Page:Essays on Catholicism, Liberalism, and Socialism.djvu/288

one life is taken by man to assuage his passion, and in the other it is offered to God as an expiatory sacrifice.

Mankind has never lost the reminiscence of biblical traditions, but has always believed these three things with an unconquerable faith: that the effusion of blood Is necessary, that there is a manner of shedding blood which is purificatory, and another mode which is condemnatory. History clearly attests these truths. It presents to us the narrative of cruel acts, of bloody conquests, of the overthrow and destruction of famous cities, of atrocious murders committed, of pure victims offered on blood-stained altars, of brothers warring against brothers, of the rich oppressing the poor, and of fathers tyrannizing over their children, until the earth appears to us like an immense sea of blood, which neither the piercing breath of the winds can dry up, nor the scorching rays of the sun can absorb. This general belief is no less clearly revealed by the bloody sacrifices offered to God upon every altar, and finally, by the legislation of all nations, whereby he who takes the life of another is always and everywhere condemned to lose his own life. In the tragedy of Orestes, Euripides makes Apollo utter these words: "Helen is not accountable for the Trojan war; her beauty was only the means which the gods made use of in order to enkindle a war between two nations, and by the shedding of blood to purify the earth, which was corrupted by a multitude of crimes." The poet, in this passage, is only the echo of the traditions of his own people, and of humanity, which proclaims that by the effect of a mysterious cause, there is a secret virtue of purification in the shedding of blood.

As sacrifice supposes the existence of this cause, and