Although the sun was formerly worshipped as the source of all good, at a
certain stage in the human career it came to be regarded as the cause
of all evil. When Typhon Seth comprehended the powers of Nature, as the
Destroyer and Regenerator she was the author of all good; but later,
after the truths underlying Nature worship were lost, Typhon, the hot
wind of the desert, was feared rather than worshipped.
In the history of an earlier age of existence, there is not to be found
the slightest trace of human sacrifice to atone for the sins of the
people, or to appease the wrath of an offended God. On the contrary,
throughout the traditions and monumental records of the most ancient
nations, sacrifices to the Deity--the God of Nature--consisted simply in
the acknowledgment of earth's benefits by means of a free-will offering
of the bounties which she had brought forth.
That the sacrifice either of human beings or of animals was not offered
in an earlier age of religious faith is confidently asserted and, I
think, proved by various writers. Of this Higgins says: "I think a time
may be perceived when it did not exist even among the Western nations."
This writer states also that it was not always practiced at Delphi.
Mention is made of the fact that among the Buddhists, to whom belongs
the first book of Genesis, no bloody sacrifices were ever offered.
It was doubtless under the worship of Muth, Neith, or Minerva, the first
emanation from the deity and the original Buddha, that the first book
of Genesis or Wisdom was written. In this book may be observed the fact
that the slaughter of animals is forbidden. It is thought that with
Crishna, Hercules, and the worshippers of the sun in Aries, the
sacrifice of human beings and animals began. In the second book of
Genesis, which is said to be a Brahmin work, animals are first used
for sacrifice, and in the third book, or the book of Generations or
Re-generations of the race of man or the Adam, which was written
after the pure doctrines connected with the worship of Wisdom had been
corrupted, they are first allowed to be eaten as food.
It is supposed that the practice of sacrificing human beings and animals
took its rise in the western parts of the world after the sun entered
Aries, and that it subsequently extended even to the followers of the
Tauric worship, among whom it was carried to a frightful extent. It is
also thought that the history of Cain and Abel is an allegory of the
followers of Crishna to justify their sacrifice of the yajna or lamb "in
opposition to the Buddhist offering of bread and wine, or water, made by
Cain and practiced by Melchizedek."(163)
163) Anacalypsis, vol. i., p. 101.
It is now positively known that all over the world, during a certain
stage of religious belief, either human beings or animals were, at
stated seasons, sacrificed to the Deity. Of the universality of this
practice Faber says:
"Throughout the whole world we find a notion prevalent that the gods
could be appeased only by bloody sacrifices. Now this idea is so
thoroughly arbitrary, there being no obvious and necessary connection,
in the way of cause and effect, between slaughtering a man or a beast,
and recovering of the divine favor by the slaughterers, that its very
universality involves the necessity of concluding that all nations have
borrowed it from some common source."(164)
164) The Origin of Pagan Idolatry, vol. i., book 2, p. 465.
Dr. Shuckford is constrained to admit that the sacrifices and ceremonies
of purification practiced by Abraham and his descendants and those of
surrounding peoples, were identical, with only "such trifling changes as
distance of countries and length of time might be expected to produce."
The substitution of a lamb in the place of Isaac would seem to indicate
a change from child-slaughter to that of animals.
Sacrifices were offerings to the god of pro-creation. Certain
representatives of the life which he had bestowed must be returned to
him as a free-will gift. In many countries, the victims offered to the
deity were captives taken in war; but, as prisoners of war and slaves
were not permitted to join in the battles of their captors, their lives
were of little value; hence, later, it is observed that the sacrificial
victim must be a prince or an individual whose life was of great
importance to the tribe.
As in all hot countries the heat of the sun is the most destructive
agency against which mankind have to contend, it is not perhaps
singular, at a time when superstition had usurped the functions of the
reasoning powers, that the sun-god should have been invested with the
attributes inspired by terror, and that so far as possible, mankind
should have deemed it necessary to propitiate its wrath, and, by
rendering to it suitable offerings and sacrifices, they should have
hoped to avert the calamities incident to its displeasure. Neither is it
remarkable when we remember the peculiar circumstances surrounding the
Jews, and the fact that the offerings demanded by their god was the life
which he had bestowed, that the sacrifices offered to Moloch, the fire
god, should have been the members of their own household--namely, their
children.
We must not forget that the reward promised this people by prophet,
priest, and diviner for godliness was extreme fruitfulness of body. We
have seen that to obtain this mark of godly favor, or, under pretense of
serving their god, the form of worship prescribed by their priests, and
adopted both in their households and in their temples was pre-eminently
sensual, and calculated to stimulate and encourage to the highest extent
their lower or animal nature.
As the size of a man's family, or his power to reproduce, was an index
to his favor with the Almighty the pleasure of the "Lord" in this
matter being but the reflection of his own desires, the result as might
reasonably be expected was overpopulation to such an extent that the
means of subsistence within the small boundary of Judea was
inadequate to supply the demands of the swarming masses of "God's
children"--children which had been created for his honor and glory.
