of the sun's course upwards and downwards, not have separated into two distinct personalities on the occasion of the new year's feast? The Jewish Pasch was a feast of spring and the new year, on the occasion of which the firstfruits of the harvest and the first-born of men and beasts were offered to the God of sun and sky. Originally this was also associated with human sacrifices. Here too such a sacrifice passed, as was universal in antiquity, for a means of expiation, atoning for the sins of the past year and ensuring the favour of Jahwe for the new year. [88] "As representing all the souls of the first-born are given to God; they are the means of union between Jahwe and his people; the latter can only remain for ever Jahwe's own provided a new generation always offers its first-born in sacrifice to God. This was the chief dogma of ancient Judaism; all the hopes of the people were fixed thereon; the most far-reaching promises were grounded upon the readiness to sacrifice the first-born." [89] The more valuable such a victim was, the higher the rank which he bore in life, so much the more pleasing was his death to God. On this account they were "kings" who, according to the Books of Joshua and Samuel, were "consecrated" to the Lord. Indeed, in the case of the seven sons of the house of Saul whom David caused to be hung, the connection between their death and the Pasch is perfectly clear, when it is said that they died "before the Lord" at the time of the barley harvest (i.e., of the Feast of the Pasch). [90] Thus there could be no more efficacious sacrifice than when a king or ruler offered his first-born. It was on this account that, as Justin informs us, [91] the banished Carthaginian general Maleus caused his son Cartalo, decked out as a king and priest, to be hung in sight of Carthage while it was being besieged by him, thereby casting down the besiegers so much that he captured the city after a few days. It was on this account that the Carthaginian Hamilcar at the siege of Agrigentum (407 B.C.) sacrificed his own son, and that the Israelites relinquished the conquest of Moab, when the king of this country offered his first-born to the Gods. [92] Here, too, the human victim seems to have been only the representative of a divine one, as when, for example, the Phoenicians in Tyre until the time of the siege of that city by Alexander sacrificed each year, according to Pliny, a boy to Kronos, i.e., Melkart or Moloch (king). [93] This Tyrian Melkart, however, is the same as he to whom, as Porphyry states, a criminal was annually sacrificed at Rhodes. According to Philo of Byblos the God was called "Israel" among the Phoenicians, and on the occasion of a great pestilence, in order to check the mortality, he is said to have sacrificed his first-born son Jehud (Judah), i.e., "the Only one," having first decked him out in regal attire. [94] Thus Abraham also sacrificed his first-born to Jahwe. Abraham