The workforce were willing to make sacrifices in order to preserve jobs. She brought three children up single-handedly, often at great personal sacrifice.2 RR a).
(3) Among the GreeksThe universal of ancient was a glad and joyous most closely connected with civic life. Even the ancient Amphictyonic Council was a confederacy of states with the object of maintaining in common a certain shrine. The object of the religious functions, which consisted in prayer, sacrifice, and votive offerings, was the winning of the favour and assistance of the gods, which were always received with feelings of awe and gratitude.
The sacrificial offerings, bloody and unbloody, were generally taken from articles of human food; to the gods above pastry, sacrificial cakes, pap, fruits, and wine were offered, but to the nether gods, cakes of honey and, as a drink, a mixture of milk, honey, and water. The sacrificial often consisted merely in the exposition of the foods in pots on the roadsides or on the funeral mounds with the of entertaining the gods or the dead.
Usually a portion was retained wherewith to solemnize a sacrificial feast in union with the gods; of the sacrifices to the nether gods in Hades, however, nothing was retained. Great banquets of the gods ( theoxenia ) were well known to the Greeks as were the Leotisternia to the Romans. As a rule, however, the sacrifices were burned on the altar, at times as holocausts. Was added as a subsidiary offering with most sacrifices, although there were also special of incense.
The offerer of wore clean clothes and chaplets around his head, sprinkled his hands and the altar with holy water, and strewed with solemn sacrificial meal over the heads of the victims (pigs, goats, and cocks). Flutes were played while the victim was being slain, and the blood was allowed to drop through holes into the sacrificial trenches.
The meritoriousness of the was regarded as to a great extent dependent on its costliness. The horns of the victims were gilded, and on great festivals whole hecatombs were slain; sacrifices of twelve, and especially of three victims ( trittues ) were the most usual.
In times of great affliction human sacrifices were offered even down to the historical era. The was the centre of the Greek cult, and no meal was partaken of until a libation of the wine about to be consumed was poured out to the gods. Among the characteristic peculiarities of the Greek may be mentioned the votive ( anathemata ), which (besides firstlings, tithes, votive tablets, and objects of value) consisted chiefly of chaplets, cauldrons, and the popular tripods ( tripodes ). The number of the votive offerings, which were frequently hung up on the sacred oaks, grew in so immeasurably that various states erected their special treasuries at Olympia and Delphi. (4) Among theTo a still greater extent than among the Greeks was and the whole sacrificial system a business of the state among the ancient Romans. Furthermore, no other people of antiquity developed to such extremes.
Peopling the world with gods, genii, and, they placed almost every action and under a specially-conceived (god or goddess). The calendar prepared by the pontifices gave the detailed information as to how they should conduct themselves with respect to the gods throughout the year.
The object of was to win the favour of the gods and to ward off their sinister influence. Sacrifices of atonement ( piacula ) for perpetrated crimes and past errors were also scheduled. In the earliest times the ancient Indo-Germanic of the horse, and also sacrifices of sheep, pigs, and oxen were known. That human sacrifices must have been once usual may be concluded from certain customs of a later period (e.g. From the projection of straw puppets into the Tiber and the hanging of woollen puppets at the crossways and on the doors of the houses).
Under the empire various foreign cults were introduced, such as the veneration of the Egyptian deities Isis and Osiris, the Syrian Astarte, the Phrygian goddess Cybele, etc. The Roman Pantheon united in peace the most incongruous deities from every land. Finally, however, no cult was so popular as that of the Indo-Iranian Light-god Mithra, to whom especially the soldiers and officials of the empire, even in such distant places as the Danube and the Rhine offered their sacrifices. In of the steer-killing Mithra the so-called taurobolia were introduced from the East; by taurobolium is meant the loathsome wherein the worshippers of Mithra let the warm blood of a just-slaughtered steer flow over their naked backs as they lay in a trench with the of attaining thereby not only physical strength, but also mental renewal and regeneration.(5) Among the ChineseThe of the Chinese, a peculiar mixture of and ancestor-worship, is indissolubly connected with the constitution of the state.
The oldest Sinism was a perfect Monotheism. However, we are best acquainted with the Chinese sacrificial system in the which was given it by the great reformer, Confucius (sixth century before Christ), and which it has retained practically unaltered after more than two thousand years. As the 'Son of ' and the head of the State religion, the Emperor of is also the high-priest who alone may offer to heaven. The chief takes place annually during the night of the winter solstice on the 'altar of ' in the southern section of Peking. On the highest terrace of this altar stands a wooden table as the symbol of the of the of; there are in addition many other ' tables' (of the sun, moon, stars, clouds, wind, etc.), including those of the ten immediate predecessors of the emperor.
Before every table are set sacrificial of soup, flesh, vegetables, etc. To the ancestors of the emperor, as well as to the sun and moon, a slaughtered ox is offered; to the planets and the stars a calf, a sheep, and a pig. Meanwhile, on a pyre to the south-east of the altar, a of an ox lies ready to be burned to the highest of heaven. While the ox is being consumed, the emperor offers to the soul-table of and the tables of his predecessors a staff of incense, silk, and some meat broth.
After the performance of these ceremonies, all the articles of are brought to special furnaces and there consumed. Similarly the emperor sacrifices to the earth at the northern wall of Peking, the sacrificial being in this case not burned, but buried. The gods of the soil and of corn, as well as the ancestors of the emperor, have also their special places and days of sacrifice. Throughout the empire the emperor is represented in the sacrifices by his state officials. In the classical book of ritual, 'Li-ki', it is expressly stated: 'The son of sacrifices to the and the earth; the vassals to the gods of the soil and of corn.'
Besides the chief sacrifices, there are a number of others of the second or third rank, which are usually performed by state officials. The popular with its innumerable images, which have their special temples, is undisguised idolatry.Copyright 2020 Catholic Online.
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If someone or something is sacrificed on the altar of a particular belief or activity, they suffer or are harmed because of it. They promised that the interests of farmers wouldn't be sacrificed on the altar of free trade. Let us hope that these children's education will not be sacrificed on the altar of social experimentation.
Note: You can also say that someone or something is a sacrifice on the altar of a particular thing. He was just another sacrifice on the altar of celebrity.
Note: An altar was a large stone on which animals were killed during the worship of a god or goddess in former times. The killing of an animal in this way was called a sacrifice. On the occasion of Commemoration Day, President His Highness Shaikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, has pledged to the families of the nation's martyrs that they will continue to receive the utmost care and full support of the nation, 'Because we are a nation that treasures the value of sacrifice and never forgets those who devoted their lives and offered their precious blood to keep the nation's flag flying high.' In a statement given to Nation Shield, the Armed Forces magazine, Shaikh Khalifa added that these sacrifices will only increase 'Our resolve, strength, solidarity and cohesion to defend this country.'