Church and State as Seen in the Formation of Christendom

by T. W. Allies

“In Gentilism as in Judaism, actual sacrifices of animals are everywhere the rule; beside them, in particular cases, offerings also of vegetable substances. Indeed, sacrifices were offered not merely for expiation, but wherever man had need of the gods, or reason to thank them, on all important moments of life, at the beginning and end of every weighty action, in order to maintain and make manifest the unbroken connection of man with God.

“Those most ancient domestic precepts recorded by Hesiod enjoin on every one, at declining and at dawning day, to conciliate the gods, with pure and chaste heart, by holy sprinklings and fragrant perfume, that their heart may incline to us with good-will and peace, and as often as thou returnest from a journey, offer fair sacrifices to the immortal gods. In family life sacrifices were made specially at birth, marriage, and death. The Cretans, who considered human marriage as a transcript of the heavenly marriage between Zeus and Hera, made offerings on occasion of it specially to these gods. If a man wished to marry at Athens, he first made his prayers and sacrifices to the so-called Tritapatores, the first father’s of life, for the happy generation of children, since no birth takes place without God. At the marriage itself, again, there were sacrifices, when the gall of the victim was thrown behind the altar to signify that no bitterness should infect their union. Moreover, the bride at Athens was introduced by a sacrifice into her husband’s race; and again, a victim was offered upon the inscription of children on the tribe list. At Sparta mothers were wont, on the espousal of their daughters, to make offerings to Aphrodité Hera, the goddess of married love; the Bœotians and Locrians to Artemis Euklea; the maidens of Haliartus made a preparatory gift to the fountain Kissoessa, according to ancestral custom. If the marriage was blest by a child, a sacrifice was offered for this on the seventh or tenth day after the birth, and thereupon the child was named. At death, again, sacrifices were offered for the peace of departed souls, as well by individuals as by the commonwealth. According to Plato, it was an orphic doctrine that there were certain deliverances and purifications which availed also for the dead. The gravestones were anointed and crowned with flowers, pyres were erected, and victims slaughtered on them, or cakes were thrown into the fire, holes made in the earth, and libations of wine, milk, and honey poured into them. Only no sacrifices were offered for children, because, as they had departed unstained by intercourse with earthly things, they needed no further reconcilement. Plutarch describes the great public sacrifice for the dead which the Platæans, in late times, continued to offer yearly for those who had fallen in battle against the Persians.

“In agricultural life, also, which is the beginning and foundation of all religious habit, every important moment was sanctified by sacrifice. The Athenians, at the beginning of tillage, before they turned up the land, offered the preparatory sacrifice to Demeter[88] for the prosperity of the future fruits, and are said on one occasion, in the fifth Olympiad, at a time of general dearth, to have made such an offering for all Hellas at the command of the Delphic god. So at the end of the winter, when the fruits of the field began to grow, all the magistrates, from eldest time, offered the previous thanksgiving[89] to Athené, the protectress of the city. So they offered at Rome, at the time of the pear-tree blossom, before ploughing, vows and grain cakes, for the health of the labouring oxen; then before harvest offerings to Ceres of bread and wine, and so again when a wood was cleared, at the digging and blessing of the fields. So both peoples were wont in general to give the first-fruits of everything which the favour of the gods gave to them; fruits of the field as of the herd, of the vintage, and of the trees; the former liquid, and the latter solid. These first-fruits represented the whole mass, for all the productions of nature belong to the Giver thereof. Aristotle holds the offering of such first-fruits of the field to be the oldest kind of offerings in general, and a Roman writer finely says, since the ancients lived in the belief that all nourishment, the fatherland, nay, life itself, is a gift of the gods, they were wont to offer something to these of everything, more to show their gratitude than because they believed that the gods needed it. Hence, before they ate anything of the new fruits, they consecrated a portion to the gods; and since they possessed both fields and cities in fee from the gods, they dedicated to them a portion for temples and chapels, and some were wont to offer to them the hair, as the topmost portion of the body, for the sound state of the rest. Thus the Bhagavadgita[90] says: ‘Sacrifice to the gods; they will give you the wished-for food. He who eats what they have given without first offering therefrom is a thief; they who ate what remained of the sacrifice are free from all sins.’ The fathers of families made an offering every month to Hecaté for reparation of sins committed in the house. Certain dishes were prepared and carried through the whole house, while the curse which rested on evil deeds committed was put therein, and then they were placed at midnight upon a cross-road. Whoever ate of this, it was believed he took the curse into him with the food. Only curs and currish men did it.

