Chapter 7: Molech — The Abomination of the Sons of Ammon

Molech, the abomination of the sons of Ammon — The same: Molech, Moloch, Milcham — LXX: Archon — The worship and the place appointed to him — The worship: passing through fire — Its two kinds — Burning alive and purification by fire — The opinion of Vossius and Maimonides regarding purification, rejected — Burning alive of infants customary among the Phoenicians — The manner and rite of the abominable sacrifice — The custom variously transmitted — The image of Molech and of Saturn — Concerning lustration through two fires — In the course of time the milder form of torments prevailed — Idolatrous initiation through various degrees of torment — The origin of this most monstrous superstition — The place appointed for the worship: the valley of the son of Hinnom — The most pleasant place, from where it was called the valley of Hinnom — Gehenna — For what reasons that name is used to designate the place of the damned — Tophet, from where so called — Concerning the words of Job, ch. 17:6 — The word denotes the place and punishments of the damned — Molech and Baal-peor, that is the Sun — Saturn the Sun — Adrammelech and Anammelech — Solar worship — The dedication and adoration of horses.

After Baal, Molech occupies the next place in sacred history. He is called "the abomination of the sons of Ammon," (1 Kings 11:7). The one whom the Tyrians called Baal, or Lord, was called by the Ammonites Molech, or King. Nor does it matter in the least whether you call him a king or a lord. He is also called Moloch (Amos 5:26); and Milcham, with the ending and sense of the word slightly altered (1 Kings 11:33); and also Malcham (Zephaniah 1:5). The LXX renders Leviticus 18 as Archon, which is a word midway between king and any sort of lord. The first mention of this idol, most notorious for its most foul worship, occurs in Leviticus 18:21. Two things are chiefly celebrated concerning it: the worship, and the place appointed for it. The worship was "the passing of offspring through fire" (Leviticus 18:21; Deuteronomy 18:10; 2 Kings 16:3, 21:10). There were two kinds of it — burning alive, and purifications by fire. Vossius contends that only the latter is to be understood in the performance of this idol's rites. Rambam is also of this opinion, in his work On Idolatry, ch. 6, sect. 4, 5. "Of your offspring," he says, "do not give any to pass through to Molech. How was this done? With a great fire kindled, they took a portion of their offspring" (that is, some son or daughter) "which they handed over to the priests who served the fire. But when the priests had received the son, they restored him to the father, who, according to his own judgment, was to lead him through the fire. Therefore the father, with the permission of the priests, drove the son through the fire. He commanded him to pass through on foot until he had traversed whatever the flames encompassed. For they did not burn him for Molech; rather, that worship consisted solely in the passing through." But the most clear testimonies of Scripture cry out against this. The place appointed for the worship of Molech, as we are about to say, was "the valley of the son of Hinnom." In that valley king Ahaz "burned his sons with fire" (2 Chronicles 28:3). That others did the same is attested by Jeremiah, ch. 7:31, 32, who accordingly calls that valley "the valley of slaughter." And the Psalmist thus interprets the Molech-burning (Psalm 106:37, 38): "They sacrificed their sons and their daughters to demons, and shed innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters, whom they sacrificed." This plainly indicates burning alive. Hence the same word that means "to pass through" also means "to sacrifice." Among the Jews, Moses of Gerona and Isaac Abarbanel are also of this opinion.

No one doubts that the Israelites received this Molech superstition from the Phoenicians. We have shown elsewhere that they sacrificed their sons to Saturn. So Ennius writes concerning the Carthaginians:

"The Phoenicians were accustomed to sacrifice their own boys."

Silius Italicus renders this verse of Ennius as follows:

"It was the custom among the peoples whom the immigrant Dido founded, to seek pardon from the gods by slaughter, and — unspeakable to tell! — at the burning altars to lay their little children." And Sophocles in the Andromache, v. 3:

For among the barbarian peoples it is the custom to sacrifice children to Cronus,

And to slaughter mortal offspring. And Plato in the Minos: "It is not our law to sacrifice human beings, but among the ignorant Carthaginians they do sacrifice, as being holy and lawful to them, and some of them even their own children to Cronus, as things not unholy." Similarly, almost no ancient writer fails to mention Phoenicia's practice of human sacrifice. Following their example, the Israelites applied themselves to this crime.

The Rabbis recount the rite and custom of this abominable sacrifice.

