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The view on Animal Sacrifices by the Priests and Mystics of Ancient Times

AvatarAcolyte Of Pan 6666 min to read

I agree with TOZ's official position on the matter for several reasons which I won't get into, many of them are already listed by TOZ's official material on it.

However what doesn't make sense to me is how the ancients viewed it, and I don't mean your average Pagan who engaged in local or superstitious practices, I mean the highest echelons of the ancient Pagan world, the priests and the mystics. The two examples I will use here are the Priests of Amun in Thebes and Emperor Julian. While there are countless others, I've chosen these two because the former was according to Zevism the institution that achieved the most powerful form of connection with the Gods, and the latter is a Zevist personality that ascended.

The Priests of Amum did practice animal sacrifices.

According to Herodotus:

"Now all who have a temple set up to the Theban Zeus or who are of the district of Thebes, these, I say, all sacrifice goats and abstain from sheep: for not all the Egyptians equally reverence the same gods, except only Isis and Osiris (who they say is Dionysos), these they all reverence alike: but they who have a temple of Mendes or belong to the Mendesian district, these abstain from goats and sacrifice sheep. Now the men of Thebes and those who after their example abstain from sheep, say that this custom was established among them for the cause which follows: Heracles (they say) had an earnest desire to see Zeus, and Zeus did not desire to be seen of him; and at last when Heracles was urgent in entreaty Zeus contrived this device, that is to say, he flayed a ram and held in front of him the head of the ram which he had cut off, and he put on over him the fleece and then showed himself to him. Hence the Egyptians make the image of Zeus into the face of a ram; and the Ammonians do so also after their example, being settlers both from the Egyptians and from the Ethiopians, and using a language which is a medley of both tongues: and in my opinion it is from this god that the Ammonians took the name which they have, for the Egyptians call Zeus Amun. The Thebans then do not sacrifice rams but hold them sacred for this reason; on one day however in the year, on the feast of Zeus, they cut up in the same manner and flay one single ram and cover with its skin the image of Zeus, and then they bring up to it another image of Heracles. This done, all who are in the temple beat themselves in lamentation for the ram, and then they bury it in a sacred tomb."

This matters to me because this is how the priests of Amun are spoken of in TOZ:

"The priests of Amun at Thebes maintained daily rituals of invocation, offering, and communion with the Neteru that constituted the most sophisticated system of divine contact in the ancient world."

They achieved the most sophisticated system of divine contact but couldn't figure out that the Gods didn't want or even approve of animal sacrifice? That sounds absurd to me. Saying it was the product of their time or that this was just done so they would eat the animal aren't good reasons either. These were meant to be extremely advanced people, they had no excuse to act like this.

Then there's Emperor Julian who is a Zevist personality. In his "Against the Galileans" one of his main criticisms of the christians was that they didn't practice animal sacrifice unlike the Pagans and jews, and that he found more in common with the jews because they practised animal sacrifice. Again this isn't some random uneducated Pagan peasant. This is Emperor Julian, a highly advanced neo-platonic mystic initiated into several mystery religions, arguing for a practice Zevism says is an abomination. Like the Priestly order of Thebes, he had no excuse.

The fact there were philosophers who argued against animal sacrifice in the time of Classical Greece is an argument against it just being a "product of the time". There were philosophers who argued for it as well, such as Julian.

From what I read, both Emperor Julian and the priests of Amun saw offerings to the Gods including animals as extremely important. Animal sacrifices were seen as holy practices.

Is connecting with the Gods so unbelievably difficult that an ancient priestly order and an advanced initiated master of the mysteries couldn't figure out animal sacrifice was wrong? To me, that is absurd. Of course they would have known.

In my opinion, the reason animal sacrifice stopped and became a taboo was because of christianity and its doctrine claiming animal sacrifice became redundant, not because of any real "advancement". Animal sacrifices are also portrayed heavily in media as barbaric and cruel archaic practices, which is also how Paganism is usually portrayed. Animals are still abused and killed in horrible ways, in ritualistic and non-ritualistic fashion, not that the fashion matters to me as much as how the animal was treated.

