Editing Holy Prepuce (section)

==History and rival claims==
All [[Jewish]] boys are required by [[Halakha|Jewish religious law]] to be [[Circumcision|circumcised]] on the [[Brit milah|eighth day following their birth]]; the [[Feast of the Circumcision of Christ]], still celebrated by many churches around the world, accordingly falls on January 1. Luke 2:21 (King James Version), reads: "And when eight days were accomplished for the circumcising of the child, his name was called JESUS, which was so named of the angel before he was conceived in the womb."<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?version=9&search=Luke+2:21|title=Bible Gateway passage: Luke 2:21 – King James Version}}</ref> The first reference to the survival of Christ's severed foreskin comes in the second chapter of the [[New Testament Apocrypha|apocryphal]] [[Arabic Infancy Gospel]] which contains the following story:

{{quote|And when the time of his circumcision was come, namely, the eighth day, on which the law commanded the child to be circumcised, they circumcised him in a cave.

And the old Hebrew woman took the foreskin (others say she took the navel-string), and preserved it in an alabaster-box of old oil of [[spikenard]].

And she had a son who was a druggist, to whom she said, "Take heed thou sell not this alabaster box of spikenard-ointment, although thou shouldst be offered three hundred pence for it."

Now this is that alabaster-box which Mary the sinner procured, and poured forth the ointment out of it upon the head and feet of our Lord Jesus Christ, and wiped it off with the hairs of her head.<ref>''The Lost Books of the Bible'', New York: Bell, 1979.{{Page needed|date=February 2023}}</ref>}}

[[Image:CircumcisionofChrist.JPG|thumb|Circumcision of Christ, fresco from the [[Preobrazhenski Monastery]], Bulgaria]]
Foreskin relics began appearing in Europe during the [[Middle Ages]]. The earliest recorded sighting came on December 25, 800, when [[Charlemagne]] gave it to [[Pope Leo III]] when being crowned Emperor. Charlemagne claimed that it had been brought to him by an angel while he prayed at the [[Holy Sepulchre]], although a more prosaic report says it was a wedding gift from the [[Irene (empress)|Byzantine Empress Irene]]. Its authenticity was later considered to be confirmed by a vision of Saint [[Bridget of Sweden]],<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SF6fbjNe0yYC&q=leonard+glick+Marked+in+Your+Flesh |author=Leonard B. Glick |title=Marked in Your Flesh: Circumcision From Ancient Judea to Modern America |publisher=OUP |year=2005 |page=96}}</ref> who confirmed that it was somewhere in Rome.<ref name=Dzon/> The ''Descriptio Lateranensis Ecclesiae'', written shortly before 1100, indicated that a cypress chest commissioned by Leo III and placed under the altar in the [[Sancta Sanctorum|Chapel of St. Lawrence]] held three caskets. One of the caskets contained a gold jeweled cross. The document stated that in this cross was the foreskin and umbilicus of Jesus.<ref name=Thunø>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=j9voXLSGY4wC&dq=Sancta+Sanctorum&pg=PA17 |author=Thunø, Erik |title=The Sancta Sanctorum Objects, Image and Relic, L'Erma di Bretschneider |year=2002 |ISBN=9788882652173}}</ref> [[Catherine of Siena]] mentioned the foreskin-as-wedding ring motif in one of her letters (#221), equating the wedding ring of a virgin with a foreskin.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Jacobs|first1=Andrew|title=Christ Circumcised: A Study in Early Christian History and Difference|date=2012|publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press|page=192|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NU2D35QoNjEC&q=catherine+of+siena&pg=PA192|access-date=22 October 2015|isbn=978-0812206517}}. This quote is copied content from [[Catherine of Siena]]; see that page's history for attribution.</ref> In a letter to encourage a nun who was undergoing a prolonged period of spiritual trial and torment, she wrote: "Bathe in the blood of Christ crucified. See that you don't look for or want anything but the crucified, as a true bride ransomed by the blood of Christ crucified – for that is my wish. You see very well that you are a bride and that he has espoused you – you and everyone else – and not with a ring of silver but with a ring of his own flesh. Look at the tender little child who on the eighth day, when he was circumcised, gave up just so much flesh as to make a tiny circlet of a ring!"<ref>The Letters of Saint Catherine of Siena, Volume II, Suzanne Noffke OP, Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies Tempe Arizona 2001, p. 184. This quote is copied content from [[Catherine of Siena]]; see that page's history for attribution.</ref>

[[David Farley]] recounts how a relic brought to Rome by [[Saint Brigida]] and said to be the holy foreskin was looted during the [[Sack of Rome (1527)|sack of the city]] in 1527.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Baky Fahmy |first1=Mohamed A. |title=Normal and Abnormal Prepuce |date=2020 |publisher=Springer |isbn=9783030376215 |page=16 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FkHVDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA16 |access-date=15 October 2024}}</ref> The German soldier who stole it was captured in the village of [[Calcata]], {{cvt|47|km}} north of Rome, later the same year. Housed in Calcata, it was venerated from that time onwards, with the Church vouching for its authenticity by offering a ten-year [[indulgence]] to [[pilgrim]]s. Pilgrims, nuns and monks flocked to the church, and "Calcata [became] a must-see destination on the pilgrimage map." A local priest reported the foreskin as stolen in 1983.<ref name = Farley/>

However, in 1905 [[Pope Pius X]] authorized an inventory compiled by Professor Hartmann Grisar, of the University of Innsbruck.<ref>Grisar, Hartmann. ''Romische Kappelle Sancta Sanctorum und ihr Schatz'', Freiburg im Breisgau, 1908, pp. 1–9, 57</ref> Grisar's report corresponds to the earlier ''Descriptio Lateranensis Ecclesiae''.  The gold cross was dated to between the sixth and eighth centuries. Grisar's study stated that, like [[Pope Paschal I|Pope Paschal]]'s enameled silver reliquary cross, the gold jeweled cross was clearly initially designed to hold a relic of the True Cross. This is further supported by the statement in the ''Descriptio'' relating it to a procession on the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. The ''Vita'' of [[Pope Sergius I]] (687-01) mentions both the Feast of the Exaltation, the jeweled cross, and veneration of the relic contained therein.<ref>LP 1:374 (R.d
Davis, Trans.) ''The Book of the Pontiffs (Liber Pontificalis). The Ancient Biographies of the First Ninety Roman Bishops to 715'', Liverpool, 1989, p. 85</ref> Grisar attributed the reference to the foreskin and umbilicus as derived from later Medieval traditions. The gold cross was lost in 1945.<ref name=Thunø/>