The Early Church and Infant Sacrifice

[michaelsherlock]

What this church father seems to be admitting is that the early church, in like manner to other surrounding religious traditions, killed babies at the beginning of their services. If in fact this be the case,…
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1. Philip Schaff. Ante-Nicene Fathers. Vol. 3. Latin Christianity; Its founder, Tertullian. Christian Classics Ethereal Library. (1885). Pg. 192

Infanticide was a common practice in the archaic, ancient and modern world. Most probably first-borns are still killed in some remote corner of the planet.
The ancient Greeks did, the Israelites did it, so why not the Christians too.

The point is: do you know how this inhuman custom begun?

P.S. Can you furnish some address where the passage you are citing can be found on line?
What is the language of the original?

It is not online, I have the collection of ante-Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers by Philip Schaff, but the original language, I am pretty sure, was Latin, as Tertullian was the founder of the Latin Church.

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I do not know of child sacrifice by the church at anytime in it's history, though some little known sect could have, and it would have been a sect influenced by another religion, there is no Biblical support for this.

In the beginning stages of my research, I too thought that such accusations laid against early Christians were more than likely propaganda from Pagan roman officials seeking to outlaw a religion which they did not profit from. However, after looking into it abit, I have found some evidence to support some of the accusations made against early Christians.

Further, what we want to be true (via belief and confirmed expectancy) and what actually is true are usually two seperate matters. Tertullian was not some fringe Christian, he was the founder of the Latin Church, a Pauline, Proto-Orthodox Church Father, from whom you and every other Christian today, derive thier doctrines of faith. He was the mainstream.

Moreover, infant sacrifice was not the only evil this Church has done, as I am sure you are well aware. Both Catholics and Protestants have a very dark history, one which has seen more blood shed and persecution, vice and immorality than almost any other religion on earth. Stick around and I will continue to share some of this dark history with you, from the first few centuries to the 21st century, and all I report is not some half cocked nonsense or conspiracy theory, but facts taken from credible sources, sources which are often linked directly to the perpetrators themselves.