9 - Horrors and holocausts, sacrifices and priests: Christ as priest and victim

Summary

Cultic reconnection

Horrors threaten to ruin human lives. Horror–participation strains Divine–human relations to the breaking point. Cult condenses cosmos, becomes a focal scene of Divine–human relationship development. It is a scene of close encounters: even if God is supposed to be everywhere, Divine presence and influence certainly not confined to temple precincts, there is still the notion that by coming to the holy place one is drawing near to God. Cult is a scene of obstacle-removals: most notably, cult defines the etiquette that allows humans and divinities to share the same social space, furnishes ritual remedies by means of which offenses and disabling conditions can be recontextualized and removed. Cult is a scene of covenant-making, of covenant-renewal, and of payment of vows. It is also a scene of thanks and praise, of celebration and consummation.

In the Bible, patriarchal religion linked theophany with cereal and animal sacrifice. Tabernacle, shrine, and temple focussed worship in sacrificial rites, and codified elaborate rules and regulations as to who, what, when, where, how, and why. Nor was this an Israelite invention. Sacrificial emphasis was widely taken for granted and crossculturally shared. Nor was this a fleeting cultural phenomenon. Despite critiques, sacrificial cult – including the offering of animals – remained entrenched in majority-report religion in the Roman empire until Constantine. Christians and Jews (after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE) stood alone in refusing any longer to participate in the sacrifice of bulls and goats, birds and lambs.