sacrifice

n.

1. 1. The act of offering something to a deity in propitiation or homage, especially the ritual slaughter of an animal or a person.
   2. A victim offered in this way.
2. 1. Forfeiture of something highly valued for the sake of one considered to have a greater value or claim.
   2. Something so forfeited.
3. 1. Relinquishment of something at less than its presumed value.
   2. Something so relinquished.
   3. A loss so sustained.
4. Baseball. A sacrifice bunt or sacrifice fly.

v., -ficed, -fic·ing, -fic·es.

v.tr.

1. To offer as a sacrifice to a deity.
2. To forfeit (one thing) for another thing considered to be of greater value.
3. To sell or give away at a loss.

v.intr.

1. To make or offer a sacrifice.
2. Baseball. To make a sacrifice bunt or sacrifice fly.

[Middle English, from Old French, from Latin sacrificium : sacer, sacred; see sacred + facere, to make.]

sacrificer sac'ri·fic'er n.

For more information on sacrifice, visit Britannica.com.

The Greek myth of the origin of sacrifice links it with the aftermath of Prometheus' attempt to trick Zeus by dividing the meat of an ox into two packages and trying to persuade Zeus to pick the one that had the tempting exterior, but that contained only the bones of the beast. In animal sacrifice, it was to be these bones which were burned on the altar as the divine share: the human sacrificers and onlookers then divided out the meat according to their degree of participation in the ritual. In the classical world, animal sacrifice was a daily necessity, reminding people of a lost past in which they had once shared food with the gods, but simultaneously acting to keep up communication between the human and the divine worlds. The Christian innovation of the ‘one, true, pure, immortal sacrifice’ of the son of God thus built on classical notions of the necessity of sacrifice, but also completely overthrew them by its insistence that no further animal sacrifices were necessary.

Not all sacrifice takes the form of animal sacrifice. Bloodless offerings of cakes, fruit, and bread were also common in antiquity. In all sacrifices fire was used to consume the parts which were being dedicated to the gods; a holocaust is a sacrifice in which the chosen offering is entirely consumed by the flames.

In the late nineteenth century, scholars of religion and sociologists tried to find a general theory of sacrifice. In his Lectures on the Religion of the Semites (1894), W. Robertson Smith proposed that totemism was the basic form of sacrifice, in which the clan shed the blood of its totem animal, then consumed it in a communal meal. The great French sociologist Émile Durkheim went further, arguing that sacrifice not only bonded the members of a social group, but acted to make the group aware of its common identity and thus, in a sense, to create the group. The anthropologist René Girard saw sacrificial violence as the basis of human culture; the classical scholar Walter Burkert links it to man the hunter who, by hedging around the slaughter of animals with the observation of strict ritual practices, attempted to allay his unease about whether the animal kingdom permitted him to take the lives of its members.

The problem with all such ‘grand theories’ of sacrifice is that they cannot always take account of individual societies' different myths and practices. However, a comparative approach can be illuminating; for example, the Greek myth of the Bouphonia (Ox-slaying) suggests that the beast to be sacrificed must agree to its role, and the story of the sacrifice of Christ also makes much of the need for the sacrificial victim to be aware of his role and willing to take it on. In classical Greek sacrificial ritual, the ox was even supposed to nod its head in consent, although this was often achieved by sprinkling water on its head to make it shiver.

Human sacrifice, like cannibalism, tends to be an accusation levelled by a society against its most feared enemies, or a marginal group within it. The Romans accused the Carthaginians of sacrificing children; Christian communities from the Roman Empire onwards have accused Jewish communities of it, while Roman pagans accused the Christians of exactly the same offence. But, as the ultimate victims, human beings make perfect sense in extremis. In the biblical story, when God tested Abraham by asking him to sacrifice his only son Isaac, the command did not seem unreasonable, and the last-minute substitution of a ram became evidence that ‘The Lord will provide’. In myth and drama, the Greek leader Agamemnon thought his daughter Iphigenia was an appropriate sacrifice to ensure a good wind for the fleet sailing to Troy; in many versions of the myth, the goddess Artemis substituted an animal for Iphigenia. In ancient Rome, the burial alive of two Gauls and two Greeks was performed when the city was believed to be in serious danger.

