| abstract | - Born into a Jewish family, Jesus was most probably circumcised at his bris milah. There are rivaling accounts of Jesus' circumcision and the fate of his foreskin. Luke 2:21 reads: "And when eight days were accomplished for the circumcising of the child, his name was called Jesus." The apocryphal Arabic Infancy Gospel claims the foreskin (others claim it was the umbilical cord) was preserved it in an alabaster-box of old oil of spikenard. The Gospel of Judas claims that an unnamed Orthodox mohel, volunteering as part of his sex offense community service, performed the circumcision. In this account, the mohel performed a metzitzah. In a metzitzah, the mohel sucks blood from the circumcision wound with his mouth. This practice has fallen out of favor due to certain health risks, such as the transmission of herpes or other infections to the penis. Some Catholics consider the unnamed mohel an unofficial saint, citing the act of placing one's mouth on Jesus' infant penis as being particularly noble. Because the Gospel of Judas, like other Gnostic gospels, has only surfaced within the the last century, it has stricken greater interest in a loosely-investigated subject. Writings and a colored clay mold designed by Leonardo Da Vinci were the first to question the location of Jesus' foreskin and the overall state of Jesus' penis. Citing the Jewish tradition of burying the foreskin in the sand or dirt, Da Vinci wrote: "Perhaps the foreskin is buried in the sands of the Middle East. This place may be one of the unknown holy places of the Earth, if not the most holy and unknown." Historians have claimed that Da Vinci's interest in the subject and his detail in constructing Jesus' penis may have been due to his latent homosexuality. The accuracy of the penis-mold has been challenged. Da Vinci claims in his writings on the mold that he intended it to be "...provoking of thought, not a claim to the shape, girth, length, veininess, succulence, color, or flavor of Jesus' penis." According to an assistant of Michelangelo, Da Vinci once approached the artist and asked if he would consider using his mold of Jesus' penis as the design for the member of his work-in-progress, the famous sculpture David. Michelangelo reportedly told Da Vinci, "I'm sorry, I started the statue from the feet up, and I'm now at his hips." Claims of possessing the holy foreskin arose in the Middle Ages. The earliest recorded sighting came on December 25, 800 AD, when Charlemagne gave the relic to Pope Leo III, when the latter crowned the former 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 Byzantine Empress Irene. The Pope, doubting the authenticity – and suffering at this time from Alzheimer's – became confused and mistook the foreskin for beef jerky three days later and ate it as a snack. The authenticity of this entire story has been questioned.
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