The second deity particularly adored by the Carthaginians, and in whose honour human sacrifices were offered, was Saturn, known in Scripture by the name of Moloch; and this worship had passed from Tyre to Carthage. Philo quotes a passage from Sanchoniathon, which shows that the kings of Tyre, in great dangers, used to sacrifice their sons to appease the anger of the gods; and that one of them, by this action, procured himself divine honours, and was worshipped as a god, under the name of the planet Saturn; to this doubtless was owing the fable of Saturn’s devouring his own children. Private persons, when they were desirous of averting any great calamity, took the same method; and, in imitation of their princes, were so very superstitious, that such as had no children, purchased those of the poor, in order that they might not be deprived of the merit of such a sacrifice. This custom prevailed long among the Phœnicians and Canaanites, from whom the Israelites borrowed it, though forbidden expressly by heaven. At first, these children were inhumanly burnt, either in a fiery furnace, like those in the valley of Hinnon, so often mentioned in Scripture, or enclosed in a flaming statue of Saturn. The cries of these unhappy victims were drowned by the uninterrupted noise of drums and trumpets.(514) Mothers(515) made it a merit, and a part of their religion, to view this barbarous spectacle with dry eyes, and without so much as a groan; and, if a tear or a sigh stole from them, the sacrifice was less acceptable to the deity, and all the effects of it were entirely lost. This strength of mind, or rather savage barbarity, was carried to such excess, that even mothers would endeavour, with embraces and kisses, to hush the cries of their children;(516) lest, had the victim been offered with an unbecoming grace, and in the midst of tears, it should be displeasing to the god: _Blanditiis et osculis comprimebant vagitum, ne flebilis hostia immolaretur._(517) They afterwards contented themselves with making their children pass through the fire; as appears from several passages of Scripture, in which they frequently perished.