Sacrifice

SACRIFICE. - From sacra facere "to perform the sacred action", sacrifice in its most general sense is that religious act by which the offerer, through the offering or the victim, enters into mystical communication with the Being to whom the sacrifice is directed. For a sacrifice to take place, therefore, the following are required: 1) an offerer, who may be different from the one who performs the sacred action; 2) an object, animate or inanimate, to be offered; 3) the intention of entering, through the sacrificial action, into communication with the Being to whom it is directed.

I. THE SACRIFICE IN NON-CHRISTIAN RELIGIONS

The sacrifice can be unbloody (oblation, libation, offering), as occurs among the economically and culturally most primitive groups, and bloody when, with the development of even the most elementary occupations of agricultural and pastoral life, domestic animals are offered whose killing serves to make the offering effective by withdrawing the animal from profane use and taking from it that life which is to be offered to the divinity, in a deeper and more integral conception of the sacrifice itself.

Toward bloody sacrifice, therefore, all peoples, on the path toward more complex and advanced conditions of culture, and settled in the great political and ethnic societies of the ancient world, oriented themselves; a sacrifice understood not only as homage to the divinity, but also as a means of entering into more intimate communion with it through the victim specially chosen and pre-consecrated, whose blood, vehicle of life, serves precisely to establish a mystical contact between the offerer and the divinity itself.

During the Roman imperial era, in conformity with the spiritual tendencies of the time, it was believed that the blood of certain sacrificed animals had the power to deify the souls of the offerers, snatching them from mortal fate. The belief in the deification of souls which Arnobius (II, 62) and Servius (ad Am., III, 68) attribute to the Acherontic Books of the Etruscans was, however, substantially already known (Lares, Manes, Deus parens) to the most ancient Rome (Ribezzo).

1. Theories on the origin of sacrifice

Modern ethnology has presented three different hypotheses on the origin of sacrifice. According to the animism of E. B. Tylor, sacrifice is substantially a gift that man makes to the divinity in order to obtain in return both the use of the fruits of the earth and other favors of which he has need: he conceives these divinities as endowed with the same habits, affections and desires as men. According to the totemistic theory, today abandoned as an integral explanation of the religious fact, sacrifice would originally be a communion: inasmuch as the human group, which considers itself descended from a divine animal, on certain solemn occasions, in order to renew the bond of kinship with the god and purify its own blood through an ingestion of divine blood, kills the sacred animal (which otherwise is always respected and never killed) and feeds on it ritually. W. Robertson Smith theorized this opinion in a seductive but unconvincing manner, followed by F. B. Jevons, S. Reinach, E. Durkheim. According to the historico-cultural school of Fr. W. Schmidt, finally (but already Fr. Lagrange had, on the basis of elements offered by the Semitic peoples, upheld the same thesis), sacrifice is originally the gift of an object that has life in itself and serves as sustenance of life (first-fruits), offered by primitive man to the divinity every time he must make use of the fruits of the earth. This theory, integrated with the elements offered by the higher religions of mystical orientation, explains better the facts encountered in sacrifice among primitive human groups and among the great ethnic religions (Egypt, Assyria, Israel, India, Greece, Rome, China).

With the evolution of the religious spirit parallel to the progress of civilization in economy, politics and thought, which lead the individual to give greater value to his interior life in the face of the authoritarian principle of the state religion, there arise the supernational (universal) religions, or those due to the work of a religious reformer born and living in the full light of history (Buddha, Muhammad), or else the religious sublimation of a primitive cult, generally agrarian, and reconnected to a mythical founder of divine nature (Dionysus, Osiris, Attis, Mithra). These are the religions called mystery religions because they presuppose a secret initiation and a series of rites in which the initiate (who may have access to them without regard to bonds of race, caste or nation) assimilates himself to the god, in the confidence of obtaining spiritual benefit from it in life and of assuring himself after death a blessed immortality. In these religions sacrifice assumes its highest value because it reproduces and commemorates the sacrifice of the god and considers this sacrifice as a sign of salvation for all who wish to reap its benefit.

2. Practice of sacrifice

Sacrifice unfolds according to three times or moments: the preparation, the action, the exit.

a) The preparation. - Being the religious act par excellence, sacrifice must be performed in an environment that is already sacred or that at least is made such for the occasion with preliminary ceremonies of consecration. As to the form, one must distinguish the one on whose behalf the sacrifice is offered (offerer), who may be either a single individual or an entire social group, from the one who as expert performs the sacrificial act (sacrificer, priest, minister). Both the one and the other must find themselves in a state of ritual holiness (abstention from venereal contact, bathing, new or white garments, fasting, special emblems or tattoos), and maintain themselves in this state of separation from the profane world until the sacrifice is completed.

The victim, moreover, is either already a sacred animal (totem) or must be made sacred by means of special rites and ceremonies. First of all it must be without any physical defect; then, chosen and washed, adorned, crowned, it is invited to proceed spontaneously toward the place of sacrifice, sometimes also praised in order to exalt its value, to bring it closer to the divinity and thus render it a more suitable vehicle of participation of life between the offerer and the divinity. This consecration of the victim is concluded by a special ceremony: smearing with butter (India), with oil (Israel) or by a sprinkling of spelt and salt (mola salsa, Rome) or of barley (οὐλαί, Greece).

b) The action. - Once the victim is consecrated, one proceeds to the killing, which liberates the principle of life enclosed in the animal, which thus becomes, through its blood, an effective means of communion. It is brought near the altar, oriented either toward one of the cardinal points or toward the presumed dwelling of the gods, and amid a profound silence, broken only by the sound of a ritual instrument or by the murmuring of sacred formulas, it is struck down, either jugulated or suffocated, according to the various rituals and the species of the animal. Once on the ground it is quartered, the viscera or the omentum are extracted, which are the portion reserved for the gods, while the rest is desecrated and tasted by the offerer and by those who have participated in the sacrifice.

c) The exit. - Once the sacrificial action is completed, the participants, before returning to common life, must discharge the sacredness accumulated upon them by the sacrifice, by means of ablutions, the laying aside of the sacred garments and the "purification," that is, desecration of the utensils that have served for the sacrifice.

3. Various kinds of sacrifice

In conformity with the classification adopted with regard to the various kinds of rites (v.), sacrifices are either connected with rites of passage, or sacrifices of oblation, or sacrifices of propitiation.

a) Sacrifice in rites of passage. - Belonging to this category are the sacrifices that occur in the most important circumstances of domestic worship, birth, name, death; the sacrifices of pubertal initiation (v.), the sacrifices connected with initiation into the mystery cults (v.), the sacrifices of the threshold, of the boundary, of hospitality, funerary sacrifices.

b) Sacrifice of oblation. - These are the most numerous because they are offered to maintain peace with the gods, to acknowledge their dominion and to thank them for benefits received. The great civilizations of the ancient world practiced above all this form of sacrifice.

c) Sacrifice of propitiation. - These are subdivided into three principal categories: agrarian sacrifices, expiatory sacrifices, foundation sacrifices.

The agrarian sacrifice starts from the postulate, proper to the "mystical" mentality of primitive man, that man must contribute through his action to the rhythm of the seasons so that the earth may produce its fruit. It also presupposes the animistic belief that the cultivated field has its own principle of life, synthesized in a spirit (spirit of vegetation) that can be incorporated in an inanimate being (stone, effigy), in an animal (fox, dog, rooster) or in a man. To this spirit one must offer a part of the harvest that belongs to it, in order to be able to use the harvest itself with impunity. This spirit, which would be extinguished after the harvest, must be incorporated into some object or animal and kept alive through the sacrificial action. The agrarian sacrifice, therefore, consists of two moments: a) expulsion of the old spirit of vegetation under the guise of a man or an animal; b) introduction of a new principle of life.

From the agrarian sacrifice the passage to the sacrifice of the god is easy when the human victim substitutes itself, as spirit of vegetation, for the vegetable offering, because by losing contact with the vegetable element the vegetation spirit loses its autonomy in favor of the human individuality and assumes its name, its moral personality and finally also its legend. Once this mythical legend is created, the figure of the god is also fixed, and the periodic agrarian sacrifice becomes the salutary repetition of the sacrificial event that originally happened to the god and whose iteration serves to assure men the benefits (which are no longer agrarian, but religious) of that primordial immolation. In certain mystery religions (mysteries of Attis, Adonis, Osiris) it is possible to recognize the sublimation of an ancient agrarian rite (v. MISTERI).

The expiatory sacrifice moves from the sacred-magical concept that evil (physical or moral) can be transferred from one object onto another which is then removed or killed. A typical case of expiatory sacrifice was, in Israel, that of the goat on which the high priest, dressed in linen and after appropriate lustrations, accumulated, placing both hands on its head, all the sins of the people and which he then immediately had led away by a man who was to abandon it in a desert place. The victim of an expiatory sacrifice could also be human, as happened in antiquity: at Marseilles in case of pestilence (Serv., Ad. Aen., III, 57) and annually in Athens at the festival of the Thargelia (v.). To expiatory sacrifices also belong those of purification (v. LUSTRAZIONE).

The foundation sacrifice partakes of the consecratory element and of the expiatory one and starts from the concept of placing the spirit of the sacrificed animal (or man) as protector of the building to be constructed. Thus the Batak of Sumatra place the corpses on the corner beams of their dwellings, the Bedouins of the country of Moab kill the animal at the point where they plant the main pole of the tent; in ancient Canaan excavation has yielded numerous remains of foundation sacrifices; in Rome, beneath the apse of the basilica of Porta Maggiore, the remains of the bones of a dog and of a pig have been found.

4. Sacrificial symbolism

The sacrifice is an action, as results from cultic terminology (sacro facere, or simply facere among the Latins; ποιῶν, ῥέζειν, ὄρᾶν, among the Greeks; ἀδά, among the Hebrews) and is a representative action that intends to effect what it reproduces. This is most evident in the agrarian rites where the spirit of vegetation is understood as a living being (animal or human) that dies and rises again. This representative action acquires greater value because it preserves and intensifies the social bond, inasmuch as the human group that performs the sacrifice knows that it performs it in imitation of the ancestors and in obedience to the tradition that they founded and that all the predecessors of the group have repeated. This social sense, when the motives of magical symbolism decline as a result of cultural development, remains precisely as representative of collective life, which thanks to it has been maintained and increased, but sublimates its meaning in a highly moral sense.