Had Europe remained Pagan, I'm almost certain animal sacrifices would still be happening in the West to this day. I see TOZ's position as ironically the product of its own time rather than the other way around, influenced by modern Western culture's attitudes towards the practice rather than ancient Pagan culture.

Even then I don't see a logical reason why the Gods would need or want animal sacrifices, which perplexes me on why the ancient mystics and priestly orders of the past were overwhelmingly in favour of it. The exceptions to the rule who argued against animal sacrifice only affirm the rule, they don't refute it.

I agree with TOZ's position that it isn't necessary, but to call the practice a Yehuboric abomination is an insult to all the priestly orders and mystics who did argue for it and practice it, which isn't something TOZ intended to do in its position on the matter. To me however it appears as a serious theological divide.

We can't have it both ways. We can't be consistent in knowing the priests of Thebes practised animal sacrifices and then claiming they were the closest to the Gods. That makes no sense to me. Advanced masters don't argue for or engage in Yehuboric practices.

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#1

The animal sacrifices originate in the bible, the rest are lies or stupid people. We don't accept animal sacrifices.

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#2

My personal take is that the ancients practiced animal sacrifice, but their rituals were not as horrific or inhumanely cruel as kosher and halal slaughter in Abrahamic religions. In Plato's Phaedo, Socrates asks his friend Crito to sacrifice a rooster to Asclepius before his death.

Of course, I am not the most insightful person when it comes to this, especially compared to the clergy. For the sake of certainty and accuracy, it would be best for them to answer, because, at this point, one cannot be sure what is corrupted and what is preserved in its original form.

However, the most important thing is that the Temple of Zeus conclusively rejects animal sacrifice today, and that is what truly matters in the end.

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#3

A modern industrial farm treats animals much worse than any animal sacrifice plus it is on a greater scale. All of a sudden a goat a year doesn't sound as bad, still wrong.

Is it possible the stories are distorted? What is being branded animal sacrifice is a ritualized sharing of a sacred meal? I am trying to think of possible alternatives here.

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#4

I am not the most educated person by any means, and I want to stress that this is just personal speculation, the mods or Clergy are welcome to disapprove or correct this as they see fit.

One thing that may be worth noting is that previously, meat couldn't be gotten from stores/industrial slaughter. I wonder if translation issues and time have made it difficult to understand what was meant by sacrifice. Perhaps it did not always imply the gratuitous and purposeful killing of an animal, buta focused or special consumption of meat where an animal was butchered as a necessary means but not a desired or fetishized end. There seems to be a big difference between the gratuitous killing of an animal, and necessary hunting or butchery which may be conducted in a certain way with religion in mind.

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#5

I agree with TOZ's position that it isn't necessary, but to call the practice a Yehuboric abomination is an insult to all the priestly orders and mystics who did argue for it and practice it, which isn't something TOZ intended to do in its position on the matter. To me however it appears as a serious theological divide.

There is no divide, because this is no longer a necessary practice and one should not kill animals for food and pretend it is "for God" as the mainstream religions are doing in many tenets such as Kosher, Eid Had and related.

The situation is very clearly and in all domains addressed here: If this is done for false worship, it is false worship. Religious Sacrifice of Animals is prohibited in Zevism; ie, to do this and pretend that it has to do with Theurgy, Divine Needs or the Gods.

For the people who did these, Animal sacrifices were actually done in inverse; to venerate the cosmos for providing food and an animal for consumption, not for particular ritual use. Rare cases like these were neither where Zevism is truly based; but we give them benefit of doubt.

Zevism is based not on popular folktales of the Ancient World and what uneducated people did, but focuses on the peak spiritualists and the peak sources for all matters (Ancient Greek or Vedic and what-not) and therefore, what laymen people did either for gestation of food or whatever, or what they wrote about it, has only historical interest importance and not religious importance in our doctrine.

