Sacrifice is the practice of offering food, or the lives of animals or people to the
gods, as an act of
propitiation or
worship. The term is also used
metaphorically to describe
selfless good deeds for others.
Theologies of sacrifice
The
theology of sacrifice remains an issue, not only for
religions that continue to practice
rituals of sacrifice, but also for those religions
that have animal sacrifice in their
scriptures,
traditions, or histories, even if sacrifice is no longer made. Religions offer a number of reasons for why
sacrifices are offered.
- Gods need sacrifice to sustain themselves and their power, without which they are diminished.
- Sacrificed goods are used to make a bargain with the god, who has promised some favour in return for the sacrifice.
- The lives or blood of sacrificial victims contains
mana or some other supernatural
power whose offering pleases the god.
- The sacrificial victim is offered as a
scapegoat, a target for the wrath of a
god, which otherwise would be visited on the followers.
- Sacrifice deprives the followers of food and other useful commodities, and as such constitutes an
ascetic discipline.
- Sacrificed goods actually become part of a religious organisation's revenue; it is a part of the economic base of support
that compensates priests and supports
temples.
- The sacrifice is actually a part of a
festival and is ultimately consumed by
the followers themselves.
- In the
Hebrew Bible, God issues a number of commandments for Israelites
to offer animal sacrifices in the portable sanctuary, known as the
Tabernacle.
Once the Israelites were settled in the land of Canaan, all sacrifices were ordered to be ended except those offered in the
Temple in Jerusalem. In the Bible God asks for sacrifices as
a sign of a covenant between himself and the Israelite people.
Sacrifice in Judaism
- See related article on
Korban.
In
Judaism, a sacrifice is known as a
Korban from the
Hebrew root karov meaning
to "[come] Close [to God]". Medieval Jewish rationalists like
Maimonides
reinterpreted the need for sacrifice. In this view, God always held sacrifice inferior to prayer and philosophical meditation.
However, God understood that the Israelites were used to the animal sacrifices that the surrounding pagan tribes used as the
primary way to commune with their gods. As such, in Maimonides' view, it was only natural that Israelites would believe that
sacrifice were be a necessary part of the relationship between God and man. Maimonides concludes that God's decision to allow
sacrifices was a concession to human psychological limitations. It would have been too much to have expected the Israelites to
leap from pagan worship to prayer and meditation in one step. In the
Guide to the Perplexed he writes:
- "But the custom which was in those days general among men, and the general mode of worship in which the Israelites were
brought up consisted in sacrificing animals... It was in accordance with the wisdom and plan of God...that God did not command us
to give up and to discontinue all these manners of service. For to obey such a commandment would have been contrary to the nature
of man, who generally cleaves to that to which he is used; it would in those days have made the same impression as a prophet
would make at present [the 12th Century ] if he called us to the service of God and told us in His name, that we should not pray
to God nor fast, nor seek His help in time of trouble; that we should serve Him in thought, and not by any action." (Book III,
Chapter 32. Translated by M. Friedlander, 1904, The Guide for the Perplexed, Dover Publications, 1956 edition.)
The teachings of the
Torah and
Tanakh reveal
Judaism's abhorrence of human sacrifices.
Animal sacrifice
is the ritual killing of an
animal as part of a
religion. It is practiced by many religions as a means of appeasing a god or gods or changing the course of
nature. Animal sacrifice has turned up in almost all cultures, from the
Hebrews to
the Greeks and
Romans and from the
Aztecs to the
Yoruba. Animal sacrifice is still
practiced today by the followers of
Santería as a means of curing the sick and
giving thanks to the gods. It is appropriately termed animal offerings and account for
extremely small portions of "ebbos", ritual activities that include offerings, prayer and deeds, in Santeria.
Human sacrifice
Human sacrifice was practiced by many ancient cultures. People
would be ritually killed in a manner that was supposed to please or appease some
god or
spirit. While not widely know, human sacrifices for religious reasons
still exist today in a number of nations, including
India.
Some occasions for human sacrifice found in multiple cultures on multiple continents include:
- Human sacrifice to accompany the dedication of a new temple or bridge.
- Sacrifice of people upon the death of a king, high priest or great leader; the sacrificed were supposed to serve or accompany
the deceased leader in the next life.
- Human sacrifice in times of natural disaster. Droughts, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions etc were seen as a sign of anger or
displeasure by deities, and sacrifices were supposed to lessen the divine ire.
Some of the best known ancient human sacrifice was that practiced by various
Pre-Columbian civilizations of
Mesoamerica. The
Aztec were particularly noted for practicing this on an unusually large scale; a human sacrifice
would be made every day to aid the
Sun in rising, the dedication of the great temple at
Tenochtitlán was reportedly marked with the sacrificing of thousands, and
there are multiple accounts of captured
Conquistadores being sacrificed
during the wars of the
Spanish Conquest of
Mexico.
In
Scandinavia, the old
Scandinavian religion contained human sacrifice and both the
Norse sagas and German historians relate of this, see e.g.
Temple at Uppsala and
Blót.
There is evidence to suggest
Pre-Hellenistic
Minoan cultures practised human sacrifice.
Sacrificed corpses were found at a number of sites in the
citadel of
Knossos in
Crete, one such find at the
North house in
Knossos numbered 337 bones of children who appear to have been butchered. It is possible they may have been
for human consumption as was the tradition with sacrificical offerings made in
Hellenistic
Civilization.The evidence that this practice
was widespread throughout
Minoan culture is not strong. It is also possible that the
human sacrifices at Crete were one off occurances as
Knossos did befall an epic
tectonic natural disaster around the time
at which these sites would have been preserved. Hence these human sacrifices could be explained in terms of the
Minoans desperation in the situation and being far from routine procedures. The
temple of
Anemospilia at
Knossos exemplifies this view. Here they found a the
sacrifice of a teenager which was interupted by the temple collapsing on the participants due to the tectonic activitity at the
time. The myth of
Theseus and the
Minotaur (set in the labyrinth at Knossos) provides evidence that Human sacrifice was commonplace. In the myth we
are told that Athens sent seven young men and seven young women to
Crete as human sacrifices to the
Minotaur. This
ties up well with the archeological evidence that most sacrifices were of young adults or children. This view contrasts with the
utopian view of the
minoans propagated by the
archeologist
Arthur Evans.
Human sacrifice still happens today as an underground practice in some traditional religions, for example in
muti killings. Human sacrifice is no longer officially condoned in any country, and these cases are
regarded as murder.
Many people in India are adherents of a religion called Tantrism; a small percent of unscrupulous Tantric practitioners engage
in human sacrifice, often with the promise of inducing childbirth in a sterile couple (see Further Reading).
In the
Aeneid by
Virgil the character
Sinon claims that he was going to be a human sacrifice to
Poseidon to calm the seas (of course Sinon was lying).
Human sacrifice is a common theme in the
religions and
mythology of many cultures.
Christians believe that the death of
Jesus Christ was a self-sacrifice for mankind's sins.
See also:
