should it be cut? For as to this ‘rl [foreskin, uncircumcised], everybody mentions a [different] place as uncircumcised lips (Exodus 6:12) and uncircumcised in heart (Jeremiah 9:25; Ezekiel 44:9), behold their ear is uncircumcised (Jeremiah 6:10), and uncircumcised tongue (Exodus 6:30). How can I know from where He commands it to be cut and of what place He says it should be cut? But we know from this place, where it is written, the uncircumcised male: Cut the male foreskin, and not the foreskin of the female child, which is so that we may know that He speaks of the place whereby it is possible to recognize male from female. This is the male member, except for which it is not possible to recognize male from female. Now He says, the uncircumcised male, and male is the name of masculinity; for the name of masculinity and femininity does not apply to any other member except to this place.

Source: London British Library MS Or. 5446.