Page |1 Are the bloodless sacrifices of Byzantium related to the blood sacrifices of Ancient Greece?

Word count: 2498 It is often illuminating to examine the ways in which cultures retain or reshape their traditions over the centuries. Such examinations can show us patterns of thought in cultures, or ingrained social customs which disguise themselves but never vanish from cultural tradition. Certain rituals and ways of sacrificing which were enormously important to the Ancient Greeks did not simply vanish into thin air once they adopted Christianity. Christians were very aware of this, and when they could not eliminate these rituals, would often appropriate and reuse them in the new Christian context.1 Thus, the concept of bloodless sacrifice in Christian Byzantium, while appearing to be different from the blood sacrifices of Ancient Greece, in fact stems from the same core values. Concepts such as miasma2 and the role of blood in Ancient Greek religion were so important that they were preserved in Byzantine culture - albeit in differing ways. After all, as Walter Burkert states: blood lurks at the heart of religion3 a concept of such pivotal importance does not fade away. Likewise, miasma is enormously relevant in Byzantium, not because it is at the core of Byzantine belief, but because it is the basis of many rituals inherited from ancient Greece. Together these concepts will demonstrate the relationship between blood and bloodless sacrifice, as a synthesis of Greek thought and Christian faith.4 In the interest of space, this essay will only examine sacrifice in Greece over the centuries. However, there are many other important factors in the issue of sacrifice such as Hebraic culture which have not been included in this essay. According to Burkert, the sacrificial practices of the ancient Greeks revolved around the act of killing itself, and the horror arising from the unnatural destruction of life5. There was a certain kind of sacrifice, for example, which included a trial as part of its proceedings: there was the sense that
1

In its efforts to spread the Christian faith, the Church did not systematically reject everything that had derived from pagan religious feelings and symbols. From: Demetrios J. Constantelos, Christian Hellenism: Essays and Studies in Continuity and Change, Aristide D. Caratzas: New York, 1998, p. 40. 2 From the Greek : meaning stain or defilement. 3 Walter Burkert, Homo Necans: The Anthropology of Ancient Greek Sacrificial Ritual and Myth, transl. Bing, Peter, University of California Press: London, 1972: 1983, p.2. 4 Constantelos, Christian Hellenism, p.7. 5 Burkert, Homo Necans, p.12.

Page |2 someone (or something, as it turned out) had to be blamed for the impurity of the killing act.6 If Burkert is correct in his interpretation, then this means that a certain tension accompanied all the ancient blood sacrifices. Were the Greeks reconciled to the idea of shedding blood via impure means in practice, but not in theory? If so, this discomfort which accompanied the act of sacrifice would have been greatly alleviated once the Christian practice of bloodless sacrifice entered the picture. Bloodless sacrifice in Byzantium was crucial. In Christian thought, the crucifixion of Christ was seen as the blood sacrifice to end all blood sacrifices. Through the death and resurrection of Christ, the need for blood sacrifice was eliminated from the world.7 According to Joyce Salisbury however, the crucifixion did not end blood sacrifice: it continued in the Christian tradition of martyrdom a theory which will be examined more closely later on. The crucifixion is such a pivotal element of Christianity that it is repeated in every Liturgical service bloodlessly as the Eucharist: the bread and wine of Holy Communion transforms miraculously into the body and blood of Christ.8 Burkerts impurity of the killing act vanishes, and only the sacrifice remains. The Eucharist is less of an offering or an appeasement to God, and more of a thanksgiving, as seen in its very name. In ancient Greece, prayers and hymns had to accompany the act of sacrifice: so in Byzantium, where the Eucharist takes place in the middle of a spoken-and-sung prayer service. Even the manner of prayer (standing, hands raised) continues from ancient Greece to Byzantium, most clearly in the scripted actions of the priest who must stand with hands raised before the altar to pray, and in various psalms and prayers.9 While the action remains the same in both contexts, the meaning behind the ritual changes. Interestingly, even the bloodless sacrifice of Byzantium most particularly, the Eucharist is charged with ideas about blood. By its very absence it both comments upon the tradition of ancient blood

