Ancient Mediterranean Sacrifice

Edited by Jennifer Wright Knust and Zsuzsanna Varhelyi

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 1.0\\ 264 Imaginary Sucrilke

43, Previous studies that have lIsed the concept of "passing" to decode the logics of late Roman texts also suggest this. Sec Judith Perkins, "An Ancient 'Passing' Novel: Heliodorlls' Ail/Jiopi/w," AretllllsII32 (I999): 197-214, on the Allhiopilw; Virginia Burrus, "Mimicking Virgins: Colonial Ambivalence and the Ancient Romance," Al'ctl/llsa 38 (2005): 49-88, at 82-83; and Rebecca Lyman, "The Politics of Passing; Justin Martyr's Conversion as a { 14 } Problem of 'Hellenization,'" in CO/l\'el'slolI ill Lall! Anriquif,l' alld the Ear/y Middle Age.\": Seeillg /llId JJe/iel'iug, edited by Kenneth Mills lind Anthony Grafton, Studies in Companl* tive History (Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2003), 36-60, Confounding Blood 44, Ginsberg, "Introduction: The Politics of Passing," 2. 45. Sec the thoughtful overview of Roman sacrifice in Ji:irg Rlipke, ReligioJ/ 4 Ih£' JEWISH NARRATIVES OF SACRIFICE AND VIOLENCE ROJ//(lTls, translated by Richard Gordon (Cambridge: Polity, 2007), 137-53, as well as the IN LATE ANTIQUITY many clliIpters ill this volume. 46, Ambrose, HI'. 78.2(PL 16;1268). Ra'anan S. Boustan 47. Augustine, Ep. 82.18 (PL 33:283), 48. On Augustinc's perhaps idiosyncratic (but nonetheless influential) view of Judaisill and Jewish practice, see Paula Fredrikscn, Augllsliue aud IIJe Jell's: A Christillll Dc/i.'lIse of )e1l'.1· (llld .Il1d(/;,\/1/ (New York: Doubleday, 2008). Late antiquity saw a profound transformation in the organization of religious life 49. Sec, for example, his disclission in Augustine, Ep, 23.4 (PL 33:97). Thc context is a as societies throughout the ancient Mediterranean world ceased. albeit only gradu~ disclission of baptism in respollse to DOI1animal sacrifice, As Peter Brown and Jonathan Z. Smith have just as after Jesus' first coming the .mcmmelUlIl1I of circumcision was "set aside," so too will famously argued, the far*reaching process whereby a mobile class of exceptional b,lptism be "set aside" after his sccond coming. . persons eclipsed the tmditional Temple cults as the locus of the holy played an 50, Sec Brian Stock, Augllstine tlte Readel:' Mediwliol1, Se!j*Kl/owledge. and tlte Ethic.I· uj instrumental role in the emergence of new forms of religious community and iden~ Iltfel'pl'e!llfio/l (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996). tily in the Hellenistic and especially Roman periods. l It would be misleading, how* 51. James 1. O'Donnell describes original sin as Augustille's "most original and nearly single.handed creation": Augustille; A NeU' JJjograp/r)' (San Francisco: HarperCollins, ever, to characterize the so*called end of sacrifice as the progressive spiritualization of religion. 2 1Ildeed, sacrificial cult continued to serve throughout late antiquity as 2005),296. 52, Marion Rust, "The Subaltern as Imperialist: Speaking of Olauunb Equiano," in the dominant paradigm for ritual action and religious piety, even in the "posl* Ginsberg. Possing, 21-36, at 35. sacrificial" forms of Judaism, Christianity, and indeed paganism that emerged in this period.·J If anything, sacrifice-and specifically, the symbolic function of sacri­ ficial blood-provided an increasingly charged domain of contact and competition across the full spectrum of religious groups in the Mediterranean world. 4 More specifically, the language of sacrifice was reinvigorated within both Jewish and Christian discourses of martyrdom, which figured the executions of privileged human beings as purificatory or atoning sacrifice. 5 Animal sacrifice represented a vexed ideological and religious problem for Jewish communities in the Roman empire in the wake of the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple and its cult in 70 CE, which Roman and early Christian writers framed (albeit in dilTerent ways) as a sign of the Jews' loss of divine favor,(' Indeed, Jewish sourceS from late antiquity attest the gradual internalization of this view of thecalamitous end

or the Jewish culL? Yet, as Jonathan Klawans has argued, we need not adopt themod v ern scholarly predilection for reatling the negative views of the Jerusalem Temple in the ancient sources-Roman, Christian, and indeed Jewish-as evidence that the cult had become moribund or even corrupt well before its destruction.s Klawans instead advises scholars to focus attention on how Jewish (and Christian) authors "channeled the sanctity of the temple" into novel forms of religious practice and discourse.9 266 Imaginary Sacrifice C(}/~/(J//IldiJ/g lJIood 267