“Sacrifices were connected not less with all important acts of political life. ‘Those before us,’ says Philo, ‘began every good action with perfect victims, deeming this the best means to bring about a good end to them,’ In the consciousness that all were stained with sin, but that sinful men could discover no good counsel, swine were sacrificed before every assembly of the people at Athens, and their blood sprinkled as a purification over the seats of the meeting. A priest then carried certain parts of the victim round the assembly, and cast their sins into these parts. When this was done, incense was offered, and the same priest went with a vessel of holy water round, blessing the assembled people therewith for the matter which it was to undertake. Then the herald recited the customary prayers, and the consultation at last began. The sacrifices by which the council, the generals, the Prytanes, and all public magistrates entered on office were similar. In like manner sacrifices preceded the sittings of justice and the taking of oaths. In war no important step was taken before the sacrifices were prosperous and announced a good result. Sacrifice was offered at the first start, at the passage of boundaries and rivers, at making an advance, at taking ship, at landing, before assault of besieged cities, before battle, and after victory. The Athenian generals were wont specially to sacrifice to Hermes, the leader. All truces, peace-makings, leagues, and treaties were accompanied with sacrifice. A direction was attached to all sacrifices ordered by law or oracular decrees, that they should be according to the hereditary three customs, that is, take place on months, days, and years, i.e., solar years, lunar months, and days of the month. Plato enjoins, as in Athens was really the fact, that on every day of the year the magistrate should offer sacrifice to a god or genius for the city and its inhabitants, their goods and chattels. Of Julian, the last emperor attached to the Hellenic worship, it is expressly said that he, not only on new moons, but every day, welcomed the rising sun-god with a bloody victim, and accompanied his setting with another, and served the gods not by other hands, but himself took part in the sacrifice, ran about the altar, took up the mallet and held the knife, and that, in order the better to discharge these duties, he had built a temple to the sun-god in the midst of his palace. The shedding of blood was everywhere the bond of union between man and man, and between man and God; to the commonwealth the guarantee of its security, the firmest pillar of its government.”

If we extend this description of the prevalence of sacrifices among the Greeks and Romans to all the nations of antiquity, we shall be able to form a conception which, after all, will be very feeble when compared with the reality, of the degree in which the whole religious life between man and God, the national life in the various nations, the social life in each nation, the domestic life in each family, was alike dominated by the idea and practice of bloody sacrifice.

The ceremonial of sacrifice was as follows: “The sacrificial usages themselves were very solemn. Everything expressed that the sacrifice was made freely and joyously. Those who offered to the heavenly gods wore white robes, and crowns on the head and in the hands. Those who offered to the gods beneath the earth were robed in black. The victim was also crowned and adorned with ribbons, and on solemn occasions its horns were gilt. It was led by a loose cord, to indicate that it followed willingly and of its own accord. If the animal took to flight, that was a bad prognostic. It had to be put to death, but might not be led up again to the altar. Before touching the sacrificial utensils, the hands were washed in order to approach the holy with purity. As with us, a boy poured water over the hands of the sacrificant. Then the sacrificial cake or sacred salt-meal and the knife of sacrifice were brought in a basket and carried round the altar. A branch of laurel or olive, symbol of purification and peace, was dipped in the water-stoup and the bystanders sprinkled therewith. The holy water itself was consecrated with prayers and the dipping into it of a firebrand from the altar. Silence was then enjoined, and when the profane had been dismissed with such words as ‘Depart, depart, whoever is a sinner,’ the herald cried with a loud voice, ‘Who is here?’ those present answered, ‘Many, and they pious.’ Then the proper prayer of sacrifice began for the gracious acceptance of what was offered; and after the victim had been proved sound and faultless, a line was drawn to mark its willingness with the back of the sacrificial knife from the forehead to the tail, and grain was poured over its neck until by nodding it seemed to give its consent to be sacrificed. Then there were fresh prayers; the priest took a cup of red wine, tasted the blood of the vine, allowed also those present to drink of it, and poured the remainder between the animal’s horns. Then the hair of its forehead was cut off and cast into the fire as a firstling; incense was kindled, and the remaining grain finally poured upon the altar with music of pipe and flute, that no ill-omened word might be heard during the sacred action. In specially solemn sacrifices there were also choral hymns and dances. The animal was struck with the axe and its throat cut; when the sacrifice was to the gods above, with hands raised towards heaven; when to the gods below, with head bowed to the earth. The blood was then received in a vessel and partly poured out upon the altar, partly sprinkled on those around, that they might be delivered from sin. Especially all who wished to have a portion in the sacrifice had to touch the victim and the sacrificial ashes. According to the oldest usage the whole victim was burnt; later only certain portions—the head and feet (the extremities for the whole), the entrails, especially the heart as the seat of life, the shanks as the place of strength, and the fat as the best portion. Then red wine, unmixed, was poured upon the flames. The sacrificers consumed the rest, as in the Hebrew thank-offerings and among the Egyptians and Indians, in a sacred festive meal; among the Arcadians, masters and slaves altogether. Such meals were usual from the most ancient time after the completion of the sacrifice, and in them originally the gods were considered to sit as guests with men. All sang thereby, as law and custom determined, sacred hymns, that during the meal moral comeliness and respect might not be transgressed, and the harmony of song might consecrate the words and the conduct of the speakers. By this common partaking of the pure sacrificial flesh, the communion of the offered meats, a substantially new life was to be implanted in the partakers; for all who eat of one sacrifice are one body.

