Un uomo solo è sempre in cattiva compagnia...

Un sacrificio (sacrificium, sacer + facere, rendere sacro) è comunemente noto come rinuncia ad un bene (cibo o animali), da parte di una comunità, in favore di una o più entità sovrumane, come atto propiziatorio o di adorazione. Nel lessico comune ha perso quest'accezione religiosa per intendere in generale uno sforzo, la rinuncia a qualcosa in vista di un fine.

La teologia del sacrificio rimane una questione aperta, non solo per le religioni che continuano a praticare il rituale del sacrificio, ma anche per quelle nelle cui scritture, tradizioni o storie, era presente il sacrificio di animali, anche se non viene più praticato. Le religioni offrono un numero di ragioni per cui vengono offerti i sacrifici.

. Gli dei hanno bisogno dei sacrifici per sostenere se stessi e il loro potere, senza il quale sarebbero sminuiti.

. I beni sacrificati sono usati per fare un affare con la divinità, che ha promesso qualche favore in cambio.

. Le vite o il sangue delle vittime sacrificali contengono il mana o qualche altro potere sovranaturale, la cui offerta compiace la divinità.

. La vittima sacrificale viene offerta come capro espiatorio, un bersaglio per l'ira di dio, che altrimenti ricadrebbe sui seguaci.

. Il sacrificio priva i seguaci di cibo o di altri beni utili, e in quanto tale costituisce una disciplina ascetica.

. I beni sacrificatidiventano in realtà parte delle entrate economiche di un organizzazione religiosa; sono parte della base di supporto economico che ricompensa i sacerdoti e sostiene i templi.

. Il sacrificio è in realtà parte di un festival e viene in definitiva consumato dai seguaci stessi; questo include spesso un elemento di redistribuzione in cui i poveri acquisiscono più di quanto abbiano contribuito.

. Il sacrificio può essere un segno di un patto tra la divinità e il suo popolo.

Antigone è una figura della mitologia greca, figlia di Edipo e della madre di questi Giocasta.

Frutto dell'incesto, Antigone è una figura toccante e personaggio principale della tragedia " Antigone" di Sofocle.

Nella forma più familiare la leggenda di Antigone inizia nel punto in cui ha termine la tragedia di Sofocle " Edipo re" ovvero nel momento in cui il re si congeda dalle figlie per andare in esilio, raccomandandole alle cure del loro zio Creonte.

Secondo la leggenda, Antigone fu murata viva per ordine del re di Tebe Creonte, poiché la ragazza aveva sepolto degnamente suo fratello Polinice, traditore della patria, dopo che il re aveva ordinato di lasciare il cadavere preda ai cani e agli avvoltoi sul campo di battaglia. A causa di un consiglio di Tiresia, l'indovino cieco, la prigione-tomba di Antigone fu aperta dopo qualche giorno, ma la fanciulla al suo interno era già morta. Alla vista del corpo il promesso sposo di Antigone, Emone, figlio di Creonte, si tolse la vita.

Temptation is the fire that brings up the scum of the heart.

In the Catholic translation of the Bible, the word "temptation" is used in various senses, the principal of which are the following:

. The act of testing or trying (Deuteronomy 4:34; Tobit 2:12; Luke 22:28; etc.);
. Enticement to evil (Matthew 26:41; 1 Corinthians 10:13; etc.);
. The state of being tempted (Matthew 6:13; Luke 4:13; etc.);
. That which tempts or entices to evil (James 1:12; 2 Peter 2:9; etc.);
. The name of a place (Exodus 17:7; Deuteronomy 6:16; etc.)

Taken in an unfavourable sense as denoting enticement to evil, temptation cannot be referred directly to God or to Christ, so that when we read in Gen., XXII, 1, for instance, "God tempted Abraham", and in John, VI, 6, "Hoc autem dicebat tentans eum", literally: "This He said tempting him", the expressions must be taken in the sense of testing, trying. According to St. James (I, 12 sqq.), the natural source of man's temptations is concupiscence, or that proneness to evil which is the result of the fall of Adam, and which remains in human nature after baptismal regeneration, and even though the soul is in the state of sanctifying grace (cf. Romans 8:1). Concupiscence becomes sinful only when freely yielded to; when resisted with God's help it is an occasion of merit. Together with inward concupiscence, and outward creatures, which may be the occasion of sin (I John II, 15 sqq.), the chief cause of temptation is Satan, "the tempter" (Matthew 4:3), bent on man's eternal ruin (Ephesians 6:10 sqq.). In the Lord's Prayer, the clause "Lead us not into temptation" is an humble and trusting petition for God's help to enable us to overcome temptation when His Fatherly Providence allows us to experience the allurements of evil. Prayer and watchfulness are the chief weapons against temptation (Mark 14:38; etc.). God does not allow man to be tempted beyond his strength (1 Corinthians 10:13).

Like Adam, Christ (the second Adam) endured temptation only from without, inasmuch as His human nature was free from all concupiscence; but unlike Adam, He withstood the assaults of the Tempter on all points, thereby affording His mystical members a perfect model of resistance to their spiritual enemy, and a permanent source of victorious help (Hebrews 4:15-16). In our first three Gospels (Matthew 4:1-11; Mark 1:12-13; Luke 4:1-13), the narrative of Christ's temptation is placed in immediate connexion with His baptism on the one hand, and with the beginning of His public ministry on the other. The reason of this is clear.

The Synoptists naturally regard the baptism of Christ as the external designation of Jesus from above for His Messianic work to be pursued under the guidance of the Holy Spirit bestowed upon Him on this occasion; and they no less naturally regard Christ's sojourn in the desert where He was tempted, as His own immediate preparation for that great work under the guidance of the same Holy Spirit.

As our first three Gospels agree concerning the time to which they assign the temptation of Christ, so they are at one in ascribing the same general place to its occurrence, viz. "the desert", whereby they no doubt mean the Wilderness of Judea, where Jesus would indeed be, as St. Mark says: "with beasts". From St. Mark (i, 13) -- with whom compare St. Luke iv, 2 -- we learn that Jesus Christ was tempted during the forty days which He spent in the desert (cf. St. Augustine, "Harmony of the Evangelists", II, xvi), so that the three onsets given in detail by St. Matthew and St. Luke are apparently the three final assaults of Satan against Christ.

The first of these assaults is directly connected in both St. Matthew and St. Luke with the prolonged fast of Jesus in the wilderness. The Tempter suggested to Jesus that He should use His miraculous power to relieve His hunger, by changing into bread the loaf-like flints of the desert. The two other assaults are given in a different order, St. Matthew adhering probably to the order of time, and St. Luke to that of place. The spot pointed out by tradition as the summit from which Satan offered to Jesus dominion over all earthly kingdoms is the "Quarantania", a limestone peak on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho.

As regards the Temple's pinnacle from which the Tempter bade Jesus cast Himself down, it was not the top of the House of Yahweh, but probably the roof of Solomon's portico from which, at a later date, St. James was actually hurled to the pavement below (Eusebius, "Hist. eccl.", IV, xiii).

According to St. Luke (IV, 13), after having subjected Christ to all kinds of temptations -- the Messianic import of which is undoubted -- Satan withdrew, awaiting a favourable opportunity like that which followed Christ's prolonged fast in the desert. The later conflict thus alluded to is no other than that of Christ's Passion (cf. Luke 22:53; John 14:30). The ministry of angels to Jesus, in connection with His temptation, is mentioned in Mark, I, 13.

Satan's exact manner of appearance to Jesus is not stated by the Evangelists. Despite the difficulties urged, chiefly by non-Catholic scholars, against the historical character of the three temptations of Jesus, as recorded by St. Matthew and St. Luke, it is plain that these sacred writers intended to describe an actual and visible approach of Satan, to chronicle an actual shifting of places, etc., and that the traditional view, which maintains the objective nature of Christ's temptations, is the only one meeting all the requirements of the Gospel narrative.

