Sacrifice in the Christian historical tradition: how the concept has evolved

A new HistoryExtra podcast episode brings together scholars to examine how the concept of 'sacrifice' has evolved in the Christian tradition across two thousand years. The episode treats the concept not just as a theological term but as a historical phenomenon that has developed in interaction with society and politics.

The lead guest on the podcast is Oxford University Professor of Church History Dr Diarmaid MacCulloch. Speaking to producer Charlotte Hodgman, MacCulloch says: 'The concept of sacrifice in the Christian tradition has meant significantly different things in different periods; there is no single linear chain of meaning.'

In the early Christian period (the 2nd to 4th centuries CE), 'sacrifice' referred above all to the social and physical cost of holding to a faith under Roman imperial persecution. The historian Professor Candida Moss (University of Notre Dame), in her work The Myth of Persecution (2013), has offered a critical analysis of the textual evidence for this period and shown that some early martyr narratives were reconstructed in later periods.

In the medieval era (5th to 15th centuries), Christian sacrifice took an institutional form through monastic communities and ascetic practice. MacCulloch notes: 'Monastic communities turned sacrifice from a personal mystical experience into a structured social discipline.' The Abbey of Cluny (10th century) and the Cistercian reform (11th century) represent peaks of these institutional forms of the concept.

In the Reformation period (16th century), the theological innovations of Martin Luther and John Calvin reframed the concept of sacrifice. According to the commentary in the podcast from University of Tübingen Reformation-era historian Professor Volker Leppin, 'For the Reformers, Christ's sacrifice on the cross argued that the sacrificial forms offered by the medieval institutional system were no longer alone sufficient; this began a comprehensive debate over the role of the institutional church.'

In the modern period (19th to 20th centuries), the concept also acquired a secular meaning. Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sociology Professor Dr Judith Smetana has documented how 20th-century European discourse of 'patriotic sacrifice' borrowed theological motifs from Christian sacrifice. Smetana says in the podcast: 'The religious-patriotic sacrifice language used in the First World War continued through 20th-century secular discourse.'

The podcast also discusses differences in how various Christian traditions (Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Reformed, Protestant) have understood sacrifice. Cambridge University Eastern Orthodox theology specialist Dr Mary Cunningham observes: 'In the Orthodox tradition, sacrifice is understood more in a liturgical context; in the Reformed tradition, it is understood more as an expression of individual faith.'

Contemporary academic research also shows that the concept of sacrifice is well suited to comparative interfaith study. Heidelberg University Professor of Comparative Religion Friedrich Schweitzer says: 'The historical kinships between korban in Judaism, qurban in Islam and the cross imagery in Christianity carry the traces of a shared religious vocabulary in the Mediterranean world.'

On how the concept of sacrifice is being reinterpreted in the contemporary period, the podcast discusses the way the language of 'servanthood' and 'renunciation' has begun to take the place of sacrifice language in 21st-century Christian theology. MacCulloch comments: 'This suggests that beneath the change in word choice there is a sensibility on society's part that questions sacrifice.'

The podcast is available to HistoryExtra members and runs approximately 45 minutes. The episode also shares a bibliographic list with which listeners can follow the concept through history. According to HistoryExtra editor Charlotte Hodgman: 'The episode is an important bridge for academic theology reaching wider listenership.' This article is general information; for deeper study, academic sources on theology and the history of religion may be consulted.