“Hence the first Christians obstinately refused to eat of the flesh of heathen victims. ‘I had rather die than feed on your sacrifices.’ ‘If any one eat of that flesh he cannot be a Christian.’[91] At the end of the feast, as it seems, the herald dismissed the people with the words λαοῖς ἄφεσις—Ite, missa est.”

Thus we find that sacrifice existed from the beginning of history in all nations, and was associated with prayer; the two together made up worship, and the spiritual acts of the mind, expressed in prayer, were not considered complete without sacrifice, a corporeal act as it were, so that the homage of soul and body together constituted the complete act of fealty on the part of man to his Maker. But we find also more than this. The spiritual acts which are contained in prayer, as the expression of an innocent creature to his Creator, are three: adoration, which recognises the supreme majesty of God; thanksgiving, which specially dwells on the benefits received from Him; and petition, which speaks the perpetual need of Him felt by the creature. And with these in a state of innocence prayer would stop. But if the harmony between the Creator and the creature has been broken, if sin has been committed, and a sense of guilt arising from that sin exists, then prayer expresses a fourth need of the creature, which does not exist in the state of innocence—the need of expiation. Now offerings of the natural fruits of the earth, of whatever kind, correspond, it is plain, to the three former parts of prayer—to adoration, thanksgiving, and petition for support; but the bloody sacrifice of living creatures, in which occurs the pouring out of their blood in a solemn rite, the presentation of it to God, and the sprinkling of the people with it, can only be accounted for by a consciousness in man of guilt before God. The existence of a rite so peculiar in so many nations, and its association everywhere with the most solemn act of prayer, is not accounted for even by such a consciousness alone; for what power had the shedding of an animal’s blood to remove the sense of guilt in man or to propitiate God? There was no doubt the consciousness of guilt on man’s part, but what should ever lead him, of himself, to conceive such a mode of expiating his guilt, such a mode of propitiating God? It was much more natural for him to conceive that the act of pouring out the blood of a creature, in which was its life, the most precious gift of the Creator, would be an offence to that Creator, the Lord of life, its Giver and Maintainer. Thus the act of bloody sacrifice can only be accounted for as in its origin a directly divine institution, a positive law of God. As such it is plainly recognised by Moses when he introduces it in the history of Cain and Abel, where, in the first man’s children, it appears as already existing. God alone, the absolute Lord of life, could attach together prayer and bloody sacrifice, and enact that the worship which He would receive from His creature, the worship which not only adored Him as Creator, thanked Him as Benefactor, asked His help as Preserver, but likewise acknowledged guilt before Him for sin committed, should be made up of a compound act, that of solemn prayer, and that of shedding and offering blood, and partaking of a victim so offered. The rite of bloody sacrifice is, therefore, the record of the Fall stamped by the hand of God on the forehead of the human race at its first starting in the state of guilt. The death of a vicarious victim was the embodiment of the doctrine that man had forfeited his life by disobedience to God his Creator, and that he should be restored by the effusion of the blood of an innocent victim. The fact of the concentration of these four acts of prayer about the rite of bloody sacrifice, through all Gentilism, as well as in Judaism, has no end of significance.

This conclusion was drawn by St. Augustine,[92] who says: “Were I to speak at length of the true sacrifice, I should prove that it was due to no one but the one true God; and this the one true Priest, the Mediator of God and men, offered to Him. It was requisite that the figures promissive of this sacrifice should be celebrated in animal victims, as a commendation of that flesh and blood which were to be, through which single victim might take place the remission of sins contracted of flesh and blood, which shall not possess the kingdom of God, because that self-same substance of the body shall be changed into a heavenly quality. This was signified by the fire in the sacrifice, which seemed to absorb death into victory. Now such sacrifices were duly celebrated in that people whose kingdom and whose priesthood were both a prophecy of the King and Priest who was to come, that He might rule, and that He might consecrate the faithful in all nations, and introduce them to the kingdom of heaven, the sanctuary of the angels, and eternal life. Now this being the true sacrifice, as the Hebrews celebrated religious predictions of it, so the Pagans celebrated sacrilegious imitations; for in the Apostle’s words, what the Gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice to devils and not to God. For an ancient thing is that immolation of blood, carrying an announcement of the future, testifying from the beginning of the human race the Passion of the Mediator that was to be, for Abel is the first in sacred writ recorded to have offered this.”

The rite of bloody sacrifice, thus enacted by God, and set by Him upon flesh and blood as a perpetual prophecy, is one of those acts of supreme worship which may be offered to God alone. “Genuflexions,” says St. Thomas,[93] “prostrations, and other indications of such-like honour, may be offered also to men, though with a different intent; but no one has judged that sacrifice should be offered to any one unless he esteemed him to be God, or pretended so to esteem him. But the external sacrifice represents the internal true sacrifice, according to which the human mind offers itself to God. Now, our mind offers itself to God as being the Source of its creation, as being the Author of its operation, as being the End of its beatitude; and these three things belong to the supreme principle of things alone. Whence man is bound to offer the worship of sacrifice to the one supreme God alone, but not to any spiritual substances.”