Walter Burkert, Savage Energies: Lessons of Myth and Ritual in Ancient Greece, transl. Bing, Peter, University of Chicago Press: London, 1990: 2001, p.13. 7 Joyce E. Salisbury, The Blood of Martyrs: Unintended Consequences of Ancient Violence, Routledge: London, 2004, p.135. and Burkert, Homo Necans, p.8. 8 From the Byzantine Liturgy of St John Chrysostom: we offer unto You this spiritual and bloodless sacrifice. 9 For example, Let my prayer be set before You as incense, the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice. Psalm 141:2, NKJV.

Page |3 sacrifice, and emphasises the tradition of blood in the Christian church. The Eucharist was seen as the ideal sacrifice as it turned out however, Christianity still had to deal with concepts of blood sacrifice in many other ways. Christians never again sacrificed animals on an altar (in theory), but other concepts of blood sacrifice such as virgin blood, martyrdom and even relics meant that the idea remained alive. The ideal set by the Eucharist was not always possible, but the concept of bloodlessness and the connotations of purity it contained began to be applied to ideas of blood and sacrifice in greater force. Ideas of miasma, blood and sacrifice come together in ancient Greece with events particular to women, such as menstruation and childbirth. Helen King notes the ways comparisons are drawn between menstruation and sacrificial bloodshed in her book on ancient Greek gynaecology. She points out the fact that natural loss of blood is particular to women, and was seen as a sign of fertility and health, even connecting the ways in which preparing a bride for marriage paralleled the preparation of an animal for sacrifice. King suggests therefore that the bride was prepared to shed her blood in menstruation and childbirth as a sacrificial victim. The sacrifice would then benefit the state through her fertility, maintaining the present order.10 The connotations for women in terms of sacrifice seem positive here. However, there is a flipside. If events such as menstruation and childbirth were truly beneficial, why then were they also miasmic? Robert Parker believes that Greeks were not afraid of menstruation, and that only in later non-Greek cults was it considered wrong to enter a sanctuary without first purifying oneself from contact with menstrual blood.11 However, Anne Carson emphasises the idea that women were actively polluting in every sense, causing anxiety about hygiene, physical and moral boundaries.12 The Greeks may not have

10

For an ancient Greek woman, health is to bleed like a sacrificial victim; but this analogy proposed that menstruation was not only a sign of health, but also something as fundamental as animal sacrifice to the maintenance of the present order. From Helen King, Hippocrates Woman: Reading the female body in Ancient Greece, Routledge: London, 1998, p.98. 11 Quoted in King, Hippocrates Woman, p. 88. 12 Anne Carson, Dirt and Desire; The Phenomology of Female Pollution in Antiquity, Constructions of the th Classical Body, ed. Porter, James I., University of Michigan Press: USA, 1999:2002 (4 ed.), p.78.

Page |4 considered menstruation necessarily polluting at first, but it clearly became ingrained in Greek culture to an immovable extent. The fact that it became such a significant aspect of Greek religion can be seen by its continuation in Byzantine religion. In Byzantium, the role of menstruation as sacrificial blood continued strong, a fact which will be discussed in greater detail. However, there was also stigma attached to menstruation which had continued from ancient Greek and Judaic practices. Byzantium retained the customs of not entering a sanctuary or touching holy things while menstruating, despite the insistence of Church Fathers such as St John Chrysostom and Pope Gregory the Great that such practices were pagan and should be changed.13 These were not new customs adopted solely from Hebraic tradition they were part of ancient Greece also. Similarly, women could not enter the sanctuary in Byzantium for forty days after childbirth also a custom inherited from ancient Greece14. According to Alkiviadies C. Calivas, these rituals were adopted by Christians in Byzantium due to the fact that they were deep-rooted in ancient attitudes towards women.15 In any case, whether this sense of impurity attached to childbirth and menstruation was specifically ancient Greek or not, there seems to have been a continuance of these traditions from pagan to Christian Greece. There seems to have been a connection between sacrificial blood and women in Byzantium also, not only in menstruation, but in the theme of virgin sacrifice. Salisbury points out that Christians were shaped by ancient culture, and therefore shared the belief in the value of sacrificial blood.16 She examines the way that martyrs, therefore, began to be seen as both witnesses and sacrificial victims, whose lives paid for the faith of many other Christians who were inspired by them. As time went by, the concept of sacrificial blood began to take on a more symbolic meaning than simply martyrs sacrificed on Gods altar for their faith and Christians began to think of other blood as

