L’élimination du sacrifice humain dans l’ancien Israël et à Rome. Sacrifice d’Isaac et étiologies romaines

The famous story of the sacrifice of Isaac by his father Abraham which is related in the book of Genesis offers a case of substitution of an animal victim for a human one. Roman tradition tells us a series of similar cases where a human sacrifice would have been replaced by an offering of another type: this is what was said for the Saturnalia, the Argei, the Compitalia and the and the ritual used in case of lightnings. But the spirit of these stories is very different from that of the biblical passage: in Rome the emphasis is placed on the skill of the man who manages to replace the human sacrifice originally requested by the god with an innocuous offering.