Ditmarus, in his first book, testifies " That the Normans and Danes sacrificed yearly, in the month of January, to their gods, ninety-nine human creatures, as many horses, besides dogs and cocks." But what Procopius, on the Gothic war, writes, is truly astonishing, — namely, " That the Francs made use of human victims in his time, even though they then worshipped Christ." Alas! for such a kind of Christianity, The practices of the Tyrians,^ Cartha- ginians, and Egyptians, in this respect are known to every one. And Tlieodoret says, " That in Rhodes, some person was sacrificed to Saturn on the sixteenth of the calends of November, Avliich, after
' Concerning the Tyrians, sec Curtius, book iv. ; aud concerning the Carthaginians, see Diodorus, book xs. — Tn.
ON HUMAN SACRIFICES. 627
having been for a long time observed, became a custom ; and tbey used to reserve one of those who had been capitally condemned till the feast of Saturn/'
Porphyry, on "Abstinence from Annuals," relates the customs of the Phoenicians concerning this matter. " The Phoenicians," says he, " in great disasters, either by wars, or commotions, or droughts, used to sacrifice one of their dearest friends or relations to Saturn, devoted to this fate by the common suffrages." They were called Phoenicians from the word (polvi^, which signifies a red colour. ^oivi^, according to Eustathius, is from povoc, which signifies blood ; thence the colour called ipoivixiog, or the purple colour. Hence the learned conjecture that the Phoenicians were the descendants of Esau or Edom, whose name also signifies red; and fi-om whom, also, the Red Sea was named. Edom, then, <po!vi^, and spvd^iaTog, mean the same, — namely, red. Why may we not, then, conjec- ture that the Phoenicians, or Idumseans, were first led to this custom from some cornipt tradition concerning the sacrificing of Isaac, the father of Esau, the leader and head of their nation ? This, at least, makes for the conjecture, that while other nations sacrificed enemies or strangers, Porphyry bears witness that they sacrificed one of their dearest friends or relations. But Isaac was not to Abraham one of the dearest, but the only dear one. From such corrupt tra- ditions as these, it is not to be wondered that the consciences of men, struck with a fear of punishment, should have been encouraged to persevere in so cruel and superstitious a worship.
Concerning the ancient Gauls, we have the most credible evi- dences,— Cicero and Julius Caesar; the former of whom charges them with the practice of offering human sacrifices, as a horrid crime, and certain evidence of then- contempt of Deity. The other, however, commends them on this very account, on the score of a more severe religion. " If at any time, induced by fear, they think it necessary that the gods should be appeased, they defile their altars and temples with human victims, — as if they could not practise religion without first violating it by their wickedness; for who does not know that, even at this day, they retain that savage and barbarous custom of sacrificing human beings, thinking that the immortal gods can be appeased by the blood and wickedness of man?" Cicero pro Fonteio. But Cajsar, the conqueror of the Gauls, gives us a very different ac- count of these kind of sacrifices. " This nation," says he, " of the Gauls, is most of all devoted to religious observances; and for that reason, those who labour under any grievous distemper, or who are conversant in dangers and battles, either sacrifice human victims, or vow that they will sacrifice them, and they employ the Druids as the conductors of such sacrifices; for they have an opinion that unless a human life be given for a human life, the heavenly deities cannot
528 A DISSERTATION ON DIVINE JUSTICE. [PART I.
be appeased." These last words seem to me to acknowledge a per- suasion, that must have arisen from some ancient tradition, about the substitution of the Son of Man in the stead of sinners as a propitia- tion for sin.
No doubt can be entertained concerning the inhabitants of Britain but that they were guilty of the same practices ; for from them came the Druids, the first promoters of that superstition, not only among the Gauls, but even in Italy and in the city of Rome itself. " The doc- trine of the Druids," says Caesar, " is thought to have been found in Britain, and brought thence into Gaul; and now such as are desir- ous to examine more particularly into that matter generally go thither for the sake of information,"' book vi. of the Wars in Gaul. But Tacitus informs us with what kind of sacrifices they performed their divine services there, in the fourteenth book of his Annals. " When the island of Anglesey was conquered by Paulinus, a guard," says he, " was placed over the vanquished, and the groves devoted to cruel superstitions were hewn down" (the same was done by C<Bsar in the siege of Marseilles, Lucan, book iii.) ; " for it was an article of their religion to sacrifice their captives on the altars, and to consult their gods by human entrails."
Hence that verse in Horace : — •
" Visam Bi-itaunos, hospitibus feros."
" I will visit tlic Britons, cruel to strangers."
At which remote place^ the Britons used to sacrifice their guests for victims ; yea, even in Rome itself, as Plutarch, in his Life of Mar- cellus, testifies, they buried, by order of the high priests, " a man and woman of Gaul, and a man and woman of Greece," alive in the cattle market, to avert some calamity by such a fatal sacrifice. Whether this was done yearly, as some think, I am rather inclined to doubt.