The Urantia Book
PAPER 89
SIN, SACRIFICE, AND ATONEMENT
Presented by a Brilliant Evening Star of Nebadon.
89:0.1 PRIMITIVE man regarded himself as being
in debt to the spirits, as standing in need of redemption. As
the savages looked at it, in justice the spirits might have
visited much more bad luck upon them. As time passed, this
concept developed into the doctrine of sin and salvation. The
soul was looked upon as coming into the world under forfeit --
original sin. The soul must be ransomed; a scapegoat must be
provided. The head-hunter, in addition to practicing the cult of
skull worship, was able to provide a substitute for his own
life, a scapeman.
89:0.2 The savage was early possessed with the
notion that spirits derive supreme satisfaction from the sight
of human misery, suffering, and humiliation. At first, man was
only concerned with sins of commission, but later he became
exercised over sins of omission. And the whole subsequent
sacrificial system grew up around these two ideas. This new
ritual had to do with the observance of the propitiation
ceremonies of sacrifice. Primitive man believed that something
special must be done to win the favor of the gods; only advanced
civilization recognizes a consistently even-tempered and
benevolent God. Propitiation was insurance against immediate ill
luck rather than investment in future bliss. And the rituals of
avoidance, exorcism, coercion, and propitiation all merge into
one another.
1. THE TABOO
89:1.1 Observance of a taboo was man's effort
to dodge ill luck, to keep from offending the spirit ghosts by
the avoidance of something. The taboos were at first
nonreligious, but they early acquired ghost or spirit sanction,
and when thus reinforced, they became lawmakers and institution
builders. The taboo is the source of ceremonial standards and
the ancestor of primitive self-control. It was the earliest form
of societal regulation and for a long time the only one; it is
still a basic unit of the social regulative structure.
89:1.2 The respect which these prohibitions
commanded in the mind of the savage exactly equaled his fear of
the powers who were supposed to enforce them. Taboos first arose
because of chance experience with ill luck; later they were
proposed by chiefs and shamans -- fetish men who were thought to
be directed by a spirit ghost, even by a god. The fear of spirit
retribution is so great in the mind of a primitive that he
sometimes dies of fright when he has violated a taboo, and this
dramatic episode enormously strengthens the hold of the taboo on
the minds of the survivors.
89:1.3 Among the earliest prohibitions were
restrictions on the appropriation of women and other property.
As religion began to play a larger part in the evolution of the
taboo, the article resting under ban was regarded as unclean,
subsequently as unholy. The records of the Hebrews are full of
the mention of things clean and unclean, holy and unholy, but
their beliefs along these lines were far less cumbersome and
extensive than were those of many other peoples.
89:1.4 The seven commandments of Dalamatia and
Eden, as well as the ten injunctions of the Hebrews, were
definite taboos, all expressed in the same negative form as were
the most ancient prohibitions. But these newer codes were truly
emancipating in that they took the place of thousands of
pre-existent taboos. And more than this, these later
commandments definitely promised something in return for
obedience.
89:1.5 The early food taboos originated in
fetishism and totemism. The swine was sacred to the Phoenicians,
the cow to the Hindus. The Egyptian taboo on pork has been
perpetuated by the Hebraic and Islamic faiths. A variant of the
food taboo was the belief that a pregnant woman could think so
much about a certain food that the child, when born, would be
the echo of that food. Such viands would be taboo to the child.
89:1.6 Methods of eating soon became taboo,
and so originated ancient and modern table etiquette. Caste
systems and social levels are vestigial remnants of olden
prohibitions. The taboos were highly effective in organizing
society, but they were terribly burdensome; the negative-ban
system not only maintained useful and constructive regulations
but also obsolete, outworn, and useless taboos.
89:1.7 There would, however, be no civilized
society to sit in criticism upon primitive man except for these
far-flung and multifarious taboos, and the taboo would never
have endured but for the upholding sanctions of primitive
religion. Many of the essential factors in man's evolution have
been highly expensive, have cost vast treasure in effort,
sacrifice, and self-denial, but these achievements of
self-control were the real rungs on which man climbed
civilization's ascending ladder.
