Sacrifice
religion
Overview
Act of offering objects to a divinity, thereby making them holy.
The motivation for sacrifice is to perpetuate, intensify, or
reestablish a connection between the human and the divine. It is often
intended to gain the favour of the god or to placate divine wrath. The
term has come to be applied specifically to blood sacrifice, which
entails the death or destruction of the thing sacrificed (see human
sacrifice). The sacrifice of fruits, flowers, or crops (bloodless
sacrifice) is more often referred to as an offering.
Main
a religious rite in which an object is offered to a divinity in order to
establish, maintain, or restore a right relationship of a human being to
the sacred order. It is a complex phenomenon that has been found in the
earliest known forms of worship and in all parts of the world. The
present article treats the nature of sacrifice and surveys the theories
about its origin. It then analyzes sacrifice in terms of its constituent
elements, such as the material of the offering, the time and place of
the sacrifice, and the motive or intention of the rite. Finally, it
briefly considers sacrifice in the religions of the world.
Nature and origins » Nature of sacrifice
The term sacrifice derives from the Latin sacrificium, which is a
combination of the words sacer, meaning something set apart from the
secular or profane for the use of supernatural powers, and facere,
meaning “to make.” The term has acquired a popular and frequently
secular use to describe some sort of renunciation or giving up of
something valuable in order that something more valuable might be
obtained; e.g., parents make sacrifices for their children, one
sacrifices a limb for one’s country. But the original use of the term
was peculiarly religious, referring to a cultic act in which objects
were set apart or consecrated and offered to a god or some other
supernatural power; thus, sacrifice should be understood within a
religious, cultic context.
Religion is man’s relation to that which he regards as sacred or
holy. This relationship may be conceived in a variety of forms. Although
moral conduct, right belief, and participation in religious institutions
are commonly constituent elements of the religious life, cult or worship
is generally accepted as the most basic and universal element. Worship
is man’s reaction to his experience of the sacred power; it is a
response in action, a giving of self, especially by devotion and
service, to the transcendent reality upon which man feels himself
dependent. Sacrifice and prayer—man’s personal attempt to communicate
with the transcendent reality in word or in thought—are the fundamental
acts of worship.
In a sense, what is always offered in sacrifice is, in one form or
another, life itself. Sacrifice is a celebration of life, a recognition
of its divine and imperishable nature. In the sacrifice the consecrated
life of an offering is liberated as a sacred potency that establishes a
bond between the sacrificer and the sacred power. Through sacrifice,
life is returned to its divine source, regenerating the power or life of
that source; life is fed by life. Thus, the word of the Roman sacrificer
to his god: “Be thou increased (macte) by this offering.” It is,
however, an increase of sacred power that is ultimately beneficial to
the sacrificer. In a sense, sacrifice is the impetus and guarantee of
the reciprocal flow of the divine life-force between its source and its
manifestations.
Often the act of sacrifice involves the destruction of the offering,
but this destruction—whether by burning, slaughter, or whatever means—is
not in itself the sacrifice. The killing of an animal is the means by
which its consecrated life is “liberated” and thus made available to the
deity, and the destruction of a food offering in an altar’s fire is the
means by which the deity receives the offering. Sacrifice as such,
however, is the total act of offering and not merely the method in which
it is performed.
Although the fundamental meaning of sacrificial rites is that of
effecting a necessary and efficacious relationship with the sacred power
and of establishing man and his world in the sacred order, the rites
have assumed a multitude of forms and intentions. The basic forms of
sacrifice, however, seem to be some type of either sacrificial gift or
sacramental meal. Sacrifice as a gift may refer either to a gift that
should be followed by a return gift (because of the intimate
relationship that gift giving establishes) or to a gift that is offered
in homage to a god without expectation of a return. Sacrifice as a
sacramental communal meal may involve the idea of the god as a
participant in the meal or as identical with the food consumed; it may
also involve the idea of a ritual meal at which either some primordial
event such as creation is repeated or the sanctification of the world is
symbolically renewed.
Nature and origins » Theories of the origin of sacrifice
Since the rise of the comparative or historical study of religions in
the latter part of the 19th century, attempts have been made to discover
the origins of sacrifice. These attempts, though helpful for a greater
understanding of sacrifice, have not been conclusive.
In 1871 Sir Edward Burnett Tylor, a British anthropologist, proposed
his theory that sacrifice was originally a gift to the gods to secure
their favour or to minimize their hostility. In the course of time the
primary motive for offering sacrificial gifts developed into homage, in
which the sacrificer no longer expressed any hope for a return, and from
homage into abnegation and renunciation, in which the sacrificer more
fully offered himself. Even though Tylor’s gift theory entered into
later interpretations of sacrifice, it left unexplained such phenomena
as sacrificial offerings wholly or partly eaten by worshippers.
William Robertson Smith, a Scottish Semitic scholar and
encyclopaedist, marked a new departure with his theory that the original
motive of sacrifice was an effort toward communion among the members of
a group, on the one hand, and between them and their god, on the other.
Communion was brought about through a sacrificial meal. Smith began with
totemism, according to which an animal or plant is intimately associated
in a “blood relationship” with a social group or clan as its sacred
ally. In general, the totem animal is taboo for the members of its clan,
but on certain sacred occasions the animal is eaten in a sacramental
meal that ensures the unity of the clan and totem and thus the
well-being of the clan. For Smith an animal sacrifice was essentially a
communion through the flesh and blood of the sacred animal, which he
called the “theanthropic animal”—an intermediary in which the sacred and
the profane realms were joined. The later forms of sacrifice retained
some sacramental character: people commune with the god through
sacrifice, and this communion occurs because the people share food and
drink in which the god is immanent. From the communion sacrifice Smith
derived the expiatory or propitiatory forms of sacrifice, which he
termed piaculum, and the gift sacrifice. There were great difficulties
with this theory: it made the totem a sacrificial victim rather than a
supernatural ally; it postulated the universality of totemism; and,
further, it did not adequately account for holocaust sacrifices in which
the offering is consumed by fire and there is no communal eating.
