Pagan and Christian Creeds [56]
for the ridicule of the scoffers and enemies of the Church; and here, it might easily be thought, is a belief which--whether it be considered glorious or whether contemptible--is at any rate unique, and peculiar to that Church.
And yet the extraordinary fact is that a similar belief ranges all through the ancient religions, and can be traced back to the earliest times. The word host which is used in the Catholic Mass for the bread and wine on the Altar, supposed to be the transubstantiated body and blood of Christ, is from the Latin Hostia which the dictionary interprets as "an animal slain in sacrifice, a sin-offering." It takes us far far back to the Totem stage of folk-life, when the tribe, as I have already explained, crowned a victim-bull or bear or other animal with flowers, and honoring it with every offering of food and worship, sacrificed the victim to the Totem spirit of the tribe, and consumed it in an Eucharistic feast--the medicine-man or priest who conducted the ritual wearing a skin of the same beast as a sign that he represented the Totem- divinity, taking part in the sacrifice of 'himself to himself.' It reminds us of the Khonds of Bengal sacrificing their meriahs crowned and decorated as gods and goddesses; of the Aztecs doing the same; of Quetzalcoatl pricking his elbows and fingers so as to draw blood, which he offered on his own altar; or of Odin hanging by his own desire upon a tree. "I know I was hanged upon a tree shaken by the winds for nine long nights. I was transfixed by a spear; I was moved to Odin, myself to myself." And so on. The instances are endless. "I am the oblation," says the Lord Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita,[1] "I am the sacrifice, I the ancestral offering." "In the truly orthodox conception of sacrifice," says Elie Reclus,[2] "the consecrated offering, be it man, woman or virgin, lamb or heifer, cock or dove, represents tHE DEITY HIMSELF. . . . Brahma is the 'imperishable sacrifice'; Indra, Soma, Hari and the other gods, became incarnate in animals to the sole end that they might be immolated. Perusha, the Universal Being, caused himself to be slain by the Immortals, and from his substance were born the birds of the air, wild and domestic animals, the offerings of butter and curds. The world, declared the Rishis, is a series of sacrifices disclosing other sacrifices. To stop them would be to suspend the life of Nature. The god Siva, to whom the Tipperahs of Bengal are supposed to have sacrificed as many as a thousand human victims a year, said to the Brahamins: 'It is I that am the actual offering; it is I that you butcher upon my altars.' "
[1] Ch. ix, v. 16.
[2] Primitive Folk, ch. vi.
It was in allusion to this doctrine that R. W. Emerson, paraphrasing the Katha-Upanishad, wrote that immortal verse of his:-
If the red slayer thinks he slays, Or the slain thinks he is slain, They know not well the subtle ways I take, and pass, and turn again.
I say it is an astonishing thing to think and realize that this profound and mystic doctrine of the eternal sacrifice of Himself, ordained by the Great Spirit for the creation and salvation of the world--a doctrine which has attracted and fascinated many of the great thinkers and nobler minds of Europe, which has also inspired the religious teachings of the Indian sages and to a less philosophical degree the writings of the Christian Saints--should have been seized in its general outline and essence by rude and primitive people before the dawn of history, and embodied in their rites and ceremonials. What is the explanation of this fact?
It is very puzzling. The whole subject is puzzling. The world-wide adoption of similar creeds and rituals (and, we may add, legends and fairy tales) among early peoples, and in far-sundered places and times is so remarkable that it has given the students of these subjects 'furiously to think'[1]--yet for the most part without great success in the way of finding a solution. The supposition that (1) the creed, rite or legend in question has sprung up, so to
And yet the extraordinary fact is that a similar belief ranges all through the ancient religions, and can be traced back to the earliest times. The word host which is used in the Catholic Mass for the bread and wine on the Altar, supposed to be the transubstantiated body and blood of Christ, is from the Latin Hostia which the dictionary interprets as "an animal slain in sacrifice, a sin-offering." It takes us far far back to the Totem stage of folk-life, when the tribe, as I have already explained, crowned a victim-bull or bear or other animal with flowers, and honoring it with every offering of food and worship, sacrificed the victim to the Totem spirit of the tribe, and consumed it in an Eucharistic feast--the medicine-man or priest who conducted the ritual wearing a skin of the same beast as a sign that he represented the Totem- divinity, taking part in the sacrifice of 'himself to himself.' It reminds us of the Khonds of Bengal sacrificing their meriahs crowned and decorated as gods and goddesses; of the Aztecs doing the same; of Quetzalcoatl pricking his elbows and fingers so as to draw blood, which he offered on his own altar; or of Odin hanging by his own desire upon a tree. "I know I was hanged upon a tree shaken by the winds for nine long nights. I was transfixed by a spear; I was moved to Odin, myself to myself." And so on. The instances are endless. "I am the oblation," says the Lord Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita,[1] "I am the sacrifice, I the ancestral offering." "In the truly orthodox conception of sacrifice," says Elie Reclus,[2] "the consecrated offering, be it man, woman or virgin, lamb or heifer, cock or dove, represents tHE DEITY HIMSELF. . . . Brahma is the 'imperishable sacrifice'; Indra, Soma, Hari and the other gods, became incarnate in animals to the sole end that they might be immolated. Perusha, the Universal Being, caused himself to be slain by the Immortals, and from his substance were born the birds of the air, wild and domestic animals, the offerings of butter and curds. The world, declared the Rishis, is a series of sacrifices disclosing other sacrifices. To stop them would be to suspend the life of Nature. The god Siva, to whom the Tipperahs of Bengal are supposed to have sacrificed as many as a thousand human victims a year, said to the Brahamins: 'It is I that am the actual offering; it is I that you butcher upon my altars.' "
[1] Ch. ix, v. 16.
[2] Primitive Folk, ch. vi.
It was in allusion to this doctrine that R. W. Emerson, paraphrasing the Katha-Upanishad, wrote that immortal verse of his:-
If the red slayer thinks he slays, Or the slain thinks he is slain, They know not well the subtle ways I take, and pass, and turn again.
I say it is an astonishing thing to think and realize that this profound and mystic doctrine of the eternal sacrifice of Himself, ordained by the Great Spirit for the creation and salvation of the world--a doctrine which has attracted and fascinated many of the great thinkers and nobler minds of Europe, which has also inspired the religious teachings of the Indian sages and to a less philosophical degree the writings of the Christian Saints--should have been seized in its general outline and essence by rude and primitive people before the dawn of history, and embodied in their rites and ceremonials. What is the explanation of this fact?
It is very puzzling. The whole subject is puzzling. The world-wide adoption of similar creeds and rituals (and, we may add, legends and fairy tales) among early peoples, and in far-sundered places and times is so remarkable that it has given the students of these subjects 'furiously to think'[1]--yet for the most part without great success in the way of finding a solution. The supposition that (1) the creed, rite or legend in question has sprung up, so to