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(p. XI)
Old Canaan was well acquainted with human sacrifice. We may leave it as an open question
whether the remains of children's bodies, which have been found in Tanaak and Mutesellim
in house-tombs, came from child sacrifice or the deceased children were simply buried there
in the house, as the culture of Assur perhaps did. A genuine instance of human sacrifice
by the King of Moab is found in II Kings 3:27, in which the king is under attack by
the Israelites and: "Then he took his eldest son, who was supposed to succeed him as king,
and sacrificed him as a burnt offering on the wall. Then a great anger came against Israel,
and they withdrew from him and returned unto their own land." This is certainly striking at the
very least. One asks oneself why the people of Israel withdrew because of this sacrifice.
This becomes clear when we recall that the old Hebraic religiosity dealt with human
sacrifice. In II Judges 2:27-40, it is told how Jephtha sacrificed his daughter. In
I Kings 16:34 we have a case of genuine building-sacrifice [Many cultures sacrificed
either a human being or animal during construction of a major structure such as a temple or
bridge, and often sealed up the living creature in the walls.]: "At the same time Hiel of
Beth-El built Jericho. It took of him his eldest son Abiram when he laid the foundation
and his youngest son Segub when he set the gates; according to the word of the Lord which
he spake through Joshua, the son of Nun."
In the same category belongs the remarkable judgement of God (I Samuel 14:24-46) on
account of which Jonathan was supposed to die for Yahweh. The people, however, rescued
him. These are all accounts which occur later than the sacrifice of Isaac (Genesis
22), which is frequently interpreted as representing the overturning and replacement of
human sacrifice by animal sacrifice among the Israelites. Animal sacrifice, however,
does not replace and supplant human sacrifice; rather it represents it. If there is not
a human available for sacrifice or if he is supposed to be spared, an animal can be
taken.
Smith-Stübe brings out quite a number of such examples (XII)
from the ancient East, but also among other peoples who knew the practice of human
sacrifice. In Egypt the sacrificial animal was provided with a signet which shows the
image of a chained man who has a sword at his throat. Plutarch tells that, according to a
report of Aristodemos, during a plague in Sparta an eagle took from the priest the
sacrificial knife with which he wanted to sacrifice the maiden Helen, and laid the knife
upon a young cow. Apollodorus reports (Bibl. I, 9, i) that during a famine the
son of Athamas, named Phrixus, was supposed to be sacrificed together with his sister.
His mother Nephele rescued him on a ram.
In so far as a sacrificial animal can take the place of an actual intended human sacrifice as
its representation, Jewry is not distinguishable from other peoples who have known human
sacrifice. But it most conspicuously has retained this custom for a very long time. On the
Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, the Jewish father of the family takes a piece of
female fowl for each female family member, and a rooster for every male family member and says:
"Let this be my release, this be my exchange (the substitute, which steps in my place),
this be my propitiatory offering." The custom is grounded in the regulation Leviticus
16:2-19: "And (God) spoke (to Moses): Say to thy brother Aaron, that he might not go
at any time into the sanctuary behind the curtain before the seat of mercy, which is upon
the ark, that he might not die; for I shall appear in a cloud upon the seat of mercy.
Thusly shall he enter: with a young bullock for a sin-offering [= scapegoat] and with a ram
for a burnt offering. And he shall put on a coat of linen and have linen breeches about his
nakedness and gird himself with a linen girdle and have upon him a linen head-covering;
for these are holy garments; and he shall bathe his flesh with water and put them on. Then
shall he take two he-goats from the congregation of the children of Israel for a sin-offering
and a ram for the burnt offering. And Aaron shall bring the bullock, his sin-offering,
that he might atone for himself and his house. And he shall take the two he-goats and place
them before the Lord, before the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. And he shall
cast lots over the two he-goats, one lot for the Lord and the other for the scapegoat. And
he shall sacrifice as a sin-offering the he-goat on which falls the lot of the Lord. But
the (XIII) he-goat, upon which falls the lot for the scapegoat,
he shall take living before the Lord, that he may be reconciled and let the he-goat go
into the wilderness for a scapegoat. And he shall therefore bring the bullock of his
sin-offering and reconcile himself and his house and slaughter it. And he shall take a
basin full of burning embers from the altar which stands before the Lord, and bring his
hand full of crushed incense behind the curtain. And put the incense upon the fire before
the Lord, that the cloud of incense might cover the mercy seat, which is upon the
testimony, that he might not die. And take from the blood of the bullock and sprinkle it
upon the mercy seat in the front with his finger; but before the mercy seat he shall
sprinkle seven times with his finger from the blood. After this, he shall slaughter the
he-goat, the sin-offering of the people and bring its blood behind the curtain and do with
the blood as he did with the blood of the bullock and with it also sprinkle upon and before
the mercy seat. He shall therefore reconcile the sanctuary from the uncleanness of the
children of Israel and from their transgression in all their sins. He shall also therefore
do this to the tabernacle of the congregation; for they are unclean who surround it. No
man shall be in the tabernacle of the congregation when he enters to make atonement in the
sanctuary, until he comes out; he shall therefore reconcile himself and his house and the
whole congregation of Israel. And when he goes out to the altar which stands before the
Lord, he shall reconcile it and shall take from the blood of the bullock and from the blood
of the he-goat and put it upon the horns of the altar round about. And he shall sprinkle
from the blood upon it with his finger seven times and purify it and hallow it from the
uncleanness of the children of Israel."