13

St John Chrysostom, Homily XXXI on Matt. IX. 18, Saint Chrysostom: Homilies on the Gospel of Saint Matthew, ed. Schaff, Philip, WM. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company: Michigan, 1978. 14 Also from the ceremonial laws of the Old Testament, found in The Book of Leviticus. 15 Alkiviadis C. Calivas, Essays in Theology and Liturgy, Volume Three: Aspects of Orthodox Worship, Holy Cross Orthodox Press: Massachusetts, 2003, p.143. 16 Salisbury, The Blood of Martyrs, p.135.

Page |5 sacrificial also, echoing ancient beliefs.17 In fact, the menstrual blood of virgins began to be seen as sacrificial blood; through their virginity a sort of ultimate state of purity for women virgins became spiritual mothers to Christians, sacrificing their fertility in terms of reproduction to bring spiritual fertility to a community instead.18 The menstruation of saints and virgins was a positive thing, in comparison to that of ordinary women whose menstruation was polluting in a manner reminiscent of later ancient Greek culture. Martyrdom only heightened the symbolism of spiritual fertility. In ancient Greece, virgin self-sacrifice19 the closest thing to martyrdom in the ancient world, perhaps was equally heroic. In Uta Krons opinion, the willingness of a virgin to sacrifice in ancient Greece was both crucial - the consent of a victim being the key to the success of the sacrifice - and astonishing, considering ancient beliefs regarding the weakness of women. There also, virgin sacrifice was inspiring, providing heroic role models for the Greek community,20 and seen as saviours. Virgin sacrifices were less symbolic than martyrdom, but they also sacrificed for a salvific purpose: a greater good, essentially. Therefore in terms of women and sacrifice, the connection from ancient Greece to Byzantium is clear despite the different contexts leading to the sacrifice. Salvation is represented in both societies through the idea of symbolic motherhood. Virgins did not raise members of their blood family, but they did raise members of their spiritual community, and the polis. Ideas regarding virgin sacrifice appear to have remained intact over time. There is another aspect of martyrdom which is particularly important to the study of sacrifice over time: the idea of bodies. This aspect also combines blood and miasma in interesting ways. In ancient Greece, bodies were miasmic: they polluted and defiled. Cemeteries were outside the city, so as not to impact upon the citizens. However, there was a kind of exception in the persons of heroes. Hero cults in ancient Greece were undeniably passed down to Byzantium, except that Byzantine heroes
17 18

Ibid., p.138-9. Ibid., p.141. 19 Uta Kron, Patriotic Heroes, Ancient Greek Hero Cult: Proceedings of the Fifth International Seminar on Ancient Greek Cult, organized by the Department of Classical Archaeology and Ancient History, G teborg University, 21-23 April 1995 (ed. Robin Hgg), Skrifter utgivna av Svenska Institutet i Athen, 8, 16. Stockholm: 1999, p.83. 20 Ibid., p.83.

