Monotheism & Anti-Semitism

How Sacrifice and the Gods were first invented and then abolished

Bremen — Toronto October 1986

*)   This text was written originally in German for the Festschrift in honour of Herbert A. Strauss, director of the centre for research into anti-Semitism at the Technical University of West Berlin.

"Jewish monotheistic concepts during the Second Temple era [...] increased as the channels closed between man and the world above".

M. Stem "The Period of the Second Temple" in H. H. Ben-Sasson (ed.): A History of the Jewish People (1969,1976 Cambridge MA) 282.

 

"We still hate our victims, if you will, but we no longer worship them. This diminished mythical transfiguration certainly accounts for the readability of persecution in our world and the unreadability of myth stricto sensu. We can read persecution because it is objectively easier and we still cannot read myth even though or rather because it amounts to nothing else, in the end, than a more extreme transfiguration of the persecuted victim."

René Girard in Diacritics (March 1978) 46.

Chronological Dating

The approximate dates given on the conventional XC (Christian Calendar) scale at most provide relative values among neighbouring ones, but none at all in absolute dating context because ultimately all XC-dependent dates are based on astronomical retro-calculation not permitted for any observation data deriving from times before the middle of the Trecento!

the quotation from Maccabees comes from the New English Bible.

I

The inauguration, in [~5l5- XC], of a new temple in Jerusalem marked a climax in the reform that changed Hebrew paganism into Jewish monotheism. The tribes of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, deported in [~721- XC] by the great Assyrian conqueror Sargon, resembled the planet-worshipping inhabitants of their new homes in Media and Mesopotamia to such an extent that they were soon assimilated and disappeared from history; on the other hand the descendants of the inhabitants of the Southern Kingdom of Judah who were deported between [~597- XC] and [~586- XC] by Nebuchadnezzar embodied a spiritual revolution which from its beginning caused great consternation amongst Gentiles and helped the Jews to an identity which is alive to this day.

[2500 XC] years after the re-dedication of the temple Herbert A. Strauss stated that we still do not understand why the history of persecution in the West has found its "element of continuity" in the "designation of ‘the Jew‘ as a suitable target for aggression" [1] . So far, anti-Semitism research has been unable to understand "why the aggression is directed against a specific minority" [2] . Psychology is presently able to explain the manner in which childhood events lead to persecutory behaviour in adults. It is possible to pinpoint with increasing accuracy social crises which cause an increased tendency to persecute. Historians and political scientists are able to furnish specific explanations for the manipulation of this readiness to persecute by those in power and by those seeking it. However, in order to understand why Jews are hated, one needs to understand why it is specifically the Jews that people hate.

"Why the Jews?" [3] is the title of a book co-authored in 1983 by Dennis Prager, Los Angeles and Joseph Telushkin, Jerusalem. Herbert A. Strauss has now raised this question for the German speaking peoples.

 

II

That prejudice and enmity are directed against Jews even in their absence, that these feelings are generated even by those who, like the Early Christian Father, Origen ([~l85-253 ]) [4] , have intimate Jewish friends, indicates that there must be at the centre of Judaism an idea that is alive, that has aged so little that it not only caused disquiet [2500 XC] years ago but still disturbs and fascinates us today. The very fact that personal acquaintances are so frequently excluded from animosity indicates that anti-Semitism cannot be correlated with the weakness or strength of individual Jews, people of flesh and blood. Jews themselves insist, with justification, that they carry out the same base or human actions as others. The general irritation attached to an imperative idea which was first formulated by Jews, but is as difficult for them to carry out as it is for the rest of the world. This central idea is that one must not expect salvation from the sacrifice of others. In pre-Christian antiquity, in the Chaldaean, Greek and Roman spheres of influence,

"The non-believers were shown in Judaism something quite unique. Those elements of religion and cult that are elsewhere in the centre, had been completely omitted: it knew neither temples nor images of the gods, nor sacrifice. The abolition of sacrificial service, the central element of all local cults, with the exception of the [...] Temple in Jerusalem [...] was [...] valid for the majority of the Jews. For this reason, the temple with all the details of the sacrificial service made an enormous impression on Jews who came to Jerusalem [...]; contrary to other peoples, they had never seen anything like it elsewhere." [5]

This fascination with liberation from sacrificial ritual was expressed by Aristotle‘s great pupil Theophrastus ([~372/288- XC]) in his statement that the Jews were "philosophers" by race [6] , ie a people free from religion. The eminent Alexandrian astronomer Claudius Ptolemy ([2nd century BCE XC]) describes the inhabitants of Judea simply as "god-less" [7] . Theophrastus reports that the Jews – who had emigrated to some 500 towns of what was to become the Roman Empire – were ashamed that animal sacrifice was still carried out in Jerusalem [8] . This shame sheds light on the reason that people in antiquity were inimical to the Jews. Gentiles took part in sacrifices not in one, but in many thousands of temples, and, at least when non-sacrificers were present, they also experienced shame. Although these "godfree" Jews were admired by a few scientists and philosophers, for the most part they were viewed as godless "atheists" [9] , a cult-free personification of "an unsocial life" [10] , exemplifying a "hatred of mankind” [11] . The sacrificial ritual was experienced and aspired to as a healing remedy – the Greek word "pharmakos" was applied to the goat that was frequently sacrificed in the place of a person [12] . Those rejecting sacrifice must have appeared as a sober person does to a drunk.

The Jews themselves were aware very early that the rejection of sacrifice appeared provocative. They described the reactions to their turning away from sacrifice to celestial bodies and the adoption of an invisible, indivisible, timeless and all-determining cosmic power chiefly in legends about the so-called patriarch Abraham. Their earliest records fall in the period of the Babylonian exile from [~586- XC] to [~537- XC]; it was only later that they were placed before or amongst the legends concerning Moses [13] . There, eg, we read:

"And lest thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest the sun, and the moon, and the stars, even all the host of heaven, shouldest be driven to worship them, and serve them". [14]

In the traditional legends the refusal of the Abraham figure to sacrifice his of, Isaac, immediately leads to bloody and cruel persecution. The legends highlight the courage required by Jews to promote their original point of view. The rise of monotheism and of anti-Semitism are viewed as simultaneous occurrences:

"Now Nimrod had Abraham tied and thrown into a fiery furnace; but only his ropes burned, Abraham remained unharmed. Then Nimrod had a huge pyre erected. Deluded into thinking that they did this to please their god, all inhabitants, women and children brought the wood. As soon as the pyre was set alight, no-one could approach it so that it was impossible to lead Abraham onto the pyre. Then Iblis [the satanic Morning Star] built a catapult¹⁴ with whose help Abraham was thrown onto the pyre” [15] .

This primeval anti-Semitic scenario, the holocaust (the sacrifice in which the victim as a whole is burned) of the legendary founder of monotheism, the incident in which Nimrod "threw our forefather Abraham into the fiery furnace” [16] is introduced into the Hebrew Bible via the Book of Daniel (written in the [3rd century XC]). In this book the king also punishes Daniel for refusing to worship the golden idol of the Chaldaeans. A miracle tale documents the Jews’ continued refusal to sacrifice:

"[…] fall down and worship the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the king hath set up: and whoso falleth not down and worshippeth shall the same hour be cast into the midst of a burning fiery furnace. [...] There are certain Jews [...] (who) have not regarded thee; they serve not thy gods nor worship the golden image which though hast set up. [...] Nebuchadnezzar [...] said unto them [...] if ye worship not, ye shall be cast the same hour into the midst of a burning fiery furnace. [...] Then these men were bound in their coats’ their hosen, and their hats, and their other garments, and were cast into the midst of the burning fiery furnace. [...] Then Nebuchadnezzar came near to the mouth of the burning fiery furnace and spake: [...] ye servants of the most high God, come forth and come hither. Then [...] (they) came forth of the midst of the fire. And he [...] saw these men upon whose bodies the fire had no power, nor was an hair of their head singed, neither were their coats changed nor the smell of fire had passed on them." (Dan. 3:5-27).

