Ecrasez L'infame

I've been inspired by an earlier thread (http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=148991) to do some research into stories that early Christians (or Jews in general) ate babies as part of their ritual worship. Here's the tasteless (sorry!) details. Feel free to add to the list.

6th Century BCE: 2 Kings 6:24-30 - two women under siege in Samaria agree to eat their baby sons out of hunger. They eat the first woman's son the first day (which means they had half each), but the next day the second woman hides her son. The king of Israel (?) hears about it and rends his clothes in sorrow (but whether for the infanticide or because the second woman broke the deal is not recorded).

c 75 CE: Josephus (BJ book 6 chapter 3:4) records a story "for which there is no parallel... in the annuls... of any country" (in the light of the above, this must be his way of making a joke). A woman (Mary daughter of Eleazar) in Jerusalem under siege by the Romans in 70 kills and roasts her baby son. She eats half, "concealing and saving up" the rest. The locals smell the cooking and investigate. Hospitably, she invites them to share the meal; ungratefully, they run off. Soon the whole city is talking about it, and news reaches the Romans outside the walls - and even Caesar himself (who denies that it was his fault - typical bloody manager).

? 75: Matthew 27:25 - "With one voice the people cried, 'his blood be on us, and on our children!'" The subtitle of early versions of Mel Gibson's puke-fest, until protests forced its removal.

c 95: Josephus quotes Apion (2:8) as accusing Alexandria's Jewish community of annually sacrificing a Greek and eating his entrails. Various sites on the net say it was an infant, but it's clearly an adult here and I can't find any other ref to the matter in Josephus.

c 105: Tacitus (Histories 5.5.3) notes infanticide is not Jewish practice.

c 117: Tacitus (Annuls 15:44) says that in 64 the Christians were "hated for their abominations", followers of a "deadly superstition" that was "evil... hideous and shameful". Those Christians persecuted after the great fire may have been innocent of arson, but were guilty of "hatred of the human race." Tacitus does not say what the Christians did to deserve this invective.

c ? 170: Theophilus of Antioch denies the "prevalent rumor wherewith godless lips falsely accuse us" that Christians eat human flesh.

180 - 220: The Octavius of Minucius Felix, chapter 9, reports the widespread belief that the Christians eat an infant (sex not specified) as part of their initiation rite. Apparently the child is eaten raw, not cooked. Minucius, an apologist, refutes the allegation as the work of demons.

200: Ad Nationes by Tertullian. See the above thread. Basically Tertullian "admits" Christians kill and eat infants as part of their initiation and general services. Best scholarly opinion is that Tertullian was writing satirically. In the same work Tertullian points to the lack of evidence for the crime: "who [among those who repeat these stories] has detected the trace of a bite in our blood-steeped loaf?" The loaf is interesting, in view of the Medieval extension of the blood-libel that Jews celebrated Passover with blood-leavened bread.

1144 - Norwich. A boy named William disappears over the Easter festival. The body is not found, and the local Jewish community is blamed and driven from town. Over the next eight hundred years the pattern is repeated all over Europe - a child vanishes or is found dead in Holy Week, the local Jews are accused of kidnapping, crucifying or eating it, some are tortured (and of course confess), and many are groundlessly hanged, burnt, or exiled.

Jan 25 2005 - Twenty members of the Russian parliament sign a declaration demanding Jewish organisations be made illegal because, among other reasons, the Jewish ritual of child murder.