Levitical legislators desired to impress their stamp; they regarded such a reason as too mundane and too physical, and therefore strengthened it by urging that the blood ought lawfully to be appropriated, on the altar alone, to the ends of atonement. But they were in this case, 88 in most others, unable to offace the lines of history. A clear trace of the primitive notion has been preserved in two laws: even the blood of cattle that was killed at home and for food was to be "poured out on the ground like water", and to be covered with earth; and not only the blood of the sacrificial animals, of ox, sheep, and goat, was to be avoided, but also that of all other clean beasts, as stags, roes, and gazelles, and of all birds evidence enough that the considerations of altar and sacrifice did not originally prompt the comprehensive prohibition; and this becomes more evident still by a comparison of the corresponding ordinanco regarding the abstinence from fat.

The notions of the Israelites with regard to the blood were not isolated; they wore shared, though with some significant modifications, by nearly every people and tribe which offered animal sacrifices. The Egyptians hieroglyphically expressed the soul by a hawk, becauso, they said, "the one like the other feeds on blood"; and they plainly taught that the soul and reason of animate creatures dwell in the blood. The Chaldeans held that man was formed of oarth and of the blood of the god Bolus, the one constituting his body, the other his soul. Early philosophers of Greece simply maintained, "the soul is blood"; some, perhaps adopting Egyptian doctrines, limited this power to the blood of the heart; the stoics defined the soul as "an exhalation from blood"; and others contended that the soul is nourished by the blood. The Romans used offering with a soul as synonymous with offering with blood, and both were the priestly terms commonly employed for sacrificing under favourable auspices. In the old Teuton tongue, blood is equivalent with soul or life, and the blood of Odin, falling on the ground, was believed, in the ensuing spring, to produce herbs and flowers. Again, the bloody offerings were everywhere the more inportant class; they were considered to realise more completely the idea of sacrifice, not merely because for warlike tribes, requiring strong sensations, fire-offerings were more congenial than the simpler bloodloss oblations; but because blood was, at all times and under every zone, supposed to be pre-eminently fitted to work expiation and to appoaso the gods. The Porsians offered to the deity nothing of the flesh, but only the blood "or the soul." Whenever the old Arabians implored a god for benefits, they besmeared his image with blood. The Chinese put blood on things connected with the object of the sacri

fice, as for instance on the ship, in which a voyage was intended, thereby trusting to secure the good-will of the gods. The Scythians poured the blood of captive enemies over an iron shield which represented the figuro of the god of war. In India, at the sacrifices of Shiva, the blood of the victim is solemnly carried before the image of the god; his wife Kali is entreated to drink of it; and the people, sprinkling with it their faces, prostrate themselves to the ground. In fact, blood is in many instances synonymous with sacrifice itself. In Greek, to sacrifice was expressed by sprinkling the altar with blood. The ancient Germanic tribos, though presenting bloodless oblations also, called overy offering blood (blot); to sacrifice or to worship was to bleed (blotan), and sacrificial service blood-service (blotinassus); the priest was called a blood-man (blotmadur, blotgodar, or blutekirl); and among the ancient Prussians the high-priest Criwe derived his name from Krawia which means blood.

1

Nor was the sacredness of blood less highly estimated by heathen nations than by the Hebrews. Blood was extensively employed for sealing ́ compacts and treaties, and for ratifying solemn oaths and vows, as has been more fully specified in another place. It was on such occasions sometimes mixed with wine, and then drunk both by the contracting parties and those present who served as witnesses. The instance of Catiline will at once occur to every reader. The boar-sacrifice offered by the northern nations to Freya, the goddess of fertility and peace, like Ceres, helped to renew the relations of loyalty between the king and his subjects and to confirm the oath of allegianco. Pourod into pits or caverns the blood was believed to call up the gods and the spirits of the lower world and to elicit revelations. The drinking of blood was believed to bestow higher powers or spiritual faculties, and especially the gift of prophecy, in a word, to effect a closer communion with the deity and the invisible world. The intact woman who gave oracles in the temple of Apollo Deiradiotes in Argos, killed by night every month a lamb, and drank of its blood whenever she wished to be prophetically inspired. Though the Zabii ordinarily held blood in utter abhorrence and regarded it as the food of fiendish demons, they drank a part of the sacrificial blood, and devoted the rest to the gods; they thus hoped to conclude with them a holy friendship and to learn from them the future. With a similar view, the priestesses of the Cimbri, who accompanied the armies, observed the blood of slain captives as it flowed into a brazen vessel. The old Germans believed that the blood of victims imparted life and

