Animal Sacrifices in Christianity?! August 4, 2014
Author: Beach Combing | in : Ancient, Medieval, Modern , trackback
Christians don’t sacrifice animals, do they? There is some uncomfortable stuff to do with sacrificing Christ in the mass: particularly if you believe in transubstantiation. But that’s a man/god. Yes, Christians routinely kill animals either directly or as consumers: the growth of vegetarianism in the west in the last century has nothing to do with the Gospels. And no Paul never told the Corinthians to stop eating veal. However, in the wide bounds of Christendom there are some curious examples where Christian communities killed animals with ritual precision. Two well documented – but little known – examples, follow: any other cases to add would be most gratefully received, drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com It feels like the kind of stuff that should have got into The Golden Bough, but didn’t.
The first instance comes from the Madonna del Sasso, a Marian sanctuary to the north of Florence (Italy). A calf was, as little as a century ago, chosen (‘la bestia della madonna’!) and was well treated by all the local farmers and given some degree of freedom. The calf grew and, when a fat cow, was brought by locals to the sanctuary on the second Sunday of May, tied to a special stone and killed, its blood pouring out into a channel carved in the rock. The faithful, then, gathered up its blood and took this home. This carried on until 1914! It would be important to find out the earliest evidence for this custom. All the local literature claims that it is is a pagan ritual and, therefore, assume that it predates the building of the monastery in the late fifteenth century. Perhaps.
One of the nice things about being English is that you read these things and can feel frankly superior about… And then Beach stumbled upon the record of Kingsteignton, Devon in south-western England. In the late nineteenth century a description emerged of a lamb ‘sacrifice’ in the village and was discussed by various folklore authorities including Gomme and Baring Gould. Essentially… On Whit Monday a lamb was put on a cart and driven around with garlands and everyone was expected to give something to the lamb. Then the next day it was killed and roasted in the middle of the village, the meat being given cheap to the poor. Apparently at an earlier date the lamb was killed in a stream bed. A secular version of the lamb killing continues to this day. Gomme incidentally flags up a parallel custom from nearby Holne (again Devon).
In both these cases the locality saw the killing as a ‘sacrifice’ and believed the custom dated back to pre-Christian times: most historians should find that suspect in itself. Gregory the Great, in the early seventh century, famously suggested that converting populations should be allowed to continue to sacrifice animals in a period of transition: but there are, maybe, medieval contexts in which animal killing could have been ritualized? Again too bad Frazer didn’t get his hands on this as, whatever his theories, he would have gathered a lot of comparative material.
4 Aug 2014: Christians Sacrificing Animals: KS writes in with some modern examples on this site (interesting page). The most interesting examples come from various Judaic versions of Christianity. E.g. ‘There is a Christmas card that I will probably never send. I would not dare to. It is a cross of Jesus drawn in fresh blood from an animal sacrifice. Although slaughter for sacrifice contradicts a basic belief of Christianity, it is practiced by local Catholics, Greek Orthodox and other Christians at the ruined Byzantine church of Saint George in the village of Taybeh, 20 miles from Jerusalem. “Around 70 to 80 lambs are sacrificed here each year,” said the Roman Catholic priest, Father Raed. Similar sacrifices are also made in the towns of Lodd, Jaffa, al-Khadar and elsewhere in the Holy Land.’ Meanwhile, Chris from Haunted Ohio Books writes: LAMB USED AS A SACRIFICE Indianapolis Church Killed a Lamb and Dipped a Dove in Its Blood Indianapolis, Ind., July 9. Emblematic of the feast of the Passover, a lamb was slain and in its blood was dipped a dove, which was then turned loose, at Penich chapel this afternoon. Moses, Aaron, Caleb and Joshua, in their long robes, preached and the sons and daughters of Israel, also in costume, sung Hallelujahs and took up the collection. This unique service was celebrated before a large crowd of colored and white people as a feature of the old-fashioned colored camp meeting held by the African Methodist Episcopal Zion church of Northwood. The carcass of the lamb was later roasted and sold out in sandwiches at 10 cents each to help pay the indebtedness of the church. A large crowd collected in the tent at an early hour yesterday to see the slaughter of the lamb and the flight of the dove. Rev. P. Stickland, a socialist leader, was addressing the congregation on trusts and monopolies when suddenly a procession was seen, which diverted the attention of the audience until he had to desist. The Rev. E. E. Brown as Moses, the Rev. S.M. Puryear as Aaron, the Rev. Sidney Penick as Joshua, and the Rev. James A. Davis as Caleb, all in improvised robes and black capes, were followed by a lamb tied by a rope, and behind came colored women and children as the “children of Israel,” arrayed in white, pink, red and blue robes. After sermons and songs and collections, the lamb, which had been bleating throughout the service, was laid on a table. The people stood on the seats and on the backs of the benches and fell over one another in an effort to see the slaughter, while Paul Nieman, a butcher, cut the lamb’s throat. A pigeon was dipped in the blood and turned loose, alighting on a shed nearby. Some shouted and others whispered that it was sacrilegious. In his sermon the Rev. Mr. Brown said: “This is simply a memorial. Our people are straying from the righteous way; negroes are being hanged and burned almost every day. God is doing it because my people have left God. Forty years ago you were liberated from slavery by Abraham Lincoln. Let this service remind you that you are free from bondage. Sprinkle the blood of repentance above the doorposts of your hearts and clear guilty consciences.” Grand Forks [ND] Daily Herald 10 July 1904: p. 10. Thanks Chris and KS!
14 August 2014: MR meanwhile writes in: I do not know if you have come across the tale of Clyde Lott, the Pentecostal Pastor, and the Red Heifers. The short version is that Lott believes that the ashes of a ritually sacrificed pure red heifer are necessary for the purifying of the Jews before the building of the Third temple; which in turn will precipitate the second coming of Christ and / or teh Rapture … This has he and a group of ultra orthodox collaborating: (1) (2)
