M2RB: Michelle Moyer, Clyde Bawden, and Jason Barney
Silent night. Holy night
Son of God, Love's pure Light
Ray of Peace from Thy Holy Face
With the dawn of Redeeming Grace,
Jesus, Lord at thy birth.
By Daniel Hannan, MEP
The idea of sacrifice, of propitiation, seems to be innate in
humanity. Even the most rational people, at times of stress, can find
themselves half-bargaining with unnamed powers: let my child recover and
I'll do such-and-such. Religion is, in some ways, a collective
expression of such instincts, and physical sacrifice, by a process of
parallel evolution, became central to sacramental practice on every
continent.
At the end of the nineteenth century, James Frazer outraged some Christians by publishing The Golden Bough,
a study of king-sacrifice which established links between pagan and
Christian practice. Across Europe and the Levant, we find precursors of
at least one part of the Christian message: the notion that a ritual
death might secure a collective redemption. C.S. Lewis who, after his
conversion to Christianity, retained his fascination with paganism, had a
typically poetic explanation for these similarities. God, he wrote, had
been sending the human race "good dreams". St Paul thought much the
same about the votive aspects of Judaism: "For the law, having a shadow
of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never
with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make
the comers thereunto perfect." (Hebrews 10:1).
Centuries of Christian practice separate modern Europeans from the
sanguinary rites of their ancestors. It is hard, nowadays, to appreciate
the impact that must have been made by the revolutionary idea that
there had been just one sacrifice, that it had ransomed the human race
eternally, and that there was therefore no need for further physical
offerings. Hard, at any rate, in Europe. Perhaps easier in my native
Peru.
The Incas had a religious system which, while not as bloodthirsty as
some of those in Meso-America, none the less included elements of animal
and human slaughter. Chiefs were buried with their poisoned servants
around them. We find skeletons of teenagers with their skulls ritually
staved in. There is a grisly contrast between the exquisite pottery of
pre-Columbian Peru and the images glazed onto that pottery: ritual
decapitations, throat-slittings and religious forms of combat to the
death. The semi-circular knife pictured above, the tumi, has become a
symbol of the Peruvian tourist industry, worn on a million pendants. But
its modern domestication can't quite obscure its grim purpose.
Imagine what the Gospel must have meant to people who knew human
sacrifice as a common event. For, as in all pagan religions, the
offerings had to keep coming. The gods were never permanently placated.
The weather remained variable, the harvests uncertain. Yet here was the
extraordinary idea that there had been a single, definitive redemption
and that, rather than offering blood to hungry deities, men and women
should seek to live humbly and treat each other with love.
Like other pagan peoples, the conquered Peruvians blended the new
creed with their existing beliefs. Sixteenth-century paintings of the
Virgin Mary show her and her robes in the shape of a triangle,
deliberately recalling the Inca Earth goddess, who took the form of a
mountain. Angels are painted, not as cherubim or seraphim, but as Inca
bird-gods. The loveliest cathedrals in the Andes are built on the
foundations of Inca temples: you can still see the ancient stonework,
its massive blocks fitting together perfectly without mortar.
To modern eyes, these cathedrals might seem to symbolise colonial
oppression and vandalism. But did contemporary Peruvians, who came in
huge numbers to hear the first missionaries, see it that way? Isn't it
at least possible that there was a deliberate symbolism in the siting of
the churches? That the new faith was understood, not simply as a
replacement of the old, but as its culmination? That centuries of
sacrifice had prepared the way for the message of salvation?
There are people on both sides of the religious debate who are far
wiser than I am. Some offer persuasive neurological explanations for the
sacrificial impulse. Others, having weighed the evidence, prefer the
word of Jesus. The only attitude that strikes me as utterly absurd is
scorn. You don't have to be religious to recognise that what we remember
at this time of year is the foundation of our civilisation, the
replacement of a magical universe with a moral one. Merry Christmas.
From the album: Brighter Days Ahead
Silent night, Holy night
Silent night, Holy night
All is calm, All is bright
Round yon virgin
Round yon virgin, Mother and Child
Holy Infant
Holy Infant, so tender and mild
Sleep in Heavenly Peace
Silent night. Holy night
Son of God, Love's pure Light
Ray of Peace from Thy Holy Face
With the dawn of Redeeming Grace,
Jesus, Lord at thy birth.
Silent night
Holy night
Son of God, Love's pure Light
Ray of Peace from Thy Holy Face
With the Dawn of Redeeming Grace,
Jesus, Lord, at Thy Birth
Jesus, Lord, at Thy...
Silent night! Holy night!
Son of God, Love's pure Light
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
King of Kings and Lord of Lords
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
King of Kings and Lord of Lords
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
King of Kings and Lord of Lords
Silent night
Holy night
Sleep in Heavenly
Christ the Saviour is born
Jesus, Lord, at Thy Birth!
Silent night
Holy night
Silent night
Holy night
Jesus, Lord, at Thy Birth!
Original Silent Night! Holy Night! by John Freeman Young circa 1859
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