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The 5th Epochal Revelation
-The Urantia Papers
PAPER 89
SIN, SACRIFICE, AND ATONEMENT
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.
*
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