Also 7 (erron.) -ian. [ad. L. circumcelliōn-es pl., f. circum around + cella CELL: see below.]
1. pl. Eccl. Hist. ‘A name given to the Donatist fanatics in Africa during the 4th c., from their habit of roving from house to house.’ Dict. Chr. Antiq. b. Vagabond monks who roved from place to place.
1564. Brief Exam., xxxx b. You shall reade of the Donatistes … Circumcellions, and Papistes.
1621. Burton, Anat. Mel., III. iv. I. iii. (1651), 673. The Circumcellions, in Africk, with a mad cruelty made away themselves … and seduced others to do the like.
1702. C. Mather, Magn. Chr., VII. iv. (1852), 527. There was the phrensie of the old circumcellions in those Quakers.
1872. A. W. Hutton, Our Position as Cath., 31. The brutal violence of the hardly human Circumcellions.
† 2. transf. A vagrant. Obs.
1623. Cockeram, Circumcellion, a tauerne hunter.
1631. Brathwait, Whimzies, Hospitall-Man, 58. A great part of a long winter night is past over by him and the rest of his devout Circumcellions [etc.].