2. THE CONCEPT OF SIN
89:2.1 The fear of chance and the dread of bad
luck literally drove man into the invention of primitive
religion as supposed insurance against these calamities. From
magic and ghosts, religion evolved through spirits and fetishes
to taboos. Every primitive tribe had its tree of forbidden
fruit, literally the apple but figuratively consisting of a
thousand branches hanging heavy with all sorts of taboos. And
the forbidden tree always said, "Thou shalt not."
89:2.2 As the savage mind evolved to that
point where it envisaged both good and bad spirits, and when the
taboo received the solemn sanction of evolving religion, the
stage was all set for the appearance of the new conception of
sin. The idea of sin was universally established in the
world before revealed religion ever made its entry. It was only
by the concept of sin that natural death became logical to the
primitive mind. Sin was the transgression of taboo, and death
was the penalty of sin.
89:2.3 Sin was ritual, not rational; an act,
not a thought. And this entire concept of sin was fostered by
the lingering traditions of Dilmun and the days of a little
paradise on earth. The tradition of Adam and the Garden of Eden
also lent substance to the dream of a onetime "golden age" of
the dawn of the races. And all this confirmed the ideas later
expressed in the belief that man had his origin in a special
creation, that he started his career in perfection, and that
transgression of the taboos -- sin -- brought him down to his
later sorry plight.
89:2.4 The habitual violation of a taboo
became a vice; primitive law made vice a crime; religion made it
a sin. Among the early tribes the violation of a taboo was a
combined crime and sin. Community calamity was always regarded
as punishment for tribal sin. To those who believed that
prosperity and righteousness went together, the apparent
prosperity of the wicked occasioned so much worry that it was
necessary to invent hells for the punishment of taboo violators;
the numbers of these places of future punishment have varied
from one to five.
89:2.5 The idea of confession and forgiveness
early appeared in primitive religion. Men would ask forgiveness
at a public meeting for sins they intended to commit the
following week. Confession was merely a rite of remission, also
a public notification of defilement, a ritual of crying
"unclean, unclean!" Then followed all the ritualistic schemes of
purification. All ancient peoples practiced these meaningless
ceremonies. Many apparently hygienic customs of the early tribes
were largely ceremonial.
3. RENUNCIATION AND HUMILIATION
89:3.1 Renunciation came as the next step in
religious evolution; fasting was a common practice. Soon it
became the custom to forego many forms of physical pleasure,
especially of a sexual nature. The ritual of the fast was deeply
rooted in many ancient religions and has been handed down to
practically all modern theologic systems of thought.
89:3.2 Just about the time barbarian man was
recovering from the wasteful practice of burning and burying
property with the dead, just as the economic structure of the
races was beginning to take shape, this new religious doctrine
of renunciation appeared, and tens of thousands of earnest souls
began to court poverty. Property was regarded as a spiritual
handicap. These notions of the spiritual dangers of material
possession were widespreadly entertained in the times of Philo
and Paul, and they have markedly influenced European philosophy
ever since.
89:3.3 Poverty was just a part of the ritual
of the mortification of the flesh which, unfortunately, became
incorporated into the writings and teachings of many religions,
notably Christianity. Penance is the negative form of this
ofttimes foolish ritual of renunciation. But all this taught the
savage self-control, and that was a worth-while
advancement in social evolution. Self-denial and self-control
were two of the greatest social gains from early evolutionary
religion. Self-control gave man a new philosophy of life; it
taught him the art of augmenting life's fraction by lowering the
denominator of personal demands instead of always attempting to
increase the numerator of selfish gratification.
89:3.4 These olden ideas of self-discipline
embraced flogging and all sorts of physical torture. The priests
of the mother cult were especially active in teaching the virtue
of physical suffering, setting the example by submitting
themselves to castration. The Hebrews, Hindus, and Buddhists
were earnest devotees of this doctrine of physical humiliation.
