Reforms of Josiah

167

the popularity of the foreign gods and causing the streets of Jerusalem to run with the blood of the prophets whom he put to death. In every way he tried to make the heathen religions more acceptable and accessible to the whole nation by providing them with temples and altars. In addition to sacrificing one of his own sons to Moloch, he revived that religion on a large scale, building for it a magnificent burning place (Tophet) in the valley of Hinnom on the southern wall of Jerusalem. The tortures to which the children were subjected soon associated themselves in the minds of the pious with what punishment beyond the grave must be like, so that the name of hell itself was taken from this valley, Ge-Hinnom.1

With the reforms of Josiah we hear no more of such treatment of children but we must not suppose that while barbarous practices were going on the prophets had remained silent. The latter day writers revolted against the entire idea of sacrifice, Hosea declaring: "I desired mercy and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of Yahweh more than burnt offerings." Jeremiah even declared that the Lord had not commanded the people to sacrifice when they came forth from Egypt:

"For I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices."3

1 Hosea, chap. vi., v. 6.

3 Jeremiah, chap. vii., v. 21 et seq.

2 Ibid.

To Micah, however, it was reserved to express in those early days the vigorous protest that was to become the ethical keynote of the future religion:

"Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the high God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old?

"Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I give my first son for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?

"He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God?"I

Micah, chap. vi., v. 6 et seq.

CHAPTER XI

ANCIENT ARABIANS WERE CANNIBALISTIC-DAUGHTERS TOO EXPENSIVE TO REAR-CONDITIONS BEFORE THE COMING OF THE PROPHET THE INJUNCTIONS OF MOHAMMED HIS LAW AS FOUND IN "AL HIDAYA."

F the one remaining tribe of the Semites, a name that has meant so much to the civilization of the world, it is hardly necessary to offer a prelude. Coming, however, in the mouth of the defenders of the latest religion and as the youngest of the Semitic languages, it is necessary to say of the Arabic language that it is nearer akin than any of the others to the original archetype, the Ursemitisch, from which they are all derived; "just as the Arabs, by reason of their geographical situation and the monotonous uniformity of the desert life, have, in some respects, preserved the Semitic character more purely and exhibited it more distinctly than any people of the same family.”ı

Arabic history divides itself into three periods, first the Sabean and Himyarite period, from 800 B.C., the date of the oldest south Arabic inscription; 'R. A. Nicholson, Literary History of the Arabs, p. xvi.

second, the Pre-Islamic period, 500 to 622 A.D.; and third, the Mohammedan period, beginning with the Flight, or Hijra (or Hegira). Of the first periods the little that we know except the inscriptions coming to us by tradition is preserved in the Pre-Islamic poems and the Koran.'

The Sabeans were inhabitants of the ancient kingdom of Sheba, located in south-western Arabia. According to the records of Mohammed Abu-Taleb Dimeshqi, the Sabeans' sacrifices were made to the planets when they reached their point of culmination. They sacrificed either a man or a woman according to the divinity who was being worshipped. To the Sun, a selected girl was sacrificed; to the Moon, a man with full face. To Jupiter, a boy three days old, the child of the girl who was sacrificed to the Sun. To Mercury they sacrificed a young man of brownish colour who was a scribe and well educated; to Mars, a very red man with a red head; to Venus, a beautiful woman. These sacrifices were connected with various preparations and mysterious ceremonies.

The following passage, showing the extreme of horrible barbarism, describes one of their sacrificial ceremonies; it is from Dr. D. Chwolsohn's Die Ssabier und der Ssabismus (vol. ii., pp. 28-29).

"On the 8th of August the Sabcans pressed the wine for the gods and called it by many different names. On this day they sacrificed to the gods, in the middle of the forenoon, a new-born male child. First the child was slaughtered, then boiled until it became very soft, when the flesh was taken off (the bones). The flesh was then kneaded with fine flour, oil, saffron, spikenard and other spices, and, according to some, with raisins. It was then made into small cakes of the size of a fig, and baked in a new oven. This was used by the participants in the mystery of Shemal.

No woman, no slave or son of a slave, or no idiot was allowed to eat of it. To the killing and the preparation of the child only three priests were admitted. Everything remaining, such as the bones and other things not eatable, the priests offered as a burnt sacrifice to the gods."

[Ab (August) Den 8. dieses Monats pressen sie neuen Wein

Unwelcome Arabian Daughters 171

The second period is known as the Jahiliyya, or Age of Ignorance or Barbarism, and, in the ample remnant of the poetry of that day, we are enabled "to picture the life of those wild days in its larger aspects, accurately enough.

The pagan Arabs had long been in the habit of burying their infant daughters alive, the excuse offered being that it cost too much to marry them and that their lives were too closely attended with the possibility of disgrace "if they should happen to be made captives or to become scandalous by their behaviour."2 For these reasons there was never any disguising the fact that the birth of a daughter was considered a great misfortune and the death of one a great happiness.

According to one authority, the method em

für die Götter und legen ihm viele verschiedene Namen bei. An diesem Tage opfern sie in der Mitte des Vormittags den durch Standbilder dargestellten Göttern ein neugeborenes männliches Kind. Zuerst wird der Knabe geschlachtet und dann gesotten, bis er ganz weich wird, dann wird das Fleisch abgenommen und mit feinem Mehl, Safran, Spikenard, Gewürznelken und Oel (nach der andern Lesart: Rosinen) zusammengeknetet, daraus werden kleine Brode, von der Grösse einer Feige, gemacht (oder geknetet) und in einem neuen (oder eisernen) Ofen gebacken. Dies dient den Theilnehmern an dem Mysterion des Schemal (zur Speise) für das ganze Jahr. Es darf aber kein Weib, kein Sklave, kein Sohn einer Sklaven und kein Wahnsinniger etwas davon essen· Zu dem Schlachten und Zurichten dieses Kindes werden blos drei Priester zugelassen. Alles aber, was von seinen Knochen, Gliedmassen, Knorpeln, Arterien und Nerven übrig geblieben ist, verbrennen die Priester den Göttern zum Opfer.]

R. A. Nicholson, Literary History of the Arabs, p. xxvii.

George Sale, Introduction to the Koran, p. 93.