This chapter contributes to the renewed interest in the "resignification" of sac* rooted in Sccond Temple Judaism for the sacrifices of the Day of Atonement (Yom rificiallanguage and concepts within post-Temple Judaism by comparing two CO\1* Kippur), which according to this tradition commemorates the day that Jacob's sons temporaneous narratives from late antiquity that explore the complex relationship mislead their father concerning the "apparent death" of Joseph their brother (Gen between animal sacrifice and human violencc.!O The first is the widely disseminated 37:29-35), The sacrificial practices of Yom Kippur are thus directly linked to the martyrology known as The ,)"OIY of the Ten Martyrs, which gathers together within competition among the progenitors of the tribes or Israel for the affections of their a single narrative framework various earlier traditions rcgarding the rabbinic mar­ father. Finally, as Girard himself might postulate, this explicitly sacrificial narrative tyrs executed by the Romans during the Jewish revolts of the Ilrst and second ce\l* both constructs martyrdom as an act of sacrifice and presents it as the sole means turies. II I contrast this martyrological cycle with the rabbinic retelling of the cryptic for resolving the cycle of violence that forms the inner scaffolding of human history, biblical account of the murder of Zechariah ben Yehoyada (2 Chr 24: 17-22), whieh By contrast, a Girardian reading of the Zechariah story, as retold in the fourthw appears in mUltiple forms in both Palestinian and Babylonian rabbinic compila* century Palestinian Talmud and the fifth* to sixth-century midrashic collection tions.u In their narrative expansion of this biblical episode, the rabbinic authors known as Lamentations Rabbati, would significantly distort its message. Girard's trace a causal link bctween Zechariah's unrcquitcd blood and the destruction or interpretation of the "murder of the prophets" motif in the New Testament might the Jerusalem Temple by the Babylonians 250 years later. I argue that the radically suggest that this narrative seeks to demystify blood sacrifice as a "sacred cult of distinct approaches to sacrifice in these two narratives demonstrate that the late* violence," thereby offering a blueprint for a more advanced and indeed univer­ antique Jewish discourse of sacrificc was far fro111 univocal; rather, biblical sacrince sal form of religious piety that would transcend the sacrificial complex and the and the narratives associated with it emerged as a charged site of contestation, both mythic and magical thinking upon which it depends. 1l In my view, however, this among Jews and between Jews and Christians. rabbinic tale provides a graphic accounting-tallied in the monstrously and futilely Specifically, I show that, while the two narratives at the heart or this chapter were spilJcd blood or the people of Jerusalem and their leaders-of the ethical and ritual both produced in Roman~Byzantinc Palestine in the late fourth to sixth centuries, failings of ancient Israel that lead to the destruction of their Temple. The events they differ fundamentally in their application of the language of biblical sacrifice to leading to the destruction do not disclose the awful "truth" about the violenlnature contemporary jewish piety and practice. The Story of the Tm Martyrs puts forward or the sacl'illcial system: both Zechariah and those who are later killed in the temple an elaborate theology of vicarious atonement in which the suffering and death of precincts to expiate his blood are precisely not "sacrificial victims"-their deaths the righteous martyrs serve as sacrificial expiation for the ancestral Sill of the Jewish are murders and not sacrifices, in the sense that they serve no ritual or redemptive people and are seen to guarantee their ultimate redemption from the wicked powers function. As such, especially within the context of Lamentations Rabbati, the Zech* of this world, namely, the Roman empire. By contrast, the rabbinic renarration of ariah narrative renects the larger hesitation, even discomfort, about the theology of Zechariah's murder refuses the application of sacrificial logic to the ancestral act martyrdom being formulated in other contemporary Jewish sources from Palestine, of collective violence that it situates at the heart of biblical history. The creators as evidenced by The Stot}' of the Tell A.fart)'/'s. of this narrative tradition left no place in this history of violence ror martyrdom, When takcn together, these narratives undermine Girard's homogenizing view understood as a ritually efficacious offering that purifies the cui tic shrine, atones for of sacrifice, with its transhistorical and transcultural sweep. A single, overarching sin, or ensures redemption. Rather, the murder or Zechariah represents a dramatic theory of sacrificial practice and, more importantly, of sacrificial narrative pro* breach or cllitic protocol. and no subsequent sacrificial bloodletting-either animal duces a set of reading practices that occlude rather than explain the varied and or human--can mitigate the consequences of this defiling act. This narrative thus contested conceptions of sacrifice operative in late antiquity among both Jews and insists on a sharp distinction between illicit violence and proper animal sacrifice. their neighbors. Indeed, Girard's impulse to create a universally valid theory has its The significant differences between the approaches to sacrifice theologies of sacrificial killing to which the present in these two works, while emphasizing the diversity or late-ancient Jewish two Jewish narratives that I analyze are themselves responding, albeit in distinct thought, also call into question recent attempts to formulate a ulliversal theory of ways. We shall see that in the contemporary Euro-American context-no less than sacrifice. Most notably, Rene Girard's writings on sacrifice, which posit that all sac* the ancient Mediterranean one-the discourse of sacrifice can serve as a strategy of rificial practice has its origins in the common human impulse to murderous violence religious or ideological contestation. (more on this below), could find support in 111t! Story of the Ti'II Mal'tyt:seven as the In addition to these theoretical considerations, the specific narratives analyzed in Zechariah story would resist a Girardiall point of view. Like Girard, The Story (~r this chapter suggest a corrective to the dominant scholarly account of the history of the Tell Martyrs presents the institution or (one specific type 01) bloou sacrifke as the Jewish acclimatization to a post-Temple reality. According to this historicalnar­ the product or internecine murder ami as the provisional resolution to the crisis this rative, the rabbis and liturgists of late antiquity self-consciously crafted novel forms murder engenders. That is, the martyrology builds upon an etiological explanation or piety. such as Torah study and prayer, to serve as direct replacements for the less 268 Imaginary Sacrifice ('O/!fiJIIlldil1g Woud 269 ethically and spiritually nourishing sacrificial cult of the Temple, H Thus, in a recent sacrifice arises from and brings at least provisional resolution to the murderous analysis of rabbinic tales concerning the destruction of the Temple, Paul Mande! dynamics of social connict and cohesion that characterize all human collectivities. has argued that the "chronological and geographic distance from the Temple caused This generative process binds together violence, sacrifice, and the act of narration the centrality of the Temple, find the memories of the rituals of sacrifice so central into a single, mutually constituting sacrificial complex. Girard's universalizing move in its day, to recede, so to be replaced by the more immediate concerns of the popu­ has been widely criticized. Nevertheless, his engagement with sacrificial atonement lace and its leaders, "1, As such, the sacred center gave way to rabbinic narrative religions avenues for from the JerusaleJll Temple did not work in it uniform or linear way. Jews did not undcrstanding why shins in sacrificial practice had such profound and far-reaching conceptualize the Temple cult in anyone way, nor was the "problem of sacrifice" Of consequences for social organization and religious life in antiquity, Yet, many it was a problem at all) ever finally and definitively resolved, historians of religion would argue, instead, that the analytical tools Girard uses Indeed, the rise of Christianity to dominance in the fourth to sixth century and, arc so compromised by his patently theological insistence on the uniqueness and in particular, the hegemony or Christian claims to the legacy of biblical sacrifice even superiority of the biblical tradition as refracted by Christian lenses that we provoked Jews to invest renewed energy in grappling with the loss of their cuitic are better olT sidestepping his project entirely. Many have been particularly crit­ center, The application of sacrificial logic to rabbinic martyrdom and the liturgical ical of Girard for his "reductive" and "evolutionist" account of animal sacrifice, recitation of The St(1)' 0/ fhe Tefl Martyrs on Yom Kippur demonstrate that the which fails to situate the practice properly within its specific social, historical, and model of the sacrificial cult was not only salient within Jewish culture long after the discursive contexts. 19 destruction of the Jerusalem Temple. but in fact enjoyed conspicuous revitalization Perhaps 1110st potent among these critiques is Jonathan Z, Smith's contention in fifth- and sixth-century Palestine, with a lasting impact on medieval Jewish con· that sacrifice is not nn act of transmuted and barely contained violence rooted in ceptions of martyrdom. 11 so-called primitive societies, but rather is distinctive to stratified agrarian or pasto­ ralist societies in which, he suggests, sacrifice might serve as a sustained and ritu­ alized form of meditation on the process of "domestication."lO Likewise, Smith's Rene Girard on Sacrificial Practice and Sacrificial Narrative thoroughgoing historiographic critique of the Protestant roots of the study of late-antique religions should be enough to call into question Girard's Christian This section reviews and assesses Girard's bold account of the historical origins of exceptionalism-his apparent insistence on the uniqueness of the Christ-event.21 sacrificial practice in a primordial act of collective violence. In the process, I con­ Indeed, Girard's blanket rejection of sacrificial understandings of Jesus' death­ sider the charge lodged by Jonathan Z. Smith, Ivan Strenski, and others that Girard . often articulated in conjunction with a powerful distaste for mimetic conceptions of has in fact produced a culturally specific. even polemical view of sacrifice Eucharistic practice-has also failed to persuade most scholars of early Christian­ masquerading as an academic theory with universal validity, While I share this crit· ity on either internal literary or historical-contextual grounds,n ical assessment of Girard's project, I nevertheless find his theory helpful in classi­ Ivan Strenski's study of Girard's thought within its specific intellectual and cul­ fying the specific strategies deployed in ancient Jewish sources to contest the tural context adds an important historical dimension to these theoretical and meth­ meaning of the biblical sacrificial cult and thus to assert control over its legacy. The odological criticisms.23 According to Strenski, Girard should be read as a Christian question of whether or not blood sacrifice is a substitute for violence-Girard's theologian and moralist, rather than as a historian of religion. As a historian or central problematic-is indeed a recurrent theme in Jewish narratives from late ethnographer, he is merely wrong-though wrong in a particularly pernicious way. antiquity that address the loss of the Temple cult. How a given text answered this But, as a contributor to modern theological or ethical debates about religious prac­ question had direct implications for its particular conception of Judaism in the tice and its relationship to political agency, Girard is significant in his own right. post-Temple order. According to Strenski, "Girard's theory of sacrifice should be seen as a rejection Girard's theory of sacrifice stands at the heart of his voluminous writings on of a view of sacrifice originally developed in the seventeenth-century eucharistic the place of religion in human history and society, IS Girard marshals countless theology of the Roman Catholic reaction to the Reformation in France. "2,1 Girard's narratives-from ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern myths to the narratives theory is thus heir to the legacy of post-Reformation French debates regarding the of so-c