Towards the end of the second century of our era, the sophist Philostratus wrote the Life of Apollonius of Tyana. In this work, Euphrates – an adversary of the neo-Pythagorean eponymous hero and miracle worker – expresses the popular view of the Abrahamites prevalent in this period:

"For the Jews have long been in revolt not only against the Romans but against humanity; and a race that has made its own a life apart and irreconcilable, that cannot share with the rest of mankind in the pleasures of the table nor join in their libations or prayers or sacrifices, are separated from ourselves by a greater gulf than divides us from Susa or Bactria (in Persia) or the most distant Indies.” [17]

750 years separate Nebuchadnezzar of the legend in the Book of Daniel from the disdainful Jews, described by a writer at the court of the Roman Emperor Septimus Severus ([193-211 XC]), who shunned the sacrifices of other peoples. In [70 XC], Titus destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem, the only Jewish place of sacrifice. That Judaism survived the destruction of the temple, that its life style continued to thrive, attests to an ability to function without resorting to sacrifice, without victimizing others for ones own welfare. The Jews managed to live without a temple, without priests, without sacrifice, without a territory of their own: "The people shall dwell alone and shall not be reckoned among the nations" (Num. 23:9), as biblical writers of the [6th XC] and [5th centuries BCE XC] put it, in words of unconscious foreboding, and as later Jewish authors emphasize: "Each land is full of you and each sea, but everyone there takes offence at your customs” (Sibylline Oracles III, 271) [18] .

What is the origin of this rage against a people whose political powerlessness had already been proved in pogroms and massacres, [88/87- XC] in Asaphon and [38 XC] in Alexandria, to name only those events that are clearly attested [19] ? What causes that irritation with the Jewish renunciation of sacrifice? How were the Hebrews able to free themselves from sacrifice when other peoples in their vicinity were unable to do so? The difficulty of overcoming sacrifice is illustrated in the Hebrew Bible which commonly describes individual groups of Jews as tempted to resort to traditional methods of tension release:

At that time there appeared in Israel a group of renegade Jews who incited the people. "Let us enter into a covenant with the Gentiles round about, they said, because disaster upon disaster has overtaken us since we segregated ourselves from them”. (1 Maccab. 1:12, written in the [2nd century BCE XC]).

III

Even today collective aggression towards Jews is still considered an inexplicable phenomenon. The origin of monotheism, which characterizes Judaism is regarded as equally inexplicable. Modem scholarship is at a loss to explain both the origin of Judaism and the reasons for the persecution of Jews. There is agreement only that the first monotheistic formulations initially appear during the Babylonian exile, after [~550- XC]. Deuteronomy says "The LORD [...] is God, there is none else beside him" (Deut. 4:35) and in Deutero-Isaiah, which was written in about the same time, we read: "Before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me. I, even I, am the LORD; and beside me there is no saviour. [...] I am the LORD and there is none else, there is no God beside me" (Is. 43:10-11 and 45:5).

It is disputed whether the author of the Isaiah text [20] influenced the author of Deuteronomy or whether the latter developed his monotheistic views independently [21] . On the other hand it is indisputable that the unfathomable, jealous, vindictive, natural catastrophes-causing God of pre-Babylonian Hebraism disappears as monotheism makes its appearance. The new Yahweh proves to be true even when the faithful fall away (Deut. 4:29—30). The loving God (Deut. 7:8), the merciful God (Deut. 4:31) makes his appearance in history in the middle of the [first millennium BCE XC] only. "Mercy now comes before right” [22] and punishment "is only applied to individual sinners” [23] , no longer to entire families.

Moreover it is indisputable that at the same time – about [500 XC] years before the beginnings of Christianity – the Jewish commands to love are laid down: "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Lev. 19:18). Even the stranger is no longer to be considered an enemy: "And if a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not vex him. But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one from among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself" (Lev. 19:33-34).

Monotheism is characterized not only by mercy, truth, love and clemency but also by a resolute resistance to the idea that God could be assigned to a temple, ie a place of sacrifice. This position, characteristic of the exilistic revolution, found its way into the Bible via Trito-Isaiah, written in the [5th century BCE XC]:

"The heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool: where is the house that ye build unto me? [...] He that killeth an ox is as if he slew a man; he that sacrificeth a lamb, as if he cut off a dog‘s neck; he that offereth an oblation, as if he offered swine’s blood; he that burneth incense, as if he blessed an idol. Yea, they have chosen their own ways, and their soul delighteth in their abominations. [...] When I spake, they did not hear; but they did evil before mine eyes and chose that in which I delighted not" (Is. 66: 1—4).

Whilst the Jews are reproached by non-Jews for not burning incense and not sacrificing and therefore showing up the "delight” in the souls of the sacrificers, within their group the desire for a quick release of tension via ritual sacrifice is kept within bounds. One needs to emphasize how difficult it is to overcome the desire for sacrifice. One never knows in advance whether aggression can be sublimated in the care of one’s neighbour, in creative expression and in the search for truth that disperses mystery, or whether it will induce disease which the salutary sacrifice is supposed to forestall. One can only discover later whether the refusal to sacrifice and the move towards sublimation were successful. The path towards this new state is not to be traversed without the danger of suffering a neurosis. The state of being elected – which appears scandalous to others – consists in not allowing oneself to fall back on sacrifice to celestial bodies, but to serve "HIM" alone – and the serving of "HIM" is already a partial regression from the scientific rejection of gods and sacrifice. For, a Person who can hardly repress the wish to sacrifice and, thus, to indulge in obsessive prayers exhibits the inescapable toil of sublimation which is never free of psychic strain.

Clearly hatred of Jews makes manifest emotions which are inherent in all human beings. Jews have as much difficulty as non-Jews do in subduing the desire to sacrifice. However, an individual who succeeds in doing so can set an example for others, can show them that they, too, may abandon the distasteful practice of sacrifice. In an anti-Jewish outburst fury that the simple existence of the Jews shows up sacrifice as both deviant and backward combines with admiration for a people who can live without sacrifice, who can become a "nation of philosophers" in Theophrastus’ phrase.

But how did the Jews succeed in giving up sacrifice during the period after the Babylonian exile? After all, their Hebrew ancestors from Israel and Judah obeyed ordinary priest-kings –ie chief sacrificers. King Manasseh of Judah ([~69l/638- XC]) still "reared up altars for Baal, and made a grove [for Ashera] [...] And he built altars for all the host of heaven [...] And he made his of pass through the fire." (2 Kin. 21:3-6). Even Ezekiel, who became a prophet around [~593- XC] and joined the others in their exile in Babylon, calls to mind the practices of the recent past:

"Thou [...] madest to thyself images of men [...] Moreover thou hast taken thy sons and thy daughters, whom thou hast borne unto me, and these hast thou sacrificed unto them to be devoured. Is this of thy whoredoms a small matter that thou hast slain my children and delivered them to cause them to pass through the fire for them?” (Ezek. 16:17, 20-2l) [24] .

The same prophet indicates not only that such behaviour took place shortly before the Babylonian exile, but also that, in contrast to monotheistic practice, the practice of sacrificing humans to a deity continued long after the time of Moses, down to the Babylonian exile:

"Wherefore I gave them also statues that were not good, and judgments whereby they should not live; and I polluted them in their own gifts, in that they caused to pass through the fire all that openeth the womb, that I might make them desolate, to the end that they might know that I am the LORD." (Ezek. 20: 25—26) [25] .

IV

How did the dreadful acts in which, as will be seen, people created their deities come to be performed? And how did they come to be abandoned so that the deities themselves disappeared again? The origin of Jewish monotheism cannot be understood without considering priest-kingship to which it was opposed. Unfortunately, to this day the origin of the feudal theocracy in the Bronze Age, which was centred on sacrificial temples, is not satisfactorily explained; for this reason the author feels obliged to present, as a starting point, a sketchy outline of his own explanation of the origin of sacrifice.

