A tradition based on the "Historia Augusta" suggests that the revolt was spurred by Hadrian's abolition of circumcision ("brit milah"); which as a Hellenist he viewed as mutilation. The scholar Peter Schäfer maintains that there is no evidence for this claim, given the notoriously problematical nature of the "Historia Augusta" as a source, the "tomfoolery" shown by the writer in the relevant passage, and the fact that contemporary Roman legislation on "genital mutilation" seems to address the general issue of castration of slaves by their masters. Other issues could have contributed to the outbreak; a heavy-handed, culturally insensitive Roman administration; tensions between the landless poor and incoming Roman colonists privileged with land-grants; and a strong undercurrent of messianism, predicated on Jeremiah's prophecy that the Temple would be rebuilt seventy years after its destruction, as the First Temple had been after the Babylonian exile.