Surely some plan must be devised whereby these difficulties might be
adjusted, and that, too, to use a modern expression, without flying in
the face of Providence. As the Lord had been honored and man blessed
in the mere bringing forth of offspring, what better scheme, so soon as
such blessings became too numerous, than to return a certain number of
them to the giver, the god of Moloch? It is true that by this process
children were born only to be delivered over to the ravages of the
fire-god, but by it, was not their deity both served and appeased at
the same time that population was kept within the bounds of subsistence?
That great numbers were thus sacrificed is only too apparent from the
accounts in the Jewish scriptures--Abraham's acts and those of Jephtha
being examples of the manner in which this god was propitiated.
In Micah, vi. chap., 7th verse, occurs an interrogation which furnishes
something more than a hint of the practice among the Jews of child
sacrifice. "Shall I give my first born for my transgressions, the fruit
of my body for the sin of my soul?"
Although there is sufficient evidence to prove the enormous extent to
which the practice of child sacrifice prevailed among the Jews, it
is believed that much more proof would be found, had it not, in later
times, with a view to concealing the extent of this practice, been
expunged from their sacred writings. Moloch was to the Jews what Siva
came to be to the Hindoos, namely, the Terrible. It is plain, however,
that Siva was not formerly feared in India, but next to Vishnu was the
best beloved of all their gods. Siva was originally the androgyne god
who was not only the Destroyer, but the beneficent Regenerator and
purifier. It was the cold of winter and the heat of the sun. It was a
conception which was a direct outgrowth of Nature worship or of that
religious idea which was portrayed by a mother and her child.
The conception involved in sacrifice seems to be that of a payment
for services rendered, or desired. The Amazulus, when going to battle,
sacrifice to the manes of their ancestors, who, as older branches of
the tree of life, appear to constitute their god-idea. This is done
that their gods "may have no cause of complaint, because they have made
amends to them and made them bright." On appearing before the enemy they
say: "Can it be, since we have made amends to the Amadhlozi, that they
will say we have wronged them by anything?"(165)
165) Viscount Amberley, Analysis of Religious Belief, vol. i., p. 32.
At a certain stage in human history the various peoples of the globe
depended upon excessive numbers for their prosperity, hence the most
precious offering to the god of pro-creation was that of human victims.
In India, when a new colony or city was founded, in order to insure its
prosperity, large numbers of children were delivered over as a bribe or
offering of reconciliation to the god of virility. The enormous extent
to which human sacrifice has prevailed in India, in Egypt, in Mexico,
among the Carthaginians, the Jews, the Druids, and even among the Greeks
and Romans, is well attested.
From the records of extant history, it would seem that human sacrifice
usually accompanies a certain stage of sun-worship. Among the Aztecs in
Mexico, a country in which the sun was a universal object of reverence
and in which one of the prescribed duties of the boys trained in the
temple was that of keeping alive the sacred fires, the immolation of
victims became the most prominent feature of their public worship. We
are distinctly told, however, that human sacrifice was not formerly
practiced in Mexico, but that finally here as elsewhere, the idea became
prevalent that by sacrificing human victims to the god of Destruction,
his wrath might be appeased and the people saved from his vengeance. It
is stated that human sacrifices were adopted by the Aztecs early in the
fourteenth century, about two hundred years before the conquest. "Rare
at first, they became more frequent with the wider extent of their
empire; till, at length, almost every festival was closed with this
cruel abomination."
Notwithstanding these atrocities, in their conceptions of a future state
of existence, and especially in their disposition of the unregenerate
after death, are to be observed certain traces of human feeling and
refined sensibility which are difficult to reconcile with the cruelty
practiced in their religious rites, and which bear a striking contrast
to the physical torture, to which after death the wicked are subjected
not only in Mexico, but in countries professing a high stage of
civilization and culture.
Of their religious observances, those which had doubtless been inherited
from an older civilization, Prescott, quoting from Torquemada and
Sahagun, says:
"Many of their ceremonies were of a light and cheerful complexion,
consisting of the national songs and dances, in which both sexes joined.
Processions were made of women and children crowned with garlands and
bearing offerings of fruits, the ripened maize, or the sweet incense
of copal and other odoriferous gums, while the altars of the deity were
stained with no blood save that of animals. These were the peaceful
rites derived from their Toltec predecessors."(166)
166) See Conquest of Mexico, book I, chap. iii., p. 74.
Prior to the days of Montezuma, the Aztec priests had engrafted
upon these simple ceremonies not only a burdensome ceremonial, and a
polytheism similar to that of Eastern nations, but, as we have seen,
human sacrifices and even cannibalism had become prominent features
in religious worship. Throughout the entire ceremonial and religious
conceptions of the Aztecs may be observed a display of the savage and
brutal elements in human nature, in close connection with unmistakable
evidence of a once higher stage of culture and refinement.
In the later ages of Aztec history their most exalted deity was
Huitzilopotchi, the Mexican Moses, the god of war. His temples were the
most costly and magnificent among the public edifices in the country,
and his image bedecked with ornaments was an universal object of
adoration. At the dedication of his temple in the year 1486 more than
seventy thousand captives are said to have perished.(167)
167) Torquemada.
