Authors: RENÉ GIRARD
Sacrifice contains an element of mystery. And if the pieties of classical humanists lull
our curiosity to sleep, the company of the ancient authors keeps it alert. The ancient
mystery remains as impenetrable as ever. From the manner in which the moderns treat
the subject of sacrifice, it would be hard to know whether distraction, detachment, or
some sort of secret discretion shapes their thinking. There seems to be yet another
mystery here. Why, for example, do we never explore the relationship between sacrifice
and violence?
Recent studies suggest that the physiology of violence varies little from one individual
to another, even from one culture to another. According to Anthony Storr, nothing
resembles an angry cat or man so much as another angry cat or ma
n. 2. I
f violence did indeed play a role
____________________
1. Henri Hubert and Marcel Mauss,
Sacrifice: Its Nature and Function
( Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1968).
2. Anthony Storr,
Human Aggression
( New York: Bantam Books, 1968).
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in sacrifice, at least at one particular stage of the ritual, we would have a significant clue
to the whole subject. Here would be a factor to some extent independent of those
cultural variables that are often unknown to us, or only dimly known, or perhaps less
familiar than we like to think.
Once aroused, the urge to violence triggers certain physical changes that prepare men's
bodies for battle. This set toward violence lingers on; it should not be regarded as a
simple reflex that ceases with the removal of the initial stimulus. Storr remarks that it is
more difficult to quell an impulse toward violence than to rouse it, especially within the
normal framework of social behavior.
Violence is frequently called irrational. It has its reasons, however, and can marshall
some rather convincing ones when the need arises. Yet these reasons cannot be taken
seriously, no matter how valid they may appear. Violence itself will discard them if the
initial object remains persistently out of reach and continues to provoke hostility. When
unappeased, violence seeks and always finds a surrogate victim. The creature that
excited its fury is abruptly replaced by another, chosen only because it is vulnerable and
close at hand.
There are many indications that this tendency to seek out surrogate objects is not limited
to human violence. Konrad Lorenz makes reference to a species of fish that, if deprived
of its natural enemies (the male rivals with whom it habitually disputes territorial rights),
turns its aggression against the members of its own family and destroys them
. 3. J
oseph de Maistre discusses the choice of animal victims that display human characteristics --
an attempt, as it were, to deceive the violent impulse: "The sacrificial animals were
always those most prized for their usefulness: the gentlest, most innocent creatures,
whose habits and instincts brought them most closely into harmony with man. . . . From
the animal realm were chosen as victims those who were, if we might use the phrase, the
most
human
nature.
" 4.
Modern ethnology offers many examples of this sort of intuitive behavior. In some
pastoral communities where sacrifice is practiced, the cattle are intimately associated
with the daily life of the inhabitants. Two peoples of the Upper Nile, for example -- the
Nuer, observed by E. E. Evans-Pritchard, and the Dinka, studied at a somewhat later
date by Godfrey Lienhardt -- maintain a bovine society in their midst that parallels their
own and is structured in the same fashi
on. 5
The Nuer vocabulary is rich in words describing the ways of cattle
____________________
3. Konrad Lorenz,
On Aggression
, trans. Marjorie Kerr Wilson ( New York: Harcourt
Brace Jovanovich, 1966).
4. Joseph de Maistre, "Eclaircissement sur les sacrifices," in
Les Soirées de
SaintPétersbourg
( Lyons, 1890), 2:341-42. Here, and throughout the book,
translations are by Patrick Gregory unless an English-language reference is cited.
5 E. E. Evans-Pritchard,
The Nuer
( Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1940); God-
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and covering the economic and practical, as well as the poetic and ritualistic, aspects of
these beasts. This wealth of expression makes possible a precise and finely nuanced
relationship between the cattle, on the one hand, and the human community on the other.
The animals' color, the shape of their horns, their age, sex, and lineage are all duly noted
and remembered, sometimes as far back as five generations. The cattle are thereby
differentiated in such a way as to create a scale of values that approximates human
distinctions and represents a virtual duplicate of human society. Among the names
bestowed on each man is one that also belongs to the animal whose place in the herd is
most similar to the place the man occupies in the tribe.
The quarrels between various subgroups of the tribes frequently involve cattle. All fines
and interest payments are computed in terms of head of cattle, and dowries are
apportioned in herds. In fact, EvansPritchard maintains that in order to understand the
Nuer, one must "
chercher la vache
" -- "look to the cows." A sort of "symbiosis" (the term is also Evans-Pritchard's) exists between this tribe and their cattle, offering an
extreme and almost grotesque example of the closeness that characteristically prevails
between pastoral peoples and their flocks.
Fieldwork and subsequent theoretical speculation lead us back to the hypothesis of
substitution as the basis for the practice of sacrifice. This notion pervades ancient
literature on the subject -- which may be one reason, in fact, why many modern theorists
reject the concept out of hand or give it only scant attention. Hubert and Mauss, for
instance, view the idea with suspicion, undoubtedly because they feel that it introduces
into the discussion religious and moral values that are incompatible with true scientific
inquiry. And to be sure, Joseph de Maistre takes the view that the ritual victim is an
"innocent" creature who pays a debt for the "guilty" party. I propose a hypothesis that does away with this moral distinction. As I see it, the relationship between the potential
victim and the actual victim cannot be defined in terms of innocence or guilt. There is
no question of "expiation." Rather, society is seeking to deflect upon a relatively
indifferent victim, a "sacrificeable" victim, the violence that would otherwise be vented
on its own members, the people it most desires to protect.