Moreover, Strenski points to the ironic, ir predictable. similarities between second century CE, the martyrology developed as a literary composition in Pales­ Girard's theory and the "conservative" and "authoritarian" French Catholic tra­ tine between the fifth and early seventh centuriesY The martyrology relates in grue­ dition in which he wus raised and against which he reacts so vehemently. Most some detail the sequential executions of ten rabbinic sages at the hands of the notable is his understanding or sacrifice as ari act or roundational violence that Romans, According to the narrative's overarching conceptual framework, the both delineates and fosters human community. In addition, in line with his religious deaths or the tell martyred sages are not caused by the immediate political circum~ upbringing, Girard likewise accords centrality to the Christ-event in the teleological stances, but rather are the direct consequence of the crime committed by Joseph's unfolding or human history. At the same time, there are significant differences, For twelve brothers when they sold him into slavery (Gen 37: 18-28). The scriptural Girard, the Eucharist is not a mimetic reenactment of the violent selr-sacrifice or logic works in the following fashion: based 011 the authority of Exodus 21:16 ("He Jesus, but an act of remembrance that marks a revolutionary advance over the pre­ who kidnaps a man-whether he has sold him or is still holding him-shall be put Calvary human comIition. In the post-Calvary world, wherever sacrificial thought to death"), the narrative considers the sale or Joseph to be a capital crime. The or practice have not been fully purged, Girard diagnoses the lingering and destruc­ deaths of these rabbinic martyrs are thus vicarious atonement for the original tive hold or the primitive dynamics of the scapegoat mechanism-the very mech­ national sin committed by the progenitors of the tribes of Israel. anism that he believes set in motion the violent institution of sacrifice in the first As Solomon Zeitlin suggested more than fifty years ago, the association between place, Seen rrom this perspective, Girardian thought advocates a rerormist tradition the sin of Joseph's brothers and Israel's need for communal atonement all Yom Kip­ centered upon the ideal or an individually oriented religious conscience, which he pur entered rabbinic martyrology from early Jewish sources of the Second Temple 2 believes has superseded the collectivist ethos and politics of clerically oriented sac­ period. £ The dearest statement of this etiology for the holiday is found in the secol1d~ ramental theology-be it Catholic, Jewish, or otherwise, For Strenski, this is all century texl Jubilees (34: 12-19).29 Although this passage does not explicitly refer to well and good, provided that we strenuously resist Girard's attempt to formulate a Yom Kippur, the date inuicated for the commemorative mourning of Joseph's "ap~ universalizing theory of religion and human culture in the historically contingent­ parent death"-the tenth day of the seventh month-unequivocally denotes this not to say parochial-terms of modern theological debates regarding Christian holiday. Zeitlin rightly explains that the authors of Jubilees "held that the sin of the "sacrifice, " ten sons of Jacob, who sold Joseph into slavery, had not been atoned, and that hence As problematic as Girard's project has been shown to be, his provocative equa­ the Jews mllst aillict themselves annually on the day on which Joseph was sold, in tion of sacrifice and violence nevertheless echoes narrative traditions rrom late oruer to attain atonement for this sin which their forefathers committed."JO antiquity, Indeed, Girard was hardly the first to explore the complex relationship The association of the sale of Joseph into slavery with Yom Kippur is well between these concepts; many Christians and Jews in late antiquity shared Girard's aucsted in rabbil.lic literature. This etiological motif always appears in conjunction interpretation of sacrifice as a substitute ror murderous violence and. in turn. fhe with rabbinic traditions concerning the expiatory fUllction of the special vestments deaths of the innocent righteous as a means for transcending the sacrificial process. worn by the high priest when officiating over the sacrifices prescribed ror the Day Even more, it would seem that they likewise invested great energy in exploring just or Atonement.'1 It should be noted that the emphasis in this caSe is explicitly on the how the liturgical reenactment and narrative recitation of the sacrificial drama blood sacrifices for the Day of Atonement and not 011 the famous scapegoat ritual, relates to the actual act of sacrifice, The impressive thematic correlations between which does not involve blood sacririce at all (a distinction wholly lost on Girard in Girard's theory or sacrifice and the representation of sacrifice in the literature of his writings).·12 These traditions were subsequently embellished in the Yom Kippur late antiquity, both Jewish ancl Christian, suggests that, rather than explaining sac­ liturgy that developed in the late fourth and fifth centuries. J3 And, once embedded in rifice, Girard's theory has replicated and naturalized a highly particular conception the synagogue liturgy, the motif played a generative role in the production of novel of sacrifice with a specifically late-antique genealogy. literary compositions that were associated with the Day of Atonement, including The StorJ' (~r the Ten Martyrs, The ideology of vicarious atonement through martyrological self-sacrifice that The Sto,.y of the Tell llllll'tyrs and Girard's Christian EXCclltionalism is at the heart of 111l! S(or), of the Ten Marlyrs centers on the image of the heavenly altar upon which the angelic high priest Metatron (or Michael) sacrifices the souls The rabbinic martyrological cycle known as The Story of the Tell Martyrs is perhaps or the righteolls martyrs who otTer their lives on behalf of the Jewish people (Ten the most striking example of Jewish narrative from late antiquity that thcmatizes i\Ia/"{yrs, I-IX.20, 1-5), We learn about this awful truth when the central martyr in the relationship bctween ancestral murder and the power or human sacrificeYThis the story, Rabbi Ishmael ben Elisha, ascends to heaven in order to learn whether it martyrology, in its poetic forms, has becn an integral part of the Yom Kippur lit­ is in fact the will or God that the group of ten sages should embrace their deaths as urgy since late antiquity.x, Although set during the "Hadrianic persecutions" or the martyrs. There, Rabbi Ishmael, who is himself of high priestly lineage, is met by the 272 Imaginary Sacrifice CfII!/iJlll1diJlg lJiood 273 angelic high priest Metatron.J'l It is from his angelic guide that Rabbi Ishmael learns portrait of the bleak experience of late~antique Jews under Roman domination. But that Israel's ultimate redemption depends on the willingness of the martyrs to lay they did so by deploying it set of highly charged literary motifs that were seemingly down their lives in order to atone lor the nation's ancestral sin. at odds with the more conventional scholastic orientation of their rabbinic source The narrative makes absolutely clear that the spilling of the martyrs' blood wil! material-and seemingly far closer to the religious imagery and attitudes or their affect atonement for the blood-guilt of the Jewish people, Arter having learned from Christian neighbors. the angelic high priest Metatron that it is the sin of Joseph's brothers that has set in Like The 's'(0I}, oI the Tell Martyrs and the narrative tradition on which it draws, motion the cruel fate he and his colleagues now face, Rabbi Ishmael asks the angel Girard reads the Joseph story in Genesis as a meditation on the origins of sacrifice in despair: in fratricidal connict provoked by jealousy and competition. In his most sustained discllssion of the figure of Joseph, Girard argues that the biblical authors self­ "Has the Holy One, blessed be He, not found someone to redeem the blood consciouslY reject what he calls the "older" or "pre-biblical" mythic tradition (e.g., of Joseph from the days of Jacob ulltil now throughout all those generations?" the Oedipus legend) by "inverting the relationship between the victim and the perse­ He answered: "The Holy One, blessed be He. has not found ten like the sons cllting comlllunity. "·10 On this account, classical myth sanctions cOlllmunal violence of Jacob except you. ".15 against the hero-tmned-scapegoat by insisting on his guilt, while Genesis instead The atoning function of the martyrs' blood is a leitmotif running through the stresses Joseph's innocence in each chapter of the narrative, from his conflict with remainder of the narrative. Following this awful revelation. Rabbi Ishmael is given his brothers to the false accusation of adUltery he faces in Egypt. For Girard, this a guided tour through heaven by Metatron. As they arc moving about, the sage and inversion has. in turn, significant implications for the biblical conception of sacri~ future martyr comes across an object he docs not immediately recognize, and he flce: "The kid that provided the blood in which Joseph's tunic was dipped in order asks the angel, to prove to his rather that he was really dead would have played a directly sac­ rificial role in the pre-biblical account. "4! The biblical story thus de mystifies and "What is this in front of you?" He replied: "An altar." He asked him: "Is there desacralizes-in short, humanizes-Joseph; the linkage in the narrative between an altar above [in heaVe!l]?" He answered him: "Yes, everything that exists violence and sacrifice paradoxically aims to break the cycle of killing that fuels and above also exists below, as it is written I have now built for You a stately house is fueled by the sacrificial complex. [I Kgs 8: l3}." He asked him: "And what do you sacrifice upon it? Do you have But it is precisely with this final step that Girard parts ways with the interpre­ buHs, rams, and lambs'?", He answered him: "We sacrifice the souls or the tation of the story olTered in The SlOT}' of the Tell Afartyrs. In sharp contrast to righteous upon it." He declared: "Now I have heard something that I have Girard's reading of the "apparent murder" of Joseph as exemplifying the antisac­ never belore heard!"J() rificial perspective of the biblical authors, the martyrology presents this act as the As this dialogue between martyr and angel makes clear. martyrdom on earth is inauguration of a specific set of sacrificial practices. This sacrificial complex WOUld, paralleled in heaven by the sacrifice of the souls of the righteous martyrs, preskled in tUI'll, find its ultimate expression in the ritual-liturgical performance of a mar­ over by the angelic high priest Metatron. tyrology in which the foundational act of violence committed by Joseph's brothers Moreover. this sacrifice is essential to the proper maintenance of Israel's rela­ is linked through the blood of the sacrifices, first animal and thell human, to the tionship with God and, ultimately, to the redemption of Israel from the yoke of eschatological violence to be inOicted by God on Rome, From a Girardian perspec­ Rome. Thus, immediately following Rabbi Ishmael's return to earth to inform his tive, the creators of the martyrology replicated the sacrificial complex rather than colleagues what he has learned, Rabban Simeon ben Gamaliel declares that they unmaking it; they thus failed to grasp what Girard holds to be the "true" signifi­ should rejoice because "God will receive our souls as a sacrifice so that He may cance of the Joseph narrative in the biblical tradition, exact vengeance through them from wicked Rome."J7 The message is quite clear: Thus, despite his explicit aim to oITer a formal, academic theory of sacrifice, the human sacrifice entailed in the martyr's dcath replaces the animal offerings of Girard's reatling practices do not provide him with the tools he (and we) might need the earthly Temple. Moreover, the blood of the martyrs is the sole guarantee of to make historical sellse of specific theological formulations or the contestations ultimate salvation for the Jewish people ..1B that surround them, but rather cast him as arbiter of their correctness. We can thus The Story of rhe 7ell Martyrs betrays deep affinities with early Christian concep­ place Girard side by side with the martyrology: both are polemical and totalizing tions of the heavenly cult of Christ lind its role in salvation history, especially as for­ accounts of the biblical message and its place in human history and culture. mulated in such texts as the New Testament Epistle to the Hebrews,)') At the same Moreover, The Story of the Ten Martyrs raises signilicant problems for Girard's time, it olTers 11 damning critique or the coercive power of the Roman (or, perhaps Christian exceptionalism. which bypasses postbiblical sources entirely and traces belter, Roman-Christian) slate. The creators of the martyrology painted a graphic a linear progression from the prophetic books of the Hebrew Bible to the New 274 Imaginary Sacrifice COI!/i.JllI1dillg JJloud 275

