Of the same kind was the religion of the Decii, devoting them- selves for the safety of the city. Hence a suspicion arose, and was everywhere rumoured, among the Gentiles, concerning the sacred rites of the Jews, with which they Avere unacquainted, — namely, that they were wont to be solemnized with human sacrifices : for al- though, after the destruction of the temple, it was manifest that they worshipped the God of heaven only, yet so long as they celebrated the secret mysteries appointed them by God, Josephus against Apion bears witness that they laboured under the infamy of that horrible crime, — namely, of sacrificing human victims, among those who were unacquainted with the Jewish polity; where he also recites, from the same Apion, a most ridiculous fiction about a young Greek cap- tive being delivered by Antiochus, when he impiously spoiled the ' Namely, Anglesey. — Tb.
ON HUMAN SACRIFICES. 629
temple, after having been fed there on a sumptuous diet for the space of a year, that he might make the fatter a victim.
A custom that prevailed with some, not unlike this untruth about the young Greek kept in the temple, seems to have given rise to it ; for thus Diodorus, in book v., writes of the Druids, " They fix up their malefactors upon poles, after having kept them five years" (it seems they fattened much slower than at Jerusalem), " and sacrifice them to their gods, and, with other first-fruits of the year, offer them on large funeral piles." Theodoret also mentions something of that kind concerning the Rhodians, in the first book of the " Greek Affections;" the words have been mentioned before.
But that young Greek, destined for sacrifice, in Apion, has no name ; that is, there never was any such person.
" But, friend, discover faithful what I crave, — Artful concealment ill becomes the brave; Say what thy birth, and what the name you bore, Imposed by parents in the natal houi-."
Pope's' Homer's Odyssey, book viii.
But, after having prepared the plot, he ought not to have shunned the task of giving names to the actors. We have the name of a Persian sacrificed even among the Thracians, in Herodotus, book ix. " The Thracians of Apsinthium," says he, " having seized O^obazus flying into Thrace, sacrificed him, after their custom, to Pleistorus, the god of the country."
There is still remaining, if I rightly remember, the name of a Spanish soldier, a captive, with other of his companions, among the Mexicans, well-known inhabitants of America, who being sacrificed, on a very high altar, to the gods of the country, when his heart was pulled out (if we can credit Peter Martyr, author of the History of the West Indies), tumbling down upon the sand, exclaimed, " O com- panions, they have murdered me ! " Clemens of Alexandria makes mention of Theopompus, a king of the Lacedcemonians, being sacri- ficed by Aristomenes the Messenian. His words, which elegantly set forth this custom of all the nations, we shall beg leave to trouble the reader with : " But now, when they had invaded all states and nations as plagues (he is speaking of demons), they demanded cruel sacrifices; and one Aristomenes, a Messenian, slew three hundred in honour of Ithometan Jupiter, thinking that he sacrificed so many hecatombs in due form, and of such a kind. Among these, too, was Theopompus, king of the Lacedemonians, an illustrious victim. But the inhabitants of Mount Taurus, who dwell about the Tauric Cher- sonese, instantly sacrifice whatever shipwrecked strangers they find
1 The words in the original apply much better to our author's meaning. See them, Odyss., lib. viii. v. 550. — Tr. ^
VOL. X- '^^
530 A DISSERTATION ON DIVINE JUSTICE. [PART 1.
upon their coasts to Diana of Taurus. Thence, ye inhospitable shores ! Euripides again and again bewails in his scenes these your sacrifices," Clemens' Exhortations to the Greeks.
But what he says concerning Euripides has a reference to the story of " Iphigenia in Tauris ;" where, however, the poet signifies that she detested such kinds of sacrifices, for he introduces Iphi- genia, the priestess of Diana, thus bewailing her lot : " They have appointed me priestess in these temples, where Diana, the goddess of the festival, is delighted with such laws, whose name alone is honour- able ; but I say no more, dreading the goddess. For I sacrifice (and it long hath been a custom of the state) every Grecian that arrives in this country," Eur. Iph. in Tauris, v. 34.
Thus far Clemens, who also demonstrates the same thiug of the Thessalians, Lycians, Lesbians, Phocensians, and Romans, from Monimus, Antoclides, Pythocles, and Demaratus. That deed, too, of Agamemnon, alluded to by Virgil, furnishes another proof : —
" Sanguine placastis ventos, et virgiue ccesa."
"0 Grecians, when the Trojan shores you sought, Your passage with a vii-gin's blood was bought."
Dryclen's Virg.
Tertullian also bears witness to this wickedness: " In Africa they openly sacrificed infants to Saturn, even down to the time of the proconsulate of Tiberius ; and what is surprising, even in that most religious city of the pious descendants of ^neas, there is a certain Jupiter, whom, at his games, they drench with human blood."
It is notoriously known, that in the sanguinary games of the Ilomans, they made atonement to the gods with human blood, — namely, that of captives. But Eusebius Pamphilus (Praep. Evang. lib. iv. cap. 16) enters the most fully of any into this matter ; for be shows from Porphyry, Philo, Clemens, Dionysius of Halicamassus, and Diodorus Siculus, that this ceremony of offering human sacrifices was practised all over the world. Porphyry, indeed, shows at large who instituted this kind of worship in different places, and who put an end to it. Another very ingenious poet brings an accusation of extreme folly and madness against this rite in these verses. It is a Plebeian addressincf Airamemnon : —