The Unspeakable Horrors of Human Sacrifice - And How They Were Ended

Those of Mexican or Peruvian or Bolivian origin and all those nations where the Aztecs and the Incas once lived in South America, should not by any means take offence by this essay. The European nations and the African nations and most other nations before the arrival of Christianity also practiced ritual or mass human sacrifice. 

The Celts (from whence came the Irish, the Scots, the Welsh and several other tribes and people) for example, practiced their own brand of ritual human sacrifice, with victims being burned alive, flogged to death or drowned. In areas of the world that correspond to modern day Denmark, Norway and Sweden, the Vikings also practiced ritual human sacrifice and as with the Celts, ancient accounts of this barbaric and demonic practice are being corroborated by multiple archeological evidences. 

The Aztecs and the Incas have in the last thirty years, become the subject of a curious mix of tourist driven fascination for the ancient ruins; and a neo-pagan desire to embrace the “pre-European” culture of the indigenous people of these nations. Both tourist and neo-pagan alike do not wish to confront the demonic and pervasive reality of human sacrifice in these cultures.

The Aztecs (present day Mexico) ritually sacrificed thousands of human victims (a large proportion of them children) to their “humming bird” god and in each case, the abdomen of the conscious  victim would be ripped open, the still beating heart plucked out by the priest and the body then dumped into a massive shaft. The Incas (of present day Peru, parts of Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador and Colombia) practiced child sacrifice on a vast scale, the children being chosen because of their good health and high status. Once again, archeological evidence is corroborating contemporaneous accounts of human sacrifice.

Since this was a common practice in the nations surrounding ancient Israel, God specifically and severely commands the Israelites not to participate in any kind of human sacrifice. Later, as the old testament of the Bible informs us, even the Israelites themselves and their Kings started participating in human sacrifice - and this was one of the chief reasons why God destroyed both the Northern Kingdom (Israel) and the Southern Kingdom (Judah).

The Spanish general Hernán Cortés was certainly not a saint. When he and his rather small, Spanish army landed in Mexico in 1519, there was certainly a desire to plunder the legendary stores of silver and gold of the Americas for themselves and for the King of Spain. Later, the Spanish in South America were also to commit terrible atrocities and enslave imported and indigenous people for centuries. These atrocities were described in detail and vigorously opposed by the Spanish priest Bartolomé de las Casas.

But Hernán Cortés himself, was also driven by a devout and burning desire to stamp out the evil of Aztec mass ritual human sacrifice and torture - and to bring the Aztec people to Christ. Without being an apologist for colonialism, it is no exaggeration to say that the conversion to Christianity and the complete ending of human sacrifice in Mexico within about 30 years after the Spanish conquest of the Aztec empire, was one of the most remarkable conquests in history, for its spectacularly far reaching effects. 

The common and glorious thread that runs through the ending of human sacrifice among tribes and nations and empires was the arrival of Christianity, with the unique claims of Christ and His Kingdom. This happened not only in Mexico, Bolivia and Peru, but also in England, Denmark and Ireland. 

It is well known even to those who do not believe in God, that what is inherently good and noble may be twisted into evil and made to serve evil purposes. For those who believe that a spiritual battle between good and evil underlies the moral struggles of mankind, the distortion and corruption of the truth and its transition to evil, is the work of an evil influence, who some people refer to as the devil, or satan. Romance and sex for example can be turned over by evil, to pornography and rape. The desire to help one’s neighbour can be transformed into murderous communism. And so on.

The hero of Charles Dicken’s novel of the French Revolution, “A Tale of Two Cities,” is Sydney Carlton, who bears a striking resemblance to Charles Darnay (both of them once loved the same girl, who later marries Darnay). A somewhat complicated set of circumstances then sees Charles Darnay being condemned to death by guillotine. In the finale to the story, in a magnificent act of sacrificial love, Carlton takes Darnay’s place in prison and is executed in the place of his friend.

But the noble desire to voluntarily sacrifice on behalf of somebody else has been turned into the historic desire of people captured by evil, to sacrifice other human beings to demons for selfish ends.

The crucifixion of Christ has been seen by generations of Christians as the divine, voluntary sacrifice that triumphs over the demonic human sacrifices that held sway over people in South America, Europe, China and Africa. Upon the Cross, the Saviour is ushering in a new destiny for mankind, a new dispensation, a new creature in Christ. The Resurrection then makes this new and abundant life eternal.

In the closing pages of “A Tale of Two Cities,” as Carlton (who is “prisoner twenty-three”), is led away to the guillotine he proclaims the reality of eternal life in Christ, by recalling the words of Jesus:

““I am the Resurrection and the Life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.”

The murmuring of many voices, the upturning of many faces, the pressing on of many footsteps in the outskirts of the crowd, so that it swells forward in a mass, like one great heave of water, all flashes away. Twenty-Three.”