— Helen King

noun

1. One or more living creatures slain and offered to a deity as part of a religious rite: hecatomb, immolation, offering, victim. See religion.
2. A loss sustained in the accomplishment of or as the result of something: cost, expense, price, toll¹. See transactions.

verb

To offer as a sacrifice: immolate, victimize. See give/take/reciprocity, religion.

v

Definition: give up, let go
Antonyms: hold, refuse

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Propitiation of the gods before battle by means of sacrifice was common throughout the ancient world. Animal sacrifice was a central part of early religious practice, having several stages: dedication of the sacrifice, confession of sins, slaughter of the sacrifice, spilling of blood upon the altar, consumption of the sacrifice by fire or by those offering the sacrifice. In the case of the augurs or haruspices of Rome, the animal was sacrificed to permit contemplation of the entrails for prophetic purposes.

Evidence of human sacrifice in the ancient world is not plentiful. Rome abhorred the practice and rooted it out when encountered among others, although when writing of the druidic rituals of the Celts and the taking of heads for trophies they probably exaggerated for propaganda purposes. Across the Atlantic, wholesale Aztec human sacrifice is well documented and additionally their ‘flower wars’ were fought specifically to gather captives for evisceration on the temples of the Sun. In many Amerindian cultures cannibalism, with or without sacrifice, seems to have been a spiritual rather than a dietary custom.

At an early stage, warrior societies recognized the importance of self-sacrifice battle. In a funeral oration for Athenian war dead in 431 bc, Pericles established the link between religious sacrifice and death in war, while Horace wrote ‘dulce et decorum est pro patria mori’, a useful precept for politicians and generals ever since. Examples of heroic self-sacrifice are enshrined in the annals of humankind, from Leonidas' Spartans at Thermopylae, to Byrhtnoth and his retinue at Maldon, Roland at Roncevaux, and the Light Brigade at Balaclava. The military outcome is not relevant. We do indeed ‘remember the Alamo’. Sacrifice can take the form of conscious martyrdom as with the defenders of Masada or Gordon at Khartoum. Military ends are transcended by a higher purpose or, at least, an act of desperation can be given moral meaning as with the self-immolating kamikaze in the final phase of the Pacific war against Japan.

Although Christian Communion symbolically embodies sacrifice, much theological ink has been spilled to get around ‘thou shalt not kill’. At the time of the Protestant schism, the link between religion and state power was made explicit in the saying ‘cuius regio, eius religio’. Perhaps its saddest manifestation was the holocausts of the 20th century. Perhaps the most pathetic manifestation was the cult of remembrance which arose during WW I, especially in Britain, when the experience of battle was directly equated to the sufferings of Christ and soldiers were said to have died in a state of grace. This heresy, known as patri-passionism, was quietly denounced after the war, but ‘greater love hath no man than this’ was carved not only on war memorials but also into the hearts of their grieving families.

Bibliography

• Bushaway, Bob, ‘Name upon Name: The Great War and Remembrance’, in Roy Porter (ed.), Myths of the English (London, 1992)

— Bob Bushaway

The first "religious" act was probably ritual burial (See Burial Customs). The second might well have been sacrifice. No one knows why. All we can do is guess.

It could be that the human religious response to the unknown is to bargain. "If you do that, I will give you this." As in, "If you spare my crop, I will give you the first grain." But it could also be that human response to the unknown is to bribe. "How big an offering will it take to get you to spare my fields? My first fruits? My best lamb? My firstborn?"

All we know for sure is that sacrifice is found very early in the historical record. The disturbing fact is that human sacrifice is also found very early. And the practice seems to be universal. From Europe to China and all over the Americas, rising to the heights of gruesome ritual in Central America, animal as well as human sacrifice is well documented.

Even the biblical heroes, including David and Solomon, had the idea that the bigger the sacrifice, the deeper the sincerity. At the dedication of the Great Temple, Solomon offered a sacrifice consisting of "22,000 cattle and 120,000 sheep and goats" (1 Kings 8:63). With this kind of sentiment building, it is no wonder that the Hebrew psalmist laments, "You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart" (Psalm 51:15-17).

We find the concept of sacrifice in every major religion. Practitioners of Buddhism and Hinduism tend to offer grain or vegetable sacrifices to specific deities. Those of Shinto and Confucianism tend to honor ancestors with sacrifices or offerings of fruit.

Judaism, Christianity, and Islam began with a human sacrifice-or at least an attempted one. The sacrifice of Isaac, or, according to Islamic tradition, Ishmael (See Abraham), marks the beginning of a long, involved theological journey to the present-day ritual of the Catholic Mass and the Protestant Communion service. Although Jewish sacrifices ceased with the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 ce (See Judaism, Development of), the practice is still symbolically remembered in Christianity. Jesus said, "This is my body … This is my blood … Take this in remembrance of me." The bread and wine used in these services point directly to what is understood as the sacrifice to end all sacrifices. God offered, in the closely reasoned logic of the author of the book of Hebrews, a final sacrifice that summed up all the animal sacrifices of the past (Hebrews 9 and 10). Modern Christians have "spruced up" the ritual so much that an observer might miss the meaning behind what is, in fact, the celebration of a very bloody, very painful sacrifice.

