Iphigenia & Isaac

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Iphigenia and Isaac, an unlikely pair. Yet both were almost sacrificed—one to a Greek goddess and the other to the universal Israelite God. Both Iphigenia and Isaac were innocent of any wrongdoing. In the end, both were saved when the deity relented and an animal 052sacrifice was substituted for the human sacrifice.

Of course, there are many differences, too. One story is known from Greek mythology, preserved largely in two plays by Euripides (c. 480–406 B.C.), Iphigenia at Aulis and Iphigenia in Tauris. The other story comes from Hebrew tradition, preserved in Genesis 22.^a The contexts of the two stories are also very different.

The Hebrew story is short and briefly told. God calls upon the patriarch Abraham to sacrifice his “only” son, Isaac, whom he loves. It is a test of Abraham’s utter devotion to the one God. We are asked to imagine much: how Abraham feels, how Isaac’s mother Sarah reacts, how Isaac himself responds. Isaac knows nothing of his father’s intentions until he is bound and lifted onto the altar. His father draws his knife, apparently preparing to slay his son, when an angel of the Lord calls from heaven telling him not to lay a hand on the boy. Abraham has passed the test, surrendering his will to that of God (or does he sense that God would stop him?). When the patriarch looks up, he sees a ram caught by its horns in a thicket. Abraham then sacrifices the ram on the altar that was prepared for his son.

Iphigenia’s story is part of the tale of the Trojan War. It all starts with the well-known judgment of Paris. Paris is the son of the king and queen of Troy, Priam and Hecuba. Before he is born, his mother was told in a dream, as interpreted by a soothsayer, that her unborn son would cause Troy’s destruction. To prevent this, the king instructed a servant to take the baby from the palace to be killed. But the servant took pity on the infant and simply left him in the forest to die. But die he did not. He has grown to manhood, unaware of his identity, and become a shepherd.

How he gets involved in the Trojan War is another story: The goddess of discord is insulted at not having been invited to a lavish wedding. To avenge this perceived insult she throws into the marriage banquet hall the famous golden apple on which is written, “To the Fairest.” After considerable argument, the three remaining contenders are Hera (consort of Zeus), Athena (goddess of wisdom and war) and Aphrodite (goddess of love). At first they ask Zeus to decide among them, but he wisely refuses. He recommends instead the shepherd Paris, known to be an excellent judge of beauty. So they ask Paris for his judgment. In one of the most eventful moments in Greek myth, Paris chooses Aphrodite.

Actually, Aphrodite bribed him (the other goddesses also tried, but failed), promising him the most beautiful woman in the world if he gave the apple to her. This is the beginning of the Trojan War. The two disappointed goddesses immediately make plans for Troy’s destruction.

Aphrodite, true to her word, leads the young prince to Sparta, to the household of Menelaus and his extraordinarily beautiful wife, Helen. Menelaus opens his house to Paris, then leaves for Crete on business. Paris promptly abducts his prize.

The Greeks vow to rescue Helen. A thousand ships with a hundred thousand men gather at Aulis to sail to Troy. But a strong north wind makes it impossible to sail in that direction. The fleet waits, but the wind doesn’t change.

It broke men’s hearts,

Spared not ship nor cable.

The time dragged on,

Doubling itself in passing.¹

Finally, the Greeks consult the augur Calchas, who explains that Artemis, virgin goddess of the hunt, is angry because the Greek leader Agamemnon slew a 055wild hind sacred to the goddess—though some say Artemis is offended because Agamemnon once boasted that his skill as a hunter exceeded even her own. Her anger would be assuaged only by the sacrifice of Agamemnon’s daughter Iphigenia. (Euripides also tells us that the event is preordained by an imprudent vow once made by Agamemnon, who said he would sacrifice to the goddess Artemis the fairest thing brought forth in the year of his daughter’s birth. Little did he know that Iphigenia herself would be declared fairest that year.)²

Iphigenia is brought to Aulis by a ruse. She is told that her father has betrothed her to Achilles, the greatest of Greek warriors, and that she must come to consecrate the marriage. When she arrives, she is delivered to Calchas, who has been appointed to slay her. At first, Iphigenia protests: “Do not destroy me before my time … What have I to do with Paris and Helen? Why is his coming to prove my ruin, father? Look upon me. Bestow one glance, one kiss, that this, at least, I may carry to my death as a memorial of you, though you do not heed my pleading.”³

In the end, however, Iphigenia is resigned: “If Artemis has decided to take my body, am I, a mortal, to oppose the goddess?” she asks. “I willingly offer my body for my country and all Hellas … I will bravely yield my neck without a word.”⁴

As Calchas is about to lower his knife to the victim’s throat, the priest suddenly utters a cry and Iphigenia disappears. In her place, lying beside the altar, is a hind, its throat cut. “This is Artemis’ doing,” declares the priest. “She will not have her altar stained with human blood.”

This is not the end of the story, however. Artemis transports Iphigenia in a cloud to Tauris (also called Scythia), a peninsula on the northern coast of the Black Sea now known as the Crimea, to serve in her temple. There the savage Taurians compel her to sacrifice all Greeks found in their land to the goddess. Many years later, while Iphigenia is still serving in this capacity, a Greek ship puts in to the harbor and two sailors stealthily find their way to the temple. One of the men is Orestes, Iphigenia’s brother.

