Sacrifice
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Sacrifice is the giving something up for the deities. Many religions have had sacrifices and rules about them. Many pagan peoples made animal sacrifices to their deities[1] and sometimes human sacrifices. The Greek play Iphigenia by Euripides contains an example of this as Iphigenia's human sacrifice is substituted by the animal sacrifice of a stag to Artemis. In the Old Testament, Jewish peoples used the laws about animal sacrifices in the Book of Leviticus and sacrificed animals to Yahweh. Cattle and pigeons were butchered and eaten to make successful atonement with Yahweh for instance. In the New Testament, Yahweh's mortal human incarnation as Jesus's death on the cross is the substitutionary atonement for the sins of all the people in the world.
Sacrifice Media
Marcus Aurelius and members of the Imperial family offer sacrifice in gratitude for success against Germanic tribes: contemporary bas-relief, Capitoline Museum, Rome.
Animal sacrifice offered together with libation in Ancient Greece. Attic red-figure oinochoe, c. 430–425 BC (Louvre).
Aztec human sacrifice, from Codex Mendoza, 16th century (Bodleian Library, Oxford).
A sacrificed pig during Ghost Festival
Artwork depicting the Sacrifice of Jesus: Christ on the Cross by Carl Heinrich Bloch
A page from the Waldburg Prayer Book illustrating the celebration of the Holy Eucharist on Earth before the Holy Trinity and the Virgin Mary in Heaven
Related pages
References
- ↑ Arieh Kofsky, Eusebius of Caesarea Against Paganism (Boston: Brill Academic Publishers, 2002), p. 119
Other websites
- Sacrifice at Catholic encyclopaedia