"There was," they say, "a hollow image of Molech having seven chambers; the first they opened for an offering of meal; the second for turtledoves; the third for a sheep; the fourth for a ram; the fifth for a calf; the sixth for an ox. But he who wished to offer his son — for him the seventh chamber was opened. And the face of this idol was like the face of a calf, with hands spread flat to receive offerings from those standing by; and meanwhile they danced while the boy was being burned in the idol with fire kindled beneath it, beating drums so that the wailing of the boy might not be heard." Among those also is Lyra: "Moloch," he says, "as the Hebrews report, was a copper idol made in the form of a man, hollow within. And in that hollow a fire was kindled until the idol was as if red-hot, and then a boy was placed between the hands of the idol. And the priest, beating the drums, made such a noise that the voice of the dying boy could not be heard, lest the parents should be moved with compassion, but should rather believe that their child's soul had been received by the gods in peace and without pain." Others say differently: "The Chemarim," they say, "kindled a great fire, and one of them received a portion of the seed from the father and delivered it to the other Chemarim; and these in turn delivered the son back to his father after he had been handed over to them, so that he might lead him through the fire by the authority of the Chemarim. And the father of the son was himself the one who led his son or his daughter through the kindled fire by the power of the Chemarim, and caused him to pass from one side to the other through the midst of the flame, until the boy was burned." They think this tradition of handing over a boy to the Chemarim is to be understood from the words of the commandment, "You shall not give," or, "You shall not deliver from your seed"; and they explain the leading through by means of this passing. Yet they do not deny that he was at length killed and burned. Moreover, Diodorus reports a bronze statue dedicated to Saturn at Carthage, beneath which fire was placed to burn living men; and that a similar custom prevailed among the Druids we have shown above.

IV. What is said also concerning purifications or lustrations by fire may find a place here as well. For perhaps, as time went on, idolaters descended to this milder form of torment, just as elsewhere also, wearied of horrible slaughters, they offered images of men in place of living men. They also prefaced this sort of purification as an initiation into idolatrous worship. For no one could be duly consecrated to the sacred rites of certain idols unless he passed through many degrees of torments; one of these was passage through fire, by which those being initiated were not lightly burned and wounded. Thus Gregory Nazianzus, Oration i, Against Julian: "No one can be initiated into the mysteries of Mithras unless, by passing through various degrees of torments, he shows himself holy and impassible." And Nonnus: "First they are subjected to lighter torments, then to more severe ones; and so, after enduring all the tortures, they are imbued with the sacred rites themselves, being tormented indeed with fire and water and torments of this kind." Concerning these same rites, Virgil, Aen. xi. 785:—

"O Apollo, guardian of holy Soracte, whom we are the first to worship, for whom the blaze of pine-wood on the heap

is fed, and we in our devotion tread through the midst of the fire

and plant our steps upon much burning coal." Concerning these things, see Pliny, book vii, chapter ii. And it is not improbable that the Israelites also imitated these practices.

V. The prophet sets forth the causes of so great a crime: (Micah 6:6, 7), "With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God most high? Shall I come before Him with burnt offerings, with yearling calves? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?" The deadly stings of conscience drove these wretched hypocrites, ignorant of the true sacrifice which alone removes the consciousness of sin, into this madness. VI. The place appointed for the worship of this idol was the valley of the son of Hinnom. "The place was," says Adrichomius, "in the suburbs of Jerusalem (to the east, below the Mount of Ascension, near the Fuller's Pool), most pleasant like Tempe, watered by the springs of Siloam and the flow of the brook Kidron, planted with gardens and orchards, and altogether wooded and full of delights." So it is; for whereas all other idols had their groves and shrines within the city itself, the temples dedicated to Molech were built outside the walls of the city. It was called by that name before the Israelites entered the land of Canaan; for in the first division of the land it is expressly named "the valley of the son of Hinnom" and "the valley of Hinnom" (Joshua 15:8), and the origin of the name need not be sought elsewhere. For there are those who derive it from a root meaning "he roared, he wailed," as if it were so called from the roaring that the sons of idolaters sacrificed there had uttered; but as we have said, the place was named after its owner, long before it was defiled by that crime. From the phrase meaning "valley of Hinnom," a single word was formed; we also have it as a single term, "Gehinnom" (Joshua 18:16). For many reasons this place afterwards came to be used as a name for the place of the damned; Jerome denies that this was done by the ancients. Yet the Chaldean paraphrast, unknown to Jerome, very frequently uses that term for the place of the damned, as at (Isaiah 33:14), and elsewhere. It is established that our Lord used the term in this sense (Matthew 5:29, 30, and 10:28). For since that place was rendered horrible and abominable — first by the burning alive of miserable infants; then by the total destruction of the Assyrian army under Sennacherib; and finally by Josiah's casting in of dead bones, which brought upon it the greatest pollution — it was seen as fitting, being heaped up with so many crimes and dreadful punishments, to call to the minds of the wicked those dreadful and eternal punishments which God will at the appointed time exact from all of them. Moreover, Josiah so defiled the entire valley by bringing in corpses (2 Kings 23:10), that it does not appear ever afterwards to have been set apart for superstitious use. VII. In that valley there was a particular place called Topheth; perhaps that word denotes the entire precinct that was within the sacred enclosure: (2 Kings 23:10), "He defiled Topheth in the valley of the sons of Hinnom." And (Jeremiah 7:31), "The high places of Topheth in the valley of the son of Hinnom." Most hold that Topheth was so named from a word meaning "drum"; for the drum was beaten while the boy was alive in the fiery chamber of the idol, so that the wailing he uttered amid the flames would not move the impious bowels of the parents. Forerius, on (Isaiah 30:33), says that the Hebrew word signifies a portent, and that the place was so called because it was a horrible spectacle.