What tends to boggle the mind of most moderns, however, is that sacrifice was often seen as an honor. In Central American Indian traditions, those who were sacrificed were often willing victims. The winner of the ritual ball game (we don't really know what the rules were, but the stadiums have been excavated) joyfully accepted his death. Having proved his worthiness and received the adulation of his peers, the victim died at the very height of the greatest moment of his life. The modern equivalent would be to kill the quarterback who wins the Super Bowl. In other Central and South American villages, an innocent virgin, trained for her task, willingly gave up her life so that her grateful neighbors could have a bountiful harvest. She was honored, not pitied. At least, that's what the archaeological evidence and oral legends seem to indicate.

Even our language reveals the long history of sacrifice for the good of the tribe. In "America's game" of baseball, when a batter taps a ball down the first-base line, knowing he will be tagged out but at the same time advancing a teammate to a better scoring position, the strategy is called a "sacrifice bunt." And every Sunday afternoon during football season, a player praises a teammate who is "not afraid to sacrifice his body" for the good of the team.

Perhaps the altruistic idea of giving something up to gain something better for the community is behind the idea of ritual sacrifice. We simply don't know. What seems logical to us in this century might not even approach the reality of previous civilizations.

We will probably never know. Whatever the reasons, the practice of ritual sacrifice is one of the few universal religious rituals.

Sources: Bridger, David, ed. The New Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Behrman House, 1962. Douglas, J. D., ed. The New International Dictionary of the Christian Church. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing, 1974.

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Rationalizations of classical sacrificial practices include supposing that they dramatize the violence of killing and the associated guilt, or that they purge the killing of guilt by seeing it as part of legitimate ritual. Do ut des (Latin: I give so that you give) is the natural attempt to establish relations of reciprocity with divine powers, echoed in Christianity in God's sacrifice of his own son (see atonement).

[Ge]

The slaughter of an animal or person or the surrender of a possession as an offering to a deity. Many societies in different parts of the world and at different times practised sacrifice, often according to regularized astronomical or calendrical events relating to dangerous or critical moments. Although generally seen as ceremonial in context, sacrifice may have functional ends institutionalized in the practice itself, for example the regulation of population and the creation of an instrument of political terror.

Sacrifice is a universal religious act, one closely associated with the mythologies of particular traditions. Sacrifices are often offered to divinities in the name of society by priestly castes. The offerings themselves may be symbolic or literal, vegetable or animal. Scapegoats of various kinds may be used to substitute for living offerings that a given group is unable or unwilling to give up. For example, Abraham was instructed to offer Isaac as a sacrifice and did so, but an animal became a substitute for Isaac; the Christians say that Christ died as an offering for humanity. Sacrifices are often accomplished at sacred times of the year in sacred places. In Asian myth and religion sacrifice plays important roles. Japanese emperors offered sacrifices to the dead and to nature divinities (See Kami, Shinto entries). The Chinese Emperor, representing his people, made winter solstice sacrifices to the gods and to the dead. Sacrifice is important in the bear cults of the Ainu (See Ainu Mythology) and to the indigenous religions of Indonesia (See Hainuwele). It is central to the fire rituals of the Zoroastrians (See Zoroastrianism, Avesta). In the Hindu (See Hinduism) tradition of India sacrifice can be said to be the central issue. In the Sāṇkhya tradition, life emerges from the sacrifice of the primal male or Puruṣa (See Puruṣa), and the continuance of existence depends on the proper practice of ritual sacrifice (See Hindu Mythology, Agni, Dakṣa, Devī, Kālī, etc.). For the Hindu. He and the world itself represent a sacrifice—that which must continually be destroyed and re-created through the eons of history.

Sacrifice is the ritualistic and reverential slaughter, cooking, and distribution of meat. Conventional accounts of sacrifice stress the colorful and religious aspects of slaying an animal for the benefit of the participants' relationships with the gods. This understanding leads to the generalized use of the word "sacrifice" to mean giving up something—including other foods—in anticipation of more valuable rewards.