She quickly identifies him as such. He does not recognize his sister, however, thinking that his father had long ago sacrificed her. When she reveals herself, they have a glorious reunion and both manage to escape—with the sacred image of Artemis.

That brings us to Pompeii, as it was on August 24, 79 A.D., the day that Vesuvius erupted and buried the city. One of the most beautiful frescoes preserved by the eruption, now in the National Museum in Naples but originally from Pompeii’s House of the Tragic Poet, portrays the imminent sacrifice of Iphigenia at Aulis.

The seer⁵ Calchas (at right in the photo at the beginning of this article) stands beside an altar as he prepares for the sacrifice. He is dressed in sacerdotal robes and holds a sacrificial knife. He has a long patriarchal beard, very much the way Abraham is customarily depicted as he prepares to sacrifice Isaac. At the final moment, Calchas appears to hesitate, for he puts his fingers to his mouth in a perplexed, delaying gesture. Perhaps as a seer, he is the first to perceive the approach of Artemis overhead.

Two men carry Iphigenia to the altar. The beardless one at right is Achilles, the man Iphigenia thought she was coming to Aulis to marry. The bearded man is Odysseus, whose adventures on his voyage home after the Trojan War are the subject of Homer’s Odyssey. The two Greek heroes also appear reluctant, nervously looking about as if hoping for a countermand.

At Iphigenia’s left is her father, Agamemnon, too grief-stricken even to look at his daughter. Standing by a columnar shrine of Artemis, he veils his head and looks away. Pliny the Elder attributed the inventive emotional expression of the participants to the painter Timanthus (c. 400 B.C.)—suggesting that by the time he had depicted the father, the painter had 057exhausted individual expressions of grief and so “veiled the face of Agamemnon, for which he had in reserve no adequate expression.” Here the painter is in fact closely following Euripides’s text: “When Agamemnon saw the girl coming into the grove to be slain he groaned loudly, turned his head away from her and burst into tears, pulling his robe in front of his eyes.”⁶

Above this scene, Artemis appears in the clouds at right. Just as the sacrifice is about to be carried out, she summons a nymph (at left) to bring a hind, which will serve as a substitute for Iphigenia.

The Pompeian artist sets the scene as if he were directing it on a narrow stage. Indeed, he may well have been inspired by an actual production of Euripides’s play, if not by the text alone. The human characters are frontal and in the same foreground plane, as if carefully arrayed downstage. Their crisp classical figures are outlined against a flat neutral backdrop. A few strewn rocks at the bottom serve to establish an outdoor setting. The deliberate theatrical poses evoke the stylized acting of the period and of our own silent movies.

Missing from the tableau is Clytemnestra, Iphigenia’s mother. Similarly, in the story of the binding of Isaac, Sarah, Isaac’s mother, is absent—though she is sometimes depicted from the back, waiting in a tent below. According to some commentaries she dies of grief before learning that her son has been saved. Her death is noted (Genesis 23:1–2) immediately after the story of the binding of Isaac.

In Jewish tradition, some believe that Isaac was actually sacrificed. Jewish tradition always starts with the biblical text: Strangely, when the Bible describes the descent from Mount Moriah, where the sacrifice of Isaac has just been supposedly aborted, no mention is made of Isaac. All the Bible says is that “Abraham returned to his [two] young men (or servants), and they departed together” (Genesis 22:19).

Numerous cases of Jewish martyrdom are often compared to the binding of Isaac. Isaac was only bound; he was not sacrificed. By contrast, Jewish martyrs actually sacrificed their own lives. One of the most famous stories of Jewish martyrdom is that of a woman with seven sons, each of whom chose death by torture rather than bow down to a Roman idol. As they are led away to their deaths, the mother tells her sons: “Go and tell our father Abraham: ‘Let 062not your heart swell with pride. You built one altar, but I have built seven altars and on them have offered up my seven sons. What is greater: Yours was a trial; mine was an accomplished fact’.”⁷

Christians picked up on the theme: Whereas the binding of Isaac was only a test—he was never sacrificed—the sacrifice was actually consummated in Christ’s crucifixion. The medieval belief by some Jews that Isaac was actually sacrificed and thereafter resurrected may have been a response to this Christian claim. As the Encyclopedia Judaica puts it, “Possibly [the view that Isaac was actually sacrificed was adopted] in order to deny that the sacrifice of Isaac was in any way less than that of Jesus.”⁸

There is surely no direct connection between the stories of Iphigenia and Isaac. But the parallels are indeed curious—illustrating, if nothing else, how similar human impulses can produce similar stories.

Iphigenia and Isaac, an unlikely pair. Yet both were almost sacrificed—one to a Greek goddess and the other to the universal Israelite God. Both Iphigenia and Isaac were innocent of any wrongdoing. In the end, both were saved when the deity relented and an animal 052sacrifice was substituted for the human sacrifice. Of course, there are many differences, too. One story is known from Greek mythology, preserved largely in two plays by Euripides (c. 480–406 B.C.), Iphigenia at Aulis and Iphigenia in Tauris. The other story comes from Hebrew tradition, preserved in Genesis 22.a The contexts of the two […]