Bringing the blood of the victim upon the altar was so completely in harmony with the notions generally entertained of the importance of blood in sacrifices, that it is naturally found among many ancient nations, especially among the Greeks and Romans; in fact, to sprinkle the altar with blood was synonymous with sacrificing. The Chinese, after cutting the throat of the victim, generally a pig or cock, allow the blood, while still warm, to flow over the hands and feet of the idol, or they sprinkle it on the entire length and surface of the figure; and so the old Teutons sprinkled or smeared the blood drawn from the heart of the victim upon the imago of the god, and ospocially upon its base; sometimes, as in Norway and in the great tomple at Ilofstader in Icoland, the blood was received in a cauldron specially placed on the altar, and containing the sacrificial twig or rod, with which the blood was marked on the image.

After the blood was sprinkled followed

8. THE FLAYING OF THE Animal.

In ordinary holocausts, the skin was taken off before the victim was burnt, and fell to the share of the officiating priest. This was probably the case whether the offering consisted of a bullock, a sheep, or a goat, although it is expressly stated with regard to the bullock only. In sin-offerings of the High-priest or of the whole people, the skin was burnt together with the flesh, 12 as was occasionally done by hoathon nations; but it was not so destroyed in sin-offorings of a chief or a common Israelito. 13 The flaying was probably performed by a Lovite under the direction of the officiating priest, not by the Israelite who presented the offering, since his permissive functions ceased with the slaughtering of the animal, after which commenced the dutios of the appointed mediators. But the paschal lamb was, in accordance with its specific nature as an individual and domestic sacrifice, probably flayed by the offering head of the family himself, as the Levites would scarcely have sufficed for the vast number of victims killed simultaneously and within a few hours. The ancient Hebrews seem to have employed a peculiar mode of flaying not known or practised at present; they began to draw off the hide by the feet in a manner that it remained entire and completely connected. For this purpose there were in the Court of the second Temple eight columns with three rows of iron hooks, adapted for beasts of different sizes, since the victims were, during the operation, not to touch the ground; the animals wero susponded on the hooks, and flayed on tablos placed between the columns. 12 Lev. IV. 11, 12, 20, 21; comp. VIII. 17; IX. 11. 13 Comp. Lev. IV. 26, 31, 35.

11 Lev. I. 6; VII. 8.

9. DISSECTING OF THE ANIMAL.

1

If the entire animal was to be devoted to the flames, as was the case with burnt-offerings, the body was "cut into its pieces", that is, into its natural limbs or members. Although this arrangement probably originated in the eastern custom of serving up the meal cut into pieces or portions, and of roasting it in very small bits, and was perhaps partially devised for placing the animal more conveniently upon the altar, and for facilitating its consumption by the fire; it is not impossible that it tended, besides, to make each member appear as a distinct offering, pleading in itself for Divine mercy, in addition to the aggregate bulk of the animal. Hence the parts were probably not divided again into smaller pieces, lest the victim appeared as a confused and chaotic mass of unseemly fragments. Nor is it quite inconceivable that it was designed to characterise the sacrifice as a means of covenant between God and the offeror; for it is well known that compacts and treaties were frequently ratified by dissecting animals into pieces through which the contracting parties passod. In thankand oxpiatory offerings, the division of the victim into parts to be burnt upon the altar, and others to be handed over to the priest, was almost tantamount to dissection, which is therefore not specially enjoined with respect to those classes of sacrifice. If turtle-doves or pigeons were employed as a holocaust, the hoad was wrung off and burnt separately; if as a sin-offering, the head was merely wrung at the neck, without, howover, being separated from the body; and in either case, the wings were only broken, without being severed entirely; for it evidently appeared expedient to consecrate to the holy flames the small body of the birds as complete as possible; and the wings could scarcely be presented to God as a distinct offering. A proceeding analogous to dissection of quadrupeds, took place in the bloodless oblations that were baked in a pan; they were divided into pieces, before a part was burnt on the altar as a memorial. Therefore, "an offering of pieces" was common from early times, and remained in use during long periods. Some similar practices are found among other ancient nations. The sacrificial tablet of Marseilles enjoins that the honorary portion "be cut off in pieces." The Egyptians, on the great festival of Isis, cut off the legs, the extremity of the hips, the shoulders, and the neck of the victims; filled the body with fine bread, honey, raisins, figs, and various porfumes; burnt the lattor with a profusion of oil,

1 Lev. 1. 6; VIII. 20; IX. 13; comp. Exod. XXIX. 17.

2 Gen. XV. 10, 17, 18; Jer. XXXIV. 18-20; and Comm. on Gen. p. 234.

3 Lev. I. 15.

4 Lev. V. 8.

.3

5 Lev. II. 5, 6; VI. 14 (an offering of small pieces shalt thou offer).

and consumed the pieces at a common banquet. The Romans cut off morsels of meat from the hip, the chino-bone, or other parts, and oither burnt them on the altar or laid them before the gods as food. The Greeks cut the animal into small pioces, not at random, but according to certain well-devised rules, probably in order that all who attended at the offering might obtain a piece; so at the great festival in honour of Zeus Policus, the body of the bull sacrificed to the god, was divided into pieces and distributed among all. In China, the large clay-cow which, at the grand vornal festival, was in solemn procession carried round richly decorated, was finally broken up into fragments which were allotted to the crowd. The ancient Germans dissected the victim, offered one piece to the god, and left the rest to be consumed by the people.

