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This subject was first brought to my attention when I saw the movie "The Order" starring Heath Ledger, at the time I didn't take this very seriously thought how interesting a novel idea for a horror movie. I however have done some research into this and found the practice of sin eating to be actual. The movie I remember was poorly put together for the most part Heath Ledgers character running around trying to figure it all out. The fact remains that there were Sin Eater's may still be Sin Eater's to this day. Last recorded account of it happened either in the late 1700's or the late 20th century depending on who's account your following. Although this practice was shunned as a mortal sin by the catholic church ( the person preforming the rite's were excommunicated), its seems to be an earlier practice predating christianity. The people commonly invovled in the practice at least after the advent of christanity were often the poor old and unwelcomed the marginal, and were run off by realitives after the rites were done.

(Historically, the term sin-eater refers to a person who, through ritual means, would take on the sins of a dying person, thus absolving the dying of their sins while receiving the burden of the same. Traditionally, each village maintained its own sin-eater who would be brought to the dying person's bedside, where either he or a relative would place a bit of bread on the breast of the dying. After praying or reciting the ritual, he would then remove the bread from the breast and eat it, the act of which would remove the sin from the dying person and take it into himself.)
This part was taking directly from wikipedia.

sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sin-Eater
http://www.insidiousreflections.com/Articles/TrueHistory-SinEatingNotJustAJob.htm
http://www.bootlegbooks.com/Reference/PhraseAndFable/data/1143.html

I have seen that movie myself. I thought perhaps it just was a "hollywood movie". I'll look this up on Wikipedia. Interesting to say the least.

It seems to me the practice of "sin-eating" would be a tad bit overkill. To my knowledge, last rights seem to be a better way of going about it, in the sense that either way the dying person is said to be absolved of these sins.

I wonder then what the purpose of sin eating would be other than to fulfill some possible need for spiritual masochism on the part of the so called Sin Eater. Just a thought.

- D

This was done in the event that no priest or other clergy would do last rites..I.E. unrepentant persons

Interesting concept..though I'm not sure that if a person is truly unrepentant..that they can have anyone else absolve them of their sins. Not just a logical assumption, but also has much to do with my personal concept of "sin" itself. I guess it's worth looking up for those to whom it sounds appealing though. :)

You know, it sounds like an easy way out to me. After all, all you would have to do is repeat the process before the person who was the previous "Sin Eater"

Granted, if they had a heart attack, or died some other way without time for the ritual, they'd be hosed. :P

Good points Mrd and Valdtheimpaler.. The reasons for the being unrepentant wasn't covered in my research I will look further

I would imagine that there would be a better way than to take anothers sins upon yourself.

good movie indeed nice post n reading, on info hehe

I posted this thread out of an interest of history and historical facts. Not to see the easy way out of this..I know people can repent there sins according to certain faiths.. I have read about those..I found the concept of another taking the sins from another person the interesting part..That it was in fact (truth) and not just something hollywood came up with for a horror movie...

Why it is seen as something bad nowadays and the SinEaters?Was it something of dishonor?

I think it is seen as bad by certain religious sects, because said person is willingly taking on the sins of another. Besides, it would make it kind of hard to start a confessional by saying, "Forgive me Father, for someone else has sinned."

:P

my question is where did it originate before christianity? or does no one really know?

True it would be..I think the chruch made it a bad thing..I don't believe it would be viewed the same way by people of other beliefs...I don't see at as a dishonor or bad. I see it as a loving act bestowed on the person facing death and possibly frightened not wanting to go into the next life with something of wieght on there souls

I am still looking for that information there was some references to it being older then christianity but nothing defined that i have found yet

bereth meh, bereth sek

blood in, blood out,

haha, more of a vampiric ritual, feeding on the sins of another, is another way to sustain the self.

Not just passing beyond the laws of "god" but trancending into a new state of being. Fun way to be....but then again one can feed on the sins, the same way one feeds on the blood or the bodys natural energies...
:-D

The Order............i love that movie.

in fact i love it so much i wrote a song called the order.

i have read a book entilited the Sin eater a very long time ago, must be about 5 years ago, and the story was about the local sin eater (this place was a small town in the USA i think) and he wanted to get married. tradition wanted that no one was able to see him in face, so his wife and children had to close their eyes when he came home (many times the children were asleep) and the wife couldn t open her eyes of course during intercourse....

the ritual was pretty the same of sin eating, but the persons present were requested to turn their backs to the sin eater, in order so that no one will see his face....