Nevertheless, many of Smith’s ideas concerning sacrifice as sacramental
communion have exerted tremendous influence.
Sir James George Frazer, a British anthropologist and folklorist,
author of The Golden Bough, saw sacrifice as originating from magical
practices in which the ritual slaying of a god was performed as a means
of rejuvenating the god. The king or chief of a tribe was held to be
sacred because he possessed mana, or sacred power, which assured the
tribe’s well-being. When he became old and weak, his mana weakened, and
the tribe was in danger of decline. The king was thus slain and replaced
with a vigorous successor. In this way the god was slain to save him
from decay and to facilitate his rejuvenation. The old god appeared to
carry away with him various weaknesses and fulfilled the role of an
expiatory victim and scapegoat.
Henri Hubert and Marcel Mauss, French sociologists, concentrated
their investigations on Hindu and Hebrew sacrifice, arriving at the
conclusion that “sacrifice is a religious act which, through the
consecration of a victim, modifies the condition of the moral person who
accomplishes it or that of certain objects with which he is concerned.”
Like Smith, they believed that a sacrifice establishes a relationship
between the realms of the sacred and the profane. This occurs through
the mediation of the ritually slain victim, which acts as a buffer
between the two realms, and through participation in a sacred meal. The
rituals chosen by Hubert and Mauss for analysis, however, are not those
of preliterate societies.
Another study by Mauss helped to broaden the notion of sacrifice as
gift. It was an old idea that man makes a gift to the god but expects a
gift in return. The Latin formula do ut des (“I give that you may give”)
was formulated in classical times. In the Vedic religion, the oldest
stratum of religion known to have existed in India, one of the Brāhmaṇas
(commentaries on the Vedas, or sacred hymns, that were used in ritual
sacrifices) expressed the same principle: “Here is the butter; where are
your gifts?” But, according to Mauss, in giving it is not merely an
object that is passed on but a part of the giver, so that a firm bond is
forged. The owner’s mana is conveyed to the object, and, when the object
is given away, the new owner shares in this mana and is in the power of
the giver. The gift thus creates a bond. Even more, however, it makes
power flow both ways to connect the giver and the receiver; it invites a
gift in return.
Gerardus van der Leeuw, a Dutch historian of religion, developed this
notion of gift in the context of sacrifice. In sacrifice a gift is given
to the god, and thus man releases a flow between himself and the god.
For him sacrifice as gift is “no longer a mere matter of bartering with
gods corresponding to that carried on with men, and no longer homage to
the god such as is offered to princes: it is an opening of a blessed
source of gifts.” His interpretation thus melded the gift and communion
theories, but it also involved a magical flavour, for he asserted that
the central power of the sacrificial act is neither god nor giver but is
always the gift itself.
German anthropologists have emphasized the idea of culture history,
in which the entire history of mankind is seen as a system of coherent
and articulated phases and strata, with certain cultural phenomena
appearing at specific levels of culture. Leo Frobenius, the originator
of the theory that later became known as the Kulturkreislehre,
distinguished the creative or expressive phase of a culture, in which a
new insight assumes its specific form, and the phase of application, in
which the original significance of the new insight degenerates. Working
within this context, Adolf E. Jensen attempted to explain why men have
resorted to the incomprehensible act of killing other men or animals and
eating them for the glorification of a god or many gods. Blood sacrifice
is linked not with the cultures of the hunter–gatherers but with those
of the cultivators; its origin is in the ritual killing of the archaic
cultivator cultures, which, in turn, is grounded in myth. For Jensen the
early cultivators all knew the idea of a mythic primal past in which not
men but Dema lived on the Earth and prominent among them were the
Dema-deities. The central element of the myth is the slaying of a
Dema-deity, an event that inaugurated human history and gave shape to
the human lot. The Dema became men, subject to birth and death, whose
self-preservation depends upon the destruction of life. The deity became
in some way associated with the realm of the dead; and, from the body of
the slain deity, crop plants originated, so that the eating of the
plants is an eating of the deity. Ritual killing, whether of animals or
men, is a cultic re-enactment of the mythological event. Strictly
speaking, the action is not a sacrifice because there is no offering to
a god; rather, it is a way to keep alive the memory of primeval events.
Blood sacrifice as found in the later higher cultures is a persistence
of the ritual killing in a degenerated form. Because the victim is
identified with the deity, later expiatory sacrifices also become
intelligible: sin is an offense against the moral order established at
the beginning of human history; the killing of the victim is an
intensified act restoring that order.
Another interpretation of some historical interest is that of Sigmund
Freud in his work Totem und Tabu (1913; Eng. trans., Totem and Taboo,
1918). Freud’s theory was based on the assumption that the Oedipus
complex is innate and universal. It is normal for a child to wish to
have a sexual relationship with its mother and to will the death of its
father; this is often achieved symbolically. In the primal horde,
although the sons did slay their father, they never consummated a sexual
union with their mother; in fact, they set up specific taboos against
such sexual relations. According to Freud, the ritual slaughter of an
animal was instituted to re-enact the primeval act of parricide. The
rite, however, reflected an ambivalent attitude. After the primal father
had been slain, the sons felt some remorse for their act, and, thus, the
sacrificial ritual expressed the desire not only for the death of the
father but also for reconciliation and communion with him through the
substitute victim. Freud claimed that his reconstruction of the rise of
sacrifice was historical, but this hardly seems probable.
In 1963 Raymond Firth, a New Zealand-born anthropologist, addressed
himself to the question of the influence that a people’s ideas about the
control of their economic resources have on their ideology of sacrifice.