The last temptation is the greatest treason: to do the right deed for the wrong reason.

Angels Ministering to Christ in the Wilderness, Cole Thomas, 1843.

Exactly what the devil was trying to achieve by these temptations has been open to debate. The traditional view is that the devil on each occasion is trying to make Jesus commit a particular sin - avarice by offering power over the kingdoms of the world, gluttony by suggesting a way to relieve Jesus' hunger, and hubris by suggesting that Jesus jump and rely on angels to break his fall. Most modern scholars do not accept this view, Jones for example noting that calling someone who has fasted for forty days gluttonous simply because they now desire food is really not very fair.

Another view popular for a time was that the devil wasn't so much tempting Jesus as presenting him with the different options he could take to be a Messiah, and making him choose one. Evangelicals point to the word usually translated as tempt as being more accurately translated as test, i.e. that the devil was testing Jesus' understanding of his role rather than trying to lure him to sin. Rejected options under this interpretation are:

Someone who rescues the poor and needy from their hardships, as manifested by feeding the hungry.
A magician and miracle worker who wins converts by spectacular acts, as manifested by surviving a jump from a high pinnacle. That the devil places Jesus in a very public location, rather than the numerous high pinnacles in the desert, gives credence to this view.
A political liberator from the oppression of the Romans, as manifested by having power over the kingdoms of the world.


The majority viewpoint amongst scholars is that Matthew is here presenting Jesus as a new Moses, since not only is the devil described as tempting Jesus in a manner similar to the Israelites tempting God, but Jesus is presented as responding with Moses' own words. It is worth noting that while the Israelites accepts each situation, Jesus refuses to be tempted:

The offer of power over the kingdoms of the world mirrors Moses being sent to the top of Mount Nebo, where Yahweh shows him Jericho and Canaan, and then promises them to the Israelites if the Israelites worship Yahweh.

The feeding of the hungry parallels the period of the Exodus where the Israelites wander hungry in the desert, and harass Yahweh so much by their complaints that food is eventually provided for them, by supernatural means.

The jumping from a pinnacle presents something which would test God's abilities, paralleling the Israelites behaviour in the desert where they tested God
There remains the question of the validity of the temptations offered Jesus. As the Son of God, He would able to attain any of these desires (temporal power, magics, etc) without the aid of the Devil. He was, in essense, being tempted with offers that He already had in His hand.

Christ in the Wilderness, Ivan Kramskoy's, 1872.

Nozze di Cana, Giuseppe Maria Crespi (Lo Spagnuolo), 1688.

L'Arlésienne ( Madame Joseph-Michel Ginoux), Vincent Van Gogh, 1889.

Le Mendiant, Jules Bastien-Lepage, 1880.

Fille en blanc, Vincent Van Gogh, 1890.

Mujeres frente al mar, Pablo Ruiz Blasco y Picasso, 1956

Baigneuse Assise, Pierre Auguste Renoir, 1914.

La Tentation du Christ, Ary Scheffer, 1859.

La création de l'ombre, Marc Chagall, 1941.

Les Grecs et les Troyens se disputant le corps de Patrocle, Antoine Wiertz, 1844.

La Liseuse de Romans, Antoine Wiertz, 1854.

L'Inhumation Précipitée, Antoine Wiertz, 1854

The Suicide, Antoine Wiertz, 1854.

Two Young Girls or the Beautiful Rosine, Antoine Wiertz, 1847.

Si vive come si sogna: soli.

Il Sacrificio di Isacco, Ludovico Cigoli, 1607.

Le tragique du suicidaire, en ce moment précis, n'est pas qu'il ne rencontre pas ce qu'il cherche, c'est qu'il ne cherche plus rien. Dans son infantile naïveté, il a pensé que la parole de l'autre s'était trompé de réponse. En fait il n'avait pas su encore discerner qu'il s'était lui-même trompé de parole, ou plutôt, de destinataire, pour n'avoir pas su adapter à chacun le code qui lui convenait. Et il a consacré sa faute dans le sacrifice.