Aholocaust is a religiousanimal sacrifice that is completely consumed by fire, also known as aburnt offering. The word derives from theancient Greekholokaustos, the form of sacrifice in which the victim was reduced to ash, as distinguished from an animal sacrifice that resulted in a communal meal.
The wordholocaust derives from the Middle Englishholocaust, which derived from the Anglo-Normanholocauste and Late Latinholocaustum. Its original root was the neuter form of theancient Greekholokaustos (ὁλόκαυστος), from ὅλος (hólos, “whole”) + καυστός (kaustós, "burnt") or καίω (kaíō, "I burn") with the use ofrough breathing to pronounce the leading h.
Holokautein (ὁλοκαυτεῖν) is one of the two chief verbs of Greek sacrifice, in which the victim is utterly destroyed and burnt up, as opposed tothúesthai (θύεσθαι), to share a meal with the god and one's fellow worshippers,commensal sacrifice. In the latter, the edible parts of the sacrificed animal were roasted and distributed for festive celebration, whereas the inedible parts were burned on thealtar, those being the god's share. Although not actuallyobliged to do so, Greeks would rather sacrifice a domestic animal to a god or hero and then proceed to use its flesh as food than simply consume it without a sacrifice, as animals were thought of as sharing in the sanctity of life, in addition to their secular usefulness (milk, eggs, ploughing). This did not apply to game, fish, and other seafood, which formed a far larger proportion of the diet than they do today – fish was the major foodstuff sold in ancient Greek marketplaces. A sacrifice need not be a public function involving priests and altars; they could also be held privately, domestically or individually.
These are the two ideal types of Greek sacrificial ritual; they are appropriate to different divinities, done for different purposes, and conducted by different methods. Holocausts areapotropaic rituals, intended to appease the spirits of the Underworld, includingthe Greek heroes, who are spirits of the dead; they are also given to dangerous powers, such as theKeres andHecate. One of the earliest attested holocausts wasXenophon's offering of pigs toZeus Meilichius.[1]
Holocausts are conducted at night, without wine, and offer black-hided animals at a low altar, with their heads directed downwards; in all these they are opposed to the commensal sacrifice given to the Olympian gods. (This distinction is between extreme types, and was somewhat exaggerated in the early twentieth century, as byJane Harrison; considerable evidence has also been found of commensal sacrifice offered to heroes.)[2]
A "burnt offering" is a type ofkorban (sacrifice), specifically ananimal sacrifice in which the entire sacrifice is consumed totally by fire. When theJewish scriptures were translated into theKoine GreekSeptuagint, the translators used the Greek termholokautein to translate the Hebrewolah.[3] This form of sacrifice, in which no meat was left over for anyone, was seen as the greatest form of sacrifice[4] and was the form of sacrifice permitted to be given solely at the Temple byJews andnon-Jews.[4]
The "whole offering" is believed to have evolved as an extreme form of theslaughter offering, in which the portion allocated to the deity increased to all of it.[4] In slaughter offerings, the portion allocated to the deity was mainly thefat, the part which can most easily be burnt.
The animals, having first been checked to ensure they were free from disease and unblemished (a requirement of the sacrifice), were brought to the north side of the altar, and killed by either the offeror, or apriest. The animal's blood was carefully collected by priests and sprinkled around the altar. Unless the animal was a bird, its corpse was flayed and the skin given to the priest, who was permitted to keep it. In later times more powerful priests took possession of the skins from the lesser priests, and it was decreed that the skins should be sold, with the proceeds being given to theTemple in Jerusalem (Tosefta 19). The flesh of the animal was divided according to detailed instructions given by theTalmud (Tamid 31), and would then be placed on the wood on the altar (which was constantly alight due to the large number of sacrifices carried out daily), and slowly burnt. After the flesh (including any horns and goats' beards) had been reduced to ashes, usually the following morning, the ashes were taken by the priest to aritually clean location outside the sanctuary, and dumped there.[5][6]
Most biblical scholars now agree that the intricate details of the whole offering, particularly the types and number of animals on occasion of various feast days, given by theTorah, were of a late origin, as were the intricate directions given in the Talmud.[4] Whole offerings were quite rare in early times, but as the ritual became more fixed and statutory, and the concentration of sacrifice into a single sanctuary (particularly afterJosiah's reform) made sacrifices quite distinct from simply killing animals for food, whole offerings gradually rose to great prominence.[4]