He noted that the time and frequency of sacrifice and the type and
quality of victim are affected by economic considerations; that the
procedure of collective sacrifice involves not only the symbol of group
unity but also a lightening of the economic burden or any one
participant; that the use of surrogate victims and the reservation of
the sacrificial food for consumption are possibly ways of meeting the
problem of resources. Firth concluded that sacrifice is ultimately a
personal act in which the self is symbolically given, but it is an act
that is often conditioned by economic rationality and prudent
calculation.
Most social anthropologists and historians of religion in the
mid-20th century, however, concentrated less on worldwide typologies or
evolutionary sequences and more on investigations of specific
historically related societies. Consequently, since World War II there
have been few formulations of general theories about the origin of
sacrifice, but there have been important studies of sacrifice within
particular cultures. For example, E.E. Evans-Pritchard, a social
anthropologist at Oxford University, concluded after his study of the
religion of the Nuer, a people in the southern Sudan, that for them
sacrifice is a gift intended “to get rid of some danger of misfortune,
usually sickness.” They establish communication with the god not to
create a fellowship with him but only to keep him away. Evans-Pritchard
acknowledged, however, that the Nuer have many kinds of sacrifice and
that no single formula adequately explains all types. Furthermore, he
did not maintain that his interpretations of his materials were of
universal applicability. Many scholars would agree that, though it is
easy to make a long list of many kinds of sacrifice, it is difficult, if
not impossible, to find a satisfactory system in which all forms of
sacrifice may be assigned a suitable place.
Analysis of the rite of sacrifice
It is possible to analyze the rite of sacrifice in terms of six
different elements: the sacrificer, the material of the offering, the
time and place of the rite, the method of sacrificing, the recipient of
the sacrifice, and the motive or intention of the rite. These categories
are not of equal importance and often overlap.
Analysis of the rite of sacrifice » Sacrificer
In general, it may be said that the one who makes sacrifices is man,
either an individual or a collective group—a family, a clan, a tribe, a
nation, a secret society. Frequently, special acts must be performed by
the sacrificer before and sometimes also after the sacrifice. In the
Vedic cult, the sacrificer and his wife were required to undergo an
initiation (dīkṣā) involving ritual bathing, seclusion, fasting, and
prayer, the purpose of which was to remove them from the profane world
and to purify them for contact with the sacred world. At the termination
of the sacrifice came a rite of “desacralization” (avabhṛta) in which
they bathed in order to remove any sacred potencies that might have
attached themselves during the sacrifice.
There are sacrifices in which there are no participants other than
the individual or collective sacrificer. Usually, however, one does not
venture to approach sacred things directly and alone; they are too lofty
and serious a matter. An intermediary—certain persons or groups who
fulfill particular requirements or qualifications—is necessary. In many
cases, sacrificing by unauthorized persons is expressly forbidden and
may be severely punished; e.g., in the book of Leviticus, Korah and his
followers, who revolted against Moses and his brother Aaron and
arrogated the priestly office of offering incense, were consumed by
fire. The qualified person—whether the head of a household, the old man
of a tribe, the king, or the priest—acts as the appointed representative
on behalf of a community.
The head of the household as sacrificer is a familiar figure in the
Old Testament, particularly in the stories of the patriarchs; e.g.,
Abraham and Jacob. Generally, in cattle-keeping tribes with patriarchal
organization, the paterfamilias long remained the person who carried out
sacrifices, and it was only at a late date that a separate caste of
priests developed among these peoples. In ancient China, too, sacrifices
were not presided over by a professional priesthood but by the head of
the family or, in the case of state sacrifices, by the ruler.
The old man or the elders of the tribe are in charge of sacrifices
among several African peoples. Among the Ila, a people of Zambia, for
instance, when hunters have no success, the oldest member of the band
leads the others in praying for the god’s aid; when the hunters are
successful in killing, the old man leads them in offering portions of
the meat to the god. Similarly, among peoples in Australia the leading
role in all sacrificial acts is filled by the old men as bearers of
tradition and authority. In cases in which there is a matriarchal
organization, as in some parts of West Africa, the oldest woman of the
family acts as priestess.
The king has played an important role as the person active in
sacrificing, particularly in those cultures in which he not only has
temporal authority but also fulfills a religious function. The fact that
the king is the primary sacrificer may stem from two roots. It may be
that the most important gods of the state were originally family gods of
the rulers, and, thus, the king is simply continuing the task of
paterfamilias, only now on behalf of the whole community. The second
root lies in the notion of sacred kingship, according to which the royal
office is sacred and the king set apart from ordinary people is the
intercessor with the supernatural world. These two concepts often go
together. Thus, in ancient Egypt the pharaoh was divine because he
descended from the sun god Re. The pharaoh stood for Horus, the son of
Re. The concepts of the god as family ancestor and of sacred kingship
were combined. Although worship in ancient Egypt was controlled by a
powerful priesthood, officially all sacrifices were regarded as made by
the pharaoh.
Most frequently, the intermediary between the community and the god,
between the profane and the sacred realms, is the priest. As a rule, not
everyone can become a priest; there are requirements of different kinds
to be satisfied. Usually, the priest must follow some training, which
may be long and severe, There is always some form of consecration he has
to undergo. For communities in which a priest functions, he is the
obvious person to make sacrifices.
The sacrificer is not always man, however; at times gods also make
sacrifices. Examples of this are found chiefly in India and are set down
particularly in the Brāhmaṇa texts; e.g., it is said in the Taittirīya
Brāhmaṇa: “By sacrifice the gods obtained heaven.” The idea of gods
making sacrifice, however, is found in the older Ṛgveda-Saṃhitā, a
collection of sacred Vedic hymns: “With offerings the gods offered up
sacrifice.” In this conception man makes sacrifices in imitation of a
divine model inaugurated by the gods themselves. Another instance is the
Iranian primordial god Zurvān (Time), who offered sacrifice for 1,000
years in order to obtain a son to create the world.
