While researching a forthcoming book on Baptism and the Eucharist, I read the following from Catholic theologian Joseph Pohle (1852-1922), writing in defense of the thesis that believers under the Old Covenant, (1) had access to some form of sacramental system (albeit, subordinate to that of the New Covenant) and (2) physical circumcision was the ordinary means of regeneration (a type of infant baptism), wrote:
At the time of Abraham, long before the promulgation of the Mosaic law, circumcision became the ordinary means of spiritual regeneration. This rite means of spiritual regeneration. This rite has all the characteristics of a true Sacrament.
a) God promulgated the law in these words: “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 . . . The male whose flesh of his foreskin shall not be circumcised, that soul shall be destroyed out of his people, because he hath broken my covenant.” Here circumcision is plainly made a condition sine quan non of salvation. As no one can be saved unless he is cleansed of original sin, circumcision was obviously an instrument of regeneration. This is the opinion of St. Thomas, and through it is disputed by Vasques, Tournley, and Bellarmine, Suarez rightly maintains that the teaching of the Angelic Doctor on this head cannot be denied “without a certain degree of temerity,” especially in view of Pope Innocent III’s declaration against the Cathari, that “Original Sin was forgiven and the danger of damnation avoided by the mystery of the circumcision.”
The rite of circumcision was truly sacramental: an external sign, accompanied by internal grace, instituted by God for the remission of sin. The Fathers and Scholastics could not have regarded circumcision as the type of Baptism, had they not believed it to be a real Sacrament.
β) In what manner did circumcision remit original sin? In adults, no doubt, through the instrumentality o justifying faith (fides formata) and consequently “by the work of the worker(ex opera operantis). But how about infants? This question is intimately connected with another, on which theologians disagree, viz.: How do circumcision and Baptism differ in regard to their mode of operation? It will prove helpful to review the varying opinions on these two points. (Joseph Pohle, The Sacraments, A Dogmatic Treatise: The Sacraments in General. Baptism. Confirmation [2d ed.; St. Louis, Miss.: B. Herder, 1917], 22-24)