"The Age of Sacrifice" – following the "Golden Age", or the "Age of Wisdom" and preceding the present "Age of Discord" – is the name that Hindu tradition [26] gives to the period which according to academic convention marks the beginning of the great civilizations. According to Aristotle this is also the age during which there were periodic catastrophes that destroyed civilizations (Fragments 18), an age during which "the planets are gods" (Metaphysics 1074 bl).

The current inability to comprehend the genesis of theocratic high culture or the deification of celestial bodies is to a large extent due to the dearth of interchange between researchers in religion, history and archaeology. Archaeological excavators in particular have long ago discovered that gigantic natural catastrophes occurred during the Bronze Age; five of these were so enormous that they left layers of destruction, ash and flooding throughout ancient settlements. In 1948, Claude Schaeffer, comparing the layers at hundreds of excavation sites, dated these catastrophes to between [~2300- XC] and [~1200- XC] [27] . He applied a chronology that had been invented by Egyptologists and astronomers of the 19th century. In 1973, however, these supposedly precise basic assumptions were shown to be untenable by an outsider who has been attacked violently and described as a charlatan [28] . In 1982, the British astronomer, Prof. Archibald Roy, commented on this dismantling of textbook chronology: "It therefore seems to me that the classical astronomical chronology rests on very weak ground” [29] . During the 4th International Egyptological Congress in 1985 in Munich the Nestor of the subject – Wolfgang Helck – eventually admitted to the weakness of the world-wide dating system on which the history of antiquity is based:

"The treatment of chronology is clearly in crisis. Part of the reason is the acceptance of dogmatic scientific facts without first testing whether they are applicable to Egyptian material and whether this material is reliable” [30] .

If the five worst catastrophes are dated according to archaeological evidence and not according to events dated in accordance with Egyptology, they occur approximately in the years [~1500-, ~1450-, ~1030-, ~850-, and ~750- XC] [31] ; the final catastrophe "coincided with intense climatic change” [32] . Conventional historiography has in the meantime got into the habit of considering catastrophes, still dated traditionally, as plausible dividers of archaeological ages [33] . Their causes – volcanic eruptions and ordinary earthquakes are excluded because their effects would not have been great enough – are still considered to be mysterious. They are therefore not considered in terms of religious theory and political science: "Archaeology reveals cataclysms, but it cannot tell us the circumstances or even who the participants were” [34] – thus the senior classical scholar, Sir Moses Finley.

On the other hand, the traditions found in cuneiform inscriptions of the [7th and 6th centuries BCE XC] point to a direct link between the catastrophes and their causes and the origin of temples and sacrifice. It is said that the Mesopotamian priest-kingship arose "after the flood had passed over the land” [35] . The reigning goddess Ishtar (goddess of the planet Venus, ie the Morning Star) is said to have caused a flood. And it was after a flood that priest-"kingship was lowered from heaven” [36] . Whilst the first priest-kings (or the first ritual and sacrifical utensils?) were still living in tents [37] , the hero Gilgamesh built a walled area in Uruk where he erected a temple to the flood-bringing Ishtar (elsewhere named Inanna, Astart, Ashera etc.) [38] .

Cuneiform inscriptions describe the origin of priest-kingship and sacrifical temples after a catastrophic flood ascribed to Venus; the evidence has been impressively confirmed by excavators. Underneath the first layers of the high culture the excavators found remains of neolithic tribal villages. These were overlaid by extensive "destruction layers” [39] and "flood horizons” [40] which coincide with "climatic change” [41] . The excavations at Uruk, which "provided superior knowledge for Babylonian archaeology” [42] brought to light material proof for the beginning of the high culture in the "first terrace” of the Temple of Inanna and "Inanna symbols” [43] . The Greek tradition, too, tells us that the state of being "subjects” [44] , ie people subject to priest-kings, only occurred after the flood of Deucalion.

According to the cuneiform inscriptions, the planet Venus – feared and adored by the Mycenaean Greeks as Asasara [45] – not only causes floods but also "makes the heavens tremble and the earth quake”, throws her "firebrands across the earth”, "splits apart great mountains” and "tramples the disobedient hike a wild bull” [46] . Hathor, the Egyptian goddess of the planet Venus, attacks mankind as lion-bodied Sekhmet, "to wade in their blood” as in "(beer) mash” [47] . In addition to the lion, the celestial snake – both are combined as a lion-dragon – becomes the bestiomorphic symbol of the cause of catastrophe.

Since there is evidence of floods, destruction and climatic change one may well ask what impact they have had on man? Hew did he react to them? What happens to survivors who are compelled to leave their destroyed homelands on a "migration” that often turns into a conquest? Those who have not died of fear but can change it to fury are still helpless. Those who are not struck dumb by events and do not commit suicide resort to flight that achieves nothing. Nothing can change anything. Men cry out against the sky like wild animals; they threaten the forces of nature with outstretched fists [48] . They even try to release tension by indecent exposure to the heavens [49] : but in the hopelessness of their anger they also attack one another. A community spared from destruction by cosmic power is threatened with destruction by collective madness. Even after the catastrophe has abated, communities cannot recover unless they find freedom from fear, an end to mass frenzy and release from the harmful and persistent tension. No way can be found, by negotiation or direct action, to compensate for the destruction or to ward off its feared recurrence. Now, however, a remedy is sought against the soul-destroying panic, one which will bring calm to the strife-ridden people.

Like children who try to master an overwhelming trauma by re-enacting it the terror-stricken communities produced heroes who introduced sacrifice. Through sacrifice the heroes provided the healing power of recapitulation to their infantile, regressed fellow-men. These redeemers – already the first kings of Israel and Judah take the title Messiah – are able, by creating gods, to symbolically overcome through sacrifice the overpowering effect of catastrophes.

These bold cult founders – which is what the heroes are – can only restore the power of action to the terrorized community by becoming sacred killers. The heroes are obligated to compensate for their ascendancy by learning to live with their fear of retaliation: people and animals who in the ritual represent the wild celestial powers, have to pay with their sacrificial death for the spiritual recovery of the community. Through sacrifice, the conscience-stricken community offers a passionate plea for pardon. It divests itself of its trauma through a sacral killing and changes the natural forces represented in the ritual into gods. The form of the sacrificial victim influences the form taken by the god in human or animal images, or in a combination of the two, with or without appropriate masks or costumes.

Where the catastrophe is experienced as a "battle" or collision between cosmic powers (Marduk against Tiamat, Zeus against Typhon, Apollo against Python, etc.) the "battle" is re-created in the healing ritual. Both the hero and his victim impersonate the forces of nature: the power defeated in the cosmic sphere is represented by the person or animal killed in the sacrificial ritual. This means that the cult-founding heroes themselves, as well as the sacrificed victims, are equated with celestial bodies – eg Heracles with the planet Mars. In each case the sacrificing community moves from horror-stricken suffering to a re-enactment of the catastrophe and its resolution. Each member of the community experiences afresh an aspect of the event so that, at least temporarily, the accumulated pressure can be released.

The explanation of sacrifice as a healing recapitulation of traumatically experienced catastrophes also accounts for the origin of the arts. Music – vocal and instrumental – arises from a ritual reproduction of the frightening sounds of the catastrophe and of the people acting in panic. Drama arises from the need to represent extreme human behaviour and observed natural forces. The dances – and incidentally athletic contests also – have to be carried out in exact accordance with the given sacrificial ritual and therefore have to be prepared extremely carefully. Finally, the plastic arts begin with the costumes that people or animals wear when they represent the forces of nature.

Hesiod tells us that when Prometheus introduced sacrifice, "gods and mortal men" [50] were separated, a remark which has been considered unintelligible until now. According to an old text, the Egyptian celestial lioness Sekhmet, who wades in human blood as if in beer mash, is the cause for the institution of human sacrifice: "And the majesty of this god said: 'Your sins will be forgiven! For the sacrifical victims have removed the massacre'. – This is the origin of the sacrifice" [51] .