336 CORRUPTION OF MOSAIC THEOLOGY. [Book 5. He adduces for the confirmation of his view the words of Job, chapter 17:6, "He has made me a byword among the peoples" — with the Hebrew appended. Those words are indeed rendered variously by interpreters. Arias Montanus: "And I shall hereafter be as a fire of Gehenna." Junius: "I shall hereafter be material for those who beat the drum." The Vulgate: "I am an example before them." The LXX: "I have become a laughingstock to them." The Chaldean: "And I shall be from the inner Gehenna." Our own translators: "And aforetime I was as a tabret"; or rather, "Afore them," as they note in the margin. Doubtless the holy man complains that he has been made a reproach, a mockery, and a byword among worthless men, upon whom they play as upon a drum, or whom they beat as a drum. But since that word, in the prophet Isaiah, chapter 30:33, is taken for hell, or is used to represent eternal punishments, interpreters have judged it to bear the same meaning here. Nevertheless, nothing prevents it from signifying "drum" here rather than a portent or prodigy, as that learned man wished. But that the place and the punishments of the damned are described by Isaiah can be doubted by no one who compares with some care that fire once prepared for a king with the fire which our Lord teaches was prepared for the devil and his angels.

VIII. Who precisely was the one they worshiped with this impious cult is not altogether a settled matter. That he was the same as Baal seems to be proven by the identity of the cult; for they also sacrificed children to Baal, and this in the valley of Hinnom (Jeremiah 7:31). Further, Amos affirms that the people worshiped Molech in the wilderness (chapter 5:26), yet no idol other than Baal-peor is mentioned in the history of those times as having been worshiped by them there. Some therefore judge that Molech is the same as Baal-peor and Baal — that is, the Sun. That Tyrian Saturn was himself the Sun, the learned Vossius demonstrates at length.

IX. Nor were Adrammelech and Anammelech different from this Molech — to whom the inhabitants of Sepharvaim burned their sons in fire (2 Kings 17:31). Adrammelech is the Hebrew for "magnificent king"; and Anammelech means "the king's answer," from which they doubtless sought oracular responses.

X. In these things, therefore, they worshipped the Sun, albeit in some measure covertly. But at last, when every mask was laid aside, they pursued Him openly and avowedly with divine honors. That the kings of Judah had dedicated horses and chariots to the Sun, the sacred history relates (2 Kings 23:11). Throughout all the east, horses were sacred to the Sun. This Xenophon teaches in the Cyropaedia, book 8, and in the Anabasis, book 4; and Pausanias also in the Laconica. Heliodorus, in the tenth book of the Aethiopica, shows that four-horse chariots were added to them. These horses appear to have served as relay-horses, used by equestrian couriers who daily saluted the Sun at the king's command; or perhaps the king himself and the princes rode upon them when they went to worship the Sun. Whether these were real chariots or images of chariots is uncertain. But it is certain that, beyond this dedication of horses, they worshipped the Sun directly and immediately (Ezekiel 8:16): "They worshipped the sun toward the east." That this was a most ancient solar cult, we have shown elsewhere.