Sacrifice

Sacrifice is the giving something up for the deities.  Many religions have had sacrifices and rules about them.  Many pagan peoples made animal sacrifices to their deitiesArieh Kofsky, Eusebius of Caesarea Against Paganism (Boston: Brill Academic Publishers, 2002), p. 119 and sometimes human sacrifices.  The Greek play Iphigenia by Euripides contains an example of this as Iphigenia's human sacrifice is substituted by the animal sacrifice of a stag to Artemis. In the Old Testament, Jewish peoples used the laws about animal sacrifices in the Book of Leviticus and sacrificed animals to Yahweh. Cattle and pigeons were butchered and eaten to make successful atonement with Yahweh for instance. In the New Testament, Yahweh's mortal human incarnation as Jesus's death on the cross is the substitutionary atonement for the sins of all the people in the world.

Related pages
Epistle to the Hebrews
Self-denial

 References 

Other websites

Sacrifice at Catholic encyclopaedia

Category:Worship