Chapter 15

brings meal along with him in order to bake it into _maccah_ on the spot (Ezekiel xlvi. 20). But he may bring along with him common, that is leavened, cakes also (1Samuel x. 3), which seem originally by no means to have been considered unfit to be offered as in Leviticus ii. 11. For under this law of Leviticus ii. even the presentation of the shewbread would be inexplicable, and moreover it is certain that at first the loaves of the feast of weeks were offerings, properly so called, and not merely dues to the priests. According, to Amos iv. 5, leavened bread was made use of precisely at a particularly solemn sacrifice, and a reminiscence of this usage has been preserved even in Leviticus vii. 13, although of course without any practical weight being attached to it. /1/

-- Footnote 1. The loaves are passed over in silence in Leviticus vii. 29 seq., although it is in this very place that the matter of presenting on the part of the offerer is most fully described. And when it is said (vii. 12), "If he offer it for a thanksgiving (Todah), then he shall offer with it unleavened cakes mingled with oil, and unleavened wafers anointed with oil and fine flour (LXX), mingled with oil ;" vii. 13, "[With] leavened cakes shall he offer as a gift with the thank-offering of the Todah," the suspicion very readily occurs that verse 12 is an authentic interpretation prefixed, to obviate beforehand the difficulty presented by verse 13, and that similarly the first (l in verse 13 is also a later correction, which does not harmonise well by any means with the second. Verse 13 connects itself better with verse 11 than with verse 12.--Exod xxxiv. 25. -- Footnote

Moreover, massah also means, properly speaking, only the bread that is prepared in haste and in the most primitive manner for immediate use, and originally implies no contrast with leaven, but simply with the more artificial and tedious manners of producing ordinary bread /2/

-- Footnote 2. Compare Genesis xviii. 6 with xix.3. -- Footnote

In the Priestly Code the materials are finer, but they are as much as possible left in their raw condition; both are steps in advance.

II.II.3. There is another and much more important difference in the case of the animal sacrifice. Of this the older practice knows only two kinds apart from extraordinary varieties, which may be left out of account. These two are the burnt-offering (`Olah) and the thank-offering (Shelem, Zebah, Zebah Shelamim). In the case of the first the whole animal is offered on the altar; in the other God receives, besides the blood, only an honorary portion, while the rest of the flesh is eaten by the sacrificial guests. Now it is worth noticing how seldom the burnt-offering occurs alone. It is necessarily so in the case of human sacrifice (Genesis xxii. 2 seq.; Judges xi. 31; /1/ 2Kings iii. 27; Jeremiah xix.5);

-- Footnote 3. It is probable that Jephthah expected a human creature and not an animal to meet him from his house. -- Footnote

otherwise it is not usual (Genesis viii. 20; Numbers xxiii. 1 seq.; Judges vi. 20, 26, xiii. 16, 23; 1Samuel vii. 9 seq.; 1Kings iii. 4, xviii. 34,38); /1/ moreover, all the examples

-- Footnote 1. In the above list of passages no notice is taken of the _sacrificium juge_ of 2Kings xvi.15. The statement in 1Kings iii. 4 is perhaps to be taken along with iii. 15, but does not become at all more credible on that account. Of course it is understood that only those passages are cited here in which mention is made of offerings actually made, and not merely general statements about one or more kinds of offering. The latter could very well fix attention upon the `Olah alone without thereby throwing any light upon the question as to the actual practice. -- Footnote

just cited are extraordinary or mythical in their character, a circumstance that may not affect the evidence of the existence of the custom in itself, but is important as regards the statistics of its frequency. As a rule, the `Olah occurs only in conjunction with Zebahim, and when this is the case the latter are in the majority and are always in the plural, while on the other hand the first is frequently in the singular. /2/

-- Footnote 1. Exodus x. 25, xviii. 12, xxiv. 5, xxxii. 6; Joshua viii. 31; Judges xx. 26, xxi. 4; 1Samuel vi. 14 seq., x. 8, xiii. 9-12; 2Samuel vi. 17 seq., xxiv. 23-25, 1Kings iii. 15, viii. 63 seq.; 2Kings v. 17, x. 24, 25. The zeugma in Judges xx. 26, xxi.4 is inconsistent with the older _usus loquendi_. The proper name for the holocaust appears to be KLYL (Deuteronomy xxxiii. 10; 1Samuel vii.9) not (LH. It is impossible to decide whether the sacrificial due in all sorts of Zebah was the same, but most probably it was not. Probably the Shelamim are a more solemn kind of sacrifice than the simple Zebah