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Zusatztext A tour de force. This is the crowning achievement of a distinguished scholar’s life’s work on the subject of sacrifice. Expanding his hitherto magisterial work on the Christian understanding of sacrifice and its consequences for worship, Robert Daly helps us to understand the complexity of the idea of sacrifice in the ancient western world as a whole. Meanwhile he introduces the reader to the wide range of contemporary scholarship on the subject. No serious student of sacrifice can afford to ignore this book. Informationen zum Autor Robert J. Daly, S.J., Emeritus Professor of Theology at Boston College, is the author of Christian Sacrifice and The Origins of the Christian Doctrine of Sacrifice. His recent articles, mostly in Theological Studies , have focused on Eucharist, sacrifice, and atonement. Klappentext Robert J. Daly S.J. examines the concept of sacrifice in the ancient Mediterranean world, and discusses how the rise of bloodless Christian sacrifice, and the use of sacrificial language in reference to highly spiritualized Christian lives, would have seemed unsettling and radically challenging to the pagan mind.Acknowledging the difficulties posed by an overwhelmingly Christian scholarly narrative around the topic of sacrifice, Daly specifically sets out to tell the non-Christian side of this story. He first outlines the pagan trajectory, and then the Jewish-Christian trajectory, before concluding with a representative series of comparisons and contrasts. Covering the concept of sacrifice in relation to prayer, ethics and morality, the rhetoric and economics of sacrificial ceremonies, and heroes and saints, Daly finishes with an estimation of how this study might inform further study of sacrifice. Vorwort The story of how and why Christian Sacrifice—or at least the Christian reinterpretation of sacrifice—gradually replaced Pagan sacrifice in the ancient Mediterranean world. Zusammenfassung Robert J. Daly S.J. examines the concept of sacrifice in the ancient Mediterranean world, and discusses how the rise of bloodless Christian sacrifice, and the use of sacrificial language in reference to highly spiritualized Christian lives, would have seemed unsettling and radically challenging to the pagan mind.Acknowledging the difficulties posed by an overwhelmingly Christian scholarly narrative around the topic of sacrifice, Daly specifically sets out to tell the non-Christian side of this story. He first outlines the pagan trajectory, and then the Jewish-Christian trajectory, before concluding with a representative series of comparisons and contrasts. Covering the concept of sacrifice in relation to prayer, ethics and morality, the rhetoric and economics of sacrificial ceremonies, and heroes and saints, Daly finishes with an estimation of how this study might inform further study of sacrifice. Inhaltsverzeichnis Foreword Part I: Introduction, Methodological and Hermeneutical Issues Preliminary Notes The History of Religions Postmodern Approaches The Elites in Antiquity and Christianity What Is Sacrifice? The Sacrificial World Confronting Ancient Christianity Sacrifice in Human History The Unity of the Ancient World of Sacrifice The "End" of Paganism? Part II: The Greco-Roman Trajectory From Homer and Hesiod up to Heraclitus and Plato Anaximenes Theophrastus Philo of Alexandria Apollonius of Tyana Heliodorus of Emesa Plutarch Lucian Porphyry Iamblichus Sallust Symmachus Macrobius and the "End" of Paganism Part III: The Jewish-Christian Trajectory Preliminary Note: The Many Meanings of Sacrifice Transitional Note The Hebrew Scriptures Excursus 1: "Leave your gift there before the altar" (Matthew 5:24) Excursus 2: Spiritualization The Christian Scriptures (New Testament) Early Christianity Preliminary Note: the G...