Testament gospcls,'12 In his insistence on the uniqueness of the New Testament in do you transgress the commandments of the Lord, so that you cannot unmasking the violence at the heart of the sacrificial process. Girard fails to COll­ prosper? Because you have forsaken the Lord, he has also forsaken you," But sider the complex interaction between Jews and Christians as both groups grappled they conspired, and by command of the king they stoned him to death in the with the problem of the "cnd of biblical sacrifice." fiut, in fact, the creators of the court of the house of the Lord. King loash did not remcmber the kindness rabbinic martyrology-and presumably also those who participated in its liturgical that lehoiada, Zechariah's fprophet and priest Zechariah ben Yehoyada (2 Chr 24: 17-22) Scholars of Second Temple and rabbinic Judaism have dedicated a great deal of provocatively explore the interrelationship among social connict, murder. animal energy to tracing the litcrary history of this narrative within Jewish sources.~~ More sacrifice, and the expiatory value of human blood. The rabbinic versions of the recently, however, scholars have begun to explore the dynamic interaction between Zechariah story draw a cnusallil1k between the murder and the destruction of Jerll~ Jewish and Christian versions of this narrative:ls Most welJ~known, of course, are salem and its Temple 250 years later by the Babylonian general Nebuzaradun, the the allusion to the blood of ZeclI.'lriah in the gospels of Matthew and Luke as part head of Nebuchadnezzar's army (2 Kings 25; cf. 2 ChI' 36), Uoth the martyrology of Jcsus' final woe to the Pharisees, upon whom will come "all the innocent blood <'wd the Zechariah tradition grapple with how the biblical discourse of sacrifice shed on the earth, from the blood of Abel the righteous to the blood of Zechariah, might best be understood and resignified in the wake of the destruction of the the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar,".16 Temple cult. But I argue that the Zechariah story, especially as it Was deployed The story s~ems to have enjoyed such wide currency across a range of genres that within the fiflh~ or sixth~century midrashic collection known as La11lel11(/liOl/s Rab­ numerous ntual artifacts and incantation texts attest the active use of this nar­ bali, does not support the Girardian equation of sacrifice with violence, however rative as a historiola for curing uncontrolled blceding,41 And it would seem that tempting sllch a reading might be, Indeed. the narrative should not be read as a this pr~cess of interreligious contestation spilled beyond the confines of narrative, theological statement regarding the replacement of the cult by more ethically and assllmlng a concrete spatial dimension through local traditions of pilgrimage cen~ spiritually "advanced" forms of religious piety. Rather, the narrative stresses that tered on Jerusalem, As Galit Hasan~Rokem has stressed, just as the pilgrim of the Israel's mmderous crime is precisely out~of-the~ordinary, an extreme violation of Iliflerarilil// /Jlmligalense reports seeing the bloody traces of Zechariah's murder, so, the standard sacrificial systcm, As a consequence of its insistence on the fundamen­ too, LUlIIclllatiofls Rabbati anchors its retelling of the story to the apparent status tal difference between sacrifice and violcnce, the text also rejects a sacrificial con­ of the locale as a site of healing: "The blind, what would they say? Who will show ception of martyrdom as a crucial means for efTecting atonement or guaranteeing LIS Zech;:triahs blood? And the lame, what would they say? Who will show us the redemption. ph.lce where Zechariah was killed, and we'll embrace it and kiss it?"48 In light of this Postbiblical Jewish and Christian retellings of the murder of Zechariah and eVidence, I fully endorse leal1~Daniel Dubois' persuasive claim that the blood of its bloody aftennath build upon the brief report in 2 Chronicles in which King Zechariah represented one particularly potent site in lewish~Christian competition loash orders the execution of the son of the righteous high priest .lehoiada for his Dvel' the memory and meaning of the biblical past. 49 prophecy of doom: , The slol)' concerning the murder of Zechariah lind especially the fate of his lll1~ Jl~st,ly ~hed blood appears in various forms in both Palestinian and Babylonian rab~ Then the spirit of God took possession of Zechariah son of the priest blllle literature and in a range of literary and exegetical contexts,SfI In what follows, I Jehoiada; he stood abovc the people and said to them, "Thus says God: Why present and analyze the earliest full version of the narrative, found in the Palestinian 276 Imaginary Sacrifice CfJ/~/;Jlllldillg lJ/ood 277

Talmud. Sl In addition, I consider how the narrative was subsequently used in later Tell Many/'s, the Zechariah text links thc murder that stands as the fountainhead of centuries by the creators of Lamentations RaMali, a verse~by~verse exegetical com~ Israel's guilt to Yom Kippur, though the detail is here primarily intended to empha­ mentary on the book of Lamentations from fifth- or perhaps sixth~century Pales­ size the enormity of the crime. tine. While the Zechariah story is by no means unique to Lal/lfilllaliolls Rabbllfi, this It is only following this series of preliminary apodictic and exegetical traditions midrashic collection docs repeat the story four separate times and places it within a that the Talmud presents the story proper. The narrative moves from the time of structured and perhaps even systematic literary framework. It, therefore, provides King Joash and Zechariah to the conquest of Judea by the Babylonians in the sixth a broader context for assessing the meaning that this narrative held in this period, century BeE. The conquering Babylonian general, Nebuzaradan, upon entering at least for some Jews. the Jerusalem Temple, notices a bizarre phenomenon: a pool of blood in the court~ The Palestinian Talmud presents a series of semi-independent traditions con~ yard of the priests, perhaps ncar the altar itself, seething restlessly. When he inquires cerning the murder of Zechariah; this loose, but thematically coherent, collection concerning the origins of this blood, the residents of Jerusalem assure him that it is will culminate in the story of Nebuzaradan's encounter with the blood of Zechariah the blood of animal sacrifices. and his attempt to solve its riddle. But. first, the text begins wit h briefer discllssions When Nebuzaradan ascended here [to the Temple Court], he saw blood of the story. seething. He said to them, what is the nature [of this blood)? They said to The passage opens with a statement in the name of R. Yo1.Hlllan that "eighty him, "The blood of bulls, lambs, and rams~J that we sacrificed upon the altar." thousand young priests were slain 011 account of the blood of Zechariah." This He immediately brought bulls, rams, and lambs and slaughtered them upon tradition is followed by a dialogue between two rabbis concerning the precise lo~ the blood, but it continued to seethe. cation of the murder: "R. Yudan asked R. AI.Ia: 'Where was Zechariah murdered, in the Women's Court or in the Court of the Israelites?' He answered him: 'Neither Just as in The Star)' of the Martyrs, the Zechariah narrative here raises the question in the Women's Court nor in the Court of the Israelites, but in the Court of the of whether animal blood and human blood are of the same nature. Indeed, both Priests.'" These statements frame the narrative in such a way that we expect the texts employ an almost identical phrase when formulating the comparison: can the

