SACRIFICE, an offering made to God on an altar, by means of a regular minister, as an acknowledgment of his power, and a payment of homage. Sacrifices, though the term is sometimes used for all the offerings made to God, or in any way devoted to his service and honour, differ from mere oblations in this, that in a sacrifice there is a real destruction or change of the thing offered; whereas an oblation is only a simple offering or gift, without any such change at all. Thus, all sorts of tithes and first fruits, and whatever of men’s worldly substance is consecrated to God, for the support of his worship and the maintenance of his ministers, are offerings or oblations; and these, under the Jewish law, were either of living creatures or other things; but sacrifices, in the more peculiar sense of the term, were either wholly or in part consumed by fire. They have by divines been divided into bloody and unbloody. Bloody sacrifices were made of living creatures; unbloody, of the fruits of the earth. They have also been divided into expiatory, impetratory, and eucharistical. The first kind were offered to obtain of God forgiveness of sins; the second to procure some favour; and the third to express thankfulness for favours already received. Under one or other of these heads may all sacrifices be arranged; though we are told that the Egyptians had six hundred and sixty-six different kinds, a number surpassing all credibility.

Concerning the origin of sacrifices very various opinions have been held. By many, the Phoenicians are supposed to have been the authors of them, though Porphyry attributes their invention to the Egyptians; and Ovid imagines, from the import of the terms victim and hostia, that no bloody sacrifices were offered until wars prevailed in the world, and nations obtained victories over their enemies. These are mere hypotheses, contradicted by the most authentic records of antiquity, and entitled to no regard.

By modern dcists, sacrifices are said to have had their origin in superstition, which operates much in the same way in every country. It is therefore weak, according to these men, to derive this practice from any particular people, since the same mode of reasoning would lead various nations, without any intercourse with each other, to entertain the same opinions respecting the nature of their gods, and the proper means of appeasing their anger. Men of gross conceptions imagine their deities to be, like themselves, covetous and cruel. They are accustomed to appease an injured neighbour by a composition in money; and they endeavour to compound in the same manner with their gods, by rich offerings to their temples and to their priests. The most valuable property of a simple people is their cattle. These offered in sacrifice are supposed to be fed upon by the divinity, and are actually fed upon by his priests. If a crime is committed which requires the punishment of death, it is accounted perfectly fair to appease the deity by offering one life for another; because, by savages, punishment is considered as a debt, for which a man may compound in the best way that he can, and which one man may pay for another. Hence, it is said, arose the absurd notions of imputed guilt and vicarious atonement. Among the Egyptians a white bull was chosen as an expiatory sacrifice to their god Apis. After being killed at the altar, his head was cut off and cast into the river, with the following execration: “May all the evils impending over those who perform this sacrifice, or over the Egyptians in general, be averted on this head.”^[1. Herodotus, lib. ii. ]

Had sacrifice never prevailed in the world but among such gross idolaters as worshipped departed heroes, who were supposed to retain in their state of deification all the passions and appetites of their mortal state, this account of the origin of that mode of worship would have been to us perfectly satisfactory. We readily admit that such mean notions of their gods may have actually led far distant tribes, who could not derive any thing from each other through the channel of tradition, to imagine that beings of human passions and appetites might be appeased or bribed by costly offerings. But we know, from the most incontrovertible authority, that sacrifices of the three kinds that we have mentioned were in use among people who worshipped the true God, and who must have had very correct notions of his attributes. Now we think it impossible that such notions could have led any man to fancy that the taking away of the life of a harmless animal, or the burning of a cake or other fruits of the earth in the fire, would be acceptable to a Being self-existent, omnipotent, and omniscient, who can neither be injured by the crimes of his creatures, nor receive any accession of happiness from a thousand worlds.

Sensible of the force of such reasoning as this, some persons of great name, who admit the authenticity of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures, and firmly rely on the atonement made by Christ, arc yet unwilling to allow that sacrifices were originally instituted by God. Of this way of thinking were St Chrysostom, Spencer, Grotius, and Warburton, as were likewise the Jews Maimonides, R. Levi, Ben Gcrson, and Abarbanel. The greater part of these writers maintain that sacrifices were at first a human institution; and that God, in order to prevent their being offered to idols, introduced them into his service, though he did not approve of them as good in themselves, or as proper rites of worship. That the infinitely wise and good God should introduce into his service improper rites of worship, appears to us so extremely improbable, that we cannot but wonder how such an opinion should ever have found its way into the minds of such men as those who held it Warburton’s theory of sacrifice is much more plausible, and worthy of particular examination.

