In Spite Of
The Terms "Pagan And Mussulman," I Suspect That Herodotus Was The
Authority For This Practice.
He states that many of the nomad Libyans,
when their children reached the age of four, used to burn the veins at the
top of the head with a flock of wool; others burned the veins about the
temples.
And this they did, he says, to prevent their being troubled with
rheum in after life.
Indeed Andrea Corsali denies that the branding had aught to do with
baptism, "but only to observe Solomon's custom of marking his slaves, the
King of Ethiopia claiming to be descended from him." And it is remarkable
that Salt mentions that most of the people of Dixan had a cross marked
(i.e. branded) on the breast, right arm, or forehead. This he elsewhere
explains as a mark of their attachment to the ancient metropolitan church
of Axum, and he supposes that such a practice may have originated the
stories of fire-baptism. And we find it stated in Marino Sanudo that "some
of the Jacobites and Syrians who had crosses branded on them said this
was done for the destruction of the Pagans, and out of reverence to the
Holy Rood." Matthew Paris, commenting on the letter quoted above, says
that many of the Jacobites before baptism brand their children on the
forehead with a hot iron, whilst others brand a cross upon the cheeks or
temples. He had seen such marks also on the arms of both Jacobites and
Syrians who dwelt among the Saracens.
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