Such a Messiah, a pacifying sacred sacrificer, is frequently called "the Son of the LORD" (e.g. Ps. 2:7 and 110:3, 1 Chr. 17:13). He is described in this way because in the act of asking the victim's forgiveness he cannot do otherwise than re-enact the helpless-aggressive child who fears his parents' vengeance for his hatred of or his attack upon them and who has to suppress his anger, thereby becoming a prey to feelings of guilt. For the cult-founding hero, too, the child is the father of the man.

The first priests able to provide release from tension are considered heroic sons of god not only because they have created rituals in which the chaotic emotions are structured, making it possible for communities to achieve stability, but also because initially the sacrifical act was not without danger. The victim did not necessarily cooperate. It was no easy matter to despatch a representative of raging natural forces. The victim virtually had to be defeated in the sacred ritual, and the community relieved of their agony brought about by a terrible reality. The cult founders – presumably at a later time sacrificial victims received training and status – had to kill unwilling partners, thereby turning a game into an authentic sacrifice. Even where the natural forces were represented by a wild beast, whose capture supplied a wealth of material for myths, rather than a human, the outstanding courage of the cult founders was unquestionable [52] .

Above all, the unavoidable acceptance of guilt feelings for the act of killing elevates the heroic early priests above the community. For this reason, they increasingly meet an unpleasant end in the myths. Integral to the memory of the hold and pioneering ritual is the memory of the punishment that attends it. Heracles, the greatest of all cult founders in the ancient epic cycles, himself dies as a victim, burning on a funeral pyre. That priests suffer the same punishment they have incurred on their victims clearly points to the guilt they experience. The priest's guilt stems from his role as the destroyer or murderer of those who represent the forces of nature: Heracles himself becomes a planetary god after being despatched as a burnt offering (Hesiod Catalogue of Women, fragment 25 MW, 27—28).

God and victim are not identical, as many authors suspect, but without guilt-ridden sacrificial murder the cosmic force represented in the sacrifice cannot become a god. Each human sacrifice is the killing of a god only insofar as it is this sacrifice which makes the faithful fear reprisal and seek forgiveness. After the Bronze Age catastrophes and the end of regular human sacrifice, idols in human form, which were created by sculptors on the basis of the myths they represent, act as a link between human sacrifice and the creation of gods. A late example of this after-effect of Bronze Age myths is, of course, the icon of Christ.

As the heroic priest has taken upon himself the guilt of ritual execution, thereby becoming a true healer, the community that has been relieved from unbearable tension – has been truly healed – is in debt to him. The payment of this debt is one of the foundations of feudal priest-kingship and of the development of the high culture in the Bronze Age: the Mesopotamian En or Lugal is a priestly king who sacrifices [53] , as is the Mycenaean Basileus [54] . However, in order to set up priestly government, the sense of guilt in those who were redeemed by sacrifice has to be associated with conquest and subjection. Gilgamesh, who is said to have overcome the celestial bull, or sacrificed a bull representing a cosmic body, uses forced labour in the construction of a temple for the Venus-planet Inanna [55] he is in fact both redeemer and oppressor at the same time. This component of subjection is present in Israel, too, where the pre-monarchic judge had the title Messiah: he, to, was a healing saviour and an executioner as well [56] .

The first priest-kings of Israel enter history not only as cult-founding saviours, but also as subjugators of Philistines and even of their own people. "I forced myself therefore and offered a burnt offering" (1 Sam. 13:12) says Saul who not only is under the terrifying impact of the cause of the third of Schaeffer's five great catastrophic layers ([~1030- XC]), but also fights with the Philistines who are trying to gain advantage from this turmoil.

Thus we find that Saul's specific ritual, the burnt offering exists at the start of the Israelite kingdom [57] and is instituted by the "angel of the LORD" (Judg. 6:11 and 21) who bears a strong resemblance to Hermes, the winged messenger of Olympian Zeus; we find him also as that frightening figure, Pan. Hermes, too, is thought to be a founder of sacrifice [58] – probably the holocaust – and is associated with the planet Mercury, as is the Egyptian Thoth and the Chaldaean Nabu. This deity is dominant as far as Schaeffer's fourth destruction layer ([~850- XC]).

The "angel of the LORD" ousts the male and female deities linked with the planet Venus. He brings about the razing of the Ashera sanctuary which until then had been frequented by the Israelites. The "ephod"-robes – ie the garments worn by the Anat=Venus priests – disappear [59] . Hanevim – Nabu=Mercury-personnel [60] – are predominant in the temple of the first kings of Israel. After the middle of the [9th century XC] – records speak of the return of Inanna from the netherworld and the renewed occupation of her temples [61] – the Israelite Ashera regains her terrifying and shining prominence as the wife of the Zeus-figure Yahweh [62] . Only after the last great catastrophes of the Bronze Age, reported as a "fall" of the planet Venus – "How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!" (Is. 14:l2) – do the Ashera sacrifices decline and the veneration of Yahweh – Zeus=Jupiter="Jove", a god without competition – becomes more widespread [63] . He is still a planetary deity and has only the name in common with the post-Babylonian Yahweh – a name used at best infrequently during that period.

To sum up: the priestly sacrifice ritual of the Bronze Age is carried out in response to world-wide catastrophes recognized by present-day scholars as destruction layers and divisions of ages, but attributed to erratic celestial bodies by ancient peoples. The priest-kingship – the theocratic first feudal government of history – adds exploitation to the sacrifice aimed at overcoming the terror; this development would be incomprehensible if it were only a clever aristocratic plot. The temples – frequently erected near stones ("columns", "altars") that had "fallen from the sky" [64] receive tribute from the peasants in exchange for a service of healing or salvation by the elimination of panic and anger through sacrificial aggression, in a ritual fight with living impersonators of natural forces. The priests assume the guilt incurred by the ritual slaughter of men and beasts, a guilt which weighs heavily on them. Self-flagellation and ascetic, penitential renunciation which went as far as self-castration [65] ‚ were therefore techniques used by priests as a means of expiation.

The priests assume the guilt in their Messianic role, but between the catastrophes they provide their second great service: oracles. "When will it happen again?", was the question frightened people asked and the best priests – astronomic prognosticators – provided very precise answers. Even a Messiah like Ahaziah of Israel ([~852/85l- XC]) in the great crisis during his period of office puts his trust in foreign specialists (2 Kin. 1:2) rather than in his own prophets whose star is literally falling or taking Inanna/Ishtar's place in the "world of no return".

Because the sacrifice which brings inner peace is thought of as a necessary answer to the terrifying catastrophes occurring during the Bronze Age, feudal priest-kingship is not only tolerated but also defended as a true means of healing. Certainly, the levying of tribute is felt as oppression, but initially no one believes he gets nothing in return. This changes completely when the cosmic catastrophes of the [second third of the first millennium XC] are replaced by peace and order among the celestial bodies.

V

The most persistent revolution after the last catastrophe happens in Athens. Young men and women are no longer shipped to the central Mycenaean place for human sacrifice on Crete. And along with the catastrophe-induced "smashing of palaces and their fortress complexes [...] went the particular pyramidal social structure" [66] . The priests are "made equal to the other citizens" (Plutarch Theseus 25). The estates of the priest-kings are distributed. This is the beginning of private property; it is followed by such revolutionary innovations as interest and money [67] .