1 See Comm. on Gen. p. 234, and on Exod. p. 363; comp. also Ps. XVI. 4;

Zech. IX. 7; Ezek. XXXIII. 25.

consciousness to inanimate objects; they therefore sprinkled it on the images of their gods in the hope of endowing them with speech and sensation. They supposed that it secured prolongation of life; they attributed to it the power of magic and witchcraft, which no earthly effort could rosist; and in their language to bleed (blotan) signified to doify or to impart supernatural faculties.

We have faithfully recorded and unfolded the notions of Hebrews and pagans on blood: but it would be impossible to analyse them from an absolute or philosophical point of view. They belong inseparably to the whole circle of primitive conceptions; and in connection with these alone they can be understood and fairly estimated. They originated in those childlike times, when the entire living creation was joined together by a bond of relationship, when the animals, though inferior to men, were conceived, like them, as cosmic beings, and when, therefore, the blood of either was regarded with the same holy awe and unaccountable torror, because in either caso revored as an omanation from the soul of the universe, and hence inherently possessing the power of purification and atonement. But so irresistiblo is the mystic hold of these conceits upon the human mind, that thoy lingor and vibrate oven in those religious systems which have risen above a worship of nature and her powers; they have, in such creeds, indeed been subordinated to the doctrine of a Divine Ruler who created man in His own image, and the beasts as clay animated by the broath of life; but they have been retained as spiritual emblems which, like all symbols, could not be preserved in purity and without an admixture of irrational and superstitious alloy.

8. FAT.

With the prohibition of the blood the interdiction of fat is more than once coupled in the Pentateuch, "You shall eat neither fat nor blood"; it is, like the law on blood, to be valid "as a perpetual statute for all gonorations"; and it is enjoined with almost equal severity, and under the same rigorous penalty, "You shall eat no manner of fat, of ox, or of sheep, or of goat... for whosoever eats the fat of the beasts, of which men offer an offering made by fire to the Lord, that soul that eats it shall be cut off from his people."3 Moreover, fat is, like the blood, repeatedly called "the food of the Lord." It cannot, therefore, be doubtful, that analogous reasons prompted the law in both casos. Nor is it difficult to discover the common principle. Like the blood, the fat is an index of the life and strongth of the animal; and as man

1 Lev. III. 17.

2 lbid.

