A Perpetual Covenant in Your Flesh: the Circumcision of Christ and the Everlasting Testament
Old Testament: Genesis 17:10-13
This is my covenant which you shall observe, between me and you, and thy seed after thee: All the male kind of you shall be circumcised: And you shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin, that it may be for a sign of the covenant between me and you. An infant of eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every man child in your generations: he that is born in the house, as well as the bought servant shall be circumcised, and whosoever is not of your stock: And my covenant shall be in your flesh for a perpetual covenant.
New Testament: Luke 2:21; Colossians 2:11-12; Hebrews 13:20
And after eight days were accomplished, that the child should be circumcised, his name was called JESUS, which was called by the angel, before he was conceived in the womb. ... In whom also you are circumcised with circumcision not made by hand, in despoiling of the body of the flesh, but in the circumcision of Christ: Buried with him in baptism, in whom also you are risen again by the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him up from the dead. ... And may the God of peace, who brought again from the dead the great pastor of the sheep, our Lord Jesus Christ, in the blood of the everlasting testament,
The connection
God gave Abraham a covenant he could not forget, because it was cut into his body: "you shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin, that it may be for a sign of the covenant between me and you. An infant of eight days old shall be circumcised among you ... And my covenant shall be in your flesh for a perpetual covenant" (Genesis 17:11-13). On that day God also changed his name: "thou shalt be called Abraham" (17:5). The Son of God kept that covenant in His own flesh. "After eight days were accomplished, that the child should be circumcised, his name was called JESUS" (Luke 2:21). In Him the sign reaches what it signified: "you are circumcised with circumcision not made by hand, in despoiling of the body of the flesh, but in the circumcision of Christ: Buried with him in baptism, in whom also you are risen again" (Colossians 2:11-12). And the covenant in the flesh becomes the covenant in His Blood, "the blood of the everlasting testament" (Hebrews 13:20). St Athanasius: circumcision "was done at that time as a sign of the future baptism through Christ. Therefore as soon as that of which it was a sign came, the figure ceased." St Cyril of Alexandria sees the eighth day itself fulfilled: "on the eighth day Christ rose from the dead, and conveyed to us a spiritual circumcision." The Catechism teaches that Jesus' circumcision prefigures the circumcision of Christ, which is Baptism (CCC 527).
Moral sense
The covenant was always meant to reach the heart: "The Lord thy God will circumcise thy heart, and the heart of thy seed: that then mayst love the Lord thy God with all thy heart" (Deuteronomy 30:6). St Paul says it plainly, "the circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, not in the letter" (Romans 2:29), and "we are the circumcision, who in spirit serve God; and glory in Christ Jesus, not having confidence in the flesh" (Philippians 3:3). The mark that once set apart the body now sets apart the whole life: what was cut away in Abraham's flesh is cut away from the old man in Baptism, and the baptized are asked to live as people who belong to Another.
Anagogical sense
St Augustine explains how a sign that ended could be called perpetual: the word translated everlasting "either has no end, or lasts to the very end of this world." The sign lasted its age; the covenant it signified has no end. St Bede reads the eighth day forward: "as the Lord rose on the eighth day, i.e. the day after the seventh, (which is the Sabbath,) so we also after six ages of the world and after the seventh, which is the rest of souls ... shall rise as on the eighth day." The covenant cut in the flesh ends in the flesh raised up.
The Fathers
St Athanasius, in the Catena Aurea on Luke 2:21: "For circumcision expressed nothing else, but the stripping off of the old birth ... And thus it was done at that time as a sign of the future baptism through Christ. Therefore as soon as that of which it was a sign came, the figure ceased." St Cyril of Alexandria: "It was the custom on the eighth day to perform the circumcision of the flesh. For on the eighth day Christ rose from the dead, and conveyed to us a spiritual circumcision, saying, Go and teach all nations, baptizing them." Origen: "As we have died with Him at His death, and risen together with Him at His resurrection, so with Him have we been circumcised, and therefore need not now circumcision in the flesh."
Warrant
Scriptural, because St Paul reads circumcision as fulfilled in Christ, calling Baptism the circumcision of Christ (Colossians 2:11-12) and Abraham's circumcision a seal of the justice of faith (Romans 4:11), and St Luke sets the Lord's own circumcision on the eighth day under the law of Genesis 17:12. The Fathers gathered in the Catena on Luke 2:21 read it so: St Athanasius (the sign of the future Baptism), St Cyril of Alexandria (the eighth day of the Resurrection, with Colossians 2:11), St Bede (the eighth day of our rising, and the name given on the day of circumcision as Abraham's name was increased), and Origen (with Him have we been circumcised); St Augustine (City of God XVI) explains the everlasting covenant. Checked in the languages: the Hebrew is berit olam, the Septuagint diatheke aionios, the Vulgate foedus aeternum; Hebrews 13:20 has diathekes aioniou, the same words. The lead was Dunk's, from the word perpetual at Genesis 17:13 asked after in Hebrew, Greek and Latin.
Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 527.
The verses
Genesis 17:10 · Genesis 17:11 · Genesis 17:12 · Genesis 17:13 · Luke 2:21 · Colossians 2:11 · Colossians 2:12 · Hebrews 13:20