Analysis of the rite of sacrifice » Material of the oblation
Any form under which life manifests itself in the world or in which life
can be symbolized may be a sacrificial oblation. In fact, there are few
things that have not, at some time or in some place, served as an
offering. Any attempt to categorize the material of sacrifice will group
together heterogeneous phenomena; thus, the category human sacrifice
includes several fundamentally different sacrificial rites.
Nevertheless, for convenience sake, the variety of sacrificial offerings
will be treated as (1) blood offerings (animal and human), (2) bloodless
offerings (libations and vegetation), and (3) a special category, divine
offerings.
Analysis of the rite of sacrifice » Material of the oblation » Blood
offerings
Basic to both animal and human sacrifice is the recognition of blood as
the sacred life-force in man and beast. Through the sacrifice—through
the return of the sacred life revealed in the victim—the god lives, and,
therefore, man and nature live. The great potency of blood has been
utilized through sacrifice for a number of purposes; e.g., earth
fertility, purification, and expiation. The letting of blood, however,
was neither the only end nor the only mode of human and animal
sacrifice.
A wide variety of animals have served as sacrificial offerings. In
ancient Greece and India, for example, oblations included a number of
important domestic animals, such as the goat, ram, bull, ox, and horse.
Moreover, in Greek religion all edible birds, wild animals of the hunt,
and fish were used. In ancient Judaism the kind and number of animals
for the various sacrifices was carefully stipulated so that the offering
might be acceptable and thus fully effective. This sort of regulation is
generally found in sacrificial cults; the offering must be appropriate
either to the deity to whom or to the intention for which it is to be
presented. Very often the sacrificial species (animal or vegetable) was
closely associated with the deity to whom it was offered as the deity’s
symbolic representation or even its incarnation. Thus, in the Vedic
ritual the goddesses of night and morning received the milk of a black
cow having a white calf; the “bull of heaven,” Indra, was offered a
bull, and Sūrya, the sun god, a white, male goat. Similarly, the ancient
Greeks sacrificed black animals to the deities of the dark underworld;
swift horses to the sun god Helios; pregnant sows to the earth mother
Demeter; and the dog, guardian of the dead, to Hecate, goddess of
darkness. The Syrians sacrificed fish, regarded as the lord of the sea
and guardian of the realm of the dead, to the goddess Atargatis and ate
the consecrated offering in a communion meal with the deity, sharing in
the divine power. An especially prominent sacrificial animal was the
bull (or its counterparts, the boar and the ram), which, as the
representation and embodiment of the cosmic powers of fertility, was
sacrificed to numerous fertility gods (e.g., the Norse god Freyr; the
Greek “bull of the Earth,” Zeus Chthonios; and the Indian “bull of
heaven,” Indra).
The occurrence of human sacrifice appears to have been widespread and
its intentions various, ranging from communion with a god and
participation in his divine life to expiation and the promotion of the
earth’s fertility. It seems to have been adopted by agricultural rather
than by hunting or pastoral peoples. Of all the worldly manifestations
of the life-force, the human undoubtedly impressed men as the most
valuable and thus the most potent and efficacious as an oblation. Thus,
in Mexico the belief that the sun needed human nourishment led to
sacrifices in which as many as 20,000 victims perished annually in the
Aztec and Nahua calendrical maize ritual in the 14th century ad.
Bloodless human sacrifices also developed and assumed greatly different
forms: e.g., a Celtic ritual involved the sacrifice of a woman by
immersion, and among the Maya in Mexico young maidens were drowned in
sacred wells; in Peru women were strangled; in ancient China the king’s
retinue was commonly buried with him, and such internments continued
intermittently until the 17th century.
In many societies human victims gave place to animal substitutes or
to effigies made of dough, wood, or other materials. Thus, in India,
with the advent of British rule, human sacrifices to the Dravidian
village goddesses (grāma-devīs) were replaced by animal sacrifices. In
Tibet, under the influence of Buddhism, which prohibits all blood
sacrifice, human sacrifice to the pre-Buddhist Bon deities was replaced
by the offering of dough images or reduced to pantomime. Moreover, in
some cults both human and animal oblations could be “ransomed”—i.e.,
replaced by offerings or money or other inanimate valuables.
Analysis of the rite of sacrifice » Material of the oblation » Bloodless
offerings
Among the many life-giving substances that have been used as libations
are milk, honey, vegetable and animal oils, beer, wine, and water. Of
these, the last two have been especially prominent. Wine is the “blood
of the grape” and thus the “blood of the earth,” a spiritual beverage
that invigorates gods and men. Water is always the sacred “water of
life,” the primordial source of existence and the bearer of the life of
plants, animals, human beings, and even the gods. Because of its great
potency, water, like blood, has been widely used in purificatory and
expiatory rites to wash away defilements and restore spiritual life. It
has also, along with wine, been an important offering to the dead as a
revivifying force.
Vegetable offerings have included not only the edible herbaceous
plants but also grains, fruits, and flowers. In both Hinduism and
Jainism, flowers, fruits, and grains (cooked and uncooked) are included
in the daily temple offerings. In some agricultural societies (e.g.,
those of West Africa) yams and other tuber plants have been important in
planting and harvest sacrifices and in other rites concerned with the
fertility and fecundity of the soil. These plants have been regarded as
especially embodying the life-force of the deified earth and are
frequently buried or plowed into the soil to replenish and reactivate
its energies.
Analysis of the rite of sacrifice » Material of the oblation » Divine
offerings
One further conception must be briefly mentioned: a god himself may be
sacrificed. This notion was elaborated in many mythologies; it is
fundamental in some sacrificial rituals. In early sacrifice the victim
has something of the god in itself, but in the sacrifice of a god the
victim is identified with the god. At the festival of the ancient
Mexican sun god Huitzilopochtli, the statue of the god, which was made
from beetroot paste and kneaded in human blood and which was identified
with the god, was divided into pieces, shared out among the devotees,
and eaten. In the Hindu soma ritual (related to the haoma ritual of
ancient Persia), the soma plant, which is identified with the god Soma,
is pressed for its intoxicating juice, which is then ritually consumed.