The priests, whose economic power had been removed, are still called Basileus but are no longer heroic sacrificers: "Together and on the same level, people are standing around the altar" [68] . The natural forces of heaven are no longer overpoweringly terrifying. The sacrifical ritual is now a sham, the fear of catastrophe is no longer overwhelming. Statues frequently replace human beings and animals who were still being slaughtered as representatives of the natural forces during the Bronze Age. After the ritual sacrifice the victims were frequently tied to poles or trees. These decorated carcasses were removed for the next sacrifice and then replaced with fresh victims. After the abolition of regular human and animal sacrifice, however, there are no more freshly slaughtered idols available and in these places where worship continues, they are replaced by more durable images, first carved from tree-trunks and still retaining the shackles which had been necessary to hold up dead victims. [69] In front of such idols rituals are now performed for the release of guilt feelings, whatever their source may have been. Occasionally, ritual sacrifice is even carried out in front of these statues. These regressions – the linking of petrified victims with fresh victims – added to the difficulty of explaining the origin of idols, which in themselves already represent a sublimation. "Is sacrifice made to the gods, or are the gods  themselves being sacrificed?" is the question scholars ask again and again.

The oracles that predicted catastrophes degenerate into astrology, which is not only very popular nowadays but also a reminder of the time when there was substantial interference from the skies in human fate.

So religion does not disappear. Healing acts for ordinary suffering, mourning the dead and acts of reconciliation with those who were killed or who had died, such as had been sufficient in Neolithic times, are an option only for highly educated and philosophically-minded individuals. With the help of myth, which recalls the catastrophes and becomes a favourite means of education, people are now given a catastrophist education from their earliest childhood. The usual fears of children which arise from ordinary conflicts, are expressed in a catastrophist language of allegory out of all proportion to the stresses of childhood. Stories of the trials and sufferings of heroes faced with gigantic catastrophes become forms which clothe the usual day-to-day fears as well as such setbacks as bad harvests, high interest, miscarriage, or the fear of ill-disposed persons now dead but still malevolent. The conditioning associated with the reiteration of the myths accounts for the continued worship of planets whose cult images are now created by the finest artists. The recurrence of animal and human sacrifice in the Iron Age in times of war and bad harvest is a lasting and inescapable legacy of the Bronze Age.

Reforms such as these after [~750- XC] by Tiglath-Pileser in Assyria, by Nabonassar in Chaldaea, and by Hezekiah in Judah are not as successful as the one by Theseus in Athens. There is a flowering of monetary economies in Assyria and Babylonia, but the power of the priest-kings is not removed to the same extent and serfdom does not disappear. Exploitation through the priests remains in the fore- ground. The communities are kept in ignorance. The possibility of finding spiritual peace is mitigated by continued threats of catastrophes coming to those who do not supply their priestly master's demands. (In the extreme case of pre-Columbian, central American cultures human sacrifice on behalf of these in fear frequently becomes the execution of the ever-courageous.)

Power is used to make people continue with the ritual, and amongst the holders of power there is fierce competition for contributions from the devout. In the Kingdom of Judah, King Josiah ([~639/606- XC]) is the most successful in this competition. He manages to monopolize the cult for a genuine Jupiter-Yahweh in Jerusalem. Child sacrifice, however, at combined Baal-Ashera sites is firmly opposed – at almost the same time as the abolition of human sacrifice in Egypt under Amasis. Animal sacrifice is concentrated in Jerusalem and many priests of the rival cult are slaughtered (2 Chr. 34:5).

At this point in its history, the aristocracy of the Kingdom of Judah – consolidated and still structured along the lines of priestly feudalism – is taken into exile in Babylon ([~597/586- XC]) by a powerful adversary, Nebuchadnezzar. This act of violence against the "upper ten thousand" of Judah is the special condition – in addition to the universal cessation of catastrophes – for the evolution of Jewish monotheism. A nobility without exploitable peasants but equipped with a first-rate education and trying after deportation to avoid being exploited in turn by fooling priests and catastrophist threats, is free for the next step: the abolition of the worship and provision of idols and thus of religion altogether.

A high level of education and very little chance of obtaining income through priestly intimidation are the conditions which predispose to the abolition of sacrifice and gods. Astronomical observations become an important weapon. The formerly terrifying planets are studied painstakingly over long periods of time. It is concluded that Nabu (Mercury) and Ishtar (Venus) are no longer moving erratically in the heavens. This finds expression in the hexagram for the former and the pentagram for the latter: astronomical shorthand and masterpieces of Babylonian science that are still in use today [70] , though they now have become magic symbols themselves. The message to those who fall down in front of the statues of Nabu and Ishtar is that there will be no more panic-causing catastrophes.

This message again found its popular expression in the Abraham legends:

"Abram spoke to Terah his father...: What profit or advantage do we gain from these idols that you worship and prostrate yourself in front of? For there is no spirit in them: dumb things they are that only lead us into error [...] they are the work of men's hands. You carry them on your shoulders" [71] .

Abraham's father, however, reminds the legendary founder of monotheism of the dangers which he – and his successors – will have to overcome:

"I know it too, my of; but what shall 1 do about the people that I serve? If I tell them the truth, they will kill me; for they cling to them to worship them and honour them. Keep quiet my of in case they kill you" [72]

Of course, day-to-day factors which evoke tension persist (with reconciliation and flight as potential solutions), but their magnitude has been reduced and they remain largely within the scope of human interaction. Timid people, who in conditions of poverty tend to be in the majority or who as peasants are no longer exposed to cosmic catastrophes but to uncertainties concerning their harvest, are the least likely to rid themselves of tension-releasing rituals: and, especially in the province of Judea, which has been deprived of its ancestral upper class, these people constitute the majority.

This population, unaffected by the changes in Babylonia, continues its planetary cult [73] when the exiles return to Jerusalem, feudal exploitation revives [74] : this leads after the return from Babylon to that strange compromise which is Jewish monotheism. Its elements – sanctification of the Sabbath, circumcision of male children, prohibition of infanticide, an invisible, almighty deity – are still considered to be unexplained [75] . The elements of this compromise fix for posterity the different starting positions and divulge the spiritual revolution that occurred in Babylon. Though the indignation over the re-starting of temple worship and animal sacrifice in Jerusalem (see Is. 66:1-4) indicates the strength of a scientifically justified abolition of religion; this scholarly attitude was not completely successful in Judaism; it did, however, give monotheism the elements that have maintained it over the ages. How can the mysteriously enigmatic "customs" (Sibylline Oracles III 271) of post-Babylonian Judaism be explained [76] ?

On the day of Baal (or Iblis-Satan of the Abraham legends) when children were sacrificed as burnt offerings to Baal or his partner, Ashera, a prohibited ritual from the time of Josiah's reform [~6l5- XC] all activity is forbidden which might be used to continue the sacrifice. In particular lighting fires, slaughtering, cooking and going out of sight of the settlement are taboo. This changes the day of the pre-Babylonian blood ritual into the holy Sabbath of the monotheistic age. The saying, "More than that Israel has kept the Sabbath, it is the Sabbath that has kept Israel", can therefore as well be read as "More than that individual Jews succeeded to abstain from sacrifice, it is the commandment to abstain from sacrifice that has kept Israel".

The eighth day after birth (Gen. 17:10-14), on which children had been previously sacrificed, and lambs or young goats continued to be offered (Ex. 22:29 f) until 70, is transformed into the day of circumcision for all boys. Here, too, the Babylonian radicals have to accept a compromise with the adherents of a continuing sacrifice. In the other biblical story of circumcision – not linked with Abraham – when Zippora cuts off the foreskin of her of by Moses in order to save his life because – as Hyam Maccoby showed (see note 89, p. 82 and 87 ff) – his father wants to sacrifice him, the character of the ritual as a compromise is equally obvious. However, the passage from Ex. 4:24 ff was edited, shortened and altered in the post-Babylonian period by which time human sacrifice had been abolished and Abraham, inserted before Moses in the post-Babylonian tradition, had been credited with this abolition. Moses could no longer appear as a ritual executioner; the editors therefore allowed his stone knife to pass into the hand of Zippora who carries out the circumcision, though this compromise was in reality only arrived at hundreds of years later:

"And it came to pass by the way in the inn, that the LORD met him, and sought to kill him. Then Zipporah took a sharp stone, and cut off the foreskin of her of, and cast it at his feet, and said, Surely a bloody husband art thou to me. So he let him go." (Ex. 4:24-26)

The truncation of the original text rendered Moses' heroic, or priestly, action almost unintelligible. The sentence "the LORD [...] sought to kill him [Moses]", which still remains in the text and is considered particularly obscure, no longer raises difficulties in the light of the preceding explanation of sacrifice: under the impression of a nocturnal event caused by a natural force that threatens him with death and terrifies him, an exceptional man invents – or possibly repeats – human sacrifice which will lead to release from tension. This action elevates the force of nature to a deity, which much later writers then call "the LORD".

One of the special Jewish customs is the strict prohibition of infanticide which caused such admiration in antiquity – expressed amongst others by Hekataeus of Abdera ([~300- XC]) or Tacitus (56-120) – and which became the foundation for the right to live as the highest of all human rights; this also arises from resistance to child sacrifice.

Finally, a new sanctuary is erected in Jerusalem with feudally privileged priests and daily animal sacrifice, dedicated to the timeless, shapeless and all-pervading power of the Babylonian astrophysicists which was to have ended all temple sacrifice. The monotheistic deity, however, does not take human or animal form: temple sacrifice is carried out, so to speak, separately from the LORD. It is only where sacrifice ritualizes victory over cosmic forces, which had in reality been victorious, so that people or animals representing these forces lost their lives, that ritual sacrifice leads to the worship of idols in human or animal form.

After the destruction of the temple in [70 XC], Jews throughout the ancient world are known to be people who do not sacrifice, do not venerate priests, do not frequent temples; from childhood they are taught, to a greater degree than others, to sublimate and to use reason for the release of tension, which troubles them as much as anyone else. Moreover, they seem to be free of orgiastic tendencies associated with sacrifice and are therefore considered by their contemporaries to be prudish. They get together in special rooms – the synagogues – in order to study and debate history and law. They do have a teacher (the rabbi), but the study of scrolls lies at the centre of these academies.

Prayer is not really an essential part of the synagogue but it exists – as does the entire monotheistic compromise – as a further relic of Bronze Age rituals, such as the arms stretched out to heaven. Other such relics are the longing for a Messiah which is more than a desire to restore the old monarchic state. The longing for a Messiah is at the same time a desire for the release that was provided by sacrificial rituals in which guilt feelings associated with aggression were assumed by the high priest, king and son of God. Politically reactionary visions, as well as the wish for a psychological withdrawal from the Jewish demand for reasonable behaviour, maintain the expectation of a Messiah, not in the broad centre of Judaism, but along its fringes.

The longing for a Messiah combines with the apocalyptic visions and pseudo-prophecies, by-products of the post-Babylonian era, for which there is still no adequate explanation [77] . They only indicate a belief that the Bronze Age catastrophes have not really ended and that the Morning Star, which had fallen by the time of Isaiah (14:12) was certain to return. A renewed attack by celestial bodies would reinstate the redeeming sacrifical king: Apocalyptics and Messianism are, consequently, connected.

The heathen Israelite attitude of the pre-Babylonian period, which survives in apocalyptic circles but remains marginal, reaches its true flowering in Christianity, which eventually abandons the of-rescuing God of Abraham for a God sacrificing His own child. And though the hatred of Jews is pre-modelled in pagan civilisation where the terrifying celestial deities of the Bronze Age continue to be worshipped with burnt offerings and blood sacrifice, this catastrophe-bound excitation receives its most powerful expression in Christian apocalyptics when it becomes "open enmity with the synagogue" [78] . When John the Baptist, the forerunner of Jesus, calls the Pharisees and Sadducees a "generation of vipers" (Matt. 3:7), his attack is directed not only against democratic (or anti-Sadducee) synagogue-Jews, but also against their totally non-apocalyptic belief which they actually share with the aristocratic priests. The Pharisees are not prepared to believe the great catastrophes of the past will come again as dreadful divine judgment. Perusim (separatists) is the name they are given by some Apocalyptics because they are not prepared to listen in "acutely-Messianic hope" to the "message of the coming Kingdom of God" [79] .

Later, in Islam, there arises a second apocalyptic movement of greatest impact: "The message of the final judgment with its recompense for good and bad deeds was the primary concern of the prophet; the demand of exclusive monotheism" [80] was secondary.

VI

Jesus makes his appearance as an apocalyptic preacher when he says "I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven" (Luke 10:18): he uses Isaiah's remark concerning the Morning Star and declares that the catastrophes are not yet ever:

"And Jesus answering said unto him [a disciple], Seest thou these great buildings? There shall not be left one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down. [...] But in these days, after that tribulation, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars of heaven shall fall and the powers that are in heaven shall be shaken. (Mark 13:2 and 24-25) And great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven" (Luke 21:11).

"To experience and explain history in the framework of apocalyptic traditions is one of the essential elements in the faith and theology of early Christianity as well as in the early Church". [81]

This view has found its ultimate expression in the Revelation of John of Patmos. There the figure of Jesus appears not only as harbinger of apocalypse but – in the finale to the canon of Christian scripture – in the likeness of a Bronze Age deity, as bringer of the catastrophe that he has predicted: "I Jesus [...] am the root and the offspring of David and the bright morning star" [82] (Rev. 22:16). This is intended for the Chaldaean-Greek-Roman public which has not yet abandoned the worship of gods associated with planets. The cult founder who is both creator and of God, who by a holy sacrifice in atonement for sin has brought salvation to the community, has himself suffered the fate of being sacrificed and has risen from the dead.

It is not surprising, therefore, that in social position and attire the first bishops of the young church were clearly modelled after the "hero" who in the Dionysian mystery plays of late antiquity directed the ritual and whose archetype was the Bronze Age hero: the sacrificial executioner. With their churches and their eucharistic consumption of the flesh and blood of Jesus, Christians are heirs not only to the temples of non-Jewish planet worshippers but also to the temple at Jerusalem which disappeared from history in [70 CE XC]. The Jews, on the other hand, continued with the Synagogue, the house of learning; they would relapse from their progressive stance if they were to envy the claim of the Roman Catholic Church in particular to have inherited the temple tradition.

The success of the new movement is not to be explained merely by its fresh formulation of the notion of salvation through sacrifice: such a formulation would be a simple regress in the eyes of the Jews. For the poor and disenfranchised of the Roman Empire, as also for the cultured classes who despair of its future, the Jewish commands to love God and one's neighbour – together with the remarkable freedom of Jewish women in the diaspora [83] – supply a fascinating ingredient lacking in the rest of the Mediterranean world. The oppressed and insecure hear these commands with intense longing but at the same time they find it extremely difficult to free themselves from the need to sacrifice: the Jews' rejection of sacrifice is in their eyes completely unacceptable.

It is to such people – Greeks in the early Christian stronghold of Ephesus – that the Paul-author writes of the death of Jesus: "Christ also [...] hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour" (Eph. 5:2). Addressing the Jews, of whose shame over the continuing sacrifice in the temple in Jerusalem the same author is well aware, he adopts a much more Jewish manner than he would to "planet-worshippers": "For by one offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified [...] Now where remission of those is, there is no more offering for sin" (Heb. 10:14 and 18). The author, however, is not concerned to belittle the notion of sacrifice: he uses it to make the point that it has been superseded by the super-sacrifice of Christ.

Amongst some Jewish Christians in Judea – the heretical Ebionites – the interpretation of Christ's death as human sacrifice meets with opposition. On the other hand, Paul hits the right note with the peoples that adhered to sacrificial religions. The command to love which was radicalized by the Pharisee Hillel – "do not do unto others what you would not wish to have done to you" (Talmud Sabbath 31a – cf Matt. 7:12 and 1 Cor. 13) – together with the depiction of the death of Jesus as a sacrifice from which the faithful, with a clear conscience, can expect salvation, proves to be irresistible in a world which has never really gotten the better of its desire to take part in human sacrifice [84] . The adherent of Christ seeks inner peace not by good works and legally prescribed reparation of damage [85] , under which the Jews are groaning, not by this sublimation which demands too much from the average individual, but by "his blood" shall they "be saved" (Rom. 5:9).

