From ritual to metaphor
| Author | Yevgen Galona |
| DOI | 10.1177/0269758017732923 |
| Published date | 01 January 2018 |
| Date | 01 January 2018 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
From ritual to metaphor:
The semantic shift in the
concept of ‘victim’ and
medieval Christian piety
Yevgen Galona
Emory University, USA
Abstract
A study of the genealogy of the concept of victim (victima), originally an object of sacrifice
[ritualistic meaning], reveals how it became a metaphorical label for a harmed party [figural
meaning]. This article rejects the idea presented in earlier scholarship, that the figural meaning of
victim (‘a harmed party’) emerged through the interpretation of Christ’s death in terms of sacrifice
within Christian theology. It also seeks to demonstrate that it was not the initial representation of
the Passion as a sacrifice that encouraged convergence between the meanings of victim, but rather
changes in the presentation of the Crucifixion in late medieval piety. From the High Middle Ages,
the marginal figural meaning gradually overcame the original religious one and by the 18th century
it had become a primary sense that disconnected the victim from a ritualistic context.
Keywords
Victim, sacrifice, suffering Christ, Passion devotion, social justice
Recent global challenges, from the migrant crisis and related refugee politics to LGBT rights and
Black Lives Matter, have exposed the pervasive influence of the concept of victim in contemporary
society. Even within the academy, the current debate on ‘trigger warnings’, ‘micro-aggression’ and
‘safe-spaces’ has confronted our understanding of victimhood and opened up ground for the
discussion of the ethical consequences of a broader notion of the victim (Lukianoff and Haidt,
2015; Filipovic, 2014). What do we understand by this concept? Who counts as a victim and who is
responsible for the label itself? Are there ways in which claiming the status of victimhood grants
special privileges, which may be sought even by those who have not been victimized?
1
Corresponding author:
Yevgen Galona, Emory University, 537 Kilgo Circle, S415 – Callaway Center, Atlanta, GA30322, USA.
Email: ygalona@emory.edu
International Review of Victimology
2018, Vol. 24(1) 83–98
ªThe Author(s) 2017
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DOI: 10.1177/0269758017732923
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Before answering such questions, one needs to address a more basic confusion that is present in
the very concept of victim; namely, why we label a person who has suffered violence or injustice
by means of a word that originally designated a thing that is sacrificed.
2
Neither Roman law, nor
the codices of old German law, nor any other medieval legal codices refer to the harmed party as a
victim – such a labeling is, in fact, a modern phenomenon. Scholars point to the transformation of
the imagery of Christ as it appears in the history of Christian theology and art (most notably in the
Late Middle Ages and the Reformation) as a primary cause of this change.
3
In the article, I will
examine this claim and explore how Christianity has influenced the contemporary language of
victimhood. I will show that the figural sense of victim as a harmed party was a marginal meaning
which co-existed with the primary ritualistic meaning in Latin before Christianity. Further,
although Christianity has been significant in the spread of the figural meaning of victim, it was
not the initial theorization of the Crucifixion as a sacrifice that informed such a transformation, but
rather modifications that occurred in late medieval piety. These modifications emphasized the
elements of pain and grief in earlier sacrificial discourse around the death of Christ and thereby
altered the emphasis from Christ’s resurrection and victory over death to sorrow and compassion
for his suffering during the Passion.
To show how the fusion and confusion of the ritualistic and figural meanings of the concept of
victim occurred historically, let me frame the problem with a modern text by Voltaire that
preserves the ambiguity of both senses. In his Treatise on Tolerance (1763), the French philo-
sopher compares Socrates and Christ as follows: ‘In a word, [Christ] died a victim of envy’; and
he continues; ‘and if one might dare to compare God with a mortal, and sacred things with
profane, his death, humanly speaking, had a great resemblance to that of Socrates’.
4
Voltaire was
not the first to draw this parallel: the comparison between these two figures began in the early
years of the Christian era and flourished at the time of the Renaissance.
5
This tradition was
picked up and brought to a whole new level during the Enlightenment – Voltaire calls Christ
‘Socrates of Palestine’ and Shelley echoes him by labeling Socrates ‘Jesus of Greece’ (Wilson,
2007: 114). In these later comparisons, the likeness of the teachings of Socrates and Christ was
foreshadowed by the resemblance of their deaths: both Socrates and Christ have been presented
as innocent victims of unjust trials and as figures who suffered death because of their desire to
reveal the truth. Victimhood became a core of their similitude. Voltaire in the Treatise begins his
comparison as follows:
The Greek philosopher died because of the hatred of the Sophists, priests, and the people’s leaders; the
Christian lawgiver succumbed to the hatred of the Scribes, Pharisees, and priests. Socrates could avoid
death, but he did not; Jesus Christ offered himself voluntarily.
6
Voltaire could compare Socrates and Christ because for him, their victimhood was similar, but
the concept of victim that made possible such a comparison was purely figural. However, as we
will see, Christ was labeled a victim not because he was a harmed party, but in a purely religious
(ritualistic) sense – as an offering for human salvation. Therefore, it is customary to talk about the
death of Christ in terms of sacrifice, while the death of Socrates would seem strange if presented as
a non-metaphorical sacrifice. But the figural meaning of victim, I argue, becam e widespread
because the death of Christ, initially theorized as a sacrifice, was later rethought within the new
forms of Christian discourse usually written for or by laity (such as meditations, Crusade songs,
and laments) in terms of the unjust suffering of an innocent, and this shifted the emphasis from its
redemptive role to the very process of dying. Thus, in the figure of Christ the two meanings of the
84 International Review of Victimology 24(1)
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