be the penalty of all who disobey the Divine law, and proper expiation must be made in order to escape the penalty of evildoing. The only way they thought of to appease God was by an atonement, or expiation, of their sin,—an atonement, or expiation, which would show their great sorrow for their evil. This led not only in animal sacrifices, where animals poured out their life's blood to pacify Deity, but to the hideous sacrifice of sons and daughters.
This idea was carried over into the New Testament, and despite the eternally true picture provided in the parable of the Prodigal Son, they felt it necessary to change the thought about God's attitude from that of a loving Father ever standing ready to receive back the penitent sinner to that of an autocratic and merciless Ruler, or Sovreign, who demanded the death penalty for every sinner, even of innocent little infants because they were the offspring of Adam. This is the change effected in the Christian religion as received by mankind by the work of such men as St. Anselm. And it is hinted at by writers of the New Testament who seemed to have forgotten the attitude of Jesus who said, "Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely," and "Him that cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out."
After St. Anselm his interpretations were accepted by the Roman Church and later in the Reformation started by Luther by the Protestant Church. This hideous misunderstanding of the nature of the God of the Bible, this fantastic and inhuman idea of His cruelty, became part of the Christian religion and people have been persecuted ever since, or at least called heretics, who did not believe it.
