(Moloch, from Athanasius Kircher's Oedipus Aegyptiacus, 1652)

Moloch was yet another god mentioned in the Old Testament. The Hebrew for Moloch means "King." The Ammonites worshipped this god by causing their children of both sexes to ritually pass through a fire (Second Kings 23:10). This was a common form of cleansing and initiation used during pagan times in honor of many gods. Evidently the god was popular -- the Israelites were explicitly forbidden from committing "whoredom with Moloch," giving their seed to Moloch, or from offering their children to Moloch (Leviticus 20:2-5). Anyone who violated this order was to be killed by his neighbors.

Historically the view was that children were burned alive as sacrificial offerings to Moloch. This is absolute nonsense, and it is difficult to understand how such an absurd notion can have survived unchallenged for so many centuries. The usual custom when passing through the fire was to leap over a bonfire -- the heat, smoke and light were believed to cleanse the body of the person undergoing the rite. This was done by the ancient Celts and other ancient peoples. A variation on this practice, fire-walking, is common around the world. Evidently children passed through the fire in honor of Moloch when they reached the age of puberty as an entrance into adulthood. The phrase to "commit fornication" with a pagan god was used loosely in the Old Testament to signify any form of worship of that god. By offering of one's seed to Moloch, the dedication of the children -- the seed of the father -- at puberty to Moloch was likely intended.

The bad press given to Moloch by the Israelites, who destroyed his holy places, has given this god the unjust reputation as a horrible flaming devourer of babies. The name Moloch was applied to the demon of unwilling sacrifice, just as Mammon was to the demon of avarice -- Brewer offers the example that the guillotine was said to be the "Moloch" of the French Revolution.