‘The Mark of Faith’? Gustaw Herling-Grudziński’s The Sacrifice in Relation to the Biblical Account of Abraham’s Sacrifice

Abstract

Gustaw Herling-Grudziński’s The Sacrifice: A Biblical Tale (Ofiarowanie. Opowieść biblijna, 1997) is a paraphrase of the account of Abraham’s sacrifice found in the Book of Genesis (Gen. 22:1–19), and may be described as either an apocryphon or a quasi-midrash. The writer rejects the perspective of both the believing Jew and the believing Christian, adopting instead a critical stance toward religion. In Herling-Grudziński’s view, faith represents an absurd violation of the human bonds of love in the name of blind obedience to the criminal command of a capricious and cruel deity. The author introduces into the work the motif of Abraham strangling Isaac, and the indelible mark left on Isaac’s neck, referred to in the story as the “Mark of Faith,” he reinterprets as the “Mark of Evil” and the “Scar of Crime,” a crime committed jointly by Abraham and Yahweh.