Temple priesthood, rather than the nation as a whole, to have played a pnrticu N slaughter of the righteous serve the same-or, at least, a ritually comparable­ larly central role in the crime. This expectation is partly realized in the subsequent function as the sacrifice of "bulls, rams, and sheep" (purim 'eilim /lNkhel'(fsi11l).s,j As narrative and partly frustrated: the murder is especially noteworthy because it we have seen, the answer in the martyrology is a resounding "yes," whereas the generates pollution within the Temple, but there is no attempt to limit the culpa~ present nalTlltive rejects the equivalence. bility for the murder to the priests OJ' to absolve either the king or the people of When Nebuzaradan discovers that the blood of sacrificial animals cannot quell their responsibility. Moreover, as both priest and prophet, the figure of Zechariah the prophet's blood, he suspects murder most foul. The general extracts from the defies facile attempts to pit a supposedly wicked priesthood against the tradition Jel'llsalemites a confession of their bloodguilt: it is the blood of Zechariah, they or righteous prophecy. explain, who 250 years earlier had been murdered by their ancestors. The talmudic text then presents an exegetical unit intended to emphasize the And since they did not confess to him [the crime of their ancestors], he hung enormity of the crime. This unit juxtaposes the regulation in Leviticus 17: 13. which them upon the gallows. They said: "[It seethes] because the Holy One, blessed instructs the Israelite or stranger to cover with earth the blood of a kosher wild be He, still plans to avenge his blood from us." They continued: "This is, in animal, with Ezekiel 24:6-8, which chastises the "bloody city" of ./erusalem for fact, the blood of the priest, prophet, and judge who prophesied against us placing the blood that it shed "on a bare rock; she did not pour it out on the ground, [concerning everything you are now doing to US]55 and we rose against him to cover it with earth" (Ezek 24:7 NRSV). These verses, when taken together, dem N and murdered him." onstrate that Zechariah's murderers treated his blood differently from thc blood of animals: rather than covering his blood with earth, they left it visible and thus I-laving learned the true nature of the seething blood, Nebuzaradan reasons that ensured that it would provoke God's "fury to take vengeance" (Ezek 24;8 NRSV). only human blood can appease it and thus expiate the ancestral guilt He proceeds I will return to this detail below. to slaughter-or, perhaps better, sacrifice-thousands of the best and brightest This ullit is followed by a tradition that ellumerates the seven concurrent sins from among the Israelite population, eighty thousand priests in the flower of

that were committed at the time of the murder: "Israel cOlllmitted seven lransgl'es N YOlltl1.~(p Yet, even this excessive spilling of human blood turns out not produce the sians {,Ol'eiI'OI} on the same day: They killed a priest, 11 prophet, and a judge: they desired elTect spilled innocent blood; they polluted the Temple Court {l'e~li//I'/lI](/~'tlz(//'{/h]; and it At last, having tried to quell Zechariah's blood with both animal and human

was both Sabbath and the Day of Atonement. "_12 IntercstingJy, like nil! Story (~f' tilt' blood. Nebuzaradilll n.'Coils from the bloodletting. 278 Imagilltlry Sacrifice COI!/inmdillg lJIood 279

At that moment. he [Nebuzarndan] rebuked him [Zechariahp' and said to one life, how much more will happen to me for having taken so many lives!' He fled, him: "What do you want me to do-destroy your entire people on your sent a parting gift to his household, and became a convert to Judaism."64 Accord~ accQunt?!?"58 Immediately the Holy One, blessed be He, was flllcu with mercy ing to Girard, the motif of conversion is central to the possibility of transcending and said: "If this man, wlto is but fiesh and blood and is cruel, is filled with the sacrificial complex: "conversion is resurrection" insofar as "awareness of guilt mercy for 111y children, how much morc so should I be [merciful toward is forgiveness in the Christian sense," he writes.6S If Girard were to relinquish his them], about whom it is written, 'Because the Lord your God is a merciful Christian exceptionalisl11, he might argue that this late antique Jewish narrative ex~ God, he will neither abandon you nor destroy you; he will not forget the emplifies the distinctive and superior perspective of the biblical tradition, which covenant with your ancestors that he swore to them'[Dcut4:31],,'1 Immediately produces a vision of non~sacrificial or even anti~sacrificial dedication of the self he signaled to the blood that it should be swallowed up in its place,5'1 that supersedes the sacrificial context out of which it emerges. But is the rabbinic retelling of the Zechariah narrative, in fact, about sacrifi~ By rejecting the killing of animals and huinan beings as a mode or expiating the cial practice at all? In his recent interpretation of this text, Michael Swartz has ancestral crime of murder, the Babylonian general succeeds in shaming the God of' persuasively argued that the story goes to great lengths to draw a clear distinction Israel into subduing Zechariah's demand for vengeance. "between any kind of blood of a sacrificial or alimentary animal and the blood of What might a Girardian reading of this expansive version of' the Zechariah the martyr."(,6 As noted above, th~ text emphasizes that the human blood of the story look like? Girard has himself written about the allusion to the killing of murdered hero is explicitly treated in a manner that departs from the prescription in Zechariah in the New Testament as a "revelation of the founding murder" that Leviticus 17: 13 for covering with earth the blood of a wild animal that is permitted inaugurated the cycle of human violence to which Jesus has come to put an end.frll to be eaten. Along similar lines, Jonathan Klawans has likewise argued that the Indeed, the "murder of the prophets" is both structurally and thematically central Zechariah tradition in rabbinic literature docs not address the inadequacies of the to the narrative of human ethical progress that Girard views as the core message sacrificial cult pCI' se, but rather belongs to a broader rabbinic discourse concern~ of the gospels.f.' ing the moral and ritual defilement of the Jerusalem Temple caused by acts such as The rabbinic treatment of this tradition might, at Iirst glance. seem to conform idolatry, sexual sin, and murder.6? This discourse, Klawans argues, is not an indict­ to Girard's hypothesis concerning the trans formative unmasking of the scapegoat ment of the regular regime of sacrifice as presented ill Leviticus and elsewhere in mechanism in biblical literature. In Girardian terms, the Zechariah narrative in both the Torah, but an indication of Israel's own culpability for the eventual destruction its biblical and postbiblical iterations is a sustaineu meditation on the universal of the Jel'llsalem Temple/'S and integral connection between sacrificial cult and violence. The connict between The redactional use of the Zechariah story within the fifth~ or sixth-century Joash and Zechariah, the king's own "son~in~law," with whom he is in competition LW1/{'lIfflfiolls Rabbati confirms this interpretalionY' Like many midrashic collec~ for control over the community and its religious life, ruptures the social fabrie.f'2 In tions, Lamentations Rabbati docs not form a coherent literary or conceptual whole: the biblical base~text, the crisis coincides with an unspecified divine punishment of thc thirty~six proems at the beginning of the work were likely affIXed to it at a later the Judah and Jerusalem (2 Chr 24: IS), perhaps a plague or other generic form of time; similarly, the commentary on the first two chapters of the biblical book is calamity, another theme that Girard linl<5 to the social disruption generated by the considcrably more extensive than that on the final three chapters, suggesting an 6 sacrificial crisis. .1 cxtended and varied compositional history.'u Nevertheless, as Shaye Cohen has Finally, the narrative culminates with the "scapegoating" of Zechariah. which argued, the work does exhibit a general unity of purpose and perspective-namely, seems to return the Temple community to concord. A Girardian reading would an exegesis of the book of Lamentations as a sllstained reflection 011 the causes of suggest that sacrificial cult has only provisionally masked the guilt of the Israelite the destruction of Second Tempie.lI In particular, Cohen has called attention to the community, which clings to a self~dclusional and patently ineffective belief in the tcndency in Lamentations Rabbati to minimize the significance of martyrdom in the efficacy of animal sacrifice to alone for guilt. I·luman blood is no more able to events of the destruction, despite the obvious potential for highlighting this very expiate sin than is the blood of the sacrili.cial animals that has been substituted for thcme. n The Zechariah narrative, which was incorporated in four separate textual it. It is only Nebuzaradan'sdecision to turn away from the whole sacrificial complex contcxts within the work, conforms to this general patternY Neither Zechariah nor that brings an end to the cycle of killing. His heartfelt prayer provides an antidote the descendants of his murderers who are themselves killed by a foreign power arc to the violent nature of sacrifice and thereby brings an end to the cycle of violence. treated as I1w/'tyrs, if that term is understood, as we have seen it so often was, to Indeed, the version of the story in the Babylonian Talmud goes a step further and index a person who dies as a ritually efficacious sacrifice. Rather, the bloodshed in has the general convert to Judaism at the culmination of the narrative: "Thercupon the Zechariah narrative stands as a physical indictment of the simultaneous ritual he debated with himself whether to repent, saying, 'If such vengeance is exacted for and ethical shortcomings of the Jewish people, which lead ineluctably to the 280 Imaginary Sacrifice CO/~/iJl/1ld;lIg IJ/vod 281 destruction of the Temple. On this point, Jewish and Christian writers converged: number of key insights into this material to the participants in the UCLA I Ben Gurion the destruction and exile frolll Jerusalem and Judea were a consequence of Jewish University I Open University of Israel workshop on "The Limits of Power" (Zikhroll guilV'! But only post· Reformation readings of the ancient sources would insist thaI Yn'akov, Israel). Thanks arc also due to Lisa Clcuth and Alice Mandell, UCLA, for their this shared historicoMtheoiogical conviction reflects an understanding of sacrifice as comments 011 earlier drafts. And, as always, Leah Boustull provided stimulating reflections and crucial editorial suggestions along the way. Any remaining errors are all my own. nothing other than atavistic violence. !. Peter Drown, "The Rise and Function of the Holy Man in Latc Antiquity," in Society alld Ihe Holy in Late Alltiquity (London: Faber and Faber, 1982), 103-52: and 1. Z. Smith, Map Is Not Territory: SlIIdies ill flte IIistol}' of Religion (Leiden: Drill, 1978), 172-89. For Conclusion revisions of this perspective thut emphasize the continuing vitality of the traditional temple cults and the complexity of their transformation to new modes of religious authority and Rene Girard-or a scholar adoptilig his conceplual framework-·might argue that practice, see David Frankfurter, Religion irt Romlln Egypt: Assimilarion und Resiswllce it is the still unresolved sacrificial complex at the heart of The SWIT of tile Tell Mor­ (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998),30-33,37-82, and passim. f),rs that accounts for its doctrine of divinely sanctioned vengeance, This same 2. For a thoroughgoing critique of the use of the concept of "spiritualization" illl11od­ scholar might read the rabbinic versions of the Zechariah narrative as a principled ern scholarship, see Jonathan Klawans, PurifY, Sacrifice, lIl/d tite Temple: Symbolism tllld rejection of the necessity of sacrifice. whether animal or human, in favor of an SIIJJI!lw,\'sirmisllt ill the SlIldy of AI/cielll Judaism (New York: Oxford University Press, ethics of revelatory conversion. Despite the stark difference betwec.n the two narra­ 2006), esp. 147-74,213-54; Jonathan Klawans, "Interpreting the Last Supper: Sacrifice, tives, the scapegoat mechanism might nevertheless be invoked as the common struc­ Spiritulllizntion, and Anti-Sacrifice," NeB' Tes{(11Iteltl Sltulies48 (2002): 1-17. J. Guy G. Stroumsa, The End of Sacrifice; Religious Tram/ormations ilt Late Amiqllify, tural principle governing the vcry notion of sacrifice operative in the lexts. translated by S, Emanuel (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009), esp. 56-83, On the I have argued, however. that these particular Jewish texts from late antiquity nei­ role of sacrifice in the development of postbiblical Judaism in particular, see esp. Michael ther bear out Girard's hypothesis of a universal scapegoat mechanism nor encode D. Swartz. "Judaism and the Idea of Ancient Ritual Theory," in Jewish Studies at the emss­ any putative psychological discomfort with sacrificial violence. Rathe!~ both texts }'(Iods of Allfhmp(j/ogy and History: AIlt/lOrit); Dillspom, Tradition, edited by R. S, Boustan, index the pervasive concern among late-antique Jews with the meaning and function O. Kosaw;ky, and M. Rusto\\' (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011), 294- of the blood of the murdered righteous, which intensified as the theorization of mar­ 317; Michael D. Swartz, "The Topography of Blood in Mishnah Yoma," in Jewish Blood: tyrdom as sacrifice was employed to secure Christian hegemony, On my rcading, the /?('(/lity IIlId Mewplwl' ilt HistOl); Ue/igiO/t, alltl Cllllttre, edited by Mitchell B. Hart (Lon­ Zechariah narrative rejects the equation of sacrifice and murder, thereby deflating don: Routledge, 2009), 70-82; Michael D. Swartz, Place olld Person ill Altcieltl Judaism: the discursive power of martyrdom that had so captivated many Jews and Chris­ /Jescl'i!lillg the linn Kippul' Sacrifice, International Rennert Center Guest Lecture Series 9 tians in late antiquity. By contrast, the rabbinic martyrology insists all the abiding (Ramal Gan: Bar-llan University, Faculty of Jewish Studies, 2000), On the search for alter· power of sacrificial blood to affect salvation, implicitly celebrating the passage from native ritual means to fulfill the obligations of sacrifice within late antique pnganislll, see mere animal sacrilkc to a heightened form of cult in which human victims are spe­ especially Salzman's essay in this volume. 4. See the introduction and individual contributions in Ra'anan S.lloustan and Annette cifically chosen from among the ranks of the heroes of rabbinic tradition, Yoshiko Reed, cds., Blood (/1/(1 Ihe Botl/u/aries of Jewish and Christiall Identities ilt Late The two narratives thus renect the diversity of approaches to the phenomcnon AI/tiquity. special theme-section of HellocJt 30 (2008): 229-364, of sacrifice among late-antique Jews, a heterogeneity that is likewise attested in 5. On sacrificiallangunge in Christian martyrology, see Elizabeth A. CnstelJi, Marty/'o early Christian writings,75 But beneath the diversity of approaches to sacrifice stood dom amI MelT/oJ'y: EllJ'b' C/iri.\'tiull Culwl't' Making (New York: Columbia University Press, a very concrete competition among Jews and between Jews and Christians over 2(04), 50-61; also George Heyman, Tltt' PoweJ' 0/ Sacrifice: RomoN alld C/triMian Dis­ the biblical past, as embodied in the physical remains of exemplary figures spread cour,l'es ill COl/flicl (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2007), On across the sacred geography of the I-Ioly Land, sacrificial language in early Jewish martyrology, see Jan Willem van Henten, TIte MacC£I­