Nicola Turchi

II. SACRIFICE AMONG PRIMITIVE PEOPLES

1. The sacrifice of first-fruits in the original cultures

It is a marked characteristic of the original cultures and consists in offering to the Supreme Being the first-fruits of the means of subsistence that man obtains from hunting and woman from gathering. The offering is made before the rest is consumed. The Pygmies offer a small part, generally chosen from among the best and most vital (heart, liver, lungs, stomach, fat). The sacrifice of first-fruits is practiced by almost all truly pygmy populations, by several Pigmoid peoples, by the Bushmen and by the Vedda. In the American Arctic culture it is made only by the Eskimo populations that belong to the most archaic stratum of Arctic culture, by the Algonquins, by some very primitive populations of California, and by the Selknam, who are the least primitive among the three populations of Tierra del Fuego. It is absent throughout the primitive southern culture (south-eastern Australia and Tasmania).

The diffusion of the sacrifice of first-fruits in the original cultures indicates that it probably arose under conditions that are found more among the Pygmies than in the American Arctic culture. This is also confirmed by the variety of the offerings made by the Pygmies and the Negritos: game, birds, fish, termites, edible caterpillars, fruit, honey, etc. The Pygmies of Gabon also sacrifice an animal that must be taken alive in the hunt. Another variant among the Pygmies of Gabon consists in offering the right side of the animal's head (that is, the most prized part). The Baghielli Pygmies offer only vegetables and beverages. In the Arctic cultures, on the other hand, offerings of meat are frequent, but the sacrifice of vegetable first-fruits is almost completely absent. This absence can be explained by the climate and by the economy of the Arctic populations, which feed predominantly on meat.

There are still other characteristics that differentiate the sacrifice of the Pygmies from that of the American Arctic populations: the Pygmies generally offer the internal parts of the game; the American Arctic peoples, on the other hand, offer the unopened head or the long bones, likewise unopened. Therefore the material offered is the brain or the marrow: the head and the bones are rather the receptacle that contains the offering. The manner of presenting the offering also varies. The Pygmies throw the vegetable first-fruits into the forest; only the Baghielli throw them into the fire. The offering of meat varies among the different groups of Pygmies: some throw it on the ground, others into the fire, still others, to preserve it from termites and caterpillars, wrap it in a leaf and place it ceremonially in the hollow of a tree. Sometimes, to wrap the offering, they choose a leaf that has not yet been touched, almost as if to intensify the first-fruit character of the sacrifice.

In the American Arctic culture the few offerings of vegetables are thrown into the fire or laid on the ground. One of the most characteristic forms of the sacrifice of first-fruits in this culture consists in piling the offered heads and long bones upon an altar. This is what the hunters of the Lower Paleolithic also did, as the exploration of various caves in Bavaria and Switzerland has revealed.

The sacrifice of first-fruits arose from the economic, social and religious conceptions of the original cultures and expresses a homage, a thanksgiving and a request to the Supreme Being. In these cultures man does not yet produce the means necessary for his sustenance, but limits himself to taking them from nature. The Supreme Being is considered the bestower of life not only in ancient times, but continuously, because he gives the means of subsistence, animals and plants, makes them grow and grants their use on condition that they not be destroyed uselessly and denied to those who cannot procure them for themselves. Therefore the sustenance of the old, the infirm and the children also has a religious value and as such is inculcated also in the initiations (v.) of the young. The mythology of these peoples attributes the creation of the world to the Supreme Being, who is also considered the first owner. These motifs are clear in the mythology of the Pygmies, of the Indians of central California and of Tierra del Fuego and remain alive even among populations belonging to more recent cultures.

The sacrifice of first-fruits acknowledges first of all the creation, the preservation, the power and the ownership of the Supreme Being over the things of the world and expresses these sentiments by rendering him, in the form of an offering, a small part of the goods received. "In the sacrifice of first-fruits the offerer does not so much want to give as to say, to express something" (Schmidt), that is, his subjection, his dependence on the Supreme Being. It may be that he also wants to express other sentiments: to ask his forgiveness for having killed animals or destroyed plants created by him, to invite him to the meal in order to enter into a closer union with him (a very probable idea given the liberality with which in the original cultures it is customary to invite one another to consume together the spoils of the hunt and the fruit of the gathering), to thank him for the goods received and to ask him to continue his protection, but the central thought is the expression of the sentiment of dependence that the creature feels before the Creator (Schmidt). That the quantity offered is often very small indicates that the sacrificer does not intend to give the Supreme Being something of which he has real need, and still less does he wish to offer him food to eat. An offering conceived in this way would be in opposition to the concept of spirit that various populations attribute to the Supreme Being. An offering, chosen from the best parts of the spoils, has a symbolic value. The formulas that accompany it also express these sentiments: "Here is your part so that you may be generous with me when I go in search of game, which is under your protection."