The Eucharist, as understood in many of the Christian churches, contains
similar elements. In short, Jesus is really present in the bread and
wine that are ritually offered and then consumed. According to the
traditional eucharistic doctrine of Roman Catholicism, the elements of
bread and wine are “transubstantiated” into the body and blood of
Christ: i.e., their whole substance is converted into the whole
substance of the body and blood, although the outward appearances of the
elements, their “accidents,” remain.
Analysis of the rite of sacrifice » Time and place of sacrifice
In many cults, sacrifices are distinguished by frequency of performance
into two types, regular and special. Regular sacrifices may be daily,
weekly, monthly, or seasonal (as at planting, harvest, and New Year).
Also often included are sacrifices made at specific times in each man’s
life—birth, puberty, marriage, and death. Offerings made on special
occasions and for special intentions have included, for example,
sacrifices in times of danger, sickness, or crop failure and those
performed at the construction of a building, for success in battle, or
in thanksgiving for a divine favour.
In the Vedic cult the regular sacrifices were daily, monthly, and
seasonal. The daily rites included fire offerings to the gods and
libations and food offerings to the ancestors and the earth divinities
and spirits. The monthly sacrifices, conducted at the time of New and
Full Moons, were of cakes or cooked oblations to sundry deities,
especially the storm god Indra. Some daily and monthly sacrifices could
be celebrated in the home by a householder, but only the official
priesthood could perform the complex seasonal sacrifices, offered three
times a year—at the beginning of spring, of the rainy season, and of the
cool weather—for the purpose of expiation and of abundance. Of the
occasional sacrifices, which could be celebrated at any time, especially
important were those associated with kingship, such as the royal
consecration and the great “horse sacrifice” performed for the increase
of the king’s power and domain.
In ancient Judaism the regular or periodic sacrifices included the
twice daily burnt offerings, the weekly sabbath sacrifices, the monthly
offering at the New Moon, and annual celebrations such as Pesaḥ
(Passover), Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement), and Sukkot (Feast of
Tabernacles). Special sacrifices were usually of a personal nature, such
as thank and votive offerings and “guilt offerings.”
The common place of sacrifice in most cults is an altar. The table
type of altar is uncommon; more often it is only a pillar, a mound of
earth, a stone, or a pile of stones. Among the Hebrews in early times
and other Semitic peoples the altar of the god was frequently an upright
stone (matztzeva) established at a place in which the deity had
manifested itself. It was bet el, the “house of God.”
Frequently, the altar is regarded as the centre or the image of the
universe. For the ancient Greeks the grave marker (a mound of earth or a
stone) was the earth altar upon which sacrifices to the dead were made
and, like other earth altars, it was called the omphalos, “the navel” of
the Earth—i.e., the central point from which terrestrial life
originated. In Vedic India the altar was regarded as a microcosm, its
parts representing the various parts of the universe and its
construction being interpreted as a repetition of the creation of the
cosmos.
Analysis of the rite of sacrifice » Method of sacrifice
Along with libation and the sacrificial effusion of blood, one of the
commonest means of making an oblation available to sacred beings is to
burn it. In both ancient Judaism and Greek religion the major offering
was the burnt or fire offering. Through the medium of the fire, the
oblation was conveyed to the divine recipient. In ancient Greece the
generic term for sacrifice (thysia) was derived from a root meaning to
burn or to smoke. In Judaism the important sacrifices (ʿola and zevaḥ)
involved the ritual burning, either entirely or in part, of the
oblation, be it animal or vegetation. For the Babylonians, also, fire
was essential to sacrifice, and all oblations were conveyed to the gods
by the fire god Girru-Nusku, whose presence as intermediary between the
gods and men was indispensable. In the Vedic cult the god of fire, Agni,
received the offerings of men and brought them into the presence of the
gods.
As burning is often the appropriate mode for sacrifice to celestial
deities, so burial is often the appropriate mode for sacrifice of earth
deities. In Greece, for example, sacrifices to the chthonic or
underworld powers were frequently buried rather than burned or, if
burned, burned near the ground or even in a trench. In Vedic India the
blood and entrails of animals sacrificed on the fire altar to the sky
gods were put upon the ground for the earth deities, including the
ghosts and malevolent spirits. In West Africa yams and fowls sacrificed
to promote the fertility of the earth are planted in the soil.
In sacrifice by burning and by burial, as also in the effusion of
blood, the prior death of the human or animal victim, even if ritually
performed, is in a sense incidental to the sacrificial action. There
are, however, sacrifices (including live burial and burning) in which
the ritual killing is itself the means by which the offering is
effected. Illustrative of this method was the practice in ancient Greek
and Indian cults of making sacrifices to water gods by drowning the
oblations in sacred lakes or rivers. Similarly, the Norse cast human and
animal victims over cliffs and into wells and waterfalls as offerings to
the divinities dwelling therein. In the Aztec sacrifice of human beings
to the creator god Xipe Totec, the victim was lashed to a scaffold and
shot to death with bow and arrow.
There are also sacrifices that do not involve the death or
destruction of the oblation. Such were the sacrifices in ancient Greece
of fruits and vegetables at the “pure” (katharos) altar of Apollo at
Delos, at the shrine of Athena at Lindus, and at the altar of Zeus in
Athens. These “fireless oblations” (apura hiera) were especially
appropriate for the deities of vegetation and fertility; e.g., Demeter
and Dionysus. In Egypt bloodless offerings of food and drink were simply
laid before the god on mats or a table in a daily ceremony called
“performing the presentation of the divine oblations.” In both Greek and
Egyptian cults such offerings were never to be eaten by the worshippers,
but they were probably surreptitiously consumed by the priests or temple
attendants. In ancient Israel, on the other hand, the food offerings of
the “table of the shewbread” (the “bread of the presence” of God) were
regarded as available to the priests and could be given by them to the
laity. In Hinduism the daily offering of cooked rice and vegetable,
after its consecration, is distributed by the priests to the worshippers
as the deity’s “grace” (prasāda). In some cases the sacrificial gifts
are put out to be eaten by an animal representative of the deity. In
Dahomey wandering dogs consume, on behalf of the trickster deity Eshu
(Elegba), the consecrated food oblations presented to the god each
morning at his shrines.