 

Paul does not approach the Greeks as a shrewd priest, but as a fellow seeker. In Tarsus in Cilicia — before his studies in Jerusalem – he was "alive without the law" (Rom. 7:9) of the monotheistic Jews. The search for release from a sense of guilt dominates his life (as in Rom. 7:7-13). Sublimation in the form of an active life following the law does not, however, release him from his restless discontent. The enlightened position of his Pharisaic teachers who reject sacrifice made to celestial bodies is seen by him as a rejection of the justification for expiatory rites. This revolution in his thinking is linked with a personal cosmic experience. On the road to Damascus, where he goes to spy out apocalyptic sectarians – Christians – he "saw in the way a light from heaven, above the brightness of the sun" (Acts 26,13). In falling to the ground before this apparition (ibid. 14) he sheds all the troubles of monotheism and goes beck to pre-Babylonian time or, indeed, Hellenism which never experienced a comparable revolution. The idea that salvation lies in ritual which is necessary because of dreadful celestial portents had broken through again.

Apocalyptic stories in which Bronze Age catastrophes are depicted as future events, with their associated panic, and with the sacrifice invented for their resolution, gain influence as a justification for a resumption of group therapeutic salvation rituals. They remain popular today as legends or folk tales because they are also an excellent vehicle for expressing the wordless fear and anger experienced and then suppressed by children in earliest infancy – emotions not susceptible by a therapy based on ordinary everyday language. Apocalyptic language is more acceptable to those who suffer the after-effects of infant traumas because it is unrelated to present day living: as the language of the earliest literature it is both available and universally valid. To describe e famine or a pestilence as a "disaster" shows a grotesquely exaggerated perception of the danger; it does not, however, appear ridiculous so much as allegorical. It would be ridiculous to say "Oh, what a volcano" if something unpleasant happened, whereas it is quite acceptable to say "Oh, what a disaster", even when the occasion is unimportant.

The personal fears which cause us to recognize external problems are only partly related to them and find shelter to a large extent in catastrophic language. In this way traumas of the past influence behaviour in the present through the greatest monuments of literature [86] . Catastrophist expressions not only allegorize earliest – preverbal – stresses; they also distort descriptions of the crisis in such a way as to suggest an over-reaction inappropriate to the problem: expressing infantile fears in the rhetoric of Götterdämmerung can only provoke the strongest ritual reprisal. To represent an economic crisis – such as the destruction of slave-based capitalism as experienced by the Roman Empire at the beginning of the Christian era – in terms of the sun being darkened by some catastrophic agency gives expression to contemporary fears and anxieties and at the same time intensifies them. The ritual offered by harbingers who are also agents of catastrophe takes account of these increased anxieties by assuring the faithful that unlike those whom they hate, they will not die but find eternal life.

In periods of social crisis those who are most cruelly affected are frequently those who have been damaged in infancy. The more a child is neglected in early infancy, the more violent are the emotions of fear and anger. According to the theory of psychic determinism, when the infant recognizes that the hated person is the one who preserves life, this anger has to be converted because it is now insolubly linked with an awareness of risking the loss of care. In the so-called "eight-month-fear", a child is afraid when his mother leaves him; for the first time his hatred for his mother is no longer acceptable and is partly converted into concern for her welfare: an act of sublimation has been achieved. From then on, the more willingly a mother cooperates, the more effectively is a child's anger changed into actions that will alleviate his sense of being deserted. On the other hand, the more the relationship is fraught with anxiety, the more difficult will the sublimation of aggression become and the more violently will the anger increase; it can only be directed inwards and so builds up pressure in urgent need of release. For this reason, the apocalyptic aspect of Christianity is successful with these who have been infuriated to an excessive degree and also those who feel unusually threatened socially. Without the availability of a redeeming sacrifice, which is repudiated by enlightened Judaism, people cannot be induced to practise the justice and love enjoined by Judaism.

Whilst Greco-Roman enmity towards Jews is e result of the Jewish abolition of sacrifice, Christians base theirs on the charge that the Jews were responsible for Christ's redeeming but sacrificial death. "Belief in the death of Jesus as an act of redemption", as has recently been repeated by a past master of Protestant theology, this belief without which it would be better "simply to shut up the Christian shop" [87] , cannot be sustained without interpreting the death of Jesus as a sacrifice. Traditional Catholic orthodoxy maintains a view, rejected by most Protestants, that at every celebration of the Mass the consecrated bread and wine becomes by transubstantiation the body and blood of Christ. This is offered on the altar as "pure, holy and unblemished sacrifice" at the elevation of the Host in a re-enactment of the sacrificial death of Christ, by means of which man's sins are forgiven. Participation in the Mass results in a consequent release from the tension of guilt, but the endorsement of this constantly repeated sacrifice is believed by some to produce a renewed sense of guilt. The search for someone to take responsibility for this death from which the faithful expect salvation is inseparable from the desire to release more tension than is induced in the ritual.

There has been a great deal of research emphasizing the Roman share in the death of Jesus [88] or putting forward the opinion that Jesus survived [89] . The Koran adopts the position that the Jews "did not kill him, nor did they crucify him, but they thought they did" (Chapter 4,157). In fact, most findings point to a Roman legal act and some of the dates suggest that Jesus survived. But such research is a waste of time as long as it ignores the need for sacrifice, which results in the portrayal of trial and crucifixion in terms of human sacrifice. Such research also fails to appreciate the reason why "the Jews" as a nation have been described as the "sacred executioner" [90] .

Hyam Maccoby expresses the view that Paul accused the Jews of responsibility for the crucifixion, understating Roman complicity out of a desire to maintain good relations with the secular power [91] . At first sight this seems to make sense. But under the Empire Rome itself had retuned to sacred kingship and would not have thought it particularly inflammatory to be described as executing the death penalty. Besides, early Gentile-Christians did not go out of their way to carry favour with the Romans. In this author's opinion, the notion of "the Jews" as the executioners of Jesus is at the core of Christian theology [92] because Greeks and Romans, many of whom later became Christians, had long been indignant over the growing contempt for sacrifice that Jewish monotheism exhibited; they were therefore only too pleased to believe that, of all people, the Jews who were learning to do without sacrifice, had 'sacrificed' Jesus. Again, the guilt evoked by the act of sacrifice is easier to bear if it can be claimed that everyone indulges in it.

Conceptualizing the death of Jesus in terms of human sacrifice creates a dichotomy: the guilt-incurring aspect is imputed to "the Jews", and the salvation effected is attributed solely to Jesus. Jesus is a Messiah who cannot pay with his life for the performance of the sacrifice because he has already become the sacrificial victim.

This Christian dichotomy means that the Messiah who redeems by offering himself as the victim cannot perform the Bronze Age function of sacrificing others. After the destruction of the temple at Jerusalem the Jews become a community that no longer offers sacrifice and is not prepared to accept the guilt involved in the death of Jesus or any other blood sacrifice. The Jews can take no comfort from the so-called Servant Songs of Isaiah: it was the Christians who first saw a messianic significance in the notion of a Suffering Servant who 'was numbered with the transgressors and [...] bare the sin of many' (Is. 53:12). A sacrifice that is no more than a highly imaginative re-enactment may make no difference to the faithful, but it still sends shock waves through the community. The sacrificial balance is disturbed. Where there is no priest to assume responsibility, every time the body of Christ is consumed new layers of guilt are added to the guilt which the eucharistic sacrifice was intended to relieve.