2. The expiatory sacrifice in the original cultures

When the Pygmies of Gabon believe that continued failure in the hunt is to be attributed to some fault, they make an expiatory sacrifice. The Semang also practice an analogous sacrifice. In both cases the offerer inflicts a wound on an arm or a leg (Pygmies of Gabon) or near the knee (Semang), usually mixes the blood that comes out with water and offers the whole in expiation. It is probable that this sacrifice is intended to replace the offering of life. Indications of an expiatory sacrifice of one's own blood are also found among other pygmy populations. The concept of moral fault that the Supreme Being can punish, whether by striking the guilty one directly with death or by denying him the means of subsistence, is a characteristic of the original cultures. Equally alive is the sentiment of repentance and expiation toward the offended divinity. Therefore it is probable that the expiatory sacrifice also belongs to these cultures. Recent research confirms this thesis.

Some pygmy and Algonquin populations also make sacrifices with offerings to the dead, which are the result of influences from matriarchal cultures. No population belonging to the original cultures practices human sacrifice.

3. The sacrifice of first-fruits among the nomadic pastoral peoples of Asia

The characteristic sacrifice of this cultural cycle is the great annual sacrifice of the horse in thanksgiving to God who gives, both to men and to animals, the power to reproduce.

Therefore the sacrifice is made in spring, when the foals and calves are born. All the families that make up a kinship group gather together, and each brings one or more animals. They preferably offer a horse. This sacrifice has a particular solemnity also in the manner in which it is performed: among other things, the horse is adorned and placed in position as if it were about to leap toward the sky. There follows a kind of sacred meal accompanied by various offerings. In the sacrifice of firstfruits among pastoral peoples, even more than in that of the original cultures, there is expressed the acknowledgment of the supreme authority of Heaven over the livestock and the thanksgiving to Heaven which has granted the herds. The religious concept of these peoples is very elevated, as is also shown by the fact that petitionary sacrifices have a very secondary importance.

Another characteristic of this culture is the sacrifice of milk, an important element for the nutrition of those peoples. The nomadic pastoralists of Central Asia have no expiatory sacrifices.

4. The expiatory sacrifice

Various pastoral populations of Africa and others belonging to the Nilotic group perform expiatory sacrifices, which reveal an elevated religious sense and a clear concept of moral guilt and of the necessity of expiation. In the religion of the Galla, Waka, which means "Heaven," is the Creator, the absolute Lord of the whole world and the regulating center of individual and social life. The religion of the Galla is alive and exceedingly rich in prayers, religious songs, sacrifices, feasts and ceremonies for all the circumstances of human life. They celebrate with particular solemnity a feast called Wadagia, to obtain from God blessings upon the families, the villages and the territory.

During this ceremony, which is directed by a chief priest and by two "deacons," those assembled perform a sacrifice that has the character of petition and expiation, as is evident from the invocations that accompany it. When everything is ready, the chief priest pronounces the invocations ("Oh Waka, have pity on us!" etc.), to which all respond in chorus: "Yes, have pity on us," etc.

The Galla also offer a bull or a ram on the tomb of a deceased person. But this sacrifice is directed to God to implore happiness and the forgiveness of the sins of the deceased.

The Acioli of Uganda particularly fear the soul of one who has "died in wrath," because this soul returns to take its vengeance. This soul is called lacèn (= the one who returns): anyone who has been killed voluntarily or involuntarily (for example, while hunting) can become a lacèn, if the compensation due is not paid and the expiatory sacrifice is not made. But no soul can return as a lacèn unless wrong was done to it. Particularly feared are: the soul of the son to whom the father denied the dowry for marriage; that of the slave killed for trivial reasons; that of the father or of an old man or of a sick member of the family to whom bread was denied; that of one who was left to die of hunger at the door of the hut, even if of another tribe; that of the mother whom the son prevented from remarrying after the father's death, or to whom the son denied meat; that of one who was killed in another's house without the master of the house having taken care to avenge him; that of one who was the victim of a grave vengeance he did not deserve, or who received a punishment greater than his fault, or even a deserved but severe punishment; that of the wife killed while fleeing to take refuge with another man because her husband beat her. Even the soul of a dog, killed under certain circumstances, returns as a lacèn. When the lacèn comes to kill and begins to make someone in the family ill, or to appear to him in a dream and make him wander, the sorcerer is summoned, whose task it is to send it away with a special ceremony, essentially expiatory, directed to the Supreme Being, during which a sheep is sacrificed. To this ceremony are also joined accessory elements of a magical character. Not always, however, does the sorcerer succeed in his intent: sometimes the lacèn is so angry that it kills not only the person who did it wrong, but the whole kinship group, including the mother, the father or the son, and sometimes even the sorcerer who has come to send it away. This happens because Lubanga (the Supreme Being) grieves if someone has been killed, because that person was one of his own, begotten by him, and therefore he consents that the soul of the dead come and kill the one who killed him. Certain fierce beasts too can come as lacèn: they are the dogs of Lubanga.

