The meaning of phraseology "scapegoat"

In our time, the word "scapegoat" has become a phraseology. This idiom has long lost its original meaning. What did it mean originally? Why goat, and not some other animal? And who or what did he let go? What metamorphosis and re-interpretation has the idiom undergone in the following? You will learn about this from this article. We will describe in what cases it is appropriate to use this expression. Let's also consider what phraseology is closest in meaning to the "scapegoat" and why this synonym is used.

Purification ritual

The historical roots of the origin of phraseology "scapegoat" should be sought in Judaism. The Old Testament book of Leviticus in chapter 16 in the name of God gives clear instructions on how the high priest and the rest of the people of Israel must act to be cleansed from sins and receive forgiveness from the Lord. On the holiday of Yom Kippur, which is celebrated "in the seventh month, on the tenth day" according to the Judaic calendar, four animals were brought to the temple. They were a young bullock (calf), a ram (ram) and two goats of the same suit. The priest is a metal lot with respect to these two last animals. On which of them the choice fell, was taken aside. The other three were slaughtered, the tabernacle was sanctified with their blood, and the carcasses were burned before the temple as a sacrifice to God. The surviving goat was brought to the high priest. He placed both hands on his head and confessed all the sins of the Jewish people. It was believed that as a result of this rite, all the guilt of people before God passed to the animal. After this, a special messenger took the goat to the waterless Judean desert, where he left him to die a cruel starvation. According to another version, the animal was thrown into the abyss from the rock Azazel, which was considered the abode of the Devil.

Gift of Satan?

This ritual, practiced as far back as the time of the first tabernacle (10th century BC) and until the destruction of the Jerusalem temple (1st century AD), gave birth to a mistaken opinion among neighboring peoples that Jews sacrifice the Devil. Like the slaughter and burning of a bright-red cow outside the city, the sending of small cattle to the desert did not mean anything to anyone. Then who, or rather, what was the scapegoat? The significance of this ritual is that all the evil deeds of the people were placed on the animal. Thus, it was transformed into a receptacle of sins. The goat was sent to the desert where the demons lived, and the people of God purified from filth could communicate with the Lord. In early rites, absolution was accompanied by the attachment of a piece of red matter to the animal's horns. Before leaving the mill, the ribbon was cut in two. Half of the rags were tied to the gate, while the remainder remained on the animal. If the repentance of the Jews before the face of God was sincere, then at the time of the death of the goat in the desert, the rag should have turned white. And the red cow was considered a symbol of the golden calf, avarice, the beginning of all sins.

Rethinking the "scapegoat" ritual in Islam and Christianity

In the world religions that honor the Old Testament, an inevitable interpretation of this rite occurred. In Islam there is a special ritual of stoning Satan. True, no animal is no longer "loaded with sins." People simply go to the valley, where, according to the beliefs, the Devil dwells, and throw stones there. In Christian theology, the scapegoat is sometimes interpreted as a symbolic image of the self-sacrifice of Jesus Christ. All the Gospels and other books of the New Testament are full of references to the fact that the Son of God took on his own shoulders the original sin of mankind, stemming from the disobedience of Adam and Eve, and redeemed him with his death. True, our Lord Jesus is called not the "goat", but the "Lamb of God" (for example, the name of the Forerunner in John 1:29). But from the rite of the scapegoat, the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ is distinguished by one very important detail. This is voluntary. The animal did not choose his own death, he was appointed to be the "scapegoat".

The resilience of the image

The Jews were not the only people who practiced such a rite of transmitting sins and the subsequent slaughter of the "container of evil." J. Fraser, a researcher of ancient beliefs, notes that everywhere, from Iceland to Australia, people sought to get rid of evil, adverse forces of nature in a similar way. In ancient Greece, in the event of natural disasters or pestilence, criminals or prisoners who were sacrificed were always at the ready. Beliefs that sins may be the cause of universal disasters are also observed among the Slavic peoples. Thus, the rite of incineration of the effigy of Winter has under itself ancient rituals of human sacrifices. In agricultural peoples, a kind of "scapegoat" was practiced on the feast of the first furrow, haymaking, the last sheaf.

Metaphor transformation

People tend to shift the blame from themselves to others. It is very convenient and drowns out the reproaches of conscience. Many of us in our own skin happened to know what the "scapegoat" means. But even more often we blame others for bad deeds done by us. "I did not do the work, because they prevented me", "I flared up because I was driven" - we hear such excuses every day and we ourselves pronounce them. Perhaps, the share of blame for these "others" is present. But are we making this less guilty? Because the practice of "shifting from a sick head to a healthy one" occurs everywhere and at all times, a single ritual of the Jewish people has become a household name.

"The scapegoat": the meaning of phraseology

Now this idiom is used exclusively as a figurative expression, metaphor. By "scapegoat" is meant a person who was unfairly blamed for the failures of others, made guilty for failures to whitewash real criminals. As a rule, such a "ritual animal" is a lower-ranking worker. In the conditions of a corrupt system of investigations and courts, prisons are overcrowded with such "scapegoats" who received a term for the actions of rich people who for bribes "otmazalis" of responsibility.

Propaganda Tool

History knows many examples of when politicians concealed the reasons for their failures, blaming various pests and saboteurs, and sometimes entire nations in the misfortunes and misfortunes that befell them. Even in the time of the Great Plague (mid-XIV century), Jews were accused of the cause of the epidemic. This led to anti-Semitic pogroms that swept across Europe. Jews throughout the history of quite often recorded in the category of "scapegoat." The expression about why there is no water in the tap is also in Russian. In Hitler's Germany, blame for the economic crisis was also imposed on the Communists, Roma and other categories of the population. In modern Russia, such scapegoats are traditionally advocated by the West and the United States. So politicians always choose "extreme".

Goats and switchesmen

Since often the poor people who were guilty did not have the opportunity to stand up for themselves, the synonym "switchman" appeared at the expression "scapegoat". Why did this railroad worker become a household name? Because at the dawn of the era of trains, crashes often occurred. In judicial investigations of the causes of the catastrophe, the responsibility for what happened was often lowered down the hierarchical ladder, until they stopped on simple switchmen. Say, the whole composition went downhill because of his negligence. Therefore, the expression "move arrows", which means "to lay the blame on someone who has nothing to do with business" is also common. No less popular is the saying "to fall from a sick head to a healthy one." It means that the guilty one wants to shift responsibility to the shoulders of another person.