Analysis of the rite of sacrifice » Recipient of the sacrifice
Sacrifices may be offered to beings who can be the object of religious
veneration or worship. They will not be made to human beings unless they
have first been deified in some way. In some cases sacrifice is made
only to the god or gods; in others it is made to the deity, the spirits,
and the departed; in others it is made only to the spirits and the
departed, who are considered intermediaries between the deity and men.
The Nkole people of Uganda, for example, are said to make no sacrifices
to God, thinking he does not expect any. But, on the third day following
the New Moon, they make offerings to the guardian spirits (emandwa), and
they also make offerings at the shrines of ancestors (emizimu) of up to
three generations back. Worship of spirits and of ancestors, often
including the offering of sacrifices, occurs in widely distributed
cultures; in fact, according to some scholars, probably the major
recipients of sacrifice in non-Western traditions are the ancestors.
Analysis of the rite of sacrifice » Intentions
Sacrifices have been offered for a multiplicity of intentions, and it is
possible to list only some of the most prominent. In any one sacrificial
rite a number of intentions may be expressed, and the ultimate goal of
all sacrifice is to establish a beneficial relationship with the sacred
order, to make the sacred power present and efficacious.
Analysis of the rite of sacrifice » Intentions » Propitiation and
expiation
Serious illness, drought, pestilence, epidemic, famine, and other
misfortune and calamity have universally been regarded as the workings
of supernatural forces. Often they have been understood as the effects
of offenses against the sacred order committed by individuals or
communities, deliberately or unintentionally. Such offenses break the
relationship with the sacred order or impede the flow of divine life.
Thus, it has been considered necessary in times of crisis, individual or
communal, to offer sacrifices to propitiate sacred powers and to wipe
out offenses (or at least neutralize their effects) and restore the
relationship.
Among the Yoruba of West Africa, blood sacrifice must be made to the
gods, especially the earth deities, who, as elsewhere in Africa, are
regarded as the divine punishers of sin. For the individual the oblation
may be a fowl or a goat; for an entire community it may be hundreds of
animals (in former days, the principal oblation was human). Once
consecrated and ritually slain, the oblations are buried, burnt, or left
exposed but never shared by the sacrificer.
In ancient Judaism the ḥaṭṭaʾt, or “sin offering,” was an important
ritual for the expiation of certain, especially unwittingly committed,
defilements. The guilty laid their hands upon the head of the
sacrificial animal (an unblemished bullock or goat), thereby identifying
themselves with the victim, making it their representative (but not
their substitute, for their sins were not transferred to the victim).
After the priest killed the beast, blood was sprinkled upon the altar
and elsewhere in the sacred precincts. The point of the ritual was to
purify the guilty and to re-establish the holy bond with God through the
blood of the consecrated victim. It was as such an expiatory sacrifice
that early Christianity regarded the life and death of Christ. By the
shedding of his blood, the sin of mankind was wiped out and a new
relationship of life—eternal life—was effected between God and man. Like
the innocent and “spotless” victim of the ḥaṭṭaʾt, Christ died for
men—i.e., on behalf of but not in place of them. Also, like the ḥaṭṭaʾt,
the point of his death was not the appeasement of divine wrath but the
shedding of his blood for the wiping out of sin. The major differences
between the sacrifice of Christ and that of the ḥaṭṭaʾt animal are that
(1) Christ’s was regarded as a voluntary and effective sacrifice for all
men and (2) his was considered the perfect sacrifice, made once in time
and space but perpetuated in eternity by the risen Lord.
There are sacrifices, however, in which the victim does serve as a
substitute for the guilty. In some West African cults a person believed
to be under death penalty by the gods offers an animal substitute to
which he transfers his sins. The animal, which is then ritually killed,
is buried with complete funeral rites as though it were the human
person. Thus the guilty person is dead, and it is an innocent man who is
free to begin a new life.
Finally, some propitiatory sacrifices are clearly prophylactic,
intended to avert possible misfortune and calamity, and as such they are
really bribes offered to the gods. Thus, in Dahomey libations and animal
and food offerings are frequently made to a variety of Earth spirits to
ensure their good favour in preventing any adversity from befalling the
one making the offering.
Analysis of the rite of sacrifice » Intentions » Gift sacrifices
Although all sacrifice involves the giving of something, there are some
sacrificial rites in which the oblation is regarded as a gift made to a
deity either in expectation of a return gift or as the result of a
promise upon the fulfillment of a requested divine favour. Gift
sacrifices have been treated above. Here, it can be briefly noted that
numerous instances of the votive offering are recorded. In ancient
Greece sacrifices were vowed to Athena, Zeus, Artemis, and other gods in
return for victory in battle. The solemnity and irrevocability of the
votive offering is seen in the Old Testament account of the judge
Jephthah’s sacrifice of his only child in fulfillment of a vow to
Yahweh.
Analysis of the rite of sacrifice » Intentions » Thank offerings
One form of thank offering is the offering of the first fruits in
agricultural societies. Until the first fruits of the harvest have been
presented with homage and thanks (and often with animal sacrifices) to
the deity of the harvest (sometimes regarded as embodied in the crop),
the whole crop is considered sacred and thus taboo and may not be used
as food. The first-fruits sacrifice has the effect of “desacralizing”
the crops and making them available for profane consumption. It is a
recognition of the divine source and ownership of the harvest and the
means by which man is reconciled with the vegetational, chthonic powers
from whom he takes it.