I have to agree with mrd here, how can an unrepentant person be absovled of "sin" when truly a "sin" is based on a culturally or sociologically accepted definition of a particular behavior. For instance, if a person in the state of North Carolina, USA decided to hunt people and eat them...were caught, tried, and executed...a priest might be sent to "absolve sin"...if the same scenario were to occur in Papau, New Guinea, where historically many Tribes are cannibalistic...even if someone were caught from a warring Tribe, would they be thought to have sinned?

Sin, in my view, is a social construction, and therefore "sin eaters" are persons who, according to the gospel of me, are choosing to take constructed cultural dramas into themselves to increase their own social status, martyr or otherwise.

hmmm i really need to read on this more.,

interesting movie little confusing to me though

'people who practiced sin eating were excommunicated'

I wonder what came first, the sin eating or the excommunication. Mikhails concept that sin is a social thing, would lead me to believe the excommunicated had been sinned against, and in order to defeat the social sins that make people unable to give into death and eternal rest, another would come to absorb the sin.

To me it sounds like a good thing, but to do god's work would be to remove the necessity for god. That is the only reason why I think the Church would go against such a practise, for I am sure they believe only god can undo sin from soul. If there is anything we can do to alleviate a persons mental anguish, I feel it should be done, regardless if mortals think it is a bad thing. God has enough work as there is, and I am sure God itself would welcome less of a workload, or Saint Peter for that matter, for sometimes it is only the possession of thought of sinning which troubles the mind and not the sin itself. Freeing souls is cool. I want to be a sin eater, excommunicate me please!

Well I agree with MRD on this~ of course I always thought that was why Christ die was it not to take all our sins if we were to only ask??? So who needs a sin-eater? It just sounds like some ego trip for the person doing/claimung to do it..But, hey I believe if I or some one else ask to forgive my sins rather alive or on my death-bed then I will be forgiven~~ just my belief on it~ always open to other out looks~~ every one sees things alittle different ~~sooo

That sin is cultrally based I agree one groups sin is another groups well sport? Igot interested in this because it is my belief this is much older then christianity..I believe the name of the practice has been changed and like so many pagan beliefs nd rituals before the people adopted it and brought this practice into christianity...

Out of curiosity, what happens to the Sin Eater when they're on their way out? Does another person step up to be the Sin Eater, and if so, did it matter that people had seen their face beforehand?

Rowiel, in bringing up that 'turning their backs' aspect, reminded me a of a creepy fuckin dream I had years ago. It was a fact of life that every so often, and you feel it coming, this thing would come and basically take someone's soul. As soon as you felt it coming, you had to either close your eyes or turn away. Inevitably, there was always one person who did not do either. Curiosity and the kitty, and all that.
At last, I ended up peeking. I saw one person who was staring at it directly, so I didn't get the full effect. It was a huge, plant-like eye. Like if Audrey 2 was an eye.
Weird.

It is looked upon as a loophole into heaven.
That is why is portrayed that way in the movie also.
Interesting though. :)

Well, The thing is I doubt the people that did this as a living could afford a sin eater when there time came it seems to be a practice the rich preformed and used people that were poor old or the marginal the where considered outcasts and unclean during the christian times at least..They were excomunicated by the church so they took sins with them to the grave..I am still looking for the origins of this practice..........

Interesting. I love that movie and I had always wondered if it was based on any fact. I just never did the research. Thank you for bringing this up.

A symbolic survival of it was witnessed as recently as 1893 at Market Drayton, Shropshire. After a preliminary service had been held over the coffin in the house, a woman poured out a glass of wine for each bearer and handed it to him across the coffin with a funeral biscuit. In Upper Bavaria sin-eating still survives: a corpse cake is placed on the breast of the dead and then eaten by the nearest relative, while in the Balkan peninsula a small bread image of the deceased is made and eaten by the survivors of the family. The Dutch doed-koecks or dead-cakes, marked with the initials of the deceased, introduced into America in the 17th century, were long given to the attendants at funerals in old New York. The burial-cakes which are still made in parts of rural England, for example Lincolnshire and Cumberland, are almost certainly a relic of sin-eating.

The act of being a sin-eater is/was generally considered a cardinal sin by the Catholic Church because it provided absolution outside the purview of the priesthood, and resulted in immediate excommunication.

A modern urban legend tells of an immortal "sin-eater" with the appearance of a young man living in the vicinity of Washington, DC. This tale may have some connections to a book with the title Sin Eater: A Ministry of Suffering, by one Isaac DeLuca, rumored to be a resident of DC, that supposedly teaches people how to become sin-eaters.

