Peter Schäfer, Judeophobia: Attitudes Toward the Jews in the Ancient World, Harvard University Press, 1998, pp. 103–105, ISBN 978-0-674-04321-3. URL consultato il 1º febbraio 2014.
«[…] Hadrian's ban on circumcision, allegedly imposed sometime between 128 and 132 CE […]. The only proof for Hadrian's ban on circumcision is the short note in the Historia Augusta: 'At this time also the Jews began war, because they were forbidden to mutilate their genitals (quot vetabantur mutilare genitalia). […] The historical credibility of this remark is controversial […] The earliest evidence for circumcision in Roman legislation is an edict by Antoninus Pius (138-161 CE), Hadrian's successor […] [I]t is not utterly impossible that Hadrian […] indeed considered circumcision as a 'barbarous mutilation' and tried to prohihit it. […] However, this proposal cannot be more than a conjecture, and, of course, it does not solve the questions of when Hadrian issued the decree (before or during/after the Bar Kokhba war) and whether it was directed solely against Jews or also against other peoples.»
