Читать книгу Dæmonologia Sacra; or, A Treatise of Satan's Temptations. In Three Parts онлайн

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[4.] Fourthly, In some places the devil brought them to set times for those offerings; some were monthly, some annual. The Latins sacrificed the tenth child; the annual drowning of a boy and a girl in the lake of Mexico; the casting of two yearly from the Pons Milvius142 at Rome into Tiber, are but petty instances in comparison of the rest.

[5.] Fifthly, We cannot pass by the vast number of men offered up at one time. So thirsty is Satan of human blood, that from one or two, he hath raised the number incredibly high. In some sacrifices five, in some ten, in some a hundred, in some a thousand have been offered up. It was the argument which Montezuma, the last Emperor of Mexico, used to Cortez to prove his strength and greatness by, that he sacrificed yearly twenty thousand men, and some years fifty thousand. Some have reserved their captives for that end, others have made war only to furnish themselves with men for such occasions.

[6.] Sixthly, There are also several circumstances of these diabolical outrages that may give a further discovery of his cruelty, as that these miserable creatures thus led to be butchered have been loaden with all the cursings, revilings, and contumacious reproaches as a necessary concomitant of their violent deaths. Thus were those used who were forced to be the public καθάρματα, or expiation, for the removal of common calamities. Death also was not enough, except it had been most tormenting in the manner of it, as of those that suffered by the embracements of Moloch. The joy and feastings of such sacrificings, which were in themselves spectacles of mourning and sorrow, were cruelties to the dead, and a barbarous enforcement against the laws of nature in the living. But the dashing of the smoking heart in the idol’s face, and the pulling off the skins from the massacred bodies, that men and women might dance in them, were yet more cruel ceremonies. And lastly, In those that have been prepared for those solemnities, by delicious fare, gorgeous ornaments, and the highest reverence or honours, as was the manner of several countries; yet was this no other than Satan’s insulting over their miseries, of which we can say no otherwise, than that his tenderest mercies are cruelties.