And in the Holy Cytee he is reseeyved






 

of an hoste that he knoweth not propurly. For
certeyne men in that place ben apoynted unto
everyche cytee as hostes, and dyverse kynredes han
this office of linage. And Assuryens clepen tho
men Maistres be cause thei techen hem everyche
thing.
 
And the sacrifises ben not perfourmed in the
temple, but whan he hath presented his victime
beforn the awtere, he schedeth offrynge of wyn
there on, and thanne he ayen ledeth him on lyve
to his logging, and’ whan he is comen there he
sacrificeth and preyeth be him self.
 
Ther is also this other maner sacrifise. Theidressen
here victimes with gerlondes and hurlen hem doun
the degrees of the entree on lyve, and in fallynge
doun thei dyen. And some men hurlen here owne
children thens, but not in lyke manere as the bestes.
Thei putten hem in a walet and beren hem doun
in hond, and thei scornen hem with alle, seyinge
that thei ben not children but oxen. A relic of child-sacrifice. “Shall I give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” (Micah 6,7). On traces of infant sacrifice discovered in the excavations in Palestine, see Cook, pp. 36, 38, 43; Frazer, Folklore i, 418 and note. From recent excavations in asanctuary of Tanit at Carthage, it is apparent that firstborn children were offered to that goddess during the whole period of Punic occupation (Am. Journal of Archaevl., 1923, R 107). “Jephthah’s daughter had many successors before adrian tried to stamp out the practice. At Laodicea a virgin was annually sacrificed to ‘ Athena’ until a deer took her place ; Elagubalus was accused of offering children in his sun-temple at Rome; . . . an Arabian tribe annually sacrificed a child, which they buried beneath the altar that served them as an idol. In many parts, too, bodies of slain victims were used for purposes of. divination” (Bouchier, Syria as a Roman Province, p. 247 sq.). 
 
And alle Ieten marke hem, some on the wriste
and some on the nekke; and for that skylle alle
Assuryens beren markes. Lucian probably means tattooing, although actual brandng was practised on occasion. “Some are afflicted with such an extravagancy of madness that, leaving themselves no room for a change of mind, they embrace slavery to the works of human hands, admitting it in writing, not upon sheets of papyrus as the custom is in the case of human chattels, but by branding it upon their bodies with a heated iron with a view to its indelible permanency ; for even time does not fade these letters” (Philo Judaeus, de Monarchia 1, 8 fin.). The view that this was the “mark of Cain” is forever being advanced anew, only to be anew denied. The practice was forbidden to the Jews (Levit. 19, 28, where the Septuagint reads: kal ypdupara orixta ob worhoere ev éyiv), Among the Moslem population it still survives, but apparently without any religious significance. “A Syrian custom: the workers in tattoo are generally Syrian, and the decoration is seen mainly in Syria and North Palestine” (H. Rix, Tent and Testament, p. 103). In du Soul’s time all Christians who visited the Holy Land came back tattooed, he tells us (Lucian, ed. Hemsterhuys-Reitz, iii, p. 489). 




 

 
And thei don another thing, in the whiche thei
acorden to men of Trosen allone of Grekes, and I
schalle telle you what tho don. Men of Trosen han
made ordeynaunce as touchinge the maydens and
the bachelers, that thei schulle not maryen or thei
lette scheren here lokkes for worschipe of Ypolite ;
and so thei don. That thing is don also in the
Holy Cytee. The bacheleres offren of here berdes,
and the children from here birthe leten holy crulles
growe, the which thei scheren whan thei ben presented in the temple and putten in boystes outher
of silver or often tymes of gold, that thei naylen
faste in the temple, and than gon here weye; but
first thei wryten there on here names everychon.
Whan I was yong, I fulfilled that ryte; and bothe
my crulle and my name ben yit in the seyntuarye. For the custom at Troezen see Pausanias 2, 32, 1; but he speaks only of girls. Its general prevalence is shown in Frazer’s note on that passage, in which the item of chief interest in connection with Lucian is that in Caria, at the temple of Zeus Panamaros, it was customary for a man to dedicate a lock of hair in a stone receptacle on which was carved his name and that of the priest or priestess in charge the receptacle was preserved in the temple.