Analysis of the rite of sacrifice » Intentions » Fertility
Another distinctive feature of the first-fruits offering is that it
serves to replenish the sacred potencies of the earth depleted by the
harvest and to ensure thereby the continued regeneration of the crop.
Thus, it is one of many sacrificial rites that have as their intention
the seasonal renewal and reactivation of the fertility of the earth.
Fertility rites usually involve some form of blood sacrifice—in former
days especially human sacrifice. In some human sacrifices the victim
represented a deity who “in the beginning” allowed himself to be killed
so that from his body edible vegetation might grow. The ritual slaying
of the human victim amounted to a repetition of the primordial act of
creation and thus a renewal of vegetational life. In other human
sacrifices the victim was regarded as representing a vegetation spirit
that annually died at harvest time so that it might be reborn in a new
crop. In still other sacrifices at planting time or in time of famine,
the blood of the victim—animal or human—was let upon the ground and its
flesh buried in the soil to fertilize the earth and recharge its
potencies.
Analysis of the rite of sacrifice » Intentions » Building sacrifices
Numerous instances are known of animal and human sacrifices made in the
course of the construction of houses, shrines, and other buildings, and
in the laying out of villages and towns. Their purpose has been to
consecrate the ground by establishing the beneficent presence of the
sacred order and by repelling or rendering harmless the demonical powers
of the place. In some West African cults, for example, before the
central pole of a shrine or a house is installed, an animal is ritually
slain, its blood being poured around the foundations and its body being
put into the posthole. On the one hand, this sacrifice is made to the
earth deities and the supernatural powers of the place—the real
owners—so that the human owner may take possession and be ensured
against malevolent interferences with the construction of the building
and its later occupation and use. On the other hand, the sacrifice is
offered to the cult deity to establish its benevolent presence in the
building.
Analysis of the rite of sacrifice » Intentions » Mortuary sacrifice
Throughout the history of man’s religions, the dead have been the
recipients of offerings from the living. In ancient Greece an entire
group of offerings (enagismata) was consecrated to the dead; these were
libations of milk, honey, water, wine, and oil poured onto the grave. In
India water and balls of cooked rice were sacrificed to the spirits of
the departed. In West Africa, offerings of cooked grain, yams, and
animals are made to the ancestors residing in the Earth. The point of
such offerings is not that the dead get hungry and thirsty, nor are they
merely propitiatory offerings. Their fundamental intention seems to be
that of increasing the power of life of the departed. The dead partake
of the life of the gods (usually the chthonic deities), and sacrifices
to the dead are in effect sacrifices to the gods who bestow never-ending
life. In Hittite funeral rites, for example, sacrifices were made to the
sun god and other celestial deities—transcendent sources of life—as well
as to the divinities of Earth.
Analysis of the rite of sacrifice » Intentions » Communion sacrifices
Communion in the sense of a bond between the worshipper and the sacred
power is fundamental to all sacrifice. Certain sacrifices, however,
promote this communion by means of a sacramental meal. The meal may be
one in which the sacrificial oblation is simply shared by the deity and
the worshippers. Of this sort were the Greek thysia and the Jewish zevaḥ
sacrifices in which one portion of the oblation was burned upon the
altar and the remainder eaten by the worshippers. Among the African
Yoruba special meals are offered to the deity; if the deity accepts the
oblation (as divination will disclose), a portion of the food is placed
before his shrine while the remainder is joyfully eaten as a sacred
communion by the worshippers. The communion sacrifice may be one in
which the deity somehow indwells the oblation so that the worshippers
actually consume the divine; e.g., the Hindu soma ritual. The Aztecs
twice yearly made dough images of the sun god Huitzilopochtli that were
consecrated to the god and thereby transubstantiated into his flesh to
be eaten with fear and reverence by the worshippers.
Sacrifice in the religions of the world
The constituent elements of sacrifice have been incorporated into the
particular religions and cultures of the world in various and often
complex ways. A few brief observations that may illustrate this variety
and complexity are given here.
Sacrifice in the religions of the world » Religions of India
Speculations regarding sacrifice and prescribed rituals seem to have
been worked out more fully in the Vedic and later Hindu religion in
India than anywhere else. These rites, laid down in a complicated system
known mainly from the Brāhmaṇa texts, included obligatory sacrifices
following the course of the year or the important moments in the life of
an individual and optional sacrifices occasioned by the special wishes
of a sacrificer. Yet cultic sacrifice has not developed in Buddhism,
another religion that arose in India. Ritual sacrifice was judged to be
ineffective and in some of its forms to involve cruelty and to run
counter to the law of ahiṃsā, or non-injury. There are, however, in the
Jātaka stories of the Buddha’s previous births accounts of his
self-sacrifices. Furthermore, Buddhism emphasizes the notion of ethical
sacrifices, acts of self-discipline; and there are instances of
devotional offerings, such as burnt incense, to the Buddha.
Sacrifice in the religions of the world » Religions of China
In China sacrifice, like other aspects of religion, has existed at a
number of different levels. The essential feature of Imperial worship in
ancient China was the elaborate sacrifices offered by the emperor
himself to Heaven and Earth. There are also records of sacrifice,
including human sacrifice, associated with the death of a ruler because
it was thought proper for him to be accompanied in death with those who
served him during life. But, because the common people were excluded
from participation in Imperial sacrifices, they had lesser gods—some
universal, some local—to whom sacrifices were made. Furthermore,
ancestor worship has been the most universal form of religion throughout
China’s long history; it was the responsibility of the head of a
household to see to it that sacrificial offerings to the dead were
renewed constantly. The blending of these elements with such established
religions as Buddhism and Taoism influenced the great diversification of
sacrificial rites in China.