Sin-Eater is also the name of several Marvel Comics villains, one of whom was prominently featured in the classic Spider-Man The Death of Jean DeWolff storyline.

there is also a type of vampyr, that is closely related as well. one who awaits by a dead body, to catch the emergin endoplasm(soul), and feeds of this.

Thank you Phear..I had read all that in my research..I'm looking for its true origins..A time line as such for the beginnings of this practice...

The article I was reading not long ago on this subject was about folklore's and Superstitions but this is the info I found as for when and where it might first came about:

"Being a native of the Amman Valley, my interest and curiosity in the sin-eater were naturally aroused. Subsequent research revealed that the duty of the sin-eater was to take upon himself the sins of a deceased person. Upon the death of an inhabitant of a locality, the sin-eater would be summoned and would place a plateful of salt covered with a slice of bread upon the breast of the deceased. After the recitation of appropriate charms over the body, the sin-eater would then proceed to eat both bread and salt, and wash them down with a tankard of beer. It was generally believed that the sins of the deceased were transferred to the unfortunate wretch through his consumption of the salt and bread. A paltry sum of sixpence or a shilling would then be paid to him before he was driven over the threshold to the sound of oaths, and threats never to return again.
It would appear that the first to describe the ritual was the English antiquary and biographer, John Aubrey (1626-1697), writing in a manuscript-'Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme'-which is now deposited in the British Library."

Taken from: SIN-EATING IN THE AMMAN VALLEY
…Articles from the Carmarthen Historian, Volume XV (1978)
Pages 70–76.

I don't know whether to believe it or not, but it is a very interesting read.

Someone asked if anyone knows where this originated, the act of Sin Eating. Most likely, it was brought back from Central America, where the Aztecs (or maybe it was the Incas, I can't be sure) priest would place a piece of fruit on a dying persons chest and, when they expired, would eat the fruit so that the evils of their life would not follow them into the after life. While there was no clear cut version of heaven and hell, it was believed, especially for the warriors, that anyone you wronged (or killed in battle) wouldd seek you out in the afterlife if your evils followed you there.

Interesting thank you Voodoochyld. Now why was it practices as far back as 13 b.c by the hebrews? I think here it might have a parallel when things seems to be the same but arent truly..Possibly starting in two places around the same timeline??? Maybe purely coincidental happenings??? I am sure this practice was renamed for the purpose of the chruch.....I have just talked to someone that told me this is still in practice amongst the orthodox jews in some parts of the world....

It just goes to show that despite so many religions being different their are similarities... I wonder if it's possible that sineating could have come from egypt or that area therein though?

Another thought is greek or mesopotamian... maybe earlier...

I actually like the movie....it put the two Knights Tale stars together again....didnt know it was real though...have to look into it.

Good question. It's possible that they arre leftovers from an even more ancient religion. Legend has it that the territory Atlantis owned or explored covered almost all of the east coast of what is now the Americas, and alot of the coastal regions of europe, SE Asia (the middle east) and Africa. Of course, that theory hinges on whether or not Atlantis existed.

Another answer could be that when word of this ritual reached Europe, the church associated it with Judaism in an effort to make the religion more taboo. Unlikely at the least, but not comepletely out there.

Most likely, they did develop the parallel rituals in isolation. Who knows, it might just be a good idea.

I'm loving this thread Thank all for your thoughts on this subject they have been very good and the responces are exicting makes me think harder about all origins...

First off the big problem is the catholic church. OFcourse they are going to say and do stuff to make themselves look better all religons do. Secondly how can sin eating predate Catholosism and Christianity? BEcause untill the two came aroudn there was no word or means of sin people didn't know they were living a so called life of sin. Ill moral maybe but sin I think not. Anyways this is just my views on the matter no need to take what I say to heart to each their own.

The idea that sin represents, evil, has been around before christianity and catholosism though.

Demonicsaint yes it isn't the same as what it is now but the practice is older then christianity... people did sin (do things wrong that there culture saw as wrong)..Sin or the actions that cause harm to others wasn't invented by the church..People have murdered, done sex acts against other people etc. long before chrisitanity has been around. They these people took that burden on themselves..

I have never seen the movie so i dont really know how to relate.

Once again, my friend Mikhail, has taught me something. Now, I am going to have to look this up on the Internet.

I would think this ritual was to put at ease the mind of the dying person's relatives. They did not want to see their loved one end up in a bad place in the afterlife. I would have done the same thing for anyone I cared about if this was the common practice in my culture.