(The Catholic Church has tried to resolve this dilemma: the ritual can only be carried out by ordained priests who in the nature of their office have to do penance to a greater degree than the congregation of the faithful. The bread/flesh and wine/blood are worshipped directly and represent a fresh creation of a god by the act of consecration. As a rule, protestants do not think of communion in terms of sacrifice. They need to find other outlets for the feelings of guilt and anger they experience.)

The noticeably vague anti-Semitic slogan "It's all the fault of the Jews" can now be 'translated' as follows: it is their fault that we are suffering from guilt feelings, because they do not approve of the sacrifical release from tension and because they do not accept the insinuation that they have performed a "sacred execution" of Christ. The phrase "it is their fault" implies a residue of unmanaged anger and guilt. In the absence of a hero or priest-king to take on and diffuse these feelings, the anger and guilt are turned outward at those people who refuse to go along with and sanction the ritual of sacrifice. The Jews are perceived as critical of sacrifice, a perception which is fuelled by the individual's embarrassment that he needs to rely on sacrifice. Jewish monotheism provokes hatred of Jews because Jewish monotheism aims at the abolition of sacrifice, an aim that is utterly intolerable for pagan and Christian alike.

VII

If anti-Semitism arises out of the Jewish rejection of sacrifice, then the various forms anti-Semitism takes should contain elements consistent with this thesis. Indeed, a survey of its various forms does demonstrate that there is something unique about the hatred of Jews. It has very little in common with other forms of prejudice or xenophobia and the elements of this hatred do tie in with the concept of sacrifice. Differences in clothing, facial features and language are in themselves insufficient to provide an answer to the question "Why the Jews?".

Accusations concerning sacrifice are at the core of the hatred: the Jews are said to be the worst sacrificers of all, the Jews are supposed to make fun of sacrifice, and Judaism itself is said to be the cause of panic and peril from which the panic-stricken need to be saved. Ironically, it is through ritual sacrifice in which living Jews serve as the victims that the panic-stricken are saved.

In the charges that the Jews themselves are the worst sacrificers, that they slaughter Christian children, that they sacrifice Arab children to Zionism and that they behave in general like blood-suckers, we see repeated in different forms, the accusation of sacrifice first encountered in the crucifixion of Jesus. In particular the accusation of ritual killings of Christian children at Easter time [93] , the very day when the memory of the healing ritual is celebrated, indicates a problem that confronts these seekers of salvation through sacrifice. In accusing others of sacrifice, the persecutor expresses his own wish to free himself from sacrifice. He cannot condemn it as detestable unless he distances himself from it. In this he resembles the Jew from the post-Babylonian period who is ashamed of the animal sacrifice still performed in Jerusalem; the shame exists even though the group collectively permits and legitimizes the release of aggression via ritual sacrifice. Whenever there is a period during which there is no panic driving people to seek healing through sacrifice, the renewed doubts about its necessity are fuelled by a guilt feeling arising from the sacrifice itself. Accordingly the persecutors of Jews try to suppress their own doubts about sacrifice by removing those who embody these doubts. A murdered Jew, however, cannot take into his grave the doubts of those who revere the sacrifice of Jesus. It is by facing up to these doubts that enlightenment and real change might be possible.

In the charge that the Jews elevate themselves above sacrifice, that they make fun of it and despise its adherents, that anti-Semitism shows its deep-rooted attachment to the concept of sacrifice. On Good Friday, when the 'sacrifice' of Jesus was remembered, the Jews did not walk about with their heads down. They did not honour the Host as holy food and as the body of their divine countryman. Some even said that he – and man in general – was incapable of resurrection. The Jewish conviction that human sacrifice cannot bring salvation remains diametrically opposed to the Christian belief in the sacrificial death of Christ as a means of salvation. Even during the great days of the Enlightenment, when cultured Protestants had friendly debates with Jews, the thin thread of discussion was torn because of the issue of salvation through sacrifice. In 1769, eg, Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786), in a letter to the Duke of Brunswick who had asked him to settle a controversy with the Protestant vicar Lavater, writes that his "reason... rebelled against the mysterious teachings of Christianity and prevented him from believing in original sin; it was against divine justice that an innocent man could take upon himself the sins of a guilty one" [94] . To this day the concepts of the God who rescued Abraham's son from being sacrificed, and the Christian God who offers his own son to be sacrificed on a crossed pillar of wood, appear irreconcilable.

The charge that Jews despise sacrifice, the suspicion that they alone neither practise it nor even need it, lead to their being equated with the Devil or Satan [95] , one of the celestial bodies experienced as agents of catastrophe in the Bronze Age, and still feared by the apocalyptically educated. Those who have no fear of these deities are thought to be superhuman and are therefore accused of being agents of panic requiring the next ritual.

The German national-socialist Führer of the anti-Semites who was expected to bring salvation and was greeted with "Heil" (="Salvation") as a potential saviour, has given the clearest expression to this apocalyptic portrayal of the Jews. He declares that "the Jew [. . .] will continue on his fateful path until another power will confront him and in a mighty struggle throws him back to Lucifer" [96] . He sees the Jews as the Morning Star that has not yet fallen, and Hitler offers himself as a liberator from the terror they inspire. A people subjected to this kind of apocalyptic propaganda, which for them is no allegory but deadly serious truth, will only hamper a realistic analysis of social misery as long as they follow the path of salvation through sacrifice. In Hitler they choose a sacral king, a ritual executioner who also seems prepared to take responsibility for his gruesome acts; but the millions of Jews who are now thrown into the fiery furnaces of the German extermination camps do not bring the longed-for salvation, nor are their deaths at the hands of this German 'Saviour' without guilty consequences for the community. The message of Judaism, that one should not expect salvation from human sacrifice and that celestial bodies or their idols need not be feared, this message which had to be erased just as its messengers had to be exterminated, is, however, confirmed: for the exterminators themselves are deprived of the salvation they so desperately longed for.

After massacres Jews are often the object of particular favour, an echo perhaps of a deification of the sacrificial victim, as we have described it previously. This approbation usually tends to fade with the next generation, which frequently reverts to ordinary anti-Semitism.

The apocalyptic portrayal of the Jews does not, however, disappear. Today, Israel in particular is described as the great Satan, and not just by these nations that went to exterminate it. Considerable majorities in the United Nations indulge in similar exaggerations when describing the Jews of Israel who are not even a thousandth of the world's population. The need for elucidation of what lies behind this hatred of the Jews appears more urgent then ever.

In post-Nazi Germany, too, Jews are being viewed as an obstacle to release from guilt feelings – German guilt this time over the gas chambers [97] . Instead of breaking through the constraint of a belief based on human sacrifice theta has led to Auschwitz, a similar belief is now being used to get rid of guilt for the holocaust. The German branch of the Roman-Catholic Church proclaimed on the 40th anniversary of the German capitulation:

"Guilt cannot be overcome with a rinse of political and psychological analysis. Man's heart must be renewed. We beg God's forgiveness for our failure and for our guilt in these years. Jesus Christ has died for us sinners, "the just for the unjust" (1 Pet. 3:18). The salvation he has brought overcomes any harm done by men" [98] .

This reproach of those who insist en bringing facts to light and resist quick exculpation is only a step away from the pogroms – against, for example, people who do not wish to remain silent about Bitburg or Waldheim.

The Jewish message that sacrifice does not bring salvation applies also to 'secular' attempts at a salvation, whose prophets proclaim it through some great act of expiatory violence: the removal of private property, the expulsion of communists, the renunciation of meet or the sexual revolution, the transformation of gods into women or instant therapies for the soul. Attacks on the Jews made by such movements suggest that they, too, are disturbed [99] by thoughts that were formulated [two and a half thousand years XC] ago. The fact that these apparently –  or partially – irreligious promises of salvation can only be fulfilled according to the precepts of an apocalyptic world view leads to the conclusion that hatred for the Jews will not easily be eradicated unless its historical, disastrous Bronze Age, background with all its ensuing rituals and concepts is explained.