Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 Christology as natural theology: methodological issues
- 2 Posing the problems: beginning with Job
- 3 Sharing the horrors: Christ as horror-defeater
- 4 Psychologizing the person: Christ as God-man, psychologically construed
- 5 Recovering the metaphysics: Christ as God-man, metaphysically construed
- 6 Learning the meanings: Christ in the hearts of all people
- 7 Cosmic coherence and the primacy of Christ: Christ, the One in Whom all things hold together
- 8 Resurrection and renewal: Christ the first fruits
- 9 Horrors and holocausts, sacrifices and priests: Christ as priest and victim
- 10 Christ in the sacrament of the altar: Christ in the meantime
- Bibliography
- Index
9 - Horrors and holocausts, sacrifices and priests: Christ as priest and victim
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 December 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 Christology as natural theology: methodological issues
- 2 Posing the problems: beginning with Job
- 3 Sharing the horrors: Christ as horror-defeater
- 4 Psychologizing the person: Christ as God-man, psychologically construed
- 5 Recovering the metaphysics: Christ as God-man, metaphysically construed
- 6 Learning the meanings: Christ in the hearts of all people
- 7 Cosmic coherence and the primacy of Christ: Christ, the One in Whom all things hold together
- 8 Resurrection and renewal: Christ the first fruits
- 9 Horrors and holocausts, sacrifices and priests: Christ as priest and victim
- 10 Christ in the sacrament of the altar: Christ in the meantime
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Cultic reconnection
Horrors threaten to ruin human lives. Horror–participation strains Divine–human relations to the breaking point. Cult condenses cosmos, becomes a focal scene of Divine–human relationship development. It is a scene of close encounters: even if God is supposed to be everywhere, Divine presence and influence certainly not confined to temple precincts, there is still the notion that by coming to the holy place one is drawing near to God. Cult is a scene of obstacle-removals: most notably, cult defines the etiquette that allows humans and divinities to share the same social space, furnishes ritual remedies by means of which offenses and disabling conditions can be recontextualized and removed. Cult is a scene of covenant-making, of covenant-renewal, and of payment of vows. It is also a scene of thanks and praise, of celebration and consummation.
In the Bible, patriarchal religion linked theophany with cereal and animal sacrifice. Tabernacle, shrine, and temple focussed worship in sacrificial rites, and codified elaborate rules and regulations as to who, what, when, where, how, and why. Nor was this an Israelite invention. Sacrificial emphasis was widely taken for granted and crossculturally shared. Nor was this a fleeting cultural phenomenon. Despite critiques, sacrificial cult – including the offering of animals – remained entrenched in majority-report religion in the Roman empire until Constantine. Christians and Jews (after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE) stood alone in refusing any longer to participate in the sacrifice of bulls and goats, birds and lambs.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Christ and HorrorsThe Coherence of Christology, pp. 242 - 281Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2006