Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume V/Hippolytus/The Refutation of All Heresies/Book IV/Part 30

by Hippolytus

Chapter XXX.—Self-Slaughter of Sheep.

By those who cause sheep to cut off their own heads, the following plan is adopted. Secretly smearing the throat (of the animal) with a cauterizing drug, he places a sword near, and leaves it there.^[1] The sheep, desirous of scratching himself, rushes against the blade, and in the act of rubbing is slaughtered, while the head is almost severed from the trunk.  There is, however, a compound of the drug, bryony and salt and squills, made up in equal parts. In order that the person bringing the drug may escape notice, he carries a box with two compartments constructed of horn, the visible one of which contains frankincense, but the secret one (the aforesaid) drug. He, however, likewise insinuates into the ears of the sheep about to meet death quicksilver; but this is a poisonous drug.

Footnotes

1. Or, παραδοθεὶς, “he delivers it a sword, and departs.”