From the viewpoint of a cultural outsider, sacrifice may seem a brutal or incomprehensible practice. Yet historically, sacrifice has been a common practice in many tribal and agrarian societies, as have food offerings, in a more general sense. Sacrifices serve various functions: the ancient Chinese text Li chi describes ceremonies that summon spirits from above to restore social harmony. Maintaining environmental balance is also a common sacrificial motive. Sacrifices are important in the doctrines of Hindus, Jews, Christians, and Muslims: they enable participants to share a table with their deity, give thanks, atone for sins, or appease angry forces. For example, Muslims believe that the animal slaughtered at the Id al-Adha (Festival of Sacrifice) at the conclusion of their pilgrimage to Mecca will carry them to Paradise.

Social scientists have explained that dramatic rituals encourage group solidarity. The act of coming together to present gifts helps to bind members of a group together as well as any blood oath can. According to Scottish anthropologist W. Robertson Smith in The Religion of the Semites (1889), sacrifice originated in a meal shared between people and their god. French sociologist Émile Durkheim and his associates asserted that sacrifice constantly renews group consciousness of the sacred and that the all-powerful god which society worships is itself.

Ceremony promotes social cohesion, but such theories are incomplete because they do not explain why cohesion important in the first place. As stated earlier, the underlying action of a sacrifice is the coming together for the slaughter and distribution of meat. This core social action is elaborated on cultural and religious levels. The animal is not lost but is allocated to the group according to precise rules. In groups that perform sacrifices, animals are valuable enough food to warrant special attention, typically at a festival, and often the animals are large enough to warrant wider dispersal than within an immediate household. This dispersal typically takes place at some central place such as a temple.

Early Jewish celebrations of Passover traditionally required the sacrifice of one lamb for each household or for distribution among several small households; the lamb was then eaten with unleavened bread and bitter herbs (Exodus 12:1–28). This ritual is a seasonal festival that, on one level, recalls the nomadic origins of the Hebrews, who would annually gather to celebrate increased flocks. On another level, however, Passover recalls the escape from Egypt after Moses had cursed the Egyptians to suffer the death of their first-born males. To avoid this curse, the Hebrews placed on their door posts a sign made from the blood of sacrificial lambs.

Gods have traditionally played key roles in food distribution. Each temple-state in ancient Mesopotamia had its own deities who lived in the ziggurat and who were fed offerings from the surrounding farms. This tribute not only supported the temple bureaucracy and artisans but also fed the poor of the region. In other places, this type of food redistribution also took place in kingdoms that were under the leadership of warrior rulers. For example, the ancient leader King Solomon oversaw the apportioning of 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep at the dedication of his temple. These sacrifices served as a vast round of public meals, which were shared by "all Israel . . . a great assembly" from distant places. These meals also lasted for quite some time, as Solomon dismissed the crowd on the eighth day (1 Kings 8:62–66).

The role of the mageiros in ancient Greece also illustrates the social centrality of sacrifice. This same word was used for priest, cook, and butcher (which might bewilder the modern mind). Nevertheless, the common link among these individuals was that each of them was responsible for the cutting up of meat, the priest wielding his cleaver (or machaira) ritualistically, the butcher commercially, and the cook artistically.

Aztec priests gained notoriety for sacrificing human victims. In The Sacred Cow and Abominable Pig, the anthropologist Marvin Harris argues that such "warfare cannibalism" occurs when captives have greater value as meat than as slaves (pp. 199—234). Yet many claims of human sacrifice are often suspect, as they can be misrepresentations of others as "less civilized." For example, some people in the ancient world mistook Christians for cannibals because they spoke of their savior as a sacrificial lamb and of their eucharistic bread and wine as his flesh and blood.

Because the acquisition and distribution of meat are so fundamental in society, they have been surrounded by many different relationships, rituals, and meanings. The allocation can become so formalized, the portion of food "lost" to the gods so large, and sacramental feelings so profound that the process may no longer resemble sharing. In addition, many accounts have overemphasized religious meanings at the expense of focusing on the sacrificial process of cooking offerings. However, a gastronomic interpretation of sacrifices need not diminish the importance of the ties among people, natural forces, and gods that sacrifices represent. On the contrary, taking the sharing of food under serious consideration arguably grounds the religious aspects of sacrifice and increases their relevance.

In much of the world, the act of slaughtering meat has been removed from plain view to the city outskirts. It has shifted from the butcher's shop to behind a supermarket wall. The final carving of joints now tends to be kept to the kitchen, and the image of cattle is separate from that of hamburgers. Greater sympathy with ceremonial sacrifice may help reconnect meat-eaters with their metabolic universe. A keener sense of the sacred when eating meat might help counterbalance tendencies toward instant gratification, conspicuous consumption, viewing animals as commodities, and the increasingly unbalanced distribution of the world's resources. If animal-devouring gourmets do not entirely embrace such religious impulses as atonement, propitiation, divine commensalism, and thanksgiving, they might nevertheless remember that to "immolate"—from the Latin for 'sacrifice'—is to sprinkle with a condiment.