The Baria of Eritrea and other Hamitic, Nilotic and related populations also have expiatory sacrifices. The collective expiatory sacrifice of an animal taken alive in hunting is also practiced.

5. The blood sacrifice in matriarchal culture and human sacrifice

The spiritual conceptions proper to this cultural cycle, which is very widespread, are: lunar mythology; the figure of a female divinity, conceived as an earthly divinity (mother goddess), who gradually takes the place of the cult of the Supreme Being. Another characteristic element is the cult of blood, conceived as the seat of vital force and in close relation with the very origin of life, because when a woman conceives her menstruation ceases.

In this cultural cycle the sacrifice of firstfruits is made to the mother goddess or to the dead. But above all the bloody sacrifice develops, first of animals, then also of human beings. There also belongs to matriarchal culture a whole complex of myths about the vital power of blood, whereby the blood of the victims is used to anoint the sick and is sprinkled on plants and in the fields. But above all to human blood still warm is attributed the power to strengthen the vital forces that are weakening. Animism, which populates the world with spirits rarely beneficent and much more often maleficent, which can be propitiated or appeased only with blood, further increases the number of sacrifices. In the matriarchy the evocation and the cult of the dead and magic develop greatly. The deceased receive offerings for the journey into the other world: food, drink and also weapons and tools. Numerous populations hold a periodic commemoration of the dead (for the most part annual) associated with sacrifices and offerings.

The spirits that populate nature and the dead speak through the mouth of the sorcerer (who is originally a woman: indeed the sorcerer often disguises himself as a woman and imitates her voice) to say why they have sent a disease, an epidemic, famine, defeat in war and other misfortunes, and they demand specific sacrifices. When they are very irritated, or when it is a matter of a public danger, they can even demand human sacrifices and require that the victim be subjected to a very slow and agonizing death. However, human sacrifice developed in secondary cultures, that is, where the matriarchy had already merged with other cultures. Its origin is not yet clear; probably the belief that vital force resides in blood contributed much to it. The first human sacrifices were made to the dead by killing slaves and women so that they might accompany the soul of the deceased into the other life (later human victims were offered also to the spirits that populate nature). Sometimes the victims are buried alive.

Even more barbarous customs, because they demanded a greater number of victims, are found in West Africa, in the cultures of the Pacific, in the religion of the ancient Mexicans and in other parts of the world.

Human sacrifice was frequent at Benin. In February 1897 an English commercial mission was massacred by the troops of the king of Benin. The English admiral Rawson organized a punitive expedition which on 17 February took the capital of Benin by assault. When the victors entered the city they saw the ground before the altars of the idols all soaked with still fresh human blood, and everywhere lay heaped by the hundreds the victims of the sacrifices.

In ancient Mexico human sacrifices were so frequent that the victims numbered in the thousands every year; fugitive slaves, prisoners of war, boys, girls and women were sacrificed. The victims were often tortured in a horrible manner: flayed alive, or thrown alive into a pyre from which they were drawn out dying and led to the sacrificial stone. Others were sacrificed by the removal of the heart (done with an obsidian knife), which was then burned or eaten by the priests; others were drowned in the lake; others were shut up in a cave and left there to perish of hunger. Women generally had their breasts cut open. The Peruvians were less ferocious: nevertheless they offered boys and girls to the Sun and buried with the sovereign some of his wives and some of his servants, a custom also observed with great lords at their death.

Human sacrifice has been only harmful to religion: it destroyed the concept of God's fatherhood, replacing it with that of ferocious deities greedy only for blood; it strengthened cannibalism (which, however, is earlier than human sacrifice), because sacrifices with human victims often end in a cannibalistic meal; it contributed to the complete loss of liberty and of the value of the human person in the victims destined for sacrifice (prisoners of war, slaves, wives and sometimes even children). The brutalization of these societies (note that some of the most ferocious had reached a great technical and artistic development, as at Benin, in Mexico and in certain regions of the Pacific) is all the more evident from the fact that the victims often regarded their wretched condition as natural.

The belief that the vital principle resides in the blood, associated with magic, gave rise to magical rites often joined to obscene practices or to acts of terrifying ferocity. Head-hunting, often associated with anthropophagy (New Guinea and the Solomon Islands), also has the purpose of offering sacrifice to the spirits. The Aztecs from time to time waged "flowery" or "sacred" wars with the sole aim of procuring victims for sacrifice (v. also TOTEMISMO).

Renato Boccassino

III. THE SACRIFICE IN THE OLD TESTAMENT

The first examples of sacrifice in the Old Testament (Gen. 4:3 ff.; 8:20) clearly show that it is as ancient as the human race. Its original meaning according to the biblical conception is not the offering of food to the deity, something that would be in open contrast with the spirituality of Yahweh; nor is it communion of table with God, since the first biblical sacrifices (ibid. 4:3 ff.; 8:20; 22:13) are total immolation without a sacrificial banquet. Sacrifice in the Bible is essentially an expression of adoration and thanksgiving to the Lord, to which is easily associated the imperative intention of other gifts or aids and, in the case of consciousness of guilt, the desire for expiation to propitiate the deity. In fact, however, the expiatory meaning of sacrifice is not attested in the Bible before Moses. Until that time sacrifice in Israel was an act of private and voluntary worship; but when Israel was chosen to be the priestly and holy people of the true God (Ex. 19:6), it became the perennial and essential act of official worship, and as such it had its ritual norms in the Sinaitic legislation. By means of sacrifice, Yahweh sealed the covenant of alliance with his people (ibid. 24:4-8), and as a sign of favor he caused fire to descend from heaven upon Aaron's first sacrifice, consuming it (Lev. 9:24).