Sacrifice in the religions of the world » Religions of Japan
In ancient Japan offering occupied a particularly important place in
religion because the relationship of the people to their gods seems
frequently to have had the character of a bargain rather than of
adoration. It is probable that the offerings were originally individual,
but they gradually became collective, especially as all powers,
including religious, were concentrated in the hands of the emperor, who
officiated in the name of all his people. Human sacrifice to natural
deities and at burials was once common but seems generally to have been
abandoned in the early Middle Ages. Besides human sacrifices and their
more modern substitutes, the Japanese offered to the gods all the things
that man regards as necessary (e.g., food, clothing, shelter) or merely
useful and pleasing (e.g., means of transportation, tools, weapons,
objects of entertainment) for life. These practices, which were found in
the traditional religion known as Shintō, were modified when
Confucianism and Buddhism were introduced into Japan during the 5th and
6th centuries ad.
Sacrifice in the religions of the world » Ancient Greece
The Homeric poems contain the most complete descriptions of sacrificial
rites in ancient Greece. These rites, which were maintained almost
without change for more than 10 centuries, were of two types: rites
(thysia) addressed to the Olympian deities, which included burning part
of a victim and then participating in a joyful meal offered to the gods
during the daytime primarily to serve and establish communion with the
gods; and rites (sphagia) addressed to the infernal or chthonic deities,
which involved the total burning or burying of a victim in a sombre
nocturnal ceremony to placate or avert the malevolent chthonic powers.
Besides the official or quasi-official rites, the popular religion,
already in Homer, comprised sacrifices of all kinds of animals and of
vegetables, fruits, cheese, and honey offered as expiation,
supplication, or thanksgiving by worshippers belonging to all classes of
society. Furthermore, the secret worship of what are known as the
mysteries—cults normally promising immortality or some form of personal
relationship with a god—became widespread. This practice became
especially prominent during the Hellenistic period.
Sacrifice in the religions of the world » Judaism
The destruction of the Second Temple in ad 70 marked a profound change
in the worship of the Jewish people. Before that event, sacrifice was
the central act of Israelite worship; and there were many categories of
sacrificial rites that had evolved through the history of the Jews into
a minutely detailed system found in that part of the Torah (Law; the
first five books of the Hebrew Bible) that is ascribed by biblical
scholars to the Priestly Code, which became established following the
Babylonian Exile (586–538 bc). The sacrificial system ceased, however,
with the destruction of the Temple, and prayer took the place of
sacrifices. In modern Judaism the Orthodox prayer books still contain
prayers for the reinstitution of the sacrificial cult in the rebuilt
Temple. Reform Judaism, however, has abolished or modified these prayers
in keeping with the conception of sacrifice as a once adequate but now
outmoded form of worship, and some Conservative congregations have also
rephrased references to sacrifices so that they indicate solely past
events without implying any hope for the future restoration of the rite.
Sacrifice in the religions of the world » Christianity
The notion of sacrifice emerged in the early Christian communities in
several different contexts. The death of Christ upon the cross preceded
by the Last Supper was narrated in the Gospels in sacrificial terms; the
life of Christ, culminating in his Passion and death, was seen as the
perfect sacrifice, and his Resurrection and glorification were seen as
God the Father’s seal of approval on that life. The notion that members
of the church are vitally linked to Christ and that their lives must be
sacrificial was also elaborated, especially in the letters of St. Paul.
Moreover, from the first decades of the church’s existence, the
celebration of the eucharistic meal was connected with the sacrifice of
Jesus; it was a “memorial” (anamnēsis)—a term denoting some sort of
identity between the thing so described and that to which it referred—of
that sacrifice.
The interpretation of sacrifice and particularly of the Eucharist as
sacrifice has varied greatly within the different Christian traditions,
partly because the sacrificial terminology in which the Eucharist was
originally described became foreign to Christian thinkers. In short,
during the Middle Ages, the Eastern Church viewed the Eucharist
principally as a life-giving encounter with Christ the Resurrected; the
Roman Church, however, saw it primarily as a bloodless repetition of the
bloody sacrifice of Christ on the cross. For the Protestant Reformers in
the 16th century, the sacrifice of Christ was unique and all sufficing,
so that the idea of repeating it in cult became unnecessary. Sacrifice
was separated from liturgy and was associated, especially in Calvinist
Protestantism, with the personal ethical acts that should be made by a
Christian believer. The ecumenical movement of the 20th century,
bolstered by modern biblical scholarship, has led some of the Christian
churches—e.g., the Roman Catholic and Lutheran churches—to realize that
they are not so far apart in their understanding of the Eucharist as
sacrifice as was formerly thought and that they hold many elements of
belief in common.
Sacrifice in the religions of the world » Islām
Sacrifice has little place in orthodox Islām. Faint shadows of sacrifice
as it was practiced by the pre-Islāmic Arabs have influenced Muslims, so
that they consider every slaughter of an animal an act of religion. They
also celebrate feasts in fulfillment of a vow or in thanksgiving for
good fortune, but there is no sacrificial ritual connected with these
festive meals. On the last day of the annual pilgrimage to Mecca,
animals are sacrificed; nevertheless, it is not the sacrificial rite
that is important to the Muslims, but rather their visit to the sacred
city.
Sacrifice in the religions of the world » Conclusion
The organization of sacrificial rites in the different cultures and
religions has undoubtedly been influenced by a number of factors.
Economic considerations, for example, certainly have had some impact
upon primitive peoples in the selection of the victim and the time of
sacrifice and in the determination of whether the victim is consumed or
totally destroyed and whether the sacrificer is an individual or a
collective group. The importance of such factors is an aspect of
sacrifice that deserves increased investigation. Nevertheless, sacrifice
is not a phenomenon that can be reduced to rational terms; it is
fundamentally a religious act that has been of profound significance to
individuals and social groups throughout history, a symbolic act that
establishes a relationship between man and the sacred order. For many
peoples of the world, throughout time, sacrifice has been the very heart
of their religious life.
Robert L. Faherty