89:3.5 All through the olden times men sought
in these ways for extra credits on the self-denial ledgers of
their gods. It was once customary, when under some emotional
stress, to make vows of self-denial and self-torture. In time
these vows assumed the form of contracts with the gods and, in
that sense, represented true evolutionary progress in that the
gods were supposed to do something definite in return for this
self-torture and mortification of the flesh. Vows were both
negative and positive. Pledges of this harmful and extreme
nature are best observed today among certain groups in India.
89:3.6 It was only natural that the cult of
renunciation and humiliation should have paid attention to
sexual gratification. The continence cult originated as a ritual
among soldiers prior to engaging in battle; in later days it
became the practice of "saints." This cult tolerated marriage
only as an evil lesser than fornication. Many of the world's
great religions have been adversely influenced by this ancient
cult, but none more markedly than Christianity. The Apostle Paul
was a devotee of this cult, and his personal views are reflected
in the teachings which he fastened onto Christian theology: "It
is good for a man not to touch a woman." "I would that all men
were even as I myself." "I say, therefore, to the unmarried and
widows, it is good for them to abide even as I." Paul well knew
that such teachings were not a part of Jesus' gospel, and his
acknowledgment of this is illustrated by his statement, "I speak
this by permission and not by commandment." But this cult led
Paul to look down upon women. And the pity of it all is that his
personal opinions have long influenced the teachings of a great
world religion. If the advice of the tentmaker-teacher were to
be literally and universally obeyed, then would the human race
come to a sudden and inglorious end. Furthermore, the
involvement of a religion with the ancient continence cult leads
directly to a war against marriage and the home, society's
veritable foundation and the basic institution of human
progress. And it is not to be wondered at that all such beliefs
fostered the formation of celibate priesthoods in the many
religions of various peoples.
89:3.7 Someday man should learn how to enjoy
liberty without license, nourishment without gluttony, and
pleasure without debauchery. Self-control is a better human
policy of behavior regulation than is extreme self-denial. Nor
did Jesus ever teach these unreasonable views to his followers.
4. ORIGINS OF SACRIFICE
89:4.1 Sacrifice as a part of religious
devotions, like many other worshipful rituals, did not have a
simple and single origin. The tendency to bow down before power
and to prostrate oneself in worshipful adoration in the presence
of mystery is foreshadowed in the fawning of the dog before its
master. It is but one step from the impulse of worship to the
act of sacrifice. Primitive man gauged the value of his
sacrifice by the pain which he suffered. When the idea of
sacrifice first attached itself to religious ceremonial, no
offering was contemplated which was not productive of pain. The
first sacrifices were such acts as plucking hair, cutting the
flesh, mutilations, knocking out teeth, and cutting off fingers.
As civilization advanced, these crude concepts of sacrifice were
elevated to the level of the rituals of self-abnegation,
asceticism, fasting, deprivation, and the later Christian
doctrine of sanctification through sorrow, suffering, and the
mortification of the flesh.
89:4.2 Early in the evolution of religion
there existed two conceptions of the sacrifice: the idea of the
gift sacrifice, which connoted the attitude of thanksgiving, and
the debt sacrifice, which embraced the idea of redemption. Later
there developed the notion of substitution.
89:4.3 Man still later conceived that his
sacrifice of whatever nature might function as a message bearer
to the gods; it might be as a sweet savor in the nostrils of
deity. This brought incense and other aesthetic features of
sacrificial rituals which developed into sacrificial feasting,
in time becoming increasingly elaborate and ornate.
89:4.4 As religion evolved, the sacrificial
rites of conciliation and propitiation replaced the older
methods of avoidance, placation, and exorcism.
89:4.5 The earliest idea of the sacrifice was
that of a neutrality assessment levied by ancestral spirits;
only later did the idea of atonement develop. As man got away
from the notion of the evolutionary origin of the race, as the
traditions of the days of the Planetary Prince and the sojourn
of Adam filtered down through time, the concept of sin and of
original sin became widespread, so that sacrifice for accidental
and personal sin evolved into the doctrine of sacrifice for the
atonement of racial sin. The atonement of the sacrifice was a
blanket insurance device which covered even the resentment and
jealousy of an unknown god.
