Note 253 — Chapter XI
Reading edition
The Sabeans were inhabitants of the ancient kingdom of Sheba, located in south-western Arabia. According to the records of Mohammed Abu-Taleb Dimeshqi, the Sabeans’ sacrifices were made to the planets when they reached their point of culmination. They sacrificed either a man or a woman according to the divinity who was being worshipped. To the Sun, a selected girl was sacrificed; to the Moon, a man with full face. To Jupiter, a boy three days old, the child of the girl who was sacrificed to the Sun. To Mercury they sacrificed a young man of brownish colour who was a scribe and well educated; to Mars, a very red man with a red head; to Venus, a beautiful woman. These sacrifices were connected with various preparations and mysterious ceremonies.
The following passage, showing the extreme of horrible barbarism, describes one of their sacrificial ceremonies; it is from Dr. D. Chwolsohn’s Die Ssabier und der Ssabismus (vol. ii., pp. 28–29).
“On the 8th of August the Sabeans pressed the wine for the gods and called it by many different names. On this day they sacrificed to the gods, in the middle of the forenoon, a new-born male child. First the child was slaughtered, then boiled until it became very soft, when the flesh was taken off (the bones). The flesh was then kneaded with fine flour, oil, saffron, spikenard and other spices, and, according to some, with raisins. It was then made into small cakes of the size of a fig, and baked in a new oven. This was used by the participants in the mystery of Shemal.... No woman, no slave or son of a slave, or no idiot was allowed to eat of it. To the killing and the preparation of the child only three priests were admitted. Everything remaining, such as the bones and other things not eatable, the priests offered as a burnt sacrifice to the gods.”
[Ab (August) Den 8. dieses Monats pressen sie neuen Wein für die Götter und legen ihm viele verschiedene Namen bei. An diesem Tage opfern sie in der Mitte des Vormittags den durch Standbilder dargestellten Göttern ein neugeborenes männliches Kind. Zuerst wird der Knabe geschlachtet und dann gesotten, bis er ganz weich wird, dann wird das Fleisch abgenommen und mit feinem Mehl, Safran, Spikenard, Gewürznelken und Oel (nach der andern Lesart: Rosinen) zusammengeknetet, daraus werden kleine Brode, von der Grösse einer Feige, gemacht (oder geknetet) und in einem neuen (oder eisernen) Ofen gebacken. Dies dient den Theilnehmern an dem Mysterion des Schemal (zur Speise) für das ganze Jahr. Es darf aber kein Weib, kein Sklave, kein Sohn einer Sklaven und kein Wahnsinniger etwas davon essen. Zu dem Schlachten und Zurichten dieses Kindes werden blos drei Priester zugelassen. Alles aber, was von seinen Knochen, Gliedmassen, Knorpeln, Arterien und Nerven übrig geblieben ist, verbrennen die Priester den Göttern zum Opfer.]