One should not press these biblical theories of the scapegoat too far, however. For why,
today, is not a he-goat, but a rooster offered? As Rabbi Isidor Scheftelowitz attests to
us in his dissertation Das stellvertretende Huhnopfer [The Representative
Hen-sacrifice], (Isidor Scheftelowitz: Das stellvertretende Huhnopfer.
Inaugural-Dissertation, Gießen, 1914) this Kaporoh-sacrifice on the 10th of
Tishri, the Day of Atonement, continues to be practiced. Why just a rooster or a
hen? Well, because "hen" in Hebrew is called gèber -- and "man" is also
gèber! Nothing could be clearer. The hen is an excellent representative for a human
being. Is it the only one? In the year 1530 a (XIV) baptized
Jew by the name of Antonius Margaritha published a book which excited sensation at the time
(Der gantz Jüdisch glaub mit sambt eyner grüntlichen und wahrhaftigen anzeygunde, aller
satzungen, Ceremonien, gebeten, heimliche und öffentliche gebreuch usw. Leipzig 1530,
2.A., gemehr und gebessert. Daselbst. Melchior Lotther. 1531. 109Bll. (Neu)Herausgegeben
von Chr. Reineccius, Leipzig. 1705) [The entire Jewish belief together with a true
and basic report of all doctrines, rites, prayers, secret and public traditions, etc.
Leipzig 1530 2.A., enlarged and improved. Melchior Lotther. 1531. 109 pages. New
edition by Chr. Reinccius, Leipzig. 1705]. In this book he says expressly that for a
sin-offering one "ain affen zu solchem nemen soll, dann der selb, sehe ainem Menschen
am aller geleychesten" ["should take for such an ape, for that would seem most like a
human being"].
According to Oskar Goldberg's book Die Wirklichkeit der Hebräer [The Reality of the
Hebrews] (1925), Maimonides has mistaken the essence of Yahweh as (being) that of a god
directed against the order of Nature. In this debate Goldberg, an authentic Chacham ha
Yisroel, becomes at once very candid and stresses: "What is the reason for eating? For
the building of the body. Therefore the equation follows between sacrifice and eating, that
the performance of sacrifice serves the formation of the divine organism. It says expressis
verbis in the Pentateuch [The first five books of the Old Testament: Genesis,
Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy; these are the
so-called Mosaic books, which contain Mosaic Law.] -- the sacrifice is designated as
lechem Elohim [the Hebrew translated literally is: "bread of the Lord"] -- as the
dish for the Lord." And now appears a highly significant passage. Goldberg emphasizes:
"In conjunction with the laws of cleanliness and uncleanliness it should also be shown how
an ethical law is derived from a ritual. The proscription 'Thou shalt not murder' is, by
its character, an ethical law -- yet nonetheless it is a ritual. The Torah
[Torah = Pentateuch] establishes this proscription by saying: 'The blood of
the murdered man makes the land a hypocrite.' What does this mean? As pointed out, the
blood of the sacrificial animal serves the formation of the divine organism. It is essential
to the history of religion, that the Jews were the first people in the world capable of
ritual, who exclusively used sacrificial animals. All other ritual-competent peoples of
antiquity were dependent upon human sacrifice. That could not be otherwise, because their
ritual became effective only through human sacrifice. For them, man and beast originate
out of the same supernatural arrangement of Nature; therefore a beast cannot step into the
place of a man. On the contrary: The Totem-animal is holy and inviolable. Abraham was the
first to achieve sacrificing a ram in the stead of his son.