helm Marly,.s (/,1' SlIl';Otl/'S (~r the Jewish People: A Study of 2 (llId.f Maccabees (Leiden: Brill, 1997), esp, 140-56; ita'allan S, BoustHn, From Martyr to Mystic: Rabhinic Martyrology and Notes illt' Making 0/ Merkal'l/h MyttidslII, TSAJ 112 (TGbillgen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005), 149-98. [ would like to express my heartfelt thunks to Jennifer Wright Knust lind Zsuzsalllla V(ll'ite­ 6, On the ideological use to which the Romans put the destruction, see esp. Jodi Mag· Iyi for inviting me to present an early version of this paper at the Boston University confer­ ness, "The Arch or Titus at Rome and the Fate of the God of Israel," Journal of Jewish ence and for their generous editorial guidance and support-and, above nil. /01' their Sl1Idies 59 (2008): 201-17; Fergus Millar, "Last Year in Jerusalem: Monuments of the palience! I would also like to acknowledge the incisive response to this paper thaI Jonathan Jewish War in Rome," in FlctI'itls Jvsepltll,~ (/11(/ FillI'/'ulI Rome, edited by 1. Edmondson, Kluwans presented at the conference, which redirected my thinking in crucial ways, lowe n S, Mason, and 1. Rives (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 101-28, 282 Imaginary Sacrifice Ci.11!/iJ/llldillj! IJIood 283

