104
An Examen
witches, the Oracle of Delphi once replied to the Ionians, Wier, de praestig. I. 6.who were seeking some remedy against the plague, that they must sacrifice every year before the altar of Diana a beautiful youth for one Melanippus, and a maiden for one Comethone whom Melanippus had raped in the temple of Diana; and the Ionians did so thereafter. Another Oracle told the Emperor Hadrian that he would never bring his charms to a successful issue until he found a man who would voluntarily sacrifice himself; and Antinous, his chief favourite, freely gave himself up to die. All this conforms with the religion, or rather irreligion, of the Gauls, Caes. lib. 6.
Suet. Claud.
Wier, ibid.who according to the teaching of their Druids believed that a man’s life could only be redeemed by the life of another man, and therefore they did not scruple, when they were seriously ill, to sacrifice men as victims, so that they might recover their health. This practice was forbidden to them under Augustus. Later, Constantine the Great made a most humane use of this custom; for when he was tortured with a leprosy which was the despair of his physicians, there were certain Greeks who advised him to make a bath of the blood of several newly-killed children; but this good Emperor would never agree to this, but on the contrary had himself and one of his sons baptised by the Pope St. Sylvester, and was immediately healed by this sacred bath. For the rest, it should not appear strange that Satan causes men to be sacrificed in order to cure a person. For in every case he acts in the same way, as we read of Creon’s son, of Iphigeneia, and Quintus Curtius. Plin. V. 36.The Thracians also and the Carthaginians, and the tribes of Brittany, used to sacrifice men under the pretext of secur-
Suet. Claud.
Wier, ibid.who according to the teaching of their Druids believed that a man’s life could only be redeemed by the life of another man, and therefore they did not scruple, when they were seriously ill, to sacrifice men as victims, so that they might recover their health. This practice was forbidden to them under Augustus. Later, Constantine the Great made a most humane use of this custom; for when he was tortured with a leprosy which was the despair of his physicians, there were certain Greeks who advised him to make a bath of the blood of several newly-killed children; but this good Emperor would never agree to this, but on the contrary had himself and one of his sons baptised by the Pope St. Sylvester, and was immediately healed by this sacred bath. For the rest, it should not appear strange that Satan causes men to be sacrificed in order to cure a person. For in every case he acts in the same way, as we read of Creon’s son, of Iphigeneia, and Quintus Curtius. Plin. V. 36.The Thracians also and the Carthaginians, and the tribes of Brittany, used to sacrifice men under the pretext of secur-
