The sacrifice of men or animals on whom the burden of sin of the whole community is loaded is something quite different. We know of such acts from primitive cultures too.[...]They also have nothing to do with the materialistic and mechanistic thinking which seems so natural to us. That which distinguishes them from cult practices per se is an idea which must seem just as absurd to the scholarly mind of our day as all cultic matters do. This is the stupendous idea of redemption through a life which has taken upon itself the guilt of all.
This is a passage from Walter F. Otto's Dionysus: Myth and Cult. Otto was a German writer, and I'm reading him in translation, of course.
The book is primarily about the Greek god of harvest, winemaking, fruit, fertility, ritual madness...It's a long and entertaining list. Greek, but very likely adopted from peoples elsewhere in Eastern Europe or Asia Minor.
Otto does not shy away from the fact that the Greeks, like most people of their era, did not just worship their gods in the temple but made sacrifices to them, including human sacrifice. From our present perspective the practice looks barbaric. And I certainly wouldn't advocate bringing it back. But they had an understanding of what they were doing and why they were doing it.
2 comments:
It appears that sacrifice is a huge topic and one I'm ill-equipped to discuss in any detail. In any sacrificial rite the ultimate goal is to establish a beneficial relationship with the sacred order, to make the sacred power present and effective. This can take many forms and, in general, are fairly harmless ie, the offerings of fruit and flowers and various other items.
There have been cases of human sacrifice, some of them pretty spectacular like what happened in South America but, in general, I think there have been replacement procedures in effect. Fruit, flowers, butter sculptures, wine, consecrated biscuits (getting close here, eh?) are all alternatives to actually killing people one likes. Of course, there have been exceptions. It's not like human societies have ever agreed in principal at any time - including in ancient Greece.
The idea of human sacrifice may be abhorrent to us, but what is more loathsome is that we continue to sacrifice people. As you said, they had an understanding of what they were doing and why they were doing it. We quite obviously don't.
The desire to be part of a greater order is just about universal. So offerings to the gods--or just one, say--might have an immediate goal of satisfying an earthly need or desire. But they definitely have another aspect, which is simply the wish to establish contact with higher beings.
One of the reasons Greek mythology--as well as the Roman mythology which largely copied its pantheon--has lasted so long, known not just by scholars but among all literate classes in the West, is that it is openly contradictory. The gods are wise and serene when you need them to be, childish and vengeful at other times. Likely this is true in other mythologies as well, but the Greeks really illustrated it.
It comes down to what you believe in. I wouldn't follow the example of ancient pagans who sacrificed other people on the gods' altars, but they were committing to something cosmic. To the extent people get sacrificed now it's to tawdry ideologies and broken utilitarianim.
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