7. On the Cbristian interpretation of the destruction as n sign of the transfer of divine LocaticJ/I (Columbia: University of South Carol inti Press, 1993), 202-16; see also Ivan favor from tbe Jewish people to the Christian Church, and the Jewish internalization of this Strenski, Ccmtt'sfillg Sacrifice: Religion, Natiol/alism, /llld Social Thoughr ill France (Chi­ theological construct, see Israel J. Yuval, "The I'vlyth of the Jewish Exile from the Land of cago: University of Chicago Press. 1997), esp. 101-1 J. Israel: A Demonstration of Irenic Scholarship," COII/IIIOII Kllowledge 12 (2006): 16-33. 24. Strenski, "At Home with Rene Girard," 204, 8. Klawans, Purif.\\ Sm.:rijice, lImltlie Temple, 175-211. 25. All citations of the work refer to Reeg, Gesdlic/Ile 1'011 den Zelm flfiirtYI'l'rtI, All 9. Klawans, Purily, Sacrifice, alld the Temple. 106. See also Ishay Rosell-Zvi, "Bodies translations of this work below are mine, though [ have also consulted David Stern, "Mid~ and Temple: The List of Priestly Bodily Defects in Mishnah iJeklwrot, Chapter 7" (Hebrew), !"martyrologies of the early Byzantine period in the lJook c!fJuhi/t'(!,I', CSCO 5 I I (Leuven: Peeters. 1989),228-29. (-or discussion of this passage development of medieval Jewish martyrdom. sec Shmuel ShepkarLl, ]1'H'ish MaNyr,I' ill the' in the context of the various etiologies for Yom Kippur in Jewish literature of the Second Pt/gmllllld Chri,~ti(//1 Worlds (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), esp. 107-40. Tcmple period, see Daniel Stokl Ben Ezra, The Impact c!f rom Kippul' 011 HarZI' Cflristiallity: 18, The theory was most fully articulated in Rene Girard, Violel/ce (f1U1 tile Sac-'rt'd, Tht' Day of AfOuemelIf from Second Temple Judaism to the Fifth Century, WUNT 163 translated by Patrick Gregory (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977); also (I'libingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003), 95-97. Girard, Scapegoc/t and Thillgs !liddell. Sec also Rene Girard, "Generative Scapegoating," in 30. Zeitlin. "Legend," 4-7; Urbach, Sages, 521-22, Violent Origins: W(1lter Bllrkerf, Renc! Girard, and ]omulwlI Z, Smith 0/1 Rilllal Killing (/wl 31. For example, y}~!l1I 7.5 (44b-c); Lel'R 10.6; ScmgR 4.4,5; bZel' 88b; /J'Arak 16n. Cllltllral Formatio1/, edited by R. O. (R, G,) Hamerton-Kelly (Stanford: Stanford University According to Friedrich Avemarie, trans., Ihlllt/- Jlersuhllllllg.l"lIIg, Obersetzung des Talmud Press, 1987),73-'105. YcrushaJmi 2.4 (Tiibingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1995), 19311.92, the different versions shlHe a 19. See esp. Klawans. Ptlrit,1\ Sacrijice, IIml the Temple, 22-26, as wel1 as the previous colllmon source, although they have subsequently developed in distinct directions. literature cited there. 32. This crucial observation is emphasized in Daniel St6kl Ben Ezru, "The Christian 20. Jonathan Z. Smith, "The Domestication of Sacrifice," in Vio/ellt Origim,' Walrel' Exegesis of the Scapegoat between Jews and Pagans," in Sacrijice ill Religiolls Experieflce, Burkert, Uene Gimrd, (lllti .I0l/lUllflll Z. Smith 011 Ritual Killing (lnd CIl/wl'lIl FOl'matioll, edited by A. I. Baumgarten (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 207-32. edited by It, G. Hamerton-Kelly (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1987), 191-214, 33. Michael D. Swartz, "The Semiotics of the Priestly Vestments in Ancient Judaism," 21. Jonathan Z. Smith. "On Compurison," in DmdgelJ' Diville: 011 the Comparison c~( in Sacrijice ill Religiolls Experience, edited by A. Baumgarten, SHR 93 (Leiden: Brill, Early Christitmi;ie,\' (/Ild the Rcligiolls of Lllte Antiquity (Chicago: University of Chicago 2002), 57-80,esp. 72-76. Press, 1990),36-53. 34. This material is found in its fullestfonn at Tell Martyrs, I-x'15.20-28 + J8.1-3.ltis 22. Sec esp. the critical assessment in Heyman, Power of Sacrijice, 151-56. also found in what is perhaps its earliest extant formulation in Midrasft Shir lw-Shirim to 23. Ivan Strenski, "At Home with Renc Girard: Eucharistic Sacrifice, the 'French Song 1:3; Eliczer HJoseph De Maistre," ill Religioll ill Uelatioll: Method, AJlPliClltio/l, 1111(1 MOI'llI helm Gross, 1971), 4a. 284 Imaginary Sacrifice c01!rJltlldillg lJ/vud 285

35. Tell MaNYI:I', I-X.18.1-3, See the parallel in Midmsiz S'hir /1II~Shi/'ill1 to Song 1:3 82-100; H,G.L. Peels, "The Blood 'from Abel to Zechariah' (Matthew 23,35; Luke 11,50f.) (Grullhut, p. 4n). and the Canon of the Old Testament," Zeit.w:/Jriftfilr dil.' Allle,v/a11/clltJie/w Wi.l'scf/sc/utj[ J 13 36. Tell Martyrs, 1-IX.20.1-5. The translation follows recension VII. (2001): 583-601. For detailed llrgulllentation that the Zechariah in the two Gospels is to be 37. Ten Jl[lINYI:I', V-VIII,21.1O. Similarly, following Rabbi Ishmael's deGabriel, along with the rest of the angelic host, praise Rabbi Ishmael for joining thc rest of Zechariah son of Barachiah of the early Second Temple period who authored the prophetic the martyred righteolls, who are blessed to have been "brought as offerings upon the altar book of Zechariah, see Isanc Kalimi, "The Story about the Murder of the Prophet Zeclm~ that is in hcavcn" (Tell Mart)'l;Y, V-VllI.22.63). riah in the Gospels and Its Relations to Chronicles," Rel'lIe IJibliqlle 116 (2009): 246-61. 38. The imagery associated with the theme of eschatological vengcance in 71/(' ,')'[01), (~r 47. Sec the impressive range of sources gathered in A. A, Barb, "St. Zacharias the the Tell Jl[al'lyn' is not an isolated phenomenon, but appears in many of thc individual Prophet and Martyr: A Study in Charms and Incantations," JUlimal of [11f.' IVor!Jwg ami nmrtyrologics that make up the larger anthology. See the martyrdoms of Rabbi Eleazar ben COllrtauld Illstifllles 11 (1948): 35-67. Shammua' (TI.'ll Martyl's, I, VI-VII. IX-XA3.13-15; I, III-V.51. 13-\9) lind of Yeshevav the 48, See GaHl Hasan~Rokelll, Web of Life: Folklure and Midms/J ill Rahbillic Lill.'l'(lfllre, scribe (Tell Jl[(/rtYI:I', 1.50.6-8), translated by B. Stein (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000), 170-71, comparing L(//JI~ 39. BOllstan, From Marryr ((I MY,IIic, 133-39. On the transformation-and connation­ elJtatiul1s RaMuli 4:13, §J6, with ltilleml'illm Bfll'digaiellSe 592.1. For discussion of the of the various clements of the biblical Yom Kippur ritual within the cllitic theology of motif of Zeclmrillh's blood in ItinerariUIII Burdigalel1se liS well as in later Christian pil~ J-Iebrews, see Stokl Ben Ezra, Impact vI }'i:IIIJ KiPI'llI' Oil Early Christialli[y, 187-90. On grimage texts, see John Wilkinson, Jel'll.w/elll Pilgrims before tlte CI'II.I'ade,I' (Warminster, Hebrews and its relationship to the legacy of biblical sacrifice more generally, see now U.K,: Aris and Phillips, 1977), 173, Oded Irshai, "Historical Aspects of the Christinn~ Morna D. Hooker, "Christ, the 'End' of the Cult," in The Epi.l'f/e to the Ilehrellw alld ClJ/'j,I'~ Jcwish Polemic Concerning the Church of Jerusalem ill the Fourth Century" (Hebrew), liaN T/wu/ugy, edited by R, IklUckham et al. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. 2009), 189-212, 2 \'ols., Ph.D. diss., Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1993, I: 8-12, already noted the signif­ and Christian A. Eberhart, "Characteristics of Sacrificial rvIetaphors in Hebrews," in icant similarities between these Zechariah traditions and the pilgrimage traditions COIICern­ Hebrl.'ws; COllfempo/'{//,y Met"odv-New Illsights, edited by G. Gelardini (Leiden: Brill, ing James, the brother of Jesus, who likewise was said to have been slain in the middle of 2005), 37-64. the temple or even adjacent to the altar. 40. Girard, Tllil1gl' //iddell, 149-53, at 151. See also Girard's discussion of thc story of 49. Jcal1~Daniel Dubois, "La mort de Zacharie: Memoire juive et IIH::moire chretienne," Cain and Abel at the very opening of Viule/lce ami tilt' S(/C/'eti(4). which he invokes in sup~ Rel·1l1.' des Et/{(~e.l' AlIgu.ffillielllles 40 (1994): 23-38. port of his central contention that sacrifice is a substitution for violence sillce Cain, as a 50. Variants of the narrative are found at yTtI'aIl4.8 (6911-b); Pesiqlrl de-Rm' Ka/lima 15, tiller of the soil rather than shepherd, is cast as u murderer precisely (if paradoxically) 97; L(lIIIR. Proems 5 and 23; 2:2, §4; 4:13, §16; EcdR 3: 16, §I; 10:4, §I; bGit 57b; bSall 96b, because he has 110 outlet for his violent impulses; the same basic argument is presented See also the version in the eleventh~century Midra.\11 Aggat/ah to Num 30; 15, on which see again in Rene Girard, "Satan," in Thl.' Girard Reader, edited by J G. Williams (New York: Halpern Amaru, "Killing of the Prophets." Crossroad, 1996),203. 51, .1'1(/'(/1/4,8 (69a-b). Unless otherwise noted, I follow the readings in MS Leiden as 41. Girard, Tlailgs HIdtiL'lI, 152. printed in Peter Schafcr Hnd Hans~JiirMen Becker, eds., SYllupse =um TII/lllml l'i!l'lf.r/wimi, 42, This supel'sessionist progression is apparent throughout Girard's corpus, but is par~ Band 1II5-12: Ordl1lmg Mo'ed, TSAJ 83 (Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001),264, The transla~ ticularly pronounced in the chapter herc under discussion (71lingv flidtlm, 141-79). tion is my OWI1. I have also consulted the translation and textual notes in Michael Swartz, 43. See the discussion of this narrative tradition as a series of "accretions" to the biblical "Bubbling Blood and Rolling Bones: Agency and Teleology in Rabbinic Myth," in All/ike text in Sheldon H. Blank, "The Death of Zechariah in Rabbinic Literature," fkhl'l'll' Union Mwhel/: Mediell, Trall.~rJ1'lIl(/fiollell lfIul Koustrukliullel1, edited by U. Dill lind C. Walde College Alllllla/12-13 (1937-1938): 327-46. (Berlin: Dc Gruyter, 2009), 224-41. at 229-30. 44. Important studies that focus primarily on the rabbinic versions of this narrative 52. This unit appears at the end of the passage in LlImR 4: 13, g16, rather than before it, include Betsy Halpern Amafu, "The Killing of the Prophets: Unraveling a i'vlidrn!lh." as here. Hebrew Uniof/ College AI1I/IIII/54 (1983): 153-80, and Blank. "Death of Zechariah ill Rab~ 53. The edifio princl.'jls (Venicc, 1523) reads: "bulls, rams, and sheep" (purim 'eWIIl binic Literature," 327-46. u~k!Je\'{fsill/) (Schiifer lind Becker, SYllojlse ZIlIIl Talmlld }'i!ms/wlmi, Band 1115-12: Ortillllllg 45. On the Christian recontextuaiization of the Zechariah tmuitions in Vitelt' /'r(}pllef(l~ '\/o'etl,2(4). 1'1/111 23,1-2, sec David Satran, IJiblical Proplll!fS ill lJ)'zmlfill{, Pel/estille; Re{/.\-,I'e.uing thl' 54. Compare Tell Afartyl's, 1-IX,20.3-5. LiI'('.I' of the Prophets, SVTP II (Leidcn: Brill, 1995): 22-33, 46-·49; also A. M. Schwemer, 55. The phrase in brackets Was added by a later scribe to MS Leiden; it appenrs as part St/(ciiell ZIt dell Ji'iihjiidischell Pml'/lI!(l!lIiegl!l1tiell Virae prop!Wfclflll1l, 2 vols., TSAJ 49-50 of the text in the Venice edition of the Palestinian Talmud as well as in the parallel versions (Tlibingen: i'vlohr Siebeck. 1995-96),2:283-321, in the Palestinian midrashim, On the scribal udditions in MS Leiden and the relationship 46, Matt 23:35" Luke II :51, Naturally, the scholarly literature on the uses of this nal'ra~ of the manuscript to the Venice edition, see Yaneov Sussman, "Introduction," in Talmlld tive in these passages is vast. See esp. Catherine Sider Hmnilton. '''I-lis Ulood Be upon Us'; Yel'll.l/wlllli: An:oniillg to M.I: 0,: 4720 (Seal. 3) of (he Leiden Ullil'I.'I:I·i!y £ibmry with Res­ Innocent Blood and the Death of Jesus in l"flltlhew," Car/lOtie 11lhliml Quortl.'r!.1· 70 (2008): toHltionr and CU/'/'(!('fioll.r(Jerusalem; Acudemy of the Hebrew Language. 2005), 23-29. 286 Imaginary Sacrifice