And this is exactly where the premise of your argument is wrong, because when you actually look at the peak spiritualists, the historical record is not what you claim. You say the highest echelons of the ancient Pagan world were overwhelmingly in favour of animal sacrifice and that the exceptions only affirm the rule. The record shows the opposite. The bloodless position was not a fringe of eccentrics, it was a continuous and prestigious current running through the very top of ancient spirituality for centuries. Pythagoras and Empedocles condemned blood offerings outright, and Empedocles called the slaughter of animals for the Gods a pollution. Empedocles meant in his writings that it pollutes the energy fields with death energy, based on what I read about it; it's hidden in his text, as such the term "pollution".

Theophrastus, the successor of Aristotle, argued in On Piety that animal sacrifice was a late corruption born of famine and necessity, and that the oldest and purest offerings were bloodless: grains, cakes, incense and libations. Apollonius of Tyana, whom the Pagans themselves held up as their holy man, refused blood sacrifice entirely and worshipped with frankincense and hymns. Plotinus, the fountainhead of the same Neoplatonism Julian belonged to, declined to attend sacrifices and said "they must come to me, not I to them." Porphyry wrote On Abstinence arguing that blood sacrifice at best addresses lower powers and that the highest divinity is honored only by pure thought (Meditation). The Hermetic texts have God refuse even incense, because the only worthy offering is thanksgiving, since the divine needs nothing. So the "advanced masters" you appeal to are largely on our side. The civic establishment sacrificed - for food, festivals, whatever: Branded it as "necessary for the Gods" in order to merely satisfy societal needs and hunger. The contemplative elite, in large part, did not.

Even the defenders of the practice conceded the point that matters. When Iamblichus defended sacrifice against Porphyry, and when Sallustius, Julian's own friend and collaborator, wrote On the Gods and the World, both stated flatly that the Gods need nothing and gain nothing from sacrifice. The rite exists for the benefit of the worshiper (emotional, hunger, or otherwise). That is the official theology of Julian's own circle. The strongest ancient defense of sacrifice already grants everything Zevism says: no divine need, no divine appetite, no transaction measured in sacrificed meat.

On Julian specifically, he was following the Iamblichean line where material rites belong to the material and civic level of religion, while the philosopher ascends through immaterial means. And even sympathetic Pagan contemporaries thought he overdid it. Ammianus Marcellinus, a Pagan officer who admired him, complained about his extravagant hecatombs and joked that if Julian had returned victorious from Persia, cattle would have become scarce. The Pagan world itself found his enthusiasm for blood excessive. He is not the settled voice of Pagan wisdom on this question either.

On the priests of Amun, read Chaeremon the Stoic, an Egyptian priest himself, preserved in Porphyry's On Abstinence. He describes the Theban priests as extreme ascetics, with long purifications and abstention from animal food, some abstaining entirely. And look at what Herodotus actually describes in the passage you quoted: one ram, once a year, followed by public lamentation and burial in a sacred tomb. That is a mourning rite, a sacred drama about the concealment of the God, not a feast and not a bribe. The daily service of Amun was incense, libation, food offerings later distributed, and hymnody. The picture of the Theban priesthood as enthusiastic butchers does not survive contact with the sources. 1 Ram once a year was all that this verse talks about, nothing really systematic.

Yes, the practical extinction of sacrifice in Europe came through Christian legislation, not through Pagan philosophy winning the argument. Theodosius banned it, Porphyry did not end it. But the Zevist position never rested on the claim that the ancients gradually outgrew the practice. It rests on the claim that the practice was always a human social institution and never a divine requirement, which is exactly what Theophrastus, Porphyry, the Hermetists and even Sallustius were saying while the altars still smoked.

Regardless, this is not a topic that matters in Zevism as it's not in our doctrine in the context of layman approaches of the past. Homer and many others make mockeries of those who engaged in this practice thinking it gains any favor with the Gods, but Plato and others recognized it's part of social bonding (make food to eat and thank the Gods, a situation also common to Abrahamic religions which hypocritically penalized this but adopted it under a different guise).

So the priests and mystics need no defending from the Temple of Zeus's position. Properly sourced and when one knows their opinions as written factually, they are witnesses for it for our case. There is no divide.

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