89:4.6 Surrounded by so many sensitive spirits
and grasping gods, primitive man was face to face with such a
host of creditor deities that it required all the priests,
ritual, and sacrifices throughout an entire lifetime to get him
out of spiritual debt. The doctrine of original sin, or racial
guilt, started every person out in serious debt to the spirit
powers.
89:4.7 Gifts and bribes are given to men; but
when tendered to the gods, they are described as being
dedicated, made sacred, or are called sacrifices. Renunciation
was the negative form of propitiation; sacrifice became the
positive form. The act of propitiation included praise,
glorification, flattery, and even entertainment. And it is the
remnants of these positive practices of the olden propitiation
cult that constitute the modern forms of divine worship.
Present-day forms of worship are simply the ritualization of
these ancient sacrificial techniques of positive propitiation.
89:4.8 Animal sacrifice meant much more to
primitive man than it could ever mean to modern races. These
barbarians regarded the animals as their actual and near kin. As
time passed, man became shrewd in his sacrificing, ceasing to
offer up his work animals. At first he sacrificed the best
of everything, including his domesticated animals.
89:4.9 It was no empty boast that a certain
Egyptian ruler made when he stated that he had sacrificed:
113,433 slaves, 493,386 head of cattle, 88 boats, 2,756 golden
images, 331,702 jars of honey and oil, 228,380 jars of wine,
680,714 geese, 6,744,428 loaves of bread, and 5,740,352 sacks of
coin. And in order to do this he must needs have sorely taxed
his toiling subjects.
89:4.10 Sheer necessity eventually drove these
semisavages to eat the material part of their sacrifices, the
gods having enjoyed the soul thereof. And this custom found
justification under the pretense of the ancient sacred meal, a
communion service according to modern usage.
5. SACRIFICES AND CANNIBALISM
89:5.1 Modern ideas of early cannibalism are
entirely wrong; it was a part of the mores of early society.
While cannibalism is traditionally horrible to modern
civilization, it was a part of the social and religious
structure of primitive society. Group interests dictated the
practice of cannibalism. It grew up through the urge of
necessity and persisted because of the slavery of superstition
and ignorance. It was a social, economic, religious, and
military custom.
89:5.2 Early man was a cannibal; he enjoyed
human flesh, and therefore he offered it as a food gift to the
spirits and his primitive gods. Since ghost spirits were merely
modified men, and since food was man's greatest need, then food
must likewise be a spirit's greatest need.
89:5.3 Cannibalism was once well-nigh
universal among the evolving races. The Sangiks were all
cannibalistic, but originally the Andonites were not, nor were
the Nodites and Adamites; neither were the Andites until after
they had become grossly admixed with the evolutionary races.
89:5.4 The taste for human flesh grows. Having
been started through hunger, friendship, revenge, or religious
ritual, the eating of human flesh goes on to habitual
cannibalism. Man-eating has arisen through food scarcity, though
this has seldom been the underlying reason. The Eskimos and
early Andonites, however, seldom were cannibalistic except in
times of famine. The red men, especially in Central America,
were cannibals. It was once a general practice for primitive
mothers to kill and eat their own children in order to renew the
strength lost in childbearing, and in Queensland the first child
is still frequently thus killed and devoured. In recent times
cannibalism has been deliberately resorted to by many African
tribes as a war measure, a sort of frightfulness with which to
terrorize their neighbors.
89:5.5 Some cannibalism resulted from the
degeneration of once superior stocks, but it was mostly
prevalent among the evolutionary races. Man-eating came on at a
time when men experienced intense and bitter emotions regarding
their enemies. Eating human flesh became part of a solemn
ceremony of revenge; it was believed that an enemy's ghost
could, in this way, be destroyed or fused with that of the
eater. It was once a widespread belief that wizards attained
their powers by eating human flesh.
89:5.6 Certain groups of man-eaters would
consume only members of their own tribes, a pseudospiritual
inbreeding which was supposed to accentuate tribal solidarity.