56, The versions in Lalllt!l1W(iollS Rahha1i lind the Babylonian Talmud list in addition to "the eighty thousand young priests" also the men of the Great and Minor Sanhendrin: youths alllimaidells, lind school children, 57. The phrase might also be translated: "he rebuked it (the blood}," But I translate it this way because in some parallels Nebuzaradan here addresses Zechariah by name (e,g" { BIBLIOGRAPHY} LamR, Proem 23 und 2:2,~4;hGit 57b). 58. This entire sentence is in Aramaic, after which the text returns to Hebrew, 59, This final unit of the narrative differs considerably in the parallel in hGil 57b, For Ancicnt Sourccs discussion. see the following. 60. Girard, Things IJicldell, 158-62, Ambrose. I!.jJistles, Edited by Otto Fliller, revised by Michaela Zelzer, SaIlC(; AlIlbrusii 61. Especially Girard, Scapegoat, 100-24. Opera, Pars X, EpisfII/ae {!( acta, CSEL 82,1,82,2,82.3, Vindob: Tempsky, 1968-96, 62. The high social status of Zechariah, liS "son-in-In\\' of the king, high priest, a prophet, Also see Miglle,l'L 16. Repr" Paris: De Vrayet de Surcy, 1845, and a judge," conforms to Gimrd's paradigm, in which the scapegoat is liS rlkely to be the ---. hjJisl/es, Book X. English translation by J.H.WG, Liebesehuetz with the assistance

king as the outcast: see especially Rene Girard, "A Venda Myth Analyzed," appendix to of Carol Hill. AlIlbro,\'c {?f Milan: Polificlll Letten' (1/1(/ Spcedre,\: Liverpool: Liverpool R. J. GOISMidrash Lamentations Rabbati: Prolegomenon and a Critical Oxolliensis, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007, Edition to the Third Parasha" (Hebrew), Ph,D, diss., Hebrew University of Jerusalcm, Aristotle. FragmeJlts, Edited by Valentinus Rose, AriSlore/is qIli jerebllllftll' libo/'llflljrag- 1997; Paul D. Mandel, "Between Byzantium ami Islam: The Transmission of a Jewish 1II(,lIfa, BT, Leipzig: Teubner, 1886. Book in the Byzantine and Early Islamic Periods," in TmllSlJlilling Jewish lim/ilions: [Aristotle], 01/ VirfUes lim/ Vices, Edited with an English translation by Harris Rackham. Oralit),. Textlllllit)' ([/Ill CII/Illm/ IJ{/lus;OI/, edited by Y. Elman and I. Gcrshoni (New Havcn: LCL. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1935. Ya!e University Press, 2000), 74~!06. Arnobius, Against Gellliles. Book VII. Edited by Coneetto MOl1chesi. Amobii Atil'ersll.t 71. Shayc J. D. Cohcn, "The Destruction: From Scripture to l\'Iidrash," I'n){~/ieXls 2 muiones Lih,.i I'll. Corpus scriptorulll Latinofulll ParaVhlllUll1 62. Turin: Paraviae, (1982); 18-39. 1934. 72. Cohen, "The Destruction," 24-25. Athenagoras. L('golia. Edited with English translation by Willium R, Schoedel. :/t!tmClgo­ 73, Halpern Amuru, "Killing of the Prophets," argues that the Zcchariah story contrib­ /'(IS: Legatio (Jlld De ResllrJ'ecliolle. Oxford: Clarendon, 1972, utes to the martyrological emphasis of Moshe ha-Darshan"s eleventlH.:entury Midrash Augustine, Cit)' 4 God. Edited by Bernhard Dombart and Alfons Kalb. Sallcl; Aure/ii Aggm/alt. But, even if this is so, the narrative should not be understood to carry a single Augllstflli episcopi De Cil'illlle Dei. eeL 47-48. Tumhout: Brepols, 1955. meaning; the redactional context of. the narrative there docs not h,\Ve \l direct bearing on ---./;jll'sl/es, fvligne, PI... 33, Paris, 1844~1864, the meaning of the narrative here within LIIJIIl'I1tatiol1s Ra/Jl}(1ri. ---, 01/ t!t(; Psalms. English translation by Marin Boulding. The Wurks oj Sail/( Allglls- 74, Yuval, "Myth of the Jewish Exile," lilll;: A Tnllls/uliollfor tilt! 2/,1'( Cellflll:!', Vol. 3.15, EXpO.I'ilioll.\' of tlie Psalms, 1-32. Hyde 75. Sec esp, Heyman, Pm!'(?/' {~r :)'aaf/in'. Pari" N,Y.: New City Press, 2000.