Arguing for a more materialist reverence that brings the sacred back into the kitchen, Episcopal priest Robert Farrar Capon advises cooks to remember that they inhabit "bloody ground and holy ground at once." In his recipe book and "culinary reflection," The Supper of the Lamb, he confronts the dilemma of the "bloody, unobliging reciprocity in which life lives by death, but still insists that death is robbery" (pp. 45–52).

Bibliography

Capon, Robert Farrar. The Supper of the Lamb: A Culinary Reflection. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1969.

Detienne, Marcel, and Jean-Pierre Vernant. The Cuisine of Sacrifice among the Greeks. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989.

Harris, Marvin. The Sacred Cow and the Abominable Pig: Riddles of Food and Culture. New York: Touchstone, 1987. Originally entitled Good to Eat, 1985.

Symons, Michael. "Cutting Up Cultures." Journal of HistoricalSociology 15, no. 4 (December 2002).

Symons, Michael. "The Kitchen of the Gods." Australian Religion Studies Review 11, no. 2 (Spring 1998): 114–125.

—Michael Symons

IN BRIEF: To give up something of value or meaning to the giver; an offering.

He who would accomplish little must sacrifice little; he who would accomplish much must sacrifice much. — James Allen (1855-1942), New Zealander statesman.

Quotes:

"Sacrifice, which is the passion of great souls, has never been the law of societies." - Henri Frederic Amiel

"Sacrifice still exists everywhere, and everywhere the elect of each generation suffers for the salvation of the rest." - Henri Frederic Amiel

"Sacrifice is nothing other than the production of sacred things." - Georges Bataille

"In this world it is not what we take up, but what we give up, that makes us rich." - Henry Ward Beecher

"No fine work can be done without concentration and self-sacrifice and toil and doubt." - Sir Max Beerbohm

"He who never sacrificed a present to a future good or a personal to a general one can speak of happiness only as the blind do of colors." - Olympia Brown

See more famous quotes about Sacrifice

A dream of sacrifice may indicate that the dreamer feels "martyred" because of the time and energy they have sacrificed for others. The dreamer may need to eliminate certain conditions to allow for more productive and rewarding experiences.

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Common misspelling(s) of sacrifice

• sacrafice

Dansk (Danish)
n. - offer, ofring, tab
v. tr. - ofre, sælge med tab
v. intr. - blote

Nederlands (Dutch)
opofferen, offeren, offer, (zelf)opoffering

Français (French)
n. - (Relig, fig) sacrifice, (Relig) sacrifice (humain)
v. tr. - (fig) sacrifier, (Relig) offrir (qch) en sacrifice
v. intr. - se sacrifier

Deutsch (German)
n. - Opfer, Opferung, Opfergabe
v. - opfern

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - θυσία, εξιλαστήριο θύμα, (ιερό) σφάγιο
v. - θυσιάζω/-ομαι

Italiano (Italian)
sacrificare, sacrificio

Português (Portuguese)
n. - sacrifício (m)
v. - sacrificar

Русский (Russian)
жертва, жертвоприношение, жертвовать, совершать жертвоприношение

Español (Spanish)
n. - ofrenda, sacrificio
v. tr. - sacrificar, inmolar, vender sin beneficio
v. intr. - sacrificar (ofrecer sacrificios)

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - offer, uppoffring
v. - uppoffra, offra, sälja med förlust, blota, offrande

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
祭牲, 祭品, 牺牲, 献祭, 牺牲的行为, 赔本出售, 献出, 作牺牲打

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 祭牲, 祭品, 犧牲, 獻祭, 犧牲的行為
v. tr. - 犧牲, 賠本出售, 獻出, 獻祭
v. intr. - 獻祭, 作犧牲打

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 산 재물, 희생, 투매
v. tr. - ~을 제물로 바치다, 희생하다, 헐값에 팔다, 희생타로 진루 시키다
v. intr. - 산 제물을 바치다, 희생타 번트를 대다

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - いけにえ, 犠牲, 投げ売り
v. - 犠牲にする, いけにえにささげる, 犠打で進塁させる, 投げ売りする

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) تضحيه, قربان او ذبيحه (فعل) يضحي, تقديم الذبيحه‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮קורבן, הקרבה עצמית, ויתור, אובדן‬
v. tr. - ‮הקריב‬
v. intr. - ‮מכר בהפסד‬

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festival of sacrifice