But they also ate enemies for revenge with the idea of
appropriating their strength. It was considered an honor to the
soul of a friend or fellow tribesman if his body were eaten,
while it was no more than just punishment to an enemy thus to
devour him. The savage mind made no pretensions to being
consistent.
89:5.7 Among some tribes aged parents would
seek to be eaten by their children; among others it was
customary to refrain from eating near relations; their bodies
were sold or exchanged for those of strangers. There was
considerable commerce in women and children who had been
fattened for slaughter. When disease or war failed to control
population, the surplus was unceremoniously eaten.
89:5.8 Cannibalism has been gradually
disappearing because of the following influences:
89:5.9 1. It sometimes became a communal
ceremony, the assumption of collective responsibility for
inflicting the death penalty upon a fellow tribesman. The blood
guilt ceases to be a crime when participated in by all, by
society. The last of cannibalism in Asia was this eating of
executed criminals.
89:5.10 2. It very early became a religious
ritual, but the growth of ghost fear did not always operate to
reduce man-eating.
89:5.11 3. Eventually it progressed to the
point where only certain parts or organs of the body were eaten,
those parts supposed to contain the soul or portions of the
spirit. Blood drinking became common, and it was customary to
mix the "edible" parts of the body with medicines.
89:5.12 4. It became limited to men; women
were forbidden to eat human flesh.
89:5.13 5. It was next limited to the chiefs,
priests, and shamans.
89:5.14 6. Then it became taboo among the
higher tribes. The taboo on man-eating originated in Dalamatia
and slowly spread over the world. The Nodites encouraged
cremation as a means of combating cannibalism since it was once
a common practice to dig up buried bodies and eat them.
89:5.15 7. Human sacrifice sounded the death
knell of cannibalism. Human flesh having become the food of
superior men, the chiefs, it was eventually reserved for the
still more superior spirits; and thus the offering of human
sacrifices effectively put a stop to cannibalism, except among
the lowest tribes. When human sacrifice was fully established,
man-eating became taboo; human flesh was food only for the gods;
man could eat only a small ceremonial bit, a sacrament.
89:5.16 Finally animal substitutes came into
general use for sacrificial purposes, and even among the more
backward tribes dog-eating greatly reduced man-eating. The dog
was the first domesticated animal and was held in high esteem
both as such and as food.
6. EVOLUTION OF HUMAN SACRIFICE
89:6.1 Human sacrifice was an indirect result
of cannibalism as well as its cure. Providing spirit escorts to
the spirit world also led to the lessening of man-eating as it
was never the custom to eat these death sacrifices. No race has
been entirely free from the practice of human sacrifice in some
form and at some time, even though the Andonites, Nodites, and
Adamites were the least addicted to cannibalism.
89:6.2 Human sacrifice has been virtually
universal; it persisted in the religious customs of the Chinese,
Hindus, Egyptians, Hebrews, Mesopotamians, Greeks, Romans, and
many other peoples, even on to recent times among the backward
African and Australian tribes. The later American Indians had a
civilization emerging from cannibalism and, therefore, steeped
in human sacrifice, especially in Central and South America. The
Chaldeans were among the first to abandon the sacrificing of
humans for ordinary occasions, substituting therefor animals.
About two thousand years ago a tenderhearted Japanese emperor
introduced clay images to take the place of human sacrifices,
but it was less than a thousand years ago that these sacrifices
died out in northern Europe. Among certain backward tribes,
human sacrifice is still carried on by volunteers, a sort of
religious or ritual suicide. A shaman once ordered the sacrifice
of a much respected old man of a certain tribe. The people
revolted; they refused to obey. Whereupon the old man had his
own son dispatch him; the ancients really believed in this
custom.