According to this ingenious prelate, sacrifices had their origin in the sentiments of the human heart, and in the ancient mode of conversing by action in aid of words. Gratitude to God' for benefits received is natural to the mind of man, as well as his bounden duty. “This duty,” says the bishop,^[2. Divine Legation of Moses demonstrated, b. ix. c. ii. ] “was in the most early times discharged in expressive actions, the least equivocal of which was the of[7:19:603]ferer’s bringing the first fruits of pasturage or agriculture to that sequestered place where the Deity used to be more solemnly invoked, at the stated times of public worship; and there presenting them in homage, with a demeanour which spoke to this purpose: 'I do hereby acknowledge thee, O my God, to be the author and giver of all good; and do now, with humble gratitude, return my warmest thanks for these thy blessings particularly bestowed upon me.’” Things thus devoted became thenceforth sacred; and to prevent their desecration, the readiest way was to send them to the table of the priest, or to consume them in the fire of the altar. Such, in the opinion of our author, was the origin of eucharistical sacrifices. Impetratory or precative sacrifices had, he thinks, the same origin, and were contrived to express by action an invocation for the continuance of God’s favour. “Expiatory sacrifices,” says the same learned prelate, “were in their own nature as intelligible, and in practice as rational, as either of the other two. Here, instead of presenting the first fruits of agriculture and pasturage, in corn, wine, oil, and wool, as in the eucharistical, or a portion of what was to be sown or otherwise propagated, as in the impetratory, some chosen animal, precious to the repenting criminal who deprecates, or supposed to be obnoxious to the Deity who is to be appeased, was offered up and slain at the altar, in an action which, in all languages, when translated into words, speaks to this purpose: ‘I confess my transgressions at thy footstool, O my God, and with the deepest contrition implore thy pardon, confessing that I deserve death for those my offences.’ The latter part of the confession was more forcibly expressed by the action of striking the devoted animal, and depriving it of life; which, when put into words, concluded in this manner: ‘ And I own that I myself deserve the death which I now inflict on this animal.’”

This system of sacrifice, which his lordship thinks so well supported by the most early movements of simple nature, we admit to be ingenious, but by no means satisfactory. That mankind in the earlier ages of the world were accustomed to supply the deficiencies of their language by expressive gesticulations, we are not incliped to controvert. The custom prevails among savage nations, or nations half civilized, at the present day. His lordship, however, is of opinion, and we heartily agree with him, that our first parents were instructed by God to make articulate sounds significant of ideas, notions, and things, and not left to fabricate a language for themselves. That this heaven-taught language could at first be copious, no man will suppose, who thinks of the paucity of ideas which those who spoke it had to express; but when we consider its origin, we cannot entertain a doubt but that it was precise and perspicuous, and admirably adapted to all the real purposes of life. Among these purposes must surely be included the worship of God as the most important of all. Every sentiment therefore which enters into worship, gratitude, invocation, confession, and deprecation, the progenitors of mankind were undoubtedly taught to clothe in words the most significant and unequivocal; but we know from Moses, whose divine legation the bishop surely admitted, that Cain and Abel, the eldest children of our first parents, worshipped God by the rites of sacrifice; and can we suppose that this practice occurred to them from their having so far forgotten the language taught them by their father, as to be under the necessity of denoting by action what they could not express by words? If this supposition be admitted, it will force upon us another still more extravagant. Even Adam himself must, in that case, have become dumb in consequence of his fall; for it is not conceivable, that as long as he was able to utter articulate sounds, and affix a meaning to them, he would cease, in the presence of his family, to confess his sins, implore forgiveness, and express his gratitude to God for all his mercies.

