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A Dangerous Cult
By Gary Macy
Accusations against unpopular
religious groups remain amazingly consistent from century to century. Here is
an account of that dangerous cult, the Christians, from the second century:
Now the story of how they [the Christians] initiate
recruits is as revolting as it is well-known. They coat a baby with batter, to
fool the unwary, and they place it before the one to be initiated. The baby is
then slaughtered with hidden and secret wounds by the recruit who has been
urged on to strike blows which are apparently quite harmless because of the
covering of batter. It is unspeakable: They slurp up the babys blood and
eagerly hand around his limbs. By this victim are they leagued together; by the
shared knowledge of this crime they pledge themselves to silence. These rites
are more foul than all sacrileges combined.
The nature of their banquet is well-known.
Everyone talks about it, and the speech of our man from Cirta bears witness to
it. They meet for the meal on an appointed day, and all their children,
sisters, mothers, people of each age and sex. There, after a huge meal, when
the party has really got going, and fire of drunkenness and incestuous lust has
waxed hot, a dog which has been tied to the lampstand is provoked to rush and
leap forward by the tossing of a scrap of food beyond the length of the rope by
which it is tied. Thus, when the light, a potential witness, has been
overturned and extinguished, they throw themselves haphazardly into couplings
of unspeakable lust in the wanton darkness, and, if they do not all commit it
in fact, nonetheless, they are all guilty as accessories to incest, since
whatever is capable of happening in individual cases is what the entire group
really wants.
Hmm ... not in my parish, anyway.
Gary Macy is a theology professor at the University of
San Diego. |