The sacrifice of children is said by Clovers to have been not so much an expiatory as a purificatory rite, by which the victims were purged from the dross of the body and attained union with the deity. In support of this he quotes the myth of Baaltis or Isis, whom Mal- cander, king of Byblus, employed as nurse for liis child. Isis suckled the infant witli her finger, and each night burned whatever was mortal in its body. A\'hen As- tarte, the mother, saw this she uttered a crj' of terror, and the child was thus dejirived of immortality (Plu- tarch, Is. and Os. ch. 16). But the sacrifice of !Mesha, king of Moab, when, in despair at failing to cut his way through the overwhelming forces of Judah, Israel, and Edom, lie offered up his eldest son a burnt-offering, probably to Chemosh, his national divinity, has more of tlie character of an expiatory rite to appease an angry deity than of a ceremonial purilication. Besides, the passage from Plutarch bears evident traces of Egyptian, if not of Indian iiifiuence.
The worship of 3Iolech is evidently alluded to, though not expressly mentioned, in connection with star-wor- ship and the Avorship of Baal in 2 Kings xvii, 16, 17; xxi, 5, 6, which seems to show that jSIolech, the flame- god, and Baal, the sun-god, whatever llieir distinctive attributes, and whether or not the latter is a general appellation including the former, were worshipped with the same rites. Another argument might be drawn from Jer. iii, 24, in which Ilab-hosheih, " the shame," is said to have devoured their flocks and herds, their sons and daugliters. Now, as Bosheth is found, in tlie names Ishboshelh and Jerubbcshetli. to alternate with Baal, as if it were only a contemptuous perversion of it, it would appear that human sacrifices are here again as- crilied to Baal. Further, whereas Baal is the chief name under which we find the principal god of the Plia-nicinns in the Old 'i'estament. aiul wliereas only the two above-cited passages mention the liiiman vic- tims of Baal, it is remarkable that the (ireek and Latin authors give abundant testimony to the human sacri-
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fices which the PhcEiiicians and their colonies offerod to their principal god, in whom the classical writers have almost always recognised their own Kpuvo(; and Saturn. Thus we are again brought to the difficulty [see Baal] of reconciling Molech as Saturn with Baal as the sun and Jupiter. In reality, however, this difficulty is in part created by our association of classical with She- mitic mythology. When regarded apart from such for- eign affinities, Molech and Baal may appear as the per- sonifications of the two powers that give and destroy life, which early religions regarded as not incompatible phases of the same God of nature.
3. Information from other Sources. — Fire-gods appear to have been common to all the Canaanitish, Syrian, and other tribes, who worshipped the destructive element under an outward symbol, with the most inhuman rites. Among these were human sacrifices, purifications, and ordeals by fire, devoting of the first-born, mutilation, and vows of perpetual celibacy and virginity. To this class of divinities belonged the old Canaanitish Molech, as well as Chemosh, the fire-god of Moab, Urotal, Du- sares, Sair. and Thyandrites, of the Edomites and neigh- boring Arab tribes, and the Greek Dionysus, who were ■worshipped under the symbol of a rising flame of fire, ■which was imitated in the stone pillars erected in their honor (Movers, Pkon. i, c. 9). Tradition refers the or- igin of the fire-worship to Chaldaea. Abraham and his ancestors are said to have been fire-worshippers, and the Assyrian and Chaldaaan armies took with them the sa- cred fire accompanied by the magi.
As the accounts of this idol and his worship found in the Old Testament are very scanty, the more detailed notices which Greek and Latin writers give of the blood}' rites of the Phcenician colonies acquire peculiar value. Mlinter has collected these testimonies with great completeness in his Relifion der Karthager. Many of these notices, however, only describe late develop- ments of the primitive rites. Thus the description of the image of Molech as a brazen statue, wliich was heated red hot, and in the outstretched arms of which the child was laid, so that it fell down into the flaming furnace beneath — an account which is first found in Di- odorus Siculus, as referring to the Carthaginian KpovoQ, but which was subsequently adopted by Jarchi and others — is not admitted by Movers to apply to the Mo- lech of the Old Testament.
According to Jewish tradition, from what source we know not, the image of Molech was of brass, hollow within, and was situated without Jerusalem. Kimchi (on 2 Kings xxiii, 10) describes it as "set within seven cliapels, and whoso offered fine flour, thej' open to him one of them ; (whoso offered) turtle-doves or young pig- eons, they open to him two ; a lamb, they open to him three; a ram, they open to him four; a calf, they open to him five ; an ox, they open to him six ; and to who- ever offered his son, they open to him seven. And his face was (that) of a calf, and his hands stretched forth like a man who opens his hands to receive (something) of his neighbor. And they kindled it with fire, and the priests took the babe and put it into the hands of ]\Iolech, and the babe gave up the ghost. And why was it called Tophet antl Hinnom? Because they used to make a noise with drums (tophim), that the father might not hear the cry of his child and have pity upon him, and return to him. Hinnom, because the babe wailed (QHJ^, menaheni), and the noise of his wailing went up." Another opinion (is that it was called) Hin- nom, because the priests used to say — "May it profit (nsni) thee ! may it be sweet to thee ! may it be of sweet savor to thee !" All this detail is probably as fic- titious as the etymologies are unsound, but we have nothing to supply its place. Selden conjectures that the idea of the seven chapels may have been borrowed from the worship of Mithra, who had seven gates corre- sponding to the seven planets, and to whom men and women were sacrificed (De Lis Syr, synt. i, c. G). Ben-