89:6.3 There is no more tragic and pathetic
experience on record, illustrative of the heart-tearing
contentions between ancient and time-honored religious customs
and the contrary demands of advancing civilization, than the
Hebrew narrative of Jephthah and his only daughter. As was
common custom, this well-meaning man had made a foolish vow, had
bargained with the "god of battles," agreeing to pay a certain
price for victory over his enemies. And this price was to make a
sacrifice of that which first came out of his house to meet him
when he returned to his home. Jephthah thought that one of his
trusty slaves would thus be on hand to greet him, but it turned
out that his daughter and only child came out to welcome him
home. And so, even at that late date and among a supposedly
civilized people, this beautiful maiden, after two months to
mourn her fate, was actually offered as a human sacrifice by her
father, and with the approval of his fellow tribesmen. And all
this was done in the face of Moses' stringent rulings against
the offering of human sacrifice. But men and women are addicted
to making foolish and needless vows, and the men of old held all
such pledges to be highly sacred.
89:6.4 In olden times, when a new building of
any importance was started, it was customary to slay a human
being as a "foundation sacrifice." This provided a ghost spirit
to watch over and protect the structure. When the Chinese made
ready to cast a bell, custom decreed the sacrifice of at least
one maiden for the purpose of improving the tone of the bell;
the girl chosen was thrown alive into the molten metal.
89:6.5 It was long the practice of many groups
to build slaves alive into important walls. In later times the
northern European tribes substituted the walling in of the
shadow of a passerby for this custom of entombing living persons
in the walls of new buildings. The Chinese buried in a wall
those workmen who died while constructing it.
89:6.6 A petty king in Palestine, in building
the walls of Jericho, "laid the foundation thereof in Abiram,
his first-born, and set up the gates thereof in his youngest
son, Segub." At that late date, not only did this father put two
of his sons alive in the foundation holes of the city's gates,
but his action is also recorded as being "according to the word
of the Lord." Moses had forbidden these foundation sacrifices,
but the Israelites reverted to them soon after his death. The
twentieth-century ceremony of depositing trinkets and keepsakes
in the cornerstone of a new building is reminiscent of the
primitive foundation sacrifices.
89:6.7 It was long the custom of many peoples
to dedicate the first fruits to the spirits. And these
observances, now more or less symbolic, are all survivals of the
early ceremonies involving human sacrifice. The idea of offering
the first-born as a sacrifice was widespread among the ancients,
especially among the Phoenicians, who were the last to give it
up. It used to be said upon sacrificing, "life for life." Now
you say at death, "dust to dust."
89:6.8 The spectacle of Abraham constrained to
sacrifice his son Isaac, while shocking to civilized
susceptibilities, was not a new or strange idea to the men of
those days. It was long a prevalent practice for fathers, at
times of great emotional stress, to sacrifice their first-born
sons. Many peoples have a tradition analogous to this story, for
there once existed a world-wide and profound belief that it was
necessary to offer a human sacrifice when anything extraordinary
or unusual happened.
7. MODIFICATIONS OF HUMAN SACRIFICE
89:7.1 Moses attempted to end human sacrifices
by inaugurating the ransom as a substitute. He established a
systematic schedule which enabled his people to escape the worst
results of their rash and foolish vows. Lands, properties, and
children could be redeemed according to the established fees,
which were payable to the priests. Those groups which ceased to
sacrifice their first-born soon possessed great advantages over
less advanced neighbors who continued these atrocious acts. Many
such backward tribes were not only greatly weakened by this loss
of sons, but even the succession of leadership was often broken.
89:7.2 An outgrowth of the passing child
sacrifice was the custom of smearing blood on the house
doorposts for the protection of the first-born. This was often
done in connection with one of the sacred feasts of the year,
and this ceremony once obtained over most of the world from
Mexico to Egypt.
89:7.3 Even after most groups had ceased the
ritual killing of children, it was the custom to put an infant
away by itself, off in the wilderness or in a little boat on the
water. If the child survived, it was thought that the gods had
intervened to preserve him, as in the traditions of Sargon,
Moses, Cyrus, and Romulus. Then came the practice of dedicating
the first-born sons as sacred or sacrificial, allowing them to
grow up and then exiling them in lieu of death; this was the
origin of colonization. The Romans adhered to this custom in
their scheme of colonization.
89:7.4 Many of the peculiar associations of
sex laxity with primitive worship had their origin in connection
with human sacrifice. In olden times, if a woman met
head-hunters, she could redeem her life by sexual surrender.
Later, a maiden consecrated to the gods as a sacrifice might
elect to redeem her life by dedicating her body for life to the
sacred sex service of the temple; in this way she could earn her
redemption money. The ancients regarded it as highly elevating
to have sex relations with a woman thus engaged in ransoming her
life. It was a religious ceremony to consort with these sacred
maidens, and in addition, this whole ritual afforded an
acceptable excuse for commonplace sexual gratification. This was
a subtle species of self-deception which both the maidens and
their consorts delighted to practice upon themselves. The mores
always drag behind in the evolutionary advance of civilization,
thus providing sanction for the earlier and more savagelike sex
practices of the evolving races.
89:7.5 Temple harlotry eventually spread
throughout southern Europe and Asia. The money earned by the
temple prostitutes was held sacred among all peoples -- a high
gift to present to the gods. The highest types of women thronged
the temple sex marts and devoted their earnings to all kinds of
sacred services and works of public good. Many of the better
classes of women collected their dowries by temporary sex
service in the temples, and most men preferred to have such
women for wives.
8. REDEMPTION AND COVENANTS
89:8.1 Sacrificial redemption and temple
prostitution were in reality modifications of human sacrifice.
Next came the mock sacrifice of daughters. This ceremony
consisted in bloodletting, with dedication to life-long
virginity, and was a moral reaction to the older temple
harlotry. In more recent times virgins dedicated themselves to
the service of tending the sacred temple fires.
89:8.2 Men eventually conceived the idea that
the offering of some part of the body could take the place of
the older and complete human sacrifice. Physical mutilation was
also considered to be an acceptable substitute. Hair, nails,
blood, and even fingers and toes were sacrificed. The later and
well-nigh universal ancient rite of circumcision was an
outgrowth of the cult of partial sacrifice; it was purely
sacrificial, no thought of hygiene being attached thereto. Men
were circumcised; women had their ears pierced.
89:8.3 Subsequently it became the custom to
bind fingers together instead of cutting them off. Shaving the
head and cutting the hair were likewise forms of religious
devotion. The making of eunuchs was at first a modification of
the idea of human sacrifice. Nose and lip piercing is still
practiced in Africa, and tattooing is an artistic evolution of
the earlier crude scarring of the body.
89:8.4 The custom of sacrifice eventually
became associated, as a result of advancing teachings, with the
idea of the covenant. At last, the gods were conceived of as
entering into real agreements with man; and this was a major
step in the stabilization of religion. Law, a covenant, takes
the place of luck, fear, and superstition.
89:8.5 Man could never even dream of entering
into a contract with Deity until his concept of God had advanced
to the level whereon the universe controllers were envisioned as
dependable. And man's early idea of God was so anthropomorphic
that he was unable to conceive of a dependable Deity until he
himself became relatively dependable, moral, and ethical.
89:8.6 But the idea of making a covenant with
the gods did finally arrive. Evolutionary man eventually
acquired such moral dignity that he dared to bargain with his
gods. And so the business of offering sacrifices gradually
developed into the game of man's philosophic bargaining with
God. And all this represented a new device for insuring against
bad luck or, rather, an enhanced technique for the more definite
purchase of prosperity. Do not entertain the mistaken idea that
these early sacrifices were a free gift to the gods, a
spontaneous offering of gratitude or thanksgiving; they were not
expressions of true worship.
89:8.7 Primitive forms of prayer were nothing
more nor less than bargaining with the spirits, an argument with
the gods. It was a kind of bartering in which pleading and
persuasion were substituted for something more tangible and
costly. The developing commerce of the races had inculcated the
spirit of trade and had developed the shrewdness of barter; and
now these traits began to appear in man's worship methods. And
as some men were better traders than others, so some were
regarded as better prayers than others. The prayer of a just man
was held in high esteem. A just man was one who had paid all
accounts to the spirits, had fully discharged every ritual
obligation to the gods.
89:8.8 Early prayer was hardly worship; it was
a bargaining petition for health, wealth, and life. And in many
respects prayers have not much changed with the passing of the
ages. They are still read out of books, recited formally, and
written out for emplacement on wheels and for hanging on trees,
where the blowing of the winds will save man the trouble of
expending his own breath.
9. SACRIFICES AND SACRAMENTS
89:9.1 The human sacrifice, throughout the
course of the evolution of Urantian rituals, has advanced from
the bloody business of man-eating to higher and more symbolic
levels. The early rituals of sacrifice bred the later ceremonies
of sacrament. In more recent times the priest alone would
partake of a bit of the cannibalistic sacrifice or a drop of
human blood, and then all would partake of the animal
substitute. These early ideas of ransom, redemption, and
covenants have evolved into the later-day sacramental services.
And all this ceremonial evolution has exerted a mighty
socializing influence.
89:9.2 In connection with the Mother of God
cult, in Mexico and elsewhere, a sacrament of cakes and wine was
eventually utilized in lieu of the flesh and blood of the older
human sacrifices. The Hebrews long practiced this ritual as a
part of their Passover ceremonies, and it was from this
ceremonial that the later Christian version of the sacrament
took its origin.
89:9.3 The ancient social brotherhoods were
based on the rite of blood drinking; the early Jewish fraternity
was a sacrificial blood affair. Paul started out to build a new
Christian cult on "the blood of the everlasting covenant." And
while he may have unnecessarily encumbered Christianity with
teachings about blood and sacrifice, he did once and for all
make an end of the doctrines of redemption through human or
animal sacrifices. His theologic compromises indicate that even
revelation must submit to the graduated control of evolution.
According to Paul, Christ became the last and all-sufficient
human sacrifice; the divine Judge is now fully and forever
satisfied.
89:9.4 And so, after long ages the cult of the
sacrifice has evolved into the cult of the sacrament. Thus are
the sacraments of modern religions the legitimate successors of
those shocking early ceremonies of human sacrifice and the still
earlier cannibalistic rituals. Many still depend upon blood for
salvation, but it has at least become figurative, symbolic, and
mystic.
10. FORGIVENESS OF SIN
89:10.1 Ancient man only attained
consciousness of favor with God through sacrifice. Modern man
must develop new techniques of achieving the self-consciousness
of salvation. The consciousness of sin persists in the mortal
mind, but the thought patterns of salvation therefrom have
become outworn and antiquated. The reality of the spiritual need
persists, but intellectual progress has destroyed the olden ways
of securing peace and consolation for mind and soul.
89:10.2 Sin must be redefined as deliberate
disloyalty to Deity. There are degrees of disloyalty: the
partial loyalty of indecision; the divided loyalty of
confliction; the dying loyalty of indifference; and the death of
loyalty exhibited in devotion to godless ideals.
89:10.3 The sense or feeling of guilt is the
consciousness of the violation of the mores; it is not
necessarily sin. There is no real sin in the absence of
conscious disloyalty to Deity.
89:10.4 The possibility of the recognition of
the sense of guilt is a badge of transcendent distinction for
mankind. It does not mark man as mean but rather sets him apart
as a creature of potential greatness and ever-ascending glory.
Such a sense of unworthiness is the initial stimulus that should
lead quickly and surely to those faith conquests which translate
the mortal mind to the superb levels of moral nobility, cosmic
insight, and spiritual living; thus are all the meanings of
human existence changed from the temporal to the eternal, and
all values are elevated from the human to the divine.
89:10.5 The confession of sin is a manful
repudiation of disloyalty, but it in no wise mitigates the
time-space consequences of such disloyalty. But confession --
sincere recognition of the nature of sin -- is essential to
religious growth and spiritual progress.
89:10.6 The forgiveness of sin by Deity is the
renewal of loyalty relations following a period of the human
consciousness of the lapse of such relations as the consequence
of conscious rebellion. The forgiveness does not have to be
sought, only received as the consciousness of re-establishment
of loyalty relations between the creature and the Creator. And
all the loyal sons of God are happy, service-loving, and
ever-progressive in the Paradise ascent.
89:10.7
Presented by a Brilliant Evening Star of Nebadon.
