How Patrick may have convinced the Celts to turn from ritual killings to the one who died for all.
Thomas Cahill | posted 10/01/1998 12:00AM
All early peoples sacrificed human beings. One has only to remember Agamemnon's sacrifice to angry Artemis of the most beautiful thing he possessed, his daughter Iphigenia. But this was a story of the Greek Iron Age, no more present to the Romanized world into which Patrick was born than public executions are to ours. For us, it is a strain to find any surviving elements of sacrifice—cut flowers, Christmas trees, vigil lights, and the Mass may be the last vestiges—but in the Roman world animal sacrifices were still offered.
It seems that at some point in the development of every culture, human sacrifice becomes unthinkable, and animals are from then on substituted for human victims. The story of the binding of Isaac in Genesis may constitute symbolically just such a turning point in the history of the Jews—when Abraham's God tells him it is no longer required that he sacrifice his only son but may substitute a ram instead. The Irish had not reached this point and were still sacrificing ...
To view this item, you must be a member of ChristianHistory.net.
If you ARE a member of ChristianHistory.net…
Please login:
If you are NOT a member of ChristianHistory.net…
Please click here to see our membership options. As a member, you will be able to have access to all of the content on ChristianHistory.net.