3 Lev. VII. 23, 25; comp. vers. 26, 27.

4 Lev. III. 11, 16; Ezek. XLIV. 7, 15; comp. XXXIX. 19.

was to abstain from blood, because it was deemed the soul, so was he to avoid the fat, because it was supposed to express the health, vigour, and vitality of the animal. The Hobrow Scriptures allow us to traco the steps by which the fat gradually was endowed with such dignity. It was, from early times, naturally considered as "the richest part and that which guards the entrails; for it envelops them, and makes them flourish, and benefits them by the softness of its touch." It became, therefore, a synonym of wealth and abundance; it was the emblem of joy and cheerfulness; it was employed for what is most valuable and most distinguished; "the fat of the land" denoted its wealth and its choicest fruits; the "fat of wheat", the "fat of oil", and "the fat of wine", designated the richest kinds of these productions; "the fat of heroes" described the bravest of the brave; "the fat of the people", the wealthiest, noblest, and most powerful citizens, also called "cows of Bashan", because these were renowned for remarkable fatness. Therefore, whenever the sacrifices were not entirely burnt on tho altar, it was deemed right and appropriate to dedicate to the sacred flames those parts of the victim which have aptly been termed "the flower of the flosh", and which, because the best, might well represent all, or the entire animal. As, therefore, most nations, and among them the Phoenicians, burnt the fat to the deity, the rising smoke of which was deemed its most pleasing and most acceptable offering; so the Hebrews, resembling the Phoenicians in many points, adopted the general rule, "All fat belongs to the Lord"; and they clearly understood that it was burnt "as a sweet odour to Him": it was so burnt, from remoto poriods, in thankofferings to point to the prosperity and happinoss of the worshippor; and in the expiatory offerings, to symbolise the supremacy and power of God. Now, when it was in this manner set apart for the purposes of the altar, thon, and then only, it was forbidden for human consumption, and mon were not to share what belonged to God. For it is impossible to suppose that a cattle-breeding people, like the Hebrews, surrendered one of the most valuable parts of their slaughtered animals willingly and primitively; the very severity with which it is prohibited in the Pentateuch proves how generally it was eaten. Nor is it easy to see how, among a simple-minded people, the use of fat could be made a religious crime; the idea that fat is life, is not so natural and manifest as the doctrine that blood is life; and it pre-supposes a longer course of observation and reflexion. The prohibition is, therefore, evidently a special development of the Levitical theories; it originated when these were worked out with unconditional consistency regardless of the exor7 Comp. 1 Sam. Il. 15, 16.

5

5 Lev. III. 16. 6 Lev. III. 5, 11, 16; XVII. 6.

7

1

bitant burdens they imposed upon the people. It was brought into the closest connection with the laws of sacrifice; it was at first not enjoined, like the blood, with the addition "in all your habitations"; it was, therefore, understood to apply to the time and place of the common offerings only; and it was restricted to the fat of ox, sheep, and goat, that is, of those beasts alone "of which men prosent an offering made by fire to the Lord"; it was therefore indeed meant to include all animals of these species, since even those intended for food were, according to the same exacting legislators, to be killed as sacrifices at the common Sanctuary; 3 but not even the hierarchical party could venture to extend it to all clean animals of whatever species; while the blood, not so valuable in itself and looked upon with awe from primitive times, could be generally prohibited, both that of all quadrupeds and that of all birds. Only with respect to time and place, the laws of both could gradually be equalised, and a subsequent ordinance declared, "It shall be an eternal statute for your generations throughout all your dwellings, You shall eat neither fat nor blood." Thoso conclusions are corroborated from another side also. That the holiness of fat was a lator idea is manifest from the circumstance that it is not even enjoined in the Book of Deuteronomy, 5 In the last "song of Moses", the author names, among other choice blessings granted by the bounty of God to the Israelites, also "the fat of lambs and rams;" in the poet's time, therefore, that is, at a very late period of the IIebrow commonwealth, the fat of sacrificial animals was still unscrupulously eaten and regarded as a special delicacy worthy of being coupled with honey and oil, wheat and wine.

It is in harmony with the tenor of the Biblical commands to limit their operation to that fat which, in solid masses, covers the bowels, the kidneys, and the flanks, and not to extend it to that involved in the flesh, which requires to be cut in order to expose it to the view. But, naturally, the fat of all animals which died of themselves, or were torn by boasts, was forbiddon as food, bocause such animals were “unclean.” 8

9. LEAVEN.

The reason why leaven was rigorously kept aloof from the altar is indisputable. It cannot be derived from the nature and properties of the prepared substance; for leaven was deemed to enhance the pala

1 Lev. VII. 26. 2 Lev. VII. 23, 25.

3 Lev. XVII. 3--5, see p. 31.

4 Lev. III. 17.

5 Comp. Deut. XII. 15, 16, 23-25; see p. 31. 6 Deut. XXXII, 14.

7 See Comm. on Gen. pp. 496-498. 8 Lev. VII. 24; comp. XVII. 15; XXII. 8; see notes on VII. 22-27.

9 Lev. II. 11; XXIII. 18; comp. Am. IV. 5.