Table of Contents
Human sacrifice runs through many of the traditions I study on this site: the Phoenician and Ammonite cults, Greek myths of Lycaon, Aztec temple rites, and channeled accounts that put its origin at the very start of human history. This page gathers those passages.
Kronos and the only son
The oldest account I have on the site comes from Sanchuniathon, as interpreted by Philo of Byblos. On The Phoenician history, a fragment headed “On Human Sacrifice” explains the custom:
Among ancient peoples in critically dangerous situations it was customary for the rulers of a city or nation, rather than lose everyone, to provide the dearest of their children as a propitiatory sacrifice to the avenging deities. The children thus given up were slaughtered according to a secret ritual.
Philo of Byblos, The Phoenician History
The same fragment says that Kronos, whom the Phoenicians call El, dressed his only son in royal attire and sacrificed him on an altar when war threatened the land. In the video The Phoenicians, the question of whether they really practiced human sacrifice is still treated as open.
Molech and the children of Ammon
In the Bible the practice is tied to Molech. On Who Was Moloch? I list the core passages, from Leviticus 18:21 to Jeremiah 32:35, and the Phoenician and Carthaginian tophets that archaeology adds. King David notes that the Bible describes child sacrifice to Molech and suggests similar practices for Chemosh and Baal.
It also happens inside Israel. On Judges I discuss Jephthah, who vowed a burnt offering if he defeated the Ammonites and then sacrificed his daughter. No voice from heaven stops him, unlike Abraham in Genesis 22.
Lycaon and the flood
In Greek myth, a human sacrifice brings on the flood. On Ovid’s Four Ages, King Lycaon’s human sacrifice and cannibalism show the moral corruption of the Iron Age and lead Jupiter to destroy humanity with a flood. What Is Mount Lycaeus? follows the same story to its mountain: Lycaon mixes human flesh into a sacrifice to test Zeus. The page also describes a real find. In 2016 excavators found an adolescent skeleton in a stone-lined trench in the middle of the ash altar.
Temples of the Americas
On The 5 Suns, the current age is ruled by Tonatiuh, who demanded blood sacrifices so that the sun would keep moving across the sky. In D. Bridgman-Metchim’s Atlantis: The Book of the Angels, summarized on Temple of Zul, the High Priest binds a victim to the altar and cuts out the heart with an obsidian dagger.
Other peoples
The video Slavic Paganism describes the sacrifice of widows at their husbands’ funerals. On Christianity: Looeamong’s establishment, the early church targets human sacrifice, along with polytheism, for eradication by force.
A channeled origin
Rex Thomas goes back to the beginning. On Adams and Eves and in the video The Battle for Human ConsciousnessRex Tomos on Lin Podcast, he says the creator beings demanded sacrifice. In his view Cain killing Abel was the first human sacrifice, and temples and control systems spread from there. On The Roman Empire created the Church(Vatican) he calls crucifixion a Roman method of human sacrifice.
Related pages
- Who Was Moloch?
- The Phoenician history
- Judges
- What Is Mount Lycaeus?
- Ovid’s Four Ages
- The 5 Suns
- Temple of Zul
- Adams and Eves
- Ammonites: Sons of Lot and the People of Milcom
For every page I tagged with Human sacrifice, see the Human sacrifice tag archive.