The author, as if aware of some such objection as this, contends, that if sacrifices had arisen from any other source than the light of reason, the Scripture would not have been silent concerning that source; “especially since we find Moses carefully recording what God immediately, and not nature, taught to Adam and his family.” “Had the original of sacrifice,” says he, “been prescribed and directly commanded by the Deity, the sacred historian could never have omitted the express mention of that circumstance. The two capital observances in the Jewish ritual were the Sabbath and sacrifices. To impress the highest reverence and veneration on the Sabbath, he is careful to record its divine original; and can we suppose that had sacrifices had the same original, he would have neglected to establish this truth at the time that he recorded the other, since it is of equal use and of equal importance? I should have said, indeed, of much greater; for the multifarious sacrifices of the law had not only a reference to the forfeiture of Adam, but likewise prefigured our redemption by Jesus Christ.”

But all this reasoning was foreseen, and completely answered, before his lordship gave it to the public. It is probable, that though the distinction of weeks was well known over all the eastern world, the Hebrew’s, during their residence in Egypt, were very negligent in their observance of the Sabbath. To enforce a religious observance of that sacred day, it became necessary to inform them of the time and occasion of its first institution, that they might keep it holy in memory of the creation; but, in a country like Egypt, the people were in danger of holding sacrifices rather in too high than too low veneration, so that there was not the same necessity for mentioning explicitly the early institution of them. It was sufficient that they knew the divine institution of their own sacrifices, and the purposes for which they were offered. Besides this, there is reason to believe, that, in order to guard the Hebrews from the infections of the heathen, the rite of sacrificing was loaded with many additional ceremonies at its second institution under Moses. It might, therefore, be improper to relate its original simplicity to a rebellious people, who would think themselves ill used by any additional burdens of trouble or expense, however really necessary to their happiness. Bishop Warburton sees clearly the necessity of concealing from the Jews the spiritual and refined nature of the Christian dispensation, lest such a backsliding people should, from the contemplation of it, have held in contempt their own economy. This, he thinks, is the reason why the prophets, speaking of the reign of the Messiah, borrow their images from the Mosaic dispensation, that the people living under that dispensation might not despise it from perceiving its end; and we think the reason will hold equally good for their lawgiver concealing from them the simplicity of the first, sacrifices, let they should be tempted to murmur at their own multifarious ritual.

But his lordship thinks that sacrifices had their origin from the light of natural reason. We should be glad to know what light natural reason can throw upon such a subject. That ignorant pagans, adoring as gods departed heroes, who still retained their sensual appetites, might naturally think of appeasing such beings with the fat of fed beasts, and the perfumes of the altar, we have already admitted; but that Cain and Abel, who knew that the God whom they adored has neither body, parts, nor passions; that he created and sustains the universe; and that from his very nature he must will the happiness of all his creatures, should be led by the light of natural reason to think of appeasing him, or obtaining favours from him, by putting to death harmless animals, is a position which no arguments of his lordship can ever compel us to admit. That Abel’s sacrifice was indeed accepted, we know; but it was not accepted because it proceeded from the movements of the human mind, and the deficiency of the original language, but because it was offered[7:19:604] through faith. The light of natural reason, however, does not generate faith, but science; and when it fails of that, its offspring is absurdity. “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen,” and comes not by reasoning, but by hearing. What things then were they of which Abel had heard, for which he hoped, and in the faith of which he offered sacrifice? Undoubtedly it was a restoration to that immortality which was forfeited by the transgression of his parents. Of such redemption an obscure intimation had been given to Adam, in the promise that the seed of the woman should bruise the head of the serpent; and it was doubtless to impress upon his mind in more striking colours the manner in which this was to be done, that bloody sacrifices were first instituted. As long as the import of such rites was thus understood, they constituted a perfectly rational worship, as they showed the people that the wages of sin is death; but when men sunk into idolatry, and lost all hopes of a resurrection from the dead, the slaughtering of animals to appease their deities was a practice grossly superstitious. It rested in itself without pointing to any further end, and the grovelling worshippers believed that by their sacrifices they purchased the favour of their deities. When once this notion was entertained, human sacrifices were soon introduced; for it naturally occurred to those who offered them, that what they most valued themselves, would be most acceptable to their offended gods. By the Jewish law, these abominable offerings were strictly forbidden, and the whole ritual of sacrifice restored to its original purity, though not simplicity.

