[41] Cieza de Leon, Segunda parte de Crónica del Perú, p. 109.
Moreover, an angry god may be appeased simply by the death of him or those who aroused his anger, or of some representative of the offending community, or of somebody belonging to the kin of the offender. Among the Ew̔e-speaking peoples of the Slave Coast, “in the case of human victims the gods are not believed to devour the souls; and as these souls are, by the majority of the natives, believed to proceed to Dead-land like all others, the object of human sacrifice seems to be to gratify or satiate the malignancy of the gods at the expense of chosen individuals, instead of leaving it to chance—the victims are in fact slain for the benefit of the community at large.”[42] One reason why the human victims are so frequently criminals, is no doubt the intention of appeasing the god by offering up to him an individual who is hateful to him. The Sandwich Islanders “sacrifice culprits to their gods, as we sacrifice them in Europe to justice.”[43] Among the Teutons the execution of a criminal was, in many cases at least, a sacrifice to the god whose peculiar cult had been offended by the crime.[44] Thus the Frisian law describes as an immolation to the god the punishment of one who violates his temple.[45] In ancient Rome the corn thief, if he was an adult, was hanged as an offering to Ceres;[46] and Ovid tells us that a priestess of Vesta who had been false to her vows of chastity was sacrificed by being buried alive in the earth, Vesta and Tellus being the same deity.[47] In consequence of the sacrilege of Menalippus and Comætho, who had polluted a temple of Artemis by their amours, the Pythian priestess ordained that the guilty pair should be sacrificed to the goddess, and that, besides, the people should every year sacrifice to her a youth and a maiden, the fairest of their sex.[48] The Hebrew cherem, or ban, was originally applied to malefactors and other enemies of Yahveh, and sometimes also to their possessions. “Cherem,” says Professor Kuenen, “is properly dedication to Yahveh, which in reality amounted to destruction or annihilation. The persons who were ‘dedicated,’ generally by a solemn vow, to Yahveh, were put to death, frequently by fire, whereby the resemblance to an ordinary burnt-offering was rendered still more apparent; their dwellings and property were also consumed by fire; their lands were left uncultivated for ever. Such punishments were very common in the ancient world. But in Israel, as elsewhere, they were at the same time religious acts.”[49] The sacrifice of offenders has, in fact, survived in the Christian world, since every execution performed for the purpose of appeasing an offended and angry god may be justly called a sacrifice.[50]
[42] Ellis, Ew̔e-speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast, p. 119.
[43] von Kotzebue, op. cit. iii. 248. Cf. Lisiansky, op. cit. 120.
[44] von Amira, in Paul’s Grundriss der germanischen Philologie, ii. pt. ii. 177. Brunner, Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte, ii. 587, 684 sq. Vigtusson and Powell, op. cit. i. 410. Gummere, Germanic Origins, p. 463.
[45] Lex Frisionum, Additio sapientium, 12.
[46] Granger, Worship of the Romans, p. 260.
[47] Ovid, Fasti, vi. 457 sq. Cf. Mommsen, Römisches Strafrecht, p. 902.
[48] Pausanias, vii. 19. 4.
[49] Kuenen, Religion of Israel, i. 290 sq.