The various kinds of sacrifice, in particular the holocaust, recur with almost the same names in the Ugaritic tablets (Rās Samrah), earlier by some centuries than Moses. In the Bible itself mention is made of various sacrifices outside the chosen people (the Midianite Jethro, Moses' father-in-law, Ex. 18:20; Balaam, Num. 23:1, 13; Job, Job 1:7; 42:8) not to speak of the sacrifices in use among the Canaanite peoples (Lev. 18:21; 20:25). Accordingly Moses regulated and consecrated to the worship of the true God a ceremonial already practiced, purifying it of superstitious forms. On the other hand, not all and each of the minute prescriptions relating to sacrifices must necessarily be attributed to Moses: the elaboration of the ritual could have been subject, as is also admitted by Catholic exegetes, to a period of evolution, which however escapes our control because of the scarcity of sources. But without doubt the essential prescriptions are of Mosaic origin, as is also the differentiation of the various sacrifices, including that of expiation (v.).

Sacrifices are distinguished according to matter into bloody, with shedding of blood (Heb. zēbhaḥ, Gk. ḥuela), and unbloody, consisting in the "offering" of foods or perfumes (Heb. minḥāḥ "gift," from māhāḥ "to give"). The bloody ones, which were the sacrifices par excellence, were subdivided, according to purpose and rite, into holocausts, peace offerings and expiatory offerings. They were public or private, depending on whether they were offered for the entire community (like the sacrifices prescribed in the various liturgical seasons) or for the devotion or duty of individual Israelites (the sacrifices offered for the high priest and for the other priests were virtually public).

The holocaust entailed the total burning of the victim and was the latreutic sacrifice par excellence. The peace or salvation sacrifice (zēbhaḥ śēlāmīm, or briefly śēlāmīm, intensive plural) was offered in thanksgiving or for impetration or even in fulfillment of a vow: in this sacrifice the victim was partially burned (only the fatty parts); another part (the breast and the thigh, which first had to be "waved" between the altar and the sanctuary) fell to the priest; the remainder of the flesh belonged to the offerer, who ate it within the sacred precinct and invited his relatives and other persons, especially the poor, to the banquet (cf. Deut. 12:12, 18; 16:11 ff.; I Sam. 1:4 ff.; Ps. 21:26 ff.): legal purity was necessary for participation in the sacrificial banquet. In the expiatory sacrifice (hipper, probably from an Akkadian root meaning "to take away") the fundamental idea was expiation or satisfaction for some fault or external infraction of the law, or even for some stain and more serious legal impurity (e.g., leprosy); a distinction was made between the sacrifice for sin (ḥājā'āḥ "sin") and the sacrifice for trespass (l'āfām "trespass"); for the one and the other there was a diversity of rites and victims (the reason for the distinction is to be found in the lesser or greater gravity of the transgression in the sense of the law); the expiatory sacrifices were for the most part of a private character, and in individual cases the quality of the victim was prescribed; the part that was not burned on the altar was consumed by the priests; but if the expiation sacrifice was for the high priest, for the priests or for the community (as were the public ones to be offered on the occasion of the new moon, Passover, Pentecost, on each day of the Feast of Tabernacles, and above all on the Day of Atonement), the flesh was burned outside the sanctuary. In the time of the Maccabees the expiatory sacrifice for the dead is attested (II Mach. 12:43); but it is presumed to be older. The bloody sacrifices were often accompanied, with an integrative function, by unbloody sacrifices: but these could be independent acts of worship (such as the daily incense offering, the oil for the lamps, the showbread and that for Pentecost, the ears of grain for Passover, the so-called sacrifice of jealousy, that for sin offered by the poor, etc.). Besides the one for incense (for the date of the introduction of incense cf. Rev. bibl. 23 [1914], pp. 161-87), two kinds of unbloody sacrifice were distinguished: offerings of foods (properly minḥāḥ) and of drinks (nēsekh, Gr. σπωδῆ "libation"). For this purpose there served: fine wheat flour (barley flour only in the sacrifice of jealousy [Num. 5:15]), roasted grain, cakes and unleavened bread (Lev. 2), the ears of grain for Passover and the firstfruits of the loaves for Pentecost; among liquids, wine and oil. To all the oblations salt and oil were added, and to some also incense, which in turn, especially in the daily sacrifice, was sprinkled with other aromatic substances (cf. M. Löhr, Das Rauchopfer im Alten Testament, Halle 1927). The unbloody sacrifices are as ancient as the bloody ones, as the example of Cain and of Melchizedek bears witness (Gen. 4:3; 14:18).