All Christian churches, the Socinian, if it can be called a church, not excepted, for a long period of time agreed in believing that the Jewish sacrifices served, amongst other uses, for types of the death of Christ, and the Christian worship. In this belief all sober Christians agree still; whilst many are of opinion that they were likewise federal rites, as they certainly were considered by the ancient Romans.^[3. Tit. Liv. lib. xxi. cap. xlv. ]

Of the various kinds of Jewish sacrifices, and the subordinate ends for which they were offered, a full account is given in the books of Moses. When an Israelite offered a loaf or a cake, the priest broke it in two parts, and, setting aside that half which he reserved for himself, broke the other into crumbs, poured oil, wine, incense, and salt upon it, and spread the whole upon the fire of the altar. If these offerings were accompanied with the sacrifice of an animal, they were thrown upon the victim to be consumed along with it. If the offerings were of the ears of new corn, they were parched at the fire, rubbed in the hand, and then offered to the priest in a vessel, over which he poured oil, incense, wine, and salt, and then burned it upon the altar, having first taken as much of it as of right belonged to himself.

The principal sacrifices amongst the Hebrews consisted of bullocks, sheep, and goats; but doves and turtles were accepted from those who were not able to bring the other. These beasts were to be perfect, and without blemish. The rites of sacrificing were various, all of which are minutely described in the books of Moses.

The manner of sacrificing amongst the Greeks and Romans was the following. In the choice of the victim, they took care that it was without blemish or imperfection; its tail was not to be too small at the end, the tongue not black, nor the ears cleft; and that the bull was one that had never been yoked. The victim being pitched upon, they gilt his forehead and horns, especially if a bull, heifer, or cow. The head they also adorned with a garland of flowers, a woollen infula or holy fillet, whence hung two rows of chaplets with twisted ribands; and on the middle of the body a kind of stole, pretty large, hung down on each side. The lesser victims were only adorned with garlands and bundles of flowers, together with white tufts or wreaths.

The victims thus prepared were brought before the altar, the lesser being driven to the place, and the greater led by an halter; when, if they made any struggle, or refused to go, the resistance was taken for an ill omen, and the sacrifice frequently set aside. The victim thus brought was carefully examined, to see that there was no defect in it; then the priest, clad in his sacerdotal habit, and accompanied with the sacrificers and other attendants, and being washed and purified according to the ceremonies prescribed, turned to the right hand, and went round the altar, sprinkling it with meal and holy water, and also besprinkling those who were present. Then the crier proclaimed with a loud voice, Who is here? To which the people replied, Many and good. The priest then having exhorted the people to join with him, by saying, Let us pray, confessed his own unworthiness, acknowledging that he had been guilty of different sins, for which he begged pardon of the gods, hoping that they would be pleased to grant his requests, accept the oblations offered them, and send them all health and happiness; and to this general form he added petitions for such particular favours as were then desired. Prayers being ended, the priest took a cup of wine, and having tasted it himself, caused his attendants to do the like, and then poured forth the remainder between the horns of the victim. Then the priest or the crier, or sometimes the most honourable person in the company, killed the beast, by knocking it down, or cutting its throat. If the sacrifice was in honour of the celestial gods, the throat was turned upwards towards heaven; but if they sacrificed to the heroes or infernal gods, the victim was killed with its throat towards the ground. If by accident the beast escaped the stroke, leaped after it, or expired with pain and difficulty, it was thought to be unacceptable to the gods. The beast being killed, the priest inspected its entrails, and made predictions from them. They then poured wine, together with frankincense, into the fire, to increase the flame, and laid the sacrifice upon the altar, which in the primitive times was burned whole to the gods, and thence called an holocaust; but in after times only part of the victim was consumed in the fire, and the remainder reserved for the sacrificers; the thighs, and sometimes the entrails, being burned to their honour, the company feasted upon the rest. During the sacrifice, the priest, and the person who gave the sacrifice, jointly prayed, laying their hand upon the altar. Sometimes they played upon musical instruments in the time of the sacrifice, and on some occasions they danced round the altar, singing sacred hymns in honour of the god.

Human Sacrifices, an abominable practice, about the origin of which different opinions have been formed.

