Modern Sacrifice

[LSCatilina]

My concern is principally with late antiquity in my comments. Sacrifice continued there and in physical form, not just symbolic.[/QUOTE]
I didn't said it was the case : just argued that how organized religion in medieval Europe tended to theologize rather than going trough large demonstrations. I do agree that I forgot about mysteries cult, tough.

Robert Turcan, Les cultes orientaux a l'empire romain is very helpful on these cults.

Well, I'll give a look on it when I could.
Heureusement, je n'aurais pas à m'embêter avec la traduction anglaise.

I don't wish to sound dogmatic or uncivil, but I do have some academic expertise in these areas.

Frankly? It's exactly what you sounded like. I don't have the same expertise than you had (and never claimed this), and had to look to what I do have as sources avaibles. I do thanks for giving some others to me, maybe more accurate when it comes to the transition.

 

[clem attlee]

My concern is principally with late antiquity in my comments. Sacrifice continued there and in physical form, not just symbolic.

I didn't said it was the case : just argued that how organized religion in medieval Europe tended to theologize rather than going trough large demonstrations. I do agree that I forgot about mysteries cult, tough.


Well, I'll give a look on it when I could.
Heureusement, je n'aurais pas à m'embêter avec la traduction anglaise.


Frankly? It's exactly what you sounded like. I don't have the same expertise than you had (and never claimed this), and had to look to what I do have as sources avaibles. I do thanks for giving some others to me, maybe more accurate when it comes to the transition.[/QUOTE]

Well, as an M.A, you'll know that academic discourse can be very robust. You held your ground well and I learned from many of your comments. I think a lot of people on this site just look at wikipedia and allude to that. It tends to make me irascible. If I sounded uncivil, then I apologise unhesitatingly. You have my respect, mon vieux. In fact, I think lot of your comments about the middle ages very sensible, especially about the nature of paganism.

I've been trying to remember the name of a town in the area near Edessa in N.Syria/N. Mesopotamia which persisted i its paganism until about the 10th or 11th century. Islamic authorities tried to suppress it in the end. The reference is somewhere in A.H.M Jones, The Later Roman Empire. It is eluding me though.

 

[LSCatilina]

I think a lot of people on this site just look at wikipedia and allude to that. It tends to make me irascible.

I admit that trying to continue a conversation and to dig trough what I have at disposition (and actually downloading another book) tended to make me a bit rushed (especially as the sources I've at hand does focuses on Christianity). Again, I totally forgot about mysteries cult for some reason whom historical strength is one of the reason even classical medieval clergy tended to be obsessed with them. (Trismegiste becoming Tervagant, for exemple). Mithra, tough, doesn't really appears AFAIR as a medieval scarecrow.

In all fairness, I do have to apologize as well, but I admittedly doesn't like very well to go onto research express (like the time I had to dig deep on Carolingian texts, to proove a point about the contemporary use of "romanorum" in titulature, just in case I would be missing something or wrong.)

(Or when I have to point again why, no, it's highly unlikely that Albi Cathedral was built on a solar temple, because there wasn't such, yes even if your booklet does say that cathedrals were often built on ancient temples)

I've been trying to remember the name of a town in the area near Edessa in N.Syria/N. Mesopotamia which persisted i its paganism until about the 10th or 11th century. Islamic authorities tried to suppress it in the end. The reference is somewhere in A.H.M Jones, The Later Roman Empire. It is eluding me though.

Admittedly, the Xth/XIth seems a transitional period on this regard : you had a re-evangelisation effort in western Europe (especially trough Clunisian reforms, Peace of God, etc.) which rooted not only matters of beliefs and rite, but as well Church as an institution with people as a whole.
Apparently, but I don't know enough about this, you had something similar in Byzantium with the disappearence of last pagans in peripherical regions (as southern Greece), as we pass from societies that are still largely dependent on the late imperial model, to something else.

Checking Jones', Carrhae (Harran) is mentioned as remaining pagan "even later than the end of Roman rule", without further details. I had to check on Wikipedia for more info, but they're unsourced.

 

[clem attlee]

I admit that trying to continue a conversation and to dig trough what I have at disposition (and actually downloading another book) tended to make me a bit rushed (especially as the sources I've at hand does focuses on Christianity). Again, I totally forgot about mysteries cult for some reason whom historical strength is one of the reason even classical medieval clergy tended to be obsessed with them. (Trismegiste becoming Tervagant, for exemple). Mithra, tough, doesn't really appears AFAIR as a medieval scarecrow.

In all fairness, I do have to apologize as well, but I admittedly doesn't like very well to go onto research express (like the time I had to dig deep on Carolingian texts, to proove a point about the contemporary use of "romanorum" in titulature, just in case I would be missing something or wrong.)

(Or when I have to point again why, no, it's highly unlikely that Albi Cathedral was built on a solar temple, because there wasn't such, yes even if your booklet does say that cathedrals were often built on ancient temples)


Admittedly, the Xth/XIth seems a transitional period on this regard : you had a re-evangelisation effort in western Europe (especially trough Clunisian reforms, Peace of God, etc.) which rooted not only matters of beliefs and rite, but as well Church as an institution with people as a whole.
Apparently, but I don't know enough about this, you had something similar in Byzantium with the disappearence of last pagans in peripherical regions (as southern Greece), as we pass from societies that are still largely dependent on the late imperial model, to something else.

Checking Jones', Carrhae (Harran) is mentioned as remaining pagan "even later than the end of Roman rule", without further details. I had to check on Wikipedia for more info, but they're unsourced.

Yes, I think that Carrhae/Harran was it. Well, book access is a perennial problem for all of us. I'm currently in a hotel in the UK and so dependent on memory. Earlier in the week I slightly misquoted some Tacitus I'd memorised nearly thirty years ago. I'll have to look up Albi. I don't know it. I'm from a Roman city myself originally: Eboracum.

 

[Kellan Sullivan]

Would something like the Chinese practice of burning offerings to their ancestors to use in the afterlife count?

Same thing as what I'm wondering. Apparently in Africa it's not uncommon for them to sacrifice a goat (I'm not really clued up on it, so could probably be a cow or a sheep if you could afford it, it's just one of the things I heard while I was in Lesotho) for the ancestors. The case in point was that the spirit of one of the ancestors appeared to the person in a dream, told them he was cold and hungry. So what do they do, next day, sacrifice a goat and take a blanket to his grave. The boys have to go to some or other initiation rite of passage, and I think someone said that they sacrifice when he comes home as well. (I think this is also how it works in general in rural Southern Africa)*

But other than that, I think Stravinski's Rite of Spring might go over better if sacrifice was a routine part of daily life. IIRC it was booed etc because of the maiden's sacrifice or something at it's premiere.

*I could be wrong. This is simply based on what I saw while I was there.

 

[aegis03florin]

Burning candles isn't a form of sacrificing to God?
At least that's my understanding....

 

[Diego]

Well, I think that alms, self-flagellation, abstinence, fasting, mortification, and self-sacrifice in general could be considered as "modern" sacrifices.