10. WASHING OF THE PARTS OF THE VICTIM.

The bowels and legs of holocausts, previous to being placed upon the altar, were carefully washed, since they are chiefly liable to uncleanness. This reason sufficed to suggest the law; it is hardly necessary to look for hidden motives or symbolical explanations, such as are pointed out by Philo, who supposes that the cleaning of the bowels exhorts us to purify our appetites, while the cleaning of the feet signifies that "we must no longer walk upon the earth, but soar aloft through the air" by following the impulses of the soul which yearns for Divino truth and longs "to move in concort with the sun, the moon, and all the rest of the most sacred and most harmonious company of the stars, under the immediate command and government of God." As a necessary preliminary to boing placod upon the altar, all the offerings were salted, and thus rendered fit to serve as a covonant between God and the worshipper.

11. THE RITE OF WAVING.

Certain offerings or portions of offerings mostly belonging to the eucharistic class, before being put upon the altar, were to pass through a ceremony which the Levitical law calls waving. The rite is not described in the Bible; but according to Jewish tradition, it was performed in the following manner. The priest placed the offering into the hands of the offerer, and his own hands under the offerer's hands, after which he made first a motion forward and backward, and then upward and downward, which rites were supposed to indicate, first, that the offering was really the gift of him who presented it; secondly, that it was laid before God by His chosen priests, to whose share it 6 Lev. I. 9; VIII. 21; IX. 14; comp. 2 Chr, IV. 6,

partially foll; and lastly, that it was devoted to the Lord of heaven and earth who rules in every sphere and region; while in the waving of the firstfruit-sheaf, the movement to and fro is said to have been designed to avort obnoxious winds, the movement upwards and downwards, to avert injurious dews. This rather complex conception is hardly in harmony with the spirit of the Pentateuch. On the one hand, the offerer did not at all co-operate in the rite, which was exclusively performed by priests even in absolutely private offerings. On the other hand, the Hebrew term does not authorise a movement to the four parts of the globe, but merely one forward and backward, it may be, several times repeated, to mark the gift as presented and dedicated to God, since men also were "waved."

The following oblations, including both animals or portions of thom and vegetables, were associated with the ceremony: the firstfruitshoaf offered on the second day of Passover; the two firstfruit-loaves prosented on Pento cost, and the two lambs which accompanied them; particularly the breast of the ordinary thank-offerings, to which, in the ram of consecration of Aaron and his sons, and in the thank-offerings at the conclusion of the priests' installation, the fat and fat parts, and the right shoulder were exceptionally added; the cereal offerings which accompanied the ram of consecration, the fore-shouldor of the ram together with the cereal oblation presented at the completion of the Nazirite's vow; the lamb and the log of oil brought by the loper after his recovery; and lastly the offering of jealousy presented by the suspected wife. With the exception of the last, all these sacrifices were, or bore the character of thank-offerings, in which indeed a symbolical acknowledgment of the blessings bestowed by the Lord of Creation was eminently appropriate. Whenever the rite was performed with the entire victim, it preceded the slaughtering. In some cases, the offerings so hallowed were burnt on the altar, while in others, they belonged to the priests. Thus the ceremony, from whatever point it may be viewed, manifests itself as a consecration and surrendering of the gift to God. But its character is still more distinctly revealed by the fact that the Levites also, on their initiation into their solemn functions, underwent the same procedure: for Moses was commanded, "Thou shalt bring the Levites before the Lord; and the childron of Israel shall put their hands upon the Levites; and Aaron shall wave the Levites as a wave-offering before the Lord from

1 Probably by making them walk forward and backward before the altar, but hardly by conducting them up the clevation that leads to it, or to the door

of the Sanctuary, since the Levites officiated before, not at the altar, and in the Court, not in the Holy; see the Treatise on Priesthood, ch. 1.

the children of Israel, that they may execute the service of the Lord":2 which words leave no doubt with regard to the deeper meaning of this peculiar act. The show-bread was not waved, because it was marked as holy to God by the very place which it occupied on the golden table of the Sanctuary; nor was the holocaust or the bloodless oblation of the High-priest and the priests at their consecration waved, because they were burnt entirely to God; nor the bloodless offering that accompanied a holocaust or thank-offering, because the latter were sufficiently characterised as sacred; nor the expiatory offerings, whether animal or vegetable, because they wero no "food of the Lord."

12. THE RITE OF HEAVING.

In some passages the rite of heaving is mentioned in conjunction. with that of waving. It is in the Pentateuch no more described than the latter; nor doos the etymology of the Hebrow torm suggest a cloar notion; for it merely implies that the offering was passed upwards and downwards, or more probably that it was raised to or towards the altar, which was high, in order to dedicate it to God. The various conjectures hazarded are purely imaginative. The ceremony took place, except in a few extraordinary cases, with the right shoulder of thankofferings, after which this belonged to the priest.

It is, however, probable that originally the identical rite of waving was performed both with the right shoulder and with the breast, those two chief portions of the victim, which in thank-offerings woro allotted to the priests, evidently after those parts had been placed upon the fat and the fat pieces; for the term (n), occasionally employed in connection with the shoulder, signifies merely the consecrated gift or the offering; and it is used in this sense with reference to all oblations presented to God and to all imposts paid to the priests, to taxes consisting of animals and productions of the soil, as firstborn beasts and tithes, of gold and silver, of territory and pious contributions of any kind. However, it seems impossible to deny that in several passages the heaving appears as a distinct ceremony in some way analogous to the waving; as, for instance, "Thou shalt sanctify the breast of the wave-offering, and the shoulder of the heave-offering, which is waved and which is heaved up, of the ram of consecration"; hero the parallel cannot be mistaken, and it must be admitted that Hebrew ritualists of a later date, understood the former term as the rite of heaving, in the sense above described.

No decided analogy to the Hebrow rites of waving and hoaving

2 Num. VIII. 10, 11.