The true account seems to be that which we have given in the preceding article. When men had gone so far as to indulge the fancy of bribing their gods by sacrifice, it was natural for them to think of enhancing the value of so cheap an atonement by the cost and rarity of the offering; and, oppressed with their malady, they never rested till they had got that which they conceived to be the most precious of all, a human sacrifice. “It was customary,” says Sanchoniatbon, “in ancient times, in great and public calamities, before things became incurable, for princes and magistrates to offer up in sacrifice to the avenging daemons the dearest of their offspring.”^[4. Eusebius, Proep. Evαng. fib. iv. ] Sanchoniatbon wrote of Phoenicia; but the practice prevailed in every nation under heaven of which we have received any ancient account. The Egyptians had it in the early part of their monarchy. The Cretans likewise had it, and retained it for a long time. The nations of Arabia did the same. The people of Dumah, in[7:19:605] particular, sacrificed every year a child, and buried it underneath an altar, which they made use of instead of an idol; for they did not admit of images. The Persians buried people alive. Amestris, the wife of Xerxes, entombed twelve persons quick under ground for the good of her soul. It would be endless to enumerate every city, or every province, where these dire practices obtained. The Cyprians, the Rhodians, the Phoceans, the Ionians, those of Chios, Lesbos, Tenedos, all had human sacrifices. The natives of the Tauric Chersonese offered up to Diana every stranger whom chance threw upon their coast. Hence arose that just expostulation in Euripides upon the inconsistency of the proceeding. Iphigenia wonders, as the goddess delighted in the blood of men, that every villain and murderer should be privileged to escape, nay, to be driven from the threshold of the temple; whereas, if an honest and virtuous man chanced to stray thither, he only was seized upon and put to death. The Pelasgians, in a time of scarcity, vowed the tenth of all that should be born to them for a sacrifice, in order to procure plenty. Aristomenes the Messenian slew three hundred noble Lacedaemonians, among whom was Theopompus the king of Sparta, at the altar of Jupiter at Ithome. Without doubt the Lacedaemonians did not fail to make ample returns; for they were a severe and revengeful people, and offered similar victims to Mars. Their festival of the Diamastigosis is well known, when the Spartan boys were whipped in the sight of their parents with such severity before the altar of Diana Orthia, that they often expired under the torture. Phylarchus, as quoted by Porphyry, affirms that of old every Grecian state made it a rule, before they marched towards an enemy, to solicit a blessing on their undertakings by human victims.

The Romans were accustomed to the like sacrifices. They both devoted themselves to the infernal gods, and they constrained others to submit to the same horrid doom. Hence we read in Titus Livius, that, in the consulate of AEmilius Paulus and Terentius Varro, two Gauls, a man and a woman, and two in like manner of Greece, were buried alive at Rome in the ox-market, where was a place under ground walled round to receive them, and which had before been made use of for such cruel purposes. He says it was a sacrifice not properly Roman, that is, not originally of Roman institution; yet it was frequently practised there, and that too by public authority. Plutarch makes mention of a similar instance a few years before, in the consulship of Flaminius and Furius. There is reason to think that all the principal captives who graced the triumphs of the Romans were, at the close of that cruel pageantry, put to death at the altar of Jupiter Capitolinus. Caius Marius offered up his own daughter for a victim to the Dii Averrunci, to procure success in a battle against the Cimbri, as we are informed by Dorotheus, quoted by Clemens. It is likewise attested by Plutarch, who says that her name was Calpurnia. Marius was a man of a sour and bloody disposition, and had probably heard of such sacrifices being offered in the enemy’s camp, among whom they were very common, or he might have beheld them exhibited at a distance, and therefore murdered what was nearest, and should have been dearest to him, to counteract their fearful spells, and outdo them in their wicked machinery. Cicero, making mention of this custom being common in Gaul, adds, that it prevailed among that people even at the time he was speaking; whence we may be led to infer that it was then discontinued among the Romans. And we are told by Pliny, that it had then, and not very long before, been discouraged. For there was a law enacted, when Lentulus and Crassus were consuls, so late as the 657th year of Rome, that there should be no more human sacrifices; for till that time those horrid rites had been celebrated in broad day, without any mask or control, which, had we not the best evidence for the fact, would appear scarcely credible. And however they may have been discontinued for a time, we find that they were again renewed, though they became not so public nor so general. For not very long after this, it is reported of Augustus Caesar, when Perugia surrendered, in the time of the second triumvirate, that besides multitudes executed in a military manner, he offered up, upon the ides of March, three hundred chosen persons, both of the equestrian and the senatorial order, at an altar dedicated to the manes of his uncle Julius. Even at Rome itself this custom was revived; and Porphyry assures us, that in his time a man was every year sacrificed at the shrine of Jupiter Latialis. Heliogabalus offered similar victims to the Syrian deity which he introduced among the Romans. The same is said of Aurelian.