The victims of the sacrifice were only clean and domestic animals, the only ones worthy of God and also the most precious and proper, namely cattle, sheep and goats, as well as turtledoves and pigeons; they had to be free from every stain or defect (23 imperfections were specified) and of young age (bulls generally three years old, calves and lambs not over a year, rams and goats from one to two years); only males for the paschal, holocaust and expiatory "for trespass" sacrifices (for the peace and expiatory "for sin" sacrifices animals of both sexes were admitted; in birds, according to the Talmudists, the difference of sex was not considered).

Sacrifices of human lives, widely practiced by ancient peoples (Sumerians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Germans) are severely prohibited in the Bible, which considers them as an impiety proper to the Canaanites (Lev. 18:21; 20:1-5; Deut. 12:31; 18:9 ff.). The example of Abraham is wrongly adduced by rationalists: if God ordered the patriarch to sacrifice his own son Isaac (v.) to him, it was only to put his faith and obedience to the test, as is expressly said (tentavit); in fact at the opportune moment he prevented him from carrying the sacrifice to completion and had it replaced by that of a ram (Gen. 22). The example of Jephthah (v.), who sacrificed his daughter believing himself bound to fulfill a rash vow (Judg. 11:30 ff.), only demonstrates that this judge did not have an exact notion of the true worship owed to Jahweh: as for the morality of that act, the Bible does not pronounce. The redemption of the firstborn (Ex. 13:13), rather than proving the contrary, confirms the divine prohibition of the sacrifice of human lives: since the firstborn (v.) of man could not be immolated (as was prescribed for the firstborn of animals, with the exception of the ass), they had to be redeemed by means of an offering. Unfortunately the example of the Canaanites and other neighboring peoples sometimes dragged the Israelites into that abominable practice, as is gathered from the fact that Hiel, in the rebuilding of Jericho, immolated two of his sons (I Kings 16:34; cf. Josh. 6:26, where the misdeed is the object of execution); likewise some impious princes sacrificed human lives to Moloch in Jerusalem itself, that is, in the valley of Ben-Hinnom or Gehenna (cf. II Kings 16:3; 21:6). Especially in the northern kingdom the sacrifices of children were frequent (ibid. 17:17: in that crime one of the causes of the end of the Kingdom of Israel is recognized). The Bible and the prophets have severe words of condemnation against these misdeeds (cf. Ps. 105:37 ff.; Mic. 6:7; Jer. 7:31; 19:5; 32:35; Ezek. 16:20 ff.; 20:26).

The rite was essentially the same for all bloody immolations: leading of the victim to the place of sacrifice, in the inner court of the Temple before the altar of holocausts; imposition of hands, as a sign of donation to Jahweh and also of vicarious representation (the idea of the transfer of guilt could be present only in the expiatory sacrifices); slaughtering (which ordinarily was done by an expert Levite or even by the offerer himself; the blood was collected by the priest in a bronze basin: the act could be vitiated by 3 defects); sprinkling of the blood, which was the most sacred part, held by the ancients to be the seat of life (cf. Lev. 17:1 ff.: the rite of sprinkling varied according to the quality of the sacrifices); burning of the victim (total or partial according to the various sacrifices). The sacrificial act proper consisted in the effusion and sprinkling of the blood, which together with the burning signified that the sacrificed life was offered immediately to God.

The place of the sacrifices, during the 40-year sojourn in the desert, was the court that surrounded the tabernacle. The centralization (cf. Lev. 17:1-9; Deut. 12:5-14) was maintained also afterward around the Ark; when later the Temple was built in Jerusalem, it was recognized as the only legitimate place for sacrificing (except for exceptional cases of sacrifices offered by the prophets or in places consecrated by a special divine vision: cf. Judg. 6:20-28; 13:8-23; II Sam. 24:16-25; I Kings 18:29-38; other cases are to be considered abusive). Therefore in the time of the Babylonian exile, and definitively after the destruction of Jerusalem, the sacrificial worship ceased in Israel.

In the sacrifices of the Old Testament a twofold value must be distinguished: proper and symbolic. The first, which might almost be called sacramental, because it was inherent in the rite as such, consisted in the power of eliminating the contaminations brought about by some transgression or defect, and of restoring ritual or Levitical righteousness (emundatio curvis: Heb. 9:13), enabling the person to participate legitimately in the acts of worship. The other, symbolic, was inherent in the act as an expression of the internal acts of faith, adoration, gratitude, compunction, from which it derived its spiritual efficacy.

Unfortunately this element of interiority was often neglected, the people deluding themselves that they could propitiate Yahweh with the mere external offering of choice sacrifices; the prophets protested energetically against this formalism. And if in the struggle against erroneous ideologies they sometimes expressed themselves with vehemence (cf. Am. 5:21-25; Hos. 6:6; Is. 1:11-14; Mic. 6:6-8; Jer. 6:20; 7:21 ff.; Ps. 49:7-15), they did not thereby intend to condemn sacrifices as such, willed and ordained by God himself, but to bring external worship back to its religious and moral meaning, since God cannot accept the offering of sacrifices and the observance of external rites where the internal tribute of the spirit and the compunction of the heart are lacking: what God demands with sacrifice, indeed prefers to any external act of worship, is the practice of justice and the observance of his law, in which lies the essence of true worship.