A Deity which occupied a conspicuous place in the mythology, and which
was probably an inheritance from more ancient times, was Quetzalcoatl,
doubtless the same as the Eastern Goddess of Nature, or Wisdom. She was
the "grain goddess," and "received offerings of fruit and flowers" at her
two great festivals. She also took care of the growth of corn. She was
doubtless the same as the Earth Mother of the Finns and Esths, she who
"undertakes the task of bringing forth the fruits." She is evidently
the Demeter of the Greeks, the Ceres of the Romans, etc. She is also
the goddess of Wisdom, for she had "instructed the nations in the use of
metals, in agriculture, and in the art of government." Under this Deity
the
"Earth had teemed with fruits and flowers without the pains of culture.
An ear of Indian corn was as much as a single man could carry. The
cotton, as it grew, took, of its own accord, the rich dies of human art.
The air was filled with intoxicating perfumes and the sweet melody of
birds. In short, these were the halcyon days, which find a place in
the mythic systems of so many nations throughout the world. It was the
golden age of Anuhuac."
We are given to understand that for some cause not explained the
beneficent god Quetzalcoatl was banished, that he (or she) was deposed
through the influence of some deity which had become more popular, or,
at least, more powerful; but that when Quetzalcoatl departed from the
country "in a winged skiff made of serpent skins," it was with a promise
to return to the faithful, which promise was sacredly cherished down to
the time of the Spanish invasion.
The Mexican Mars, Huitzilopotchi, was born of a virgin. His mother, a
devout person, while at her devotions in the temple saw floating before
her a bright colored feather ball, which she seized and placed in her
bosom. She soon became pregnant, her offspring being a god, who like
Minerva appeared full armed with spear and helmet.
Although the exact manner in which the Mexicans sacrificed to their
Deity to atone for the sins of the people differs somewhat from the
modus operandi employed in the Christian vicarious atonement, still the
likeness existing between them is sufficient to indicate the fact of
their common origin and the similar manner of their development.
The Mexicans were wont to select a young and handsome man from their
midst, whom they invested with the dignity of a god. After having
surrounded him with every luxury, and when they had showered upon him
every attention, crowning him with flowers and worshipping him for a
year or more as a Savior, they killed him, offering him as an atonement
or sacrifice, in order that the rest of the people might escape the
vengeance of their great Deity, who, it was claimed, is pleased with
such offerings, and who demands sacrifices of this kind at the hands of
his children. Within blood was contained life, hence the offering of a
bloody victim was but the returning to their god, as a free-will gift
that which he had bestowed, such sacrifice being regarded as the only
acceptable means of grace or reconciliation.
That the offering of a victim to the Jewish God was deemed necessary to
the fulfilment of Christian doctrine is a fact which is clearly shown by
numerous passages in the New Testament. "We are sanctified through the
offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all." "By one offering he
hath perfected forever them that are sanctified."(168) "Christ was once
offered to bear the sins of many."(169)
168) Hebrews, x., 10, 14.
169) Ibid., ix., 28.
That the Jewish Paschal feasts and the Eucharistic rites of Christians
had their counterpart among the Mexicans is observed in the fact that
shortly after the death of their god, cakes which had been prepared and
blessed by the priests were offered by them to the people to be eaten as
the veritable body of their sacrificed lord.
The source whence the doctrine of an atonement--a bloody sacrifice which
lies at the foundation of Christian theology--has proceeded is not at
the present time difficult to determine, for we shall presently see that
it, like all the leading doctrines contained in this later system,
and which are regarded as exclusively Christian, had its origin in the
religion of past ages, a religion which although originally pure, in
course of time degenerated into the grossest phallicism and even into
human sacrifice and cannibalism.
Although among the Mexicans as among the Jews, human sacrifices were
offered to the Deity, no hint of gross and sensual rites practiced in
the temples of the latter is recorded. Hence, as the Mexicans had not
arrived at that stage of religious progress (?) at which sensuality
inculcated as a sacred duty, and at which moral and physical debasement
was encouraged both in public and private life, we may reasonably
conclude that their faith represents a somewhat earlier stage of
development than does that of either Jew or Greek. In point of morality,
as judged by the most ancient standards, or by the more modern, the
Mexicans compare favorably with either of these nationalities. Indeed
when we compare the social, religious, and civil conditions of Mexico
as we find them under Montezuma with those of the Jews under David or
Solomon, or with those of the Greeks under Solon, or even with those
of the Christians during the Spanish Inquisition when thousands upon
thousands, not of captives taken in war, but of the noblest and best of
the land, were yearly slaughtered for "the glory of God," there is quite
as much to meet the approval of an enlightened conscience under the
first named system as under that of any one of the other three.
By priests the fact has long been understood that effects may be
produced through appeals to the religious or emotional nature which
under other circumstances would be impossible; and as, for thousands
of years, it has been the special business of this class to formulate
creeds for the ignorant masses, religious belief and the ceremonies
connected with "sacred" worship, during certain periods of the world's
history, have assumed a grotesqueness in design unsurpassed by the most
fanciful fairy tales which the imagination has ever been able to create,
at the same time that they have portrayed a depth of sensual degradation
capable of being reached only by that order of creation which alone has
been able to develop a religion.