We on the planet earth sometimes focus on the divisions among us. Death and dying is universal. Every culture I have heard of no matter what time period it is in, has its own way of dealing with death and what becomes of one's soul in the afterlife. I am thankful to Mikhail for telling me about another one.

For the Rave member who said I cannot relate, because you have not watched the movie- Yes, you can. You are on the planet and will have to move to another plane of existence eventually. Whether you believe in life after death or some other thing is not important.

A sin doesn't have to be really seen as evil by just those of Catholic/Christian/etc. though. It can mean something that oneself would find morally reprehensible, yet one still commits the act. Thus proving that it doesn't have to been seen as a misdeed by the community.

true Vald I just used that as an example trying to make a point here..I want to challenge both myself and my belief system and others out there striving for better understanding of self and beliefs...To me knowledge is power, power can be used for universal good or bad I.E. evil I believe that evil exisit ones that we do to others and ones done to us, one that we do to oursleves as well....

Has anyone come up with the positive aspects of it? What I mean is A vampire lives a very long time, but does not get o go into daylight. Well obviously the sins would be horrid to pay for when you died, but what would motivate anyone to take this upon themselves? Other than a referance of a specific type of demon that feeds off of human sins I see no advantage...

ahhh I see where your coming from now this is a human practice and yes I was wondering if in fact sin eaters are vampiric, I have yet to find a cross reference to it thou the Sin Eater is a living human host per se for anothers wrong doings in life..These people weren't doomed by there own disgressions but by others and I doubt seriously that they are demons at all as for Vampires being demons I think of that as a myth that humans build to justify there hatred of us....I have a soul, I do not harm people for sport..i hope that no others feel compeled to do me harm I will fight back...I do not see myself as a doomed being cast out into some void of others making..I can choose for myself what my fate is and do on a daily basis

The Order...i would've liked it more if Shannon Sosamon (sp) wasn't in it. She annoyed me, especially cause they had just done A Knight's Tale.

But anyways...

I don't believe in God and Heaven and all that happy Catholic stuff...so the idea of a Sin Eater is better left in the movies for me.

Ok..I again state this is older the the church and I want to find where it fits into my belief systems I am not catholic nor even a christian per se I am however a spiritual person and believe in a next life/after life in that context I am interested in this subject not the movie the movie was just my introduction to this subject

it's all a very intresting concept. Mostly if i were given a guess i'd say the whole thing was became notable enought for the church to denounce because it was fed by the almost unanimous fear of death and what comes after

Sin eaters expediate deaths.

I was actually a sin eater once, about a year ago. My octagenerian aunt was deathly ill, and she was a virgin, no one ever loved her. I went in there and I began talking to her in Italian, I asked her how she was feeling, what she wanted, needed, and I soothed her with all the love in my Italain lexicon. No, she had no sins, but she had been sinned against. It is in the sinning against people that people think bad about life, and that is a sin because life is amazing. So I am sure she had her reservations about life...

the lack of love in it. I asked her in Italian to not die before my brothers birthday, and she said yes, I will hang on for that.

I told her it would be alright to go to the next level before my birthday a couple of days later and she said thank you David, I am in such pain.

It doesn't matter Gloria, I am with you today, I love you, you don't have to be there for me then, you have always been there for me, and now I am here for you.

She died the day before my birthday, healed of the sins from lack of love. Italian is considered to be a romance language.

Now I have to go to visit with a guy younger than me who has diabetes and is getting his leg chopped off. I must give him a reason to stick around. We are all sin eaters if we have love in our hearts.

Yes I tend to agree Katerinedee it would seem that way..So many pagan belief's were liberated from the people in general thou. Like easter well the eggs part of easter and the symbolisim of feritlity. So they may have changed what this practice was meant to be..Its true meaning lost to the ages....

So does anyone know what the actuall ritual is? and how to perform it?

Well yes that info is out there you take unlevened bread, salt wine or vinagar..Then place these on the chest of the dying person or dead person it must be right after death if that is the time you choose to do it..You let the Sin Eater in by the backdoor they take this and two gold coins..when they have finished taking these items a relitive comes in and beats them with a stick so its not exactly the nicest job little pay and being mistreated..Also a Sin Eater can not be looked upon it seems that if you do you reinvite the sin but this time into where ever the person is not back into them

I'm sorry the bread must be eaten by the Sin Eater and the wine or vinagar drunk the salt is to ensure I believe that you do drink one or both the wine or vinagar

fascinating
p.s. the catholic church needs its own personal sin eater, for all the greedy and lusty preists cardinals bishops and whatever else, talk about a corroupt religion

"Absolute power corrupts absolutely"

True enough they seem to need this service themselves