The Gauls and the Germans were so devoted to this shocking custom, that no business of any moment was transacted among them without being prefaced with the blood of men. They were offered up to various gods; but particularly to Hesus, Taranis, and Thautates. These deities are mentioned by Lucan, where he enumerates the various nations who followed the fortunes of Caesar.

The altars of these gods were far removed from the common resort of men, being generally situated in the depth of woods, that the gloom might add to the horror of the operation, and give a reverence to the place and proceeding. The persons devoted were led thither by the Druids, who presided at the solemnity, and performed the cruel offices of the sacrifice. Tacitus takes notice of the cruelty of the Hermunduri, in a war with the Catti, in which they had greatly the advantage, and at the close of which they made one general sacrifice of all that was taken in battle. The poor remains of the legion under Varus suffered in some degree the same fate. There were many places destined for this purpose all over Gaul and Germany; but especially in the mighty woods of Arduenna, and the great Hercynian Forest, a wild that extended above thirty days’ journey in length. The places set apart for this solemnity were held in the utmost reverence, and only approached at particular seasons. Lucan mentions a grove of this sort near Massilia, which even the Roman soldiers were afraid to violate, although commanded by Caesar. It was one of those set apart for the sacrifices of the country.

Claudian compliments Stilicho, that, among other advantages accruing to the Roman armies through his conduct, they could now venture into the awful forest of Hercynia, and follow the chase in those so much dreaded woods, and otherwise make use of them.

These practices prevailed among all the people of the north, of whatever denomination. The Massagetae, the Scythians, the Getes, the Sarmatians, all the various nations upon the Baltic, particularly the Suevi and Scandinavians, held it as a fixed principle, that their happiness and security could not be obtained but at the expense of the lives of others. Their chief gods were Thor and Woden, whom they thought they could never sufficiently glut with blood. They had many very celebrated places of worship, especially in the island Rugen near the mouth of the Oder, and in Zeeland; some, too, which were very famous among the Semnones and Naharvalli. But the most reverenced of all, and the most frequented, was at Upsal; where there was every year a grand celebrity, which continued for nine days. During this term they sacrificed animals of all sorts. But the most acceptable victims, and the most numerous, were men. Of these sacrifices none were esteemed so auspicious and salutary as a sacrifice of the prince of the country. When the lot fell for the king to die, it was received with universal acclamations and every expression of joy; as it once happened in the time of a famine, when they cast lots, and it fell to King Domalder to be the people’s victim. And he was accordingly put to death. Olaus Tretelger, another prince, was burned alive to Woden. They did not spare[7:19:606] their own children. Harald the son of Gunild, the first of that name, slew two of his children to obtain a storm of wind. “He did not hesitate,” says Verstegan, “to sacrifice two of his sons unto his idols, to the end he might obtain of them such a tempest at sea as should break and disperse the shipping of Harald king of Denmark.” Saxo-Grammaticus mentions a similar fact. He calls the king Haquin; and speaks of the persons put to death as two very hopeful young princes. Another king slew nine sons to prolong his own ife, in hopes, perhaps, that what they were abridged of would in a great measure be added to himself. Such instances, however, occur not often; but the common victims were without end. Adam Bremensis, speaking of the awful grove at Upsal, where these horrid rites were celebrated, says that there was not a single tree but what was reverenced, as if it were gifted with some portion of divinity; and all this because they were stained with gore, and foul with human putrefaction. The same is observed by Scheif-for in his account of this place.

