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Child sacrifice is the ritualistic killing of children in order to please or appease a deity, supernatural beings, or sacred social order, tribal, group or national loyalties in order to achieve a desired result. As such, it is a form of human sacrifice. Child sacrifice is thought to be an extreme extension of the idea that the more important the object of sacrifice, the more devout the person rendering it.[1]
The practice of child sacrifice in Europe and the Near East appears to have ended as a part of the religious transformations of late antiquity.[2]
- ^ "LacusCurtius • Greek and Roman Sacrifices (Smith's Dictionary, 1875)". Retrieved 5 August 2015.
- ^ Guy Strousma, "The End of Sacrifice" in The Making of the Abrahamic Religions in Late Antiquity (Oxford 2015). Academia link.