Prepar. Evang. lib. 1.
Lastly, Porphyrius relates, “That the Phenicians upon any great Exigency, as War, excessive Heat, or Mortal Distempers, by order selected one of the most comely and beautiful of their Children, to be offer’d up to Saturn.” And Eusebius saith also out of Porphyrius, “That Saturn, whom the Phenicians call Israel, the Learned Vossius and Hugo Grotius read Il, or El (one of the ten Names of God in Hebrew) which they also give to the Planet Saturn, who when he Reign’d in Phenicia, having one only Son born by the Nymph Anobret, and was in danger to lose his Kingdom, being worsted in an unlucky War, he dress’d him in Royal Robes, and placing him on an Altar built for that purpose, sacrific’d him with his own Hands.”
Men and Children used for Sacrifices by the Phenicians and other People.
Who forbade the sacrificing of Men.
And although such like cruel Oblations are us’d in America, must it therefore follow, that they are deriv’d from the Phenicians, when several other People are guilty of the same? Nay, there is scarce one Countrey, which hath not at some time or other perform’d such inhumane Acts, seeming to them Zeal in their Religion; for the most eminent of the Heathens scrupled not at it, which certainly are held to be the Persians, Greeks, and Romans; and yet they were not abhorr’d, though committing Humane Slaughters.
This holy Butchery and Religious Slaughter of Mankind began in Rome in the Emperor Adrian’s Reign, so continuing till the time of Tertullian, Lactantius, and Eusebius. The Greeks which inhabited the utmost part of Italy, employ’d themselves daily in Sacrificing Strangers to Saturn, and sometimes one another. But at last this formal Cruelty became a ridiculous Custom; for the Romans by severe Edicts strictly forbad all such Humane Offerings: Yet that they might retain some memory of their former Sacrifices, they order’d thirty Images to be made of Rushes, which every year on the fifteenth of April, were by the Roman Priests and Vestal Nuns, to be thrown from the Milvian Bridge into the Tyber.
Lib. de Superstit.
Moreover, Manethon relates, “That the Egyptians in Heliopolis us’d to offer three Men at once to Juno; which Custom was observ’d till King Amasis order’d, That in stead of Men, they should serve her with Wax Candles.”
Amestris, Queen to the famous Xerxes, caus’d twelve Men to be burn’d alive, as an Oblation, to pacifie and oblige Pluto to maintain them in their present Grandeur.
Rer. Persic. l. 1.