57
And the sacrifises ben not perfourmed in the temple, but whan he hath presented his victime beforn the awtere, he schedeth offrynge of wyn there on, and thanne he ayen ledeth him on lyve to his logging, and’ whan he is comen there he sacrificeth and preyeth be him self.
58
Ther is also this other maner sacrifise. Theidressen here victimes with gerlondes and hurlen hem doun the degrees of the entree on lyve, and in fallynge doun thei dyen. And some men hurlen here owne children thens, but not in lyke manere as the bestes. Thei putten hem in a walet and beren hem doun in hond, and thei scornen hem with alle, seyinge that thei ben not children but oxen.A relic of child-sacrifice. “Shall I give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” (Micah 6,7). On traces of infant sacrifice discovered in the excavations in Palestine, see Cook, pp. 36, 38, 43; Frazer, Folklore i, 418 and note. From recent excavations in asanctuary of Tanit at Carthage, it is apparent that firstborn children were offered to that goddess during the whole period of Punic occupation (Am. Journal of Archaevl., 1923, R 107). “Jephthah’s daughter had many successors before adrian tried to stamp out the practice. At Laodicea a virgin was annually sacrificed to ‘ Athena’ until a deer took her place; Elagubalus was accused of offering children in his sun-temple at Rome; . . . an Arabian tribe annually sacrificed a child, which they buried beneath the altar that served them as an idol. In many parts, too, bodies of slain victims were used for purposes of. divination” (Bouchier, Syria as a Roman Province, p. 247 sq.).
