ind of offering.

** Redemption by a payment in money was the case among the
Hebrews, as also the substitution of an animal in the place
of a child; as to redemption by circumcision, cf. the story
of Moses and Zipporah, where the mother saves her son from
Jahveh by circumcising him. Circumcision was practised among
the Syrians of Palestine in the time of Herodotus.

At important junctures, however, this pretence of bloodshed would fail
to appease them, and the death of the child alone availed. Indeed, in
times of national danger, the king and nobles would furnish, not merely
a single victim, but as many as the priests chose to demand.* While they
were being burnt alive on the knees of the statue, or before the sacred
emblem, their cries of pain were drowned by the piping of flutes or the
blare of trumpets, the parents standing near the altar, without a sign
of pity, and dressed as for a festival: the ruler of the world could
refuse nothing to prayers backed by so precious an offering, and by a
purpose so determined to move him. Such sacrifices were, however, the
exception, and the shedding of their own blood by his priests sufficed,
as a rule, for the daily wants of the god. Seizing their knives, they
would slash their arms and breasts with the view of compelling, by this
offering of their own persons, the good will of the Baalim.**

* If we may credit Tertullian, the custom of offering up
children as sacrifices lasted down to the proconsulate of
Tiberius.

** Cf., for the Hebraic epoch, the scene where the priests
of Baal, in a trial of power with Elijah before Ahab,
offered up sacrifices on the highest point of Carmel, and
finding that their offerings did not meet with the usual
success, "cut themselves... with knives and lancets till the
blood gushed out upon them."

The Astartes of all degrees and kinds were hardly less cruel; they
imposed frequent flagellations, self-mutilation, and sometimes even
emasculation, on their devotees. Around the majority of these goddesses
was gathered an infamous troop of profligates (_kedeshim_), "dogs of
love" (_kelabim_), and courtesans (_kedeshot_). The temples bore little
resemblance to those of the regions of the Lower Euphrates: nowhere do
we find traces of those _ziggurat_ which serve to produce the peculiar
jagged outline characteristic of Chaldaean cities. The Syrian edifices
were stone buildings