Slaughter of the Innocents: Child Abuse Through the Ages and Today
Slaughter of the Innocents: Child Abuse Through the Ages and Today, Sander J. Breiner writes, “The prevalence of child abuse and infanticide in the modern world is not only puzzling, it is shocking. Actually, infanticide and child abuse predate our civilization by centuries. They are ancient problems, often more apparent in the great civilizations of our past than they are now. We have been killing, maiming, and abusing our children for as long as our history has been recorded. The question is, why?”
Don’t forget Cato: "Carthage must be destroyed" (Carthago delenda est) is the famous Latin phrase used by the Roman politician Cato the Elder in the 2nd century BCE. He ended every speech with this line to demand the total ruin of Rome's great rival city.
1st century B.C., Greek historian Diodorus Siculus claimed the Carthaginian aristocracy sacrificed their children in honor of Baal Hamon, whom the Greeks identified as Chronos, during times of crisis. This idea, constantly reflected in Greco-Roman literature, would endure until modern times.
The Carthaginians did kill their own infant children, burying them with sacrificed animals and ritual inscriptions in special cemeteries to give thanks for favours from the gods. Pulling together all the evidence, archaeological, epigraphic and literary, it’s overwhelmingly conclusive that Carthage did kill their children. Further, on evidence of the inscriptions, the killing was done not just as an offering for future favours but fulfilling promises already made.
Inca Empire Freezing (Capacocha): All across the ancient world, bumptious pagans slaughtered babies and were thrilled to do so. For example, in the Inca Empire, select kids were elevated to high Andean mountaintops, given intoxicating drinks and left to die of hyperthermia, or buried alive. Performed during coronations, famines, or major crises to secure divine favor from mountain god.
Ancient Israel Child Sacrifice: In biblical times, numerous false gods were worshipped by ancient pagans, and, sometimes by the Jews. Among these was Baal and Molech. Deut. 32:17 “They sacrificed to demons, non-gods, gods that they had never known, new gods that had come up lately, which your ancestors had not feared.” Psalm 106:37 “They even sacrificed their sons and their daughters to demons.” They built the high places [for worship] of Baal in the Valley of Ben-hinnom (son of Hinnom) to make their sons and their daughters pass through the fire to [worship and honor] Molech--which I had not commanded them nor had it entered My mind that they should do this repulsive thing, to cause Judah to sin. Jeremiah 32:35