In view of these things, it is unimportant that ancient peoples in times of their
religious decline already placed animal sacrifice (XV) next
to human sacrifice, just as it is a matter of indifference that before Abraham there
were already great individuals who made use of animals for sacrifice, as for example
Abel (Hewel), whom one can simply call the inventor of this type of sacrifice. The
essential point remains this, that the divine organism can make use only of animal
sacrifice -- whereas human sacrifice sets off in him the hostile and powerful effects
which come from the natural order. Through the killing of a human being the incarnation
of a foreign, hostile natural order is abetted. Therefore, says the Torah:
'The blood of the murdered makes the land a hypocrite.' That means: through such an
act as murder the land appears as something different from what it is in reality. The
land pretends to be the realm of manifestation of the Divinity presenting itself in the
world -- but in reality it is the point of invasion of an alien, hostile power of nature.
-- That Jewry so taken up with Apologetics would have had reason to occupy itself
with this explanation; for the proscription against killing a man out of ritual-reasons
is the true 'refutation' of ritual-murder."
Here Goldberg is playing hide-and-seek. He knows just as well as we do, that it is exactly
the Gentile who is an animal according to Jewish law. The Talmud says explicitly:
"You are called men, but the worldly peoples are not called men (but rather cattle)..."
(Baba meçia 114b and similar passages). That the Gentile is a beast, has never
seriously been contested by any Talmudist. Now if animal sacrifice is pleasing to Yahweh,
then accordingly ritual-murder is legally justified, only the sacrifice of a Jew would be
a sin against the ritual laws.
"For the life of the body is in the blood, and I have given it unto you upon the altar,
that your souls might be reconciled by it. For the blood is the atonement, because the
life is in it" (Leviticus 17:11). Even the dismemberment of the sacrificial victim,
which is typical of ritual-murder, and the dispatching of portions into other Jewish
congregations, is already covered in the Old Testament. "And he took a pair of
oxen and dismembered them and sent (them) into all regions of Israel through messengers
and let it be said: whoever does not follow Saul and Samuel, thus shall it be done
unto his cattle" (I Samuel 11:7), or the story of the Levite who wanted to stop at
night with his concubine in Bethlehem, whom the inhabitants of Bethlehem, "evil knaves"
(XVI) wished to rape [to clarify: the men wanted to anally
rape the Levite] and who delivered up to them [in his stead] his concubine; she was abused
to death by the Bethlehemites: "When he returned home, he took a knife and laid hold on
his concubine and cut her up, along with her bones, into twelve pieces and sent them
unto all borders of the kingdom" (Judges 19:29).
So much did Jewry have the reputation in antiquity of ritual-murder, that this horrible
suspicion was even transferred to the early Christian Church. Not only the Jews, but also
the early Christians were accused of slaughtering children, and that a newborn child,
strewn with flour, was offered as a mystical symbol of initiation to the knife of whoever
wanted to be accepted into the sect, and the blood drunk by him before those present. One
may leave it an open question whether or not we have here a matter of exaggeration and
calumny; certainly a considerable portion of the early Christians upheld circumcision and
other Jewish traditions. That they were held in suspicion of also committing the horrifying
practice of ritual-murder is at least psychologically understandable, even if that, which
Daumer states in his Geheimnisse des christlichen Altertums [Mysteries of
Christian Antiquity] probably can by no means fully pass the test of criticism. Worthy
of note, at any rate, are the remarks of Origen (Contra Celsum 1 §31): "The voluntary
death of a man is a means of averting disasters and pestilence, plague, barrenness and
the like." It is also unusual when Augustine says (Expositiones in Psalmos 103):
"Our works the heathens may see, but not our sacraments." Why not? What was there to
hide? These things might have haunted [the Church] up until the Middle Ages, and it might
easily explain many a strange aspect of them.
What has been missing until the present has been a thorough account of ritual-murder from
the sources. We now have this, based upon reports and trial documents as the result of the
industrious and thorough work of Dr. Hellmut Schramm. The number of those who really work
in the area of the Jewish Question scientifically in depth and at the same time without
compromise and proceed without ties to the clergy, is not great. In reality, it is much
smaller than one might think. Often one will have the right instincts, another will have
correct scientific methods, but both together are rarely found. Thus it is to be saluted
that here in one serious work (XVII)a sharp weapon has been forged for us from brittle material
for the discovery of Jewry.
Jewry is biologically hereditary criminality, religious syncretism with a strong share of
demonic belief. Who struggles against Jewry, that man "does the work of the Lord" and
fights a godly battle. A valuable part of this struggle lies before us here, and I wish
for him, that it might have much success.
-- Berlin, at the beginning of the war year 1941
Professor Doctor Johann von Leers
Go to Author's Introduction
Go to Chapter 1: Before 1840
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