The manner in which the victims were slaughtered was different in different places. Some of the Gaulish nations chined them with a stroke of an axe. The Celtae placed the man who was to be offered for a sacrifice upon a block or an altar, with his breast upwards, and with a sword struck him forcibly across the sternum; then tumbling him to the ground, from his agonies and convulsions, as well as from the effusion of blood, they formed a judgment of future events. The Cimbri ripped open the bowels, and from them they pretended to divine. In Norway they beat men’s brains out with an ox-yoke. The same operation was performed in Iceland, by dashing them out against an altar of stone. In many places they transfixed them with arrows. After they were dead, they suspended them upon trees, and left them to putrefy. One of the writers above quoted mentions, that in his time seventy carcasses of this sort were found in a wood of the Suevi. Dithmar of Mersburg, an author of nearly the same age, speaks of a place called Le-dur in Zeeland, where there were every year ninety-nine persons sacrificed to the god Swantowite. During these bloody festivals a general joy prevailed, and banquets were most royally served. They fed, caroused, and gave a loose to indulgence, which at other times was not permitted. They imagined that there was something mysterious in the number nine; for which reason these feasts were in some places celebrated every ninth year, in others every ninth month, and continued for nine days. When all was ended, they washed the image of the deity in a pool, and then dismissed the assembly. Their servants were numerous, who attended during the term of their feasting, and partook of the banquet. At the close of all, they were smothered in the same pool, or otherwise made away with. On this Tacitus remarks, how great an awe this circumstance must necessarily infuse into those who were not admitted to these mysteries.

These accounts are handed down from a variety of authors in different ages, many of whom were natives of the countries which they describe, and to which they seem strongly attached. They would not therefore have brought so foul an imputation on the part of the world in favour of which they w ere each writing, nor could there be that concurrence of testimony, were not the history in general true.

The sacrifices of which we have been treating, if we except some few instances, consisted of persons doomed by the chance of war, or assigned by lot, to be offered. But among the nations of Canaan the victims were peculiarly chosen. Their own children, and whatever was nearest and dearest to them, were deemed the most worthy offering to their god. The Carthaginians, who were a colony from Tyre, carried with them the religion of their mother-country, and instituted the same worship in the parts where they settled. It consisted in the adoration of several deities, but particularly of Kronus, to whom they offered human sacrifices, and especially the blood of children. If the parents were not at hand to make an immediate offer, the magistrates did not fail to make choice of what was most fair and promising, that the god might not be defrauded of his due. Upon a check being received in Sicily, and some other alarming circumstances happening, Hamilcar, without any hesitation, laid hold of a boy, and offered him on the spot to Kronus; and at the same time he drowned a number of priests, to appease the deity of the sea. The Carthaginians another time, upon a defeat of their army by Agathocles, imputed their miscarriages to the anger of this god, whose services had been neglected. Touched with this, and seeing the enemy at their gates, they seized at once three hundred children of the prime nobility, and offered them in public for a sacrifice. Three hundred more, being persons who were somehow obnoxious, yielded themselves voluntarily, and were put to death with the others. The neglect of which they accused themselves consisted in sacrificing children purchased of parents among the poorer sort, who reared them for the purpose, and not selecting the most promising and the most honourable, as had been the custom of old. In short, there were particular children brought up for the altar, as sheep are fattened for the shambles; and they were bought and butchered in the same manner. But this indiscriminate way of proceeding was thought to have given offence. It is remarkable, that the Egyptians looked out for the most specious and handsome person to be sacrificed. The Albanians pitched upon the best man of the community, and made him pay for the wickedness of the rest. The Carthaginians chose what they thought the most excellent and at the same time the most dear to them; which made the lot fall heavy upon their children. This is taken notice of by Silius Italicus in his fourth book. Kronus, to whom these sacrifices were exhibited, was an oriental deity, the god of light and fire; and therefore always worshipped with some reference to that element.

The Greeks, we find, called the deity to whom these offerings were made Agraulos; and feigned that she was a woman, the daughter of Cecrops. But how came Cecrops to have any connection with Cyprus? Agraulos is a corruption and transposition of the original name (which should have been rendered Uk El Aur, or Uk El Aurus); but has, like many other oriental titles and names, been strangely sophisticated, and is here changed to Agraulos. It was in reality the god of light, who was always worshipped with fire. This deity was the Moloch of the Tyrians and Canaanites, and the Melech of the East; that is, the great and principal god, the god of light, of whom fire was esteemed a symbol, and at whose shrine, instead of viler victims, they offered the blood of men.

