HISTORY OF HUMAN SACRIFICE

Sacrifice, one of the most fundamental and ubiquitous of religious rituals, was or is practiced in almost all of the religions that have ever existed. Great latitude is found in the types of living beings or other things that are or have been sacrificed, as well as in the ritual itself.
In the sacrifice that was central to all the ancient religions, the sacrificial object was usually an animal, frequently a valuable one: an ox or a ram, whose strength and virility were given to a god in return for a divine gift of strength or virility. Often, inanimate entities like wine or water, bread or corn, were substituted for the living victim. But in a sense, these entities were not "inanimate. " They possessed a kind of life, given to them by the god, which was returned to him in the hope that he would once again instill life in the wine or corn.
Human sacrifice seems to have originated among the first agricultural peoples. Apparently rarely practiced by the hunter-gatherers who preceded them, it existed in all of the most ancient religions. The early Greeks and Romans, the earliest Jews, the Chinese and Japanese, the I ndians, and many other ancient peoples sacrificed human beings to their gods. The victim was often dressed in magnificent garments and adorned with jewels so that he or she might go in glory to the god. The victims, often
chosen for their youth and beauty (the god wanted the best) , were drowned or buried alive, or their throats were cut so that their blood might bedew the ground, fructifying it, or be spattered upon the altar. The throats of bulls, rams, and goats were also ritually cut, their blood spilled upon the ground in the effort to please the god or produce a communion between the god and those who sought his help.
Two basically different types of ritual sacrifice seem to have been practiced in most parts of the earth. In one, the victim was killed, a part of the body was burned (and thus given to the god ) , and the remainder was eaten in a joyous meal of communion among the people, and presumably with the god as well. In the other, the victim was destroyed completely. If the sacrifice was to the gods of heaven, the sacrificial object was burned so that the smoke might rise to the divine abode; if to the gods of the underworld, the victim was buried.
Homer reveals that the first type of sacrifice was common among the Achaean besiegers of Troy. On many occasions in the Iliad bulls or oxen are sacrificed, their blood spilled upon the ground, and the fat thrown upon the flames so that the ritual smoke may rise to heaven. The soldiers then feast on the remainder of the beast. But in the Odyssey, Odysseus, desiring to visit the Underworld, sacrifices animals to its gods but does not eat them; what is not consumed by the flames is buried, as a propitiary offering. Such sacrifices the Greeks called Mysteries. They usually were practiced at night, in caves or other dark places, and the initiated alone were permitted to participate.
The story of the sacrifice of lsaac by his father Abraham is now believed to date from the beginning of the second millennium before Christ. It is told in the twenty-second chapter of Genesis. And it came to pass after these things that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am. And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of. And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and clave the wood for the burnt offering, and rose, and went into the place of which God had told him ...
And they came to the place which God had told him of; and Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him upon the altar upon the wood.And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son.
And the angel of the Lord called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham: and he said, Here am I. And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing that thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me. And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son.
Were the Jews the first people to decide that human sacrifice was wrong, that is, that God did not desire it? Possibly. Apparently the Jews never again sacrificed human beings to their Lord. The Christians, following the traditions of the Jews, never practiced human sacrifice, although their religion is based on one supreme sacrifice: Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God and the Only Begotten Son of the Father, died that all men might live. And for Roman Catholics at least, this supreme sacrifice is repeated in every mass, for Jesus is present in the wine (blood) and bread (flesh) that is consumed in joyous communion with God and the other participants in the ritual.

Buddhism and Islam, among the other great religions of the world, were also free of human sacrifice from the beginning to this day. Would that the primal lesson given by God to Abraham had been known by the Aztec and the Inca and the many other relics of a more primitive time!


By Charles Van Doren in the book 'HISTORY OF KNOWLEDGE' - Past, Present, and Future, Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York,  p.13-15. Adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.

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