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Concept

Death by burning

Death by burning
Pyotr Myasoedov · Public domain · source

Overview

Death by burning, also called immolation, is an execution, murder, or suicide method involving combustion or exposure to extreme heat. It has a long history as a form of public capital punishment, and many societies have employed it as a punishment for and warning against crimes such as treason, heresy, and witchcraft. The best-known execution of this type is burning at the stake, where the condemned is bound to a large wooden stake and a fire lit beneath.

A holocaust is a religious animal sacrifice that is completely consumed by fire, also known as a burnt offering. The word derives from the ancient Greek holokaustos, the form of sacrifice in which the victim was reduced to ash, as distinguished from an animal sacrifice that resulted in a communal meal.

There are documented executions by burning as early as the 18th century BC and as recently as 2024.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

Possible passages

Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.

  1. Then the Plataeans, taking him up, interred him in the temple of Diana Euclia, setting this inscription over him: "Euchidas ran to Delphi and back again in one day."

    Plutarch, The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch

    The author is tied to Death by burning in the knowledge graph.

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  2. So that the same cause which first showed us the light of the sun carries us down to infernal darkness. And in my mind, the air which encompasseth us seems to be a lively image of the thing; for it brings on the vicissitudes of night and day, life and death, sleeping and waking. For this cause it is that life is called a fatal debt, which our fathers contracted and we are bound to pay; which is to be done calmly and…

    Plutarch, Plutarch's essays and miscellanies, Vol. 1

    States what Death by burning is; the author is tied to Death by burning in the knowledge graph.

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  3. According to every testimony this barbarous rite, which speaks of great antiquity, was not a rare custom but the general original form of the totem sacrifice, which in later times underwent the most varied modifications.

    Sigmund Freud, Totem and taboo

    Close in meaning to Death by burning; the term itself is not named.

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Philosophers who discussed Death by burning

Related ideas

Place in the tradition

Part of Pantheism.

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