Furthermore, a typical value is recognized in the sacrifices of the Old Testament, that is, a prefigurative value in relation to the perfect sacrifice reserved for the New Testament, which is the sacrifice consummated by the God-Man on the Cross for the sins of all times, for the faults of the entire human race (cf. Heb. 9:28; 10:12). In view of and by virtue of this future sacrifice, God in his mercy accepted the ancient imperfect sacrifices, working through them in man, where the necessary dispositions were present, even a justification with the remission of sins and the conferral of grace. With the sacrifice of Christ there ceased juridically, as foretold by the prophets (cf. Dan. 9:27; Mal. 1:11), the ancient sacrifices and the whole ritual economy, imperfect and transitory, of the Old Testament (cf. Heb. 9:11-10:14).

The noblest among the sacrifices of the Old Testament was the holocaust (Gk. ὁλοκαύτωμα, or ὁλοκαύτωσις, from ὅλος, αὐτός "entirely burned," Vulg. holocaustum, holocaustma), Heb. 'alāh (from 'alāh "to ascend," in the sense, according to some, that the victim is "brought up" onto the altar, or rather that the victim "ascends" to heaven with the sacrificial fragrance); also called kālīl (among the Phoenicians ielēni kalīl) and in rabbinic literature gēnārā' "complete offering." Essential was the total combustion of the victim (with the exception of the skin, always excluded from sacrifices; according to Jewish tradition the sciatic nerve was also excluded, in memory of Jacob [cf. Gen. 32:32]; Hullin, 7, 1).

The rite is carefully described in Lev. 1:1-17 and Num. 15:3-9. The larger victims were first quartered, cut into pieces and washed; then placed to burn on the altar "as a holocaust, a combustion of sweet odor to Yahweh" (Lev. 1:9: an anthropomorphic expression to be understood obviously, as in other parts of the Bible, in a figurative sense, that is, that the sacrifice was offered in homage of adoration to Yahweh). With the blood of the victim the priest sprinkled the sides of the altar, while the sacred fire finished consuming it and the ashes were removed in the morning to a decent place outside the sacred enclosure (Ex. 29:38, 42; Lev. 6:8-13). According to Flavius Josephus the parts of the victim, before being burned, were sprinkled with salt (Antiq. Iud., III, 9, 1). The holocaust was ordinarily accompanied by unbloody offerings (libation of wine, offering of flour kneaded with oil, Num. 15:4-11). Often together with the holocaust a peace sacrifice was offered: a rite of festive intimacy that followed the act of pure adoration to Yahweh (cf. Ex. 18:12; 24:5; Josh. 8:31; Judg. 20:26; 21:4; 1 Sam. 6:14 ff., etc.).

By its essential and specific rite, the holocaust was a most solemn act of homage and adoration to God, and expressed better than any other rite or sacrifice the absolute dependence and perfect dedication of man to the Creator, in the recognition of his own nothingness and of his supreme dominion (St. Thomas, Sum. Theol., 1a-2ae, q. 102, a. 3, ad 8). Therefore it was the perfect expression of external worship, the latreutic act par excellence.

The holocaust in the Old Testament could not be missing from any feast and from the most solemn religious manifestations. Holocausts were public or private; and these, obligatory or voluntary. Among the public and solemn ones the most important was the perpetual sacrifice of a lamb (v.) or kid (two on the Sabbath) to be offered every day, morning and evening (Ex. 29:38 ff.; Num. 28:1-10), independently of any other sacrifice for particular occurrences or circumstances. For the principal religious solemnities the following holocausts were prescribed (cf. ibid. 28-29): neomenia or new moon 2 calves, 1 ram, 7 lambs; Passover, as on the new moon, but for seven continuous days; Pentecost, 1 calf, 2 rams, 7 lambs; Atonement, 1 ram for the high priest and another for the people, furthermore 1 calf and 7 lambs; Tabernacles, numerous holocausts on each of the 8 days of the solemnity (ibid. 29:13-38). Special holocausts were offered on exceptional occasions: famous for the number of victims, for example, those offered by King David for the proclamation of his son Solomon to the succession (1000 bulls and as many lambs and rams: 1 Chron. 20:21) and by Solomon when he ascended the throne (2 Chron. 1:6) and when he dedicated the Temple (ibid. 7:1-7).

Among private holocausts, some were obligatory (such were those prescribed for the consecration of the Levites, of the priests and of the high priest [Lev. 8]; for purification after childbirth [ibid. 12:6-8]; for the initiation of Nazirites [Num. 6:14-16] and for their purification from contact with a corpse [ibid. 6:10 ff.]; for purification from leprosy [Lev. 14:19 ff.]; and for the various legal purifications); others voluntary or of private devotion (to thank God for a signal benefit, to implore some grace, etc., cf. Num. 15:3, 8). The holocaust could be offered, unlike the other bloody sacrifices, even for non-Israelites. - See plate XCIX.

Gaetano Stano