Page |6 were saints instead. The bones of a hero had divine power which protected and brought benefits such as fertility and good fortune,21 altars and small shrines were built atop their graves, statues were made of them, and sacrifices offered to them. Moving the bones of a hero was a special ordeal.22 The miasma which ordinarily surrounded the dead did not apply to heroes in the same way possibly because bones did not hold the same horror as corpses - although neither did it appear to have been completely absent. Barbara McCauley believes that the bones were not necessary to hero cults, and were only important as tangible proof of a heros presence.23 There is no cult of relics in ancient Greece. In Byzantium however, the opposite is true. There also appears to have been no miasma surrounding saints bodies, whether bones or flesh. Christians had no problem handling the bodily remains of their saints, much to the horror of pagans.24 Salisbury presents the epitome of this cult of relics: the mother of St Marian kissing his decapitated neck again and again in joy at his strength in martyrdom.25 The relics of martyrs were carefully preserved: their bones were separated and sent across the empire and many are still on display today. The fact that Christians used catacombs as places of worship and congregation is only one of the ways in which they disregarded the ancient miasma surrounding dead bodies. The sacrifice of martyrs did not end at the moment of their deaths, just as ancient heroes: Christians continued to venerate them for centuries and millennia afterwards. As saints and martyrs, they had the divine power of interceding to God and of causing miracles for those still living: their sacrifices allowed this to occur. Although the hero cult remained strong from ancient Greece to Byzantium, the ways in which the heroes were venerated changed dramatically. Any horror surrounding the idea of dead bodies was gone, replaced by reverence and even ecstasy for the relics of saints. Ironically, the emphasis on the blood sacrifices of

21

Barbara McCauley, Heroes and Power: The Politics of Bone Transferal, Ancient Greek Hero Cult: Proceedings of the Fifth International Seminar on Ancient Greek Cult, organized by the Department of Classical Archaeology and Ancient History, Gteborg University, 21-23 April 1995 (ed. Robin Hgg), Skrifter utgivna av Svenska Institutet i Athen, 8, 16. Stockholm: 1999, p.94. 22 Ibid., p.95. 23 Ibid., p.94 24 Salisbury, The Blood of Martyrs, p.50. 25 Ibid., p.50.

Page |7 ancient Greece and the bloodless sacrifices of Byzantium seem to be reversed in the case of the hero cult. However, the only real conclusion to be drawn from this brief study of heroes and women is that the idea of miasma as related to sacrifice, which was superficially present in church laws about menstruation and childbirth, was not in fact a significant aspect of Byzantine religion. Their disregard for death and dead bodies doubtlessly due to the specifically sacrificial and resurrecting message of Christianity meant that fear of miasma had to be overcome in its most potent and inevitable form: death. However, many rituals and aspects of Greek religion especially the ones relating to blood sacrifice are retained in Byzantium, even reused in a specifically Christian context. Although certainly some customs appear to have been retained as a concession to ancient tradition, both societies shared ways of looking at blood. The core value of blood was emphasised and reemphasised by both ancient Greece and Byzantium in matters of women, hero-martyrs and their methods of sacrifice in general. While they both approached the matter of sacrifice from different angles, a comparison of the two however brief demonstrates the significant similarities in their values. Even the bloodless sacrifices of Byzantium were all about blood, in one way or another. I can only conclude by agreeing with Burkert in saying that blood lurks at the heart of religion.26 Although Byzantine Christianity adopted much of Hebraic culture in its ideas about blood and sacrifice, it is clear that it retained much of its ancient Greek heritage as well.

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26

Burkert, Homo Necans, p.2.

Page |8 Burkert, Walter, Homo Necans: The Anthropology of Ancient Greek Sacrificial Ritual and Myth, transl. Bing, Peter, University of California Press: London, 1972: 1983. Burkert, Walter, Savage Energies: Lessons of Myth and Ritual in Ancient Greece, transl. Bing, Peter, University of Chicago Press: London, 1990: 2001. Calivas, Alkiviadis C., Essays in Theology and Liturgy, Volume Three: Aspects of Orthodox Worship, Holy Cross Orthodox Press: Massachusetts, 2003. Chrysostom, John, Saint Chrysostom: Homilies on the Gospel of Saint Matthew, ed. Schaff, Philip, WM. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company: Michigan, 1978.
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Constructions of the Classical Body, ed. Porter, James I., University of Michigan Press: USA, 1999:2002 (4th ed.) King, Helen, Hippocrates Woman: Reading the female body in Ancient Greece, Routledge: London, 1998.
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