Historisches Institut: Vortrag „Ethos, Circumcision, and the Egyptian Priests. Law between the Centre and the Periphery“

Second century papyri document procedure to allow circumcision of boys from priestly families. This measure developed to evade the universal ban on circumcision introduced by the Roman authority possibly as a means of anti-Jewish repression following the so-called Diaspora Revolt. The requests are made and granted ‘according to the custom’, which seems to have a normative value. If so, this case-study, confronted with other papyrological evidence, may contribute to the research on application of the local laws by the Romans: the first question of the juristic papyrology since its foundation, and thus elucidate the tension between the centre and the periphery in the world of a legal plurality.

A lecture by Jakub Urbanik (Warsaw).