The humanizing spirit
of Greece treated bulls very differently. It was their potency
rather than their ferocity that impressed the Greeks, and thus the bull became a
favourite embodiment of Zeus, eloping with the not unwilling Europa, as we see him
on a Greek vase, and in Titian's masterpiece. Finally we must consider the confusing
part played by a bull in the legend of Mithras. At first a god, he becomes a man, a
barbarian soldier in a Phrygian cap, who is represented as killing a bull with his
sword. The sacred animal has become the victim of sacrifice. The importance of this
concept is obvious. Although we have no written records of Mithraism, for it was an
all-male freemasonry sworn to secrecy, there is no doubt that it was the most
formidable rival to Christianity up to the time of Constantne. The sacrifice of the bull
as the symbol of redemption and new life shows how profound were the spiritual
needs of the late antique world, which were answered so differently by the sacrifice
of Christ on the Cross.
Men had sacrificed
animals for thousands of years. It seems to have been one of the
most ancient human instincts. As we do not feel a trace of it today it is difficult for us
to see why the practice became a necessity all over the ancient world. Many books
have been written about the subject, in which the arguments are like vast bundles of
thread beginning nowhere, ending nowhere, and practically impossible to unravel.
But out of this confusing, and often contradictory, evidence a few skeins may be
extracted : propitiation, atonement, the need to assert kinship. While men still felt a
kinship with animals, to eat them was a crime against the group, and expiation could
be achieved only by a ritual feast in which all were involved. Communion was the first
basis of sacrifice. But quite soon the belief grew up that the gods were pleased by
sacrifice, particularly by the smell of burnt offerings, in which the food was given
solely to them. The more the gods had to be propitiated to avert disaster or secure
the success of some enterprise, the more sacrifices they required. Finally, sacrifices
could become an assertion of royal or priestly authority. The priest is seen as the
visible mediator between the people and the god. Thus in the relationship of animals
and what had been an act of kinship became an act of pure destruction, and led to
the animal carnage of the Roman amphitheatre.
