positively valued circumcision and Roman triumphal language (see Col 2:15) locates us in a rhetorical context far from Paul’s earlier letters.
If circumcision is not a problem, as in Paul’s earlier letters, what is it doing in this passage? The interpretation of Colossians 2:9–13 is made difficult by its abstruseness, particularly its use of terms in simultaneously literal and figurative fashion: Christ’s “body” in the beginning of the passage is presumably real (a reference to the incarnation), but the body that is “put off” by followers later on would seem to be figurative (symbolizing their old lives). Likewise, Christ’s burial is literal (he really died, and was really buried) but that of his followers is metaphorical: they “rise” from the baptismal font as if they have also been buried and resurrected. Then, finally, there is circumcision: it appears to be associated here, for the first time, with baptism (an analogy to which I return below), making it a circumcision “without hands” (sometimes translated as “spiritual” or “invisible”).71 But this analogy also confuses the literal and figurative: baptism itself is a material event—there is a body, and water, and space, and hands—yet its spiritual efficacy happens invisibly, apart from manual operation.
In this amalgamation of the material and spiritual, what are we to make of “the circumcision of Christ”? Is it figurative or literal, like his body and his burial? Greek, as English, allows for two grammatical ways to construe this possessive phrase. As a subjective genitive, it is the circumcision that Christ performs (presumably, on the letter’s recipients). As an objective genitive, it is the circumcision performed on Christ. The phrase has been interpreted both ways, but never strictly literally: like the rest of the passage, “Christ’s circumcision” enjoys dual signification, at once literal and figurative, subjective and objective. When the phrase is read as a subjective genitive, it is a figure for Christian ritual: Christ performs this “circumcision” on the recipients of the letter “without hands” (Col 2:11) in “baptism” (Col 2:12).72 This typological “circumcision”/baptism allows a reconfiguration of language that, elsewhere in the Pauline corpus, we would read more literally: by partaking in “Christ’s circumcision” (baptism), the recipients of the letter redeem their previous state of “uncircumcision” (Col 2:13: “you were dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh” [
What about the objective genitive reading of “the circumcision of Christ”—that is, how do we read this verse if it refers to the circumcision performed on Jesus? Here, too, the literal and figurative shade into each other. Notably, however, even when modern interpreters read this phrase objectively—the circumcision performed on Christ—they resist reading it as his literal, infant circumcision: “Some have taken the phrase to refer specifically to Christ’s physical nature—not to his literal circumcision (Luke 2:21), but to his death (cf. Rom 7:4)” (emphasis added).74 The path of this semantic redirection is not immediately obvious, since the crucifixion is not explicitly mentioned here. It is mentioned literally in Col 1:20 (“peace through the blood of the cross”); in this chapter, however, it is one more in a series of visceral metaphors: “He set this [the ‘record against us’] aside, nailing it to the cross” (Col 2:14). Curiously, we have an instance here of an objective genitive (“the crucifixion performed on Jesus”) being transformed into a subjective genitive (“the crucifixion performed by Jesus, on the Jewish Law”).
Even assuming that enough connotations of baptism-as-death-as-crucifixion seep into the text to allow a reader to understand Col 2:12 in this way, we must still marvel a bit at the ingenuity of this reading. This interpretation is remarkable for the degree to which it maintains both the literality of Christ’s circumcision (“flesh stripped away,” here by crucifixion) and its figurality (it is still not circumcision, but “circumcision”). When James Dunn argues that the “circumcision of Christ” should be taken objectively (that is, a circumcision performed on Christ), he writes: “The final phrase, ‘in the circumcision of Christ,’ is best seen, then, simply as a summary expression of the larger imagery of the preceding phrases. This is, what is in view is not primarily a circumcision effected by Christ … but a concise description of the death of Christ under the metaphor of circumcision.”75 On Christ’s body, the “circumcision of Christ” is simultaneously circumcision and “circumcision,” crucifixion and “crucifixion,” death and “death.” Still, it is difficult to understand why modern interpreters insist that the “physical” circumcision is somehow not also his literal, infant circumcision.76 The reference to “stripping of flesh” (Col 2:11) at the very least gestures toward literal, physical male circumcision; so too, beneath and within the chain of metaphors, of literal and figurative language intertwined, might we envision Christ’s circumcision, as well. If this is the case, then Colossians 2:11 is the earliest surviving mention of Jesus’ circumcision.
It is, of course, impossible to distinguish between the objective and subjective genitive here, and we must assume the writer of Colossians knew what he was doing when he structured the sentence with this ambiguity in place. Circumcision (which, elsewhere in the letter, rather neutrally equates to “Judaism”) juxtaposed with Christ’s body becomes a radical resignifier. It can emanate from Christ or remain on his skin’s surface; in either case, it cannot help but be swept up in the cascade of literal and figurative corporeal moments of Christ’s life that structure the entire passage. It may very well refer to Christ’s crucifixion, because this section of the letter has so disembedded “circumcision” from its normal religious, political, and cultural significations. By bringing the circumcision into contact with Christ—wielded by him or against him—the author of Colossians has succeeded in prising it free not only of Roman control, as in Paul’s letters, but of Jewish control as well. Whether Christ’s circumcision is baptism or crucifixion or both, it is no longer a sign of the covenant of Abraham or the legible symbol of Roman imperial subjection. It is Christianized, and totally open to multiple new meanings.
Luke’s Jewish Messiah for Gentiles
The author of the Gospel of Luke is slightly more willing to imagine the messianic circumcision. A set of parallel passages recounts the nativities of John the Baptist and (in Luke’s account) his cousin Jesus. At the climax of both come their circumcision and naming: “And it was the eighth day, and they came to circumcise the child, and they called him by the name of his father, Zechariah” (Luke 1:59; NRSV modified); “And the eight days were fulfilled to circumcise him, and he was called by the name Jesus, which he was called by the angel before he was conceived in the womb” (Luke 2:21). Multiple parallelisms link these nativities:77 both infants are announced by angelic visitors (Luke 1:11–20, 26–38); both infants have special names, divinely preordained (Luke 1:13, 60–63; Luke 1:31, 2:21); both births are bracketed by Temple worship (Zechariah does Temple service before John’s birth [Luke 1:8–9], Mary and Joseph go to the Temple for purification after Jesus’ [Luke 2:22–24]); and both children are the occasion for songs of praise from their parents (Zechariah [Luke 1:67–79] and Mary [Luke 1:46–55], respectively).
Both passages are also grammatically evasive on the moment of circumcision itself, as no finite verb (“he was circumcised”) describes the act of circumcision. In John’s case “they came to circumcise him” (