Such was the Kronus of the Greeks and the Moloch of the Phoenicians. And nothing can appear more shocking than the sacrifices of the Tyrians and Carthaginians, which they performed to this idol. In all emergencies of state, and times of general calamity, they devoted what was most necessary and valuable to them as an offering to the gods, and particularly to Moloch. But besides these undetermined times of bloodshed, they had particular and prescribed seasons every year, when children were chosen out of the most noble and reputable families, as before mentioned. If a person had an only child, it was the more liable to be put to death, as being esteemed more acceptable to the deity, and more efficacious for the general good. Those who were sacrificed to Kronus were thrown into the arms of a molten idol, which stood in the midst of a large fire, and was red with heat. The arms of it were stretched out, with the hands turned upwards, as it were to receive them; yet sloping downwards, so that they dropped from thence into a glowing furnace below. To other gods they were otherwise slaughtered, and, as it implied, by the very hands of[7:19:607] their parents. What can be more horrid to the imagination, than to suppose a father leading the dearest of all his sons to such an infernal shrine; or a mother the most engaging and affectionate of her daughters, just rising to maturity, to be slaughtered at the altar of Ashtaroth or Baal? Justin describes this unnatural custom very pathetically:

“Quippe homines, ut victimas, immolabant; et impuberes (quae actas hostium misericodiam provocat)aris admovebant, pacem sanguine eorum exposcentes, pro quorum vita Dii rogari maxime solent.” Such was their blind zeal, that this was continually practised; and so much of natural affection still left unextinguished, as to render the scene ten times more shocking, from the tenderness which they seemed to express. They embraced their children with great fondness, and encouraged them in the gentlest terms, that they might not be appalled at the sight of the hellish process, begging of them to submit with cheerfulness to this fearful operation. If there was any appearance of a tear rising, or a cry unawares escaping, the mother smothered it with her kisses, that there might not be any show of backwardness or constraint, but the whole might be a free-will offering. These cruel endearments being over, they stabbed them to the heart, or otherwise opened the sluices of life; and with the blood warm as it ran, besmeared the altar and the grim visage of the idol. These were the customs which the Israelites learned of the people of Canaan, and for which they are upbraided by the Psalmist. “They did not destroy the nations, concerning whom the Lord commanded them; but were mingled among the heathen, and learned their works; yea, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto devils, and shed innocent blood, even the blood of their sons and of their daughters, whom they sacrificed unto the idols of Canaan; and the land was polluted with blood. Thus were they defiled with their own works, and went a-whoring with their own inventions.”

These cruel rites, which were practised in so many nations, made Plutarch debate with himself, “Whether it would not have been better for the Galatae, or for the Scythians, to have had no tradition or conception of any superior being, than to have formed to themselves notions of gods who delighted in the blood of men; of gods who esteemed human victims the most acceptable and perfect sacrifice? Would it not,” says he, “have been more eligible for the Carthaginians to have had the atheist Critias, or Diagoras, their lawgiver, at the commencement of their polity, and to have been taught that there was neither god nor demon, than to have sacrificed, in the manner they were wont, to the god which they adored ?” In this they acted, not as the person did whom Empedocles describes in some poetry, where he exposes this unnatural custom. The sire there, with many idle vows, offers up unwittingly his son for a sacrifice; but the youth was so changed in feature and in figure that his father did not know him. These people used knowingly and wilfully to go through this bloody work, and slaughter their own offspring. Even they who were childless would not be exempted from this cursed tribute; but purchased children of the poorer sort, and put them to death with as little remorse as one would kill a lamb or a chicken. The mother who sacrificed her child stood by, without any seeming sense of what she was losing, and without uttering a groan. If a sigh did by chance escape, she lost all the honour which she proposed to herself in the offering, and the child was notwithstanding slain. All the time of this ceremony, whilst the children were murdering, there was a noise of clarions and tabors sounding before the idol, that the cries and shrieks of the victims might not be heard. “Tell me now,” says Plutarch, “if the monsters of old, the Typhons and the giants, were to expel the gods, and to rule the world in their stead, could they require a service more horrid than these infernal rites and sacrifices ?”