Sacrificial Mimesis

✍ Scribed by Bruce Chilton

• Book ID: 102620145
• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1997
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 64 KB
• Volume: 27
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0048-721X
• DOI: 10.1006/reli.1996.0059

✦ Synopsis

Sacrificial Mimesis

B C René Girard's well-known theory invites considerations of the sort 'Is Christianity Sacrificial or Antisacrificial'?-and if one is going to address that question, a response along the lines of Robert J. Daly's is appropriate and helpful. The assumption, of course, is that sacrifice is sufficiently identifiable that it can be isolated within Christianity. And its nature is presupposed to warrant the reflection: do we really wish to live with this?

Christianity as we know it has been speaking the language of the transcendence of Judaism since the time of the epistle to the Hebrews. Once Christ, as the high priest, has entered into the true sanctuary, cultic repetition is beside the point (so Hebrews 9: 1-12). The only question is whether, once that atonement has been achieved, we need even to think of atonement in sacrificial terms. Robert Daly's final questions are, for that reason, in the line of succession of a predominant and pointed development within Christianity. Sacrifice is yoked together with atonement, and the two are relegated to a superseded past as clearly as they are related to one another.