The qualities that lend violence its particular terror -- its blind brutality, the fundamental
absurdity of its manifestations -- have a reverse side. With these qualities goes the
strange propensity to seize upon surrogate victims, to actually conspire with the enemy
and at the right moment toss him a morsel that will serve to satisfy his raging hunger.
The fairy tales of childhood in which the wolf, ogre, or dragon gobbles
____________________
5 frey Lienhardt,
Divinity and Experience: The Religion of the Dinka
( Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1961).
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up a large stone in place of a small child could well be said to have a sacrificial cast.
Violence is not to be denied, but it can be diverted to another object, something it can
sink its teeth into. Such, perhaps, is one of the meanings of the story of Cain and Abel.
The Bible offers us no background on the two brothers except the bare fact that Cain is a
tiller of the soil who gives the fruits of his labor to God, whereas Abel is a shepherd who
regularly sacrifices the first-born of his herds. One of the brothers kills the other, and the
murderer is the one who does not have the violence-outlet of animal sacrifice at his
disposal. This difference between sacrificial and nonsacrificial cults determines, in
effect, God's judgment in favor of Abel. To say that God accedes to Abel's sacrificial
offerings but rejects the offerings of Cain is simply another way of saying -- from the
viewpoint of the divinity -- that Cain is a murderer, whereas his brother is not.
A frequent motif in the Old Testament, as well as in Greek myth, is that of brothers at
odds with one another. Their fatal penchant for violence can only be diverted by the
intervention of a third party, the sacrificial victim or victims. Cain's "jealousy" of his
brother is only another term for his one characteristic trait: his lack of a sacrificial outlet.
According to Moslem tradition, God delivered to Abraham the ram previously sacrificed
by Abel. This ram was to take the place of Abraham's son Isaac; having already saved
one human life, the same animal would now save another. What we have here is no
mystical hocus-pocus, but an intuitive insight into the essential function of sacrifice,
gleaned exclusively from the scant references in the Bible.
Another familiar biblical scene takes on new meaning in the light of our theory of
sacrificial substitution, and it can serve in turn to illuminate some aspects of the theory.
The scene is that in which Jacob receives the blessing of his father Isaac.
Isaac is an old man. He senses the approach of death and summons his elder son, Esau,
on whom he intends to bestow his final blessing. First, however, he instructs Esau to
bring back some venison from the hunt, so as to make a "savory meat." This request is
overheard by the younger brother, Jacob, who hastens to report it to his mother,
Rebekah. Rebekah takes two kids from the family flock, slaughters them, and prepares
the savory meat dish, which Jacob, in the guise of his elder brother, then presents to his
father.
Isaac is blind. Nevertheless Jacob fears he will be recognized, for he is a "smooth man,"
while his brother Esau is a "hairy man." "My father peradventure will feel me, and I
shall seem to him as a deceiver; and
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I shall bring a curse upon me, not a blessing." Rebekah has the idea of covering Jacob's
hands and the back of his neck with the skins of the slaughtered goats, and when the old
man runs his hands over his younger son, he is completely taken in by the imposture.
Jacob receives the blessing that Isaac had intended for Esau.
The kids served in two different ways to dupe the father -- or, in other terms, to divert
from the son the violence directed toward him. In order to receive his father's blessing
rather than his curse, Jacob must present to Isaac the freshly slaughtered kids made into
a "savory meat." Then the son must seek refuge, literally, in the skins of the sacrificed
animals. The animals thus interpose themselves between father and son. The serve as a
sort of insulation, preventing the direct contact that could lead only to violence.
Two sorts of substitution are telescoped here: that of one brother for another, and that of
an animal for a man. Only the first receives explicit recognition in the text; however,
this first one serves as the screen upon which the shadow of the second is projected.
Once we have focused attention on the sacrificial victim, the object originally singled
out for violence fades from view. Sacrificial substitution implies a degree of
misunderstanding. Its vitality as an institution depends on its ability to conceal the
displacement upon which the rite is based. It must never lose sight entirely, however, of
the original object, or cease to be aware of the act of transference from that object to the
surrogate victim; without that awareness no substitution can take place and the sacrifice
loses all efficacy. The biblical passage discussed above meets both requirements. The
narrative does not refer directly to the strange deception underlying the sacrificial
substitution, nor does it allow this deception to pass entirely unnoticed. Rather, it mixes
the act of substitution with another act of substitution, permitting us a fleeting, sidelong
glimpse of the process. The narrative itself, then, might be said to partake of a sacrificial
quality; it claims to reveal one act of substitution while employing this first substitution
to half-conceal another. There is reason to believe that the narrative touches upon the
mythic origins of the sacrificial system.
The figure of Jacob has long been linked with the devious character of sacrificial
violence. In Greek culture Odysseus plays a similar role. The story of Jacob's
benediction can be compared to the episode of the Cyclops in the
Odyssey
, where a
splendidly executed ruse enables the hero to escape the clutches of a monster.
Odysseus and his shipmates are shut up in the Cyclops' cave. Every day the giant
devours one of the crew; the survivors finally manage to blind their tormentor with a
flaming stake. Mad with pain and anger, the Cyclops bars the entrance of the cave to
prevent the men from escaping. However, he lets pass his flock of sheep, which go out
daily to
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pasture. In a gesture reminiscent of the blind Isaac, the Cyclops runs his hands over the
back of each sheep as it leaves the cave to make sure that it carries no passenger.
Odysseus, however, has outwitted his captor, and he rides to freedom by clinging to the