The Sacrificial Character of Earliest Christianity: A response to Robert J. Daly's ‘Is Christianity Sacrificial or Anti-Sacrificial’?
✍ Scribed by Paul B. Duff
- Book ID
- 102620146
- Publisher
- Elsevier Science
- Year
- 1997
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 60 KB
- Volume
- 27
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0048-721X
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
I will focus my response to the two questions that Professor Daly poses on p. 233 of his manuscript. The first is: What is the sacrificial activity, if any, in which the first few generations of Christians participate? and the second is: What do Christians understand that they are doing when they engage in that activity?
However, the way that professor Daly goes about answering the questions, more or less dismisses the first question. In short, as I read the paper, the assumption is that early Christians do not really participate in any sacrificial activity, except in a metaphorical sense. For instance, sacrifice is not blood sacrifice offered upon an altar but the self-sacrifice of oneself (Rom 12:1-2). Similarly, the 'sacrificial service', the hierougein, is the missionary task (Rom 15:15-16). Professor Daly concludes his overview of NT texts which spiritualize sacrifice (p. 233) with the statement:
There is a long and controversy-lade history to the idea that Christian sacrifice, or more generally, true Christian worship is centred not in acts of ritual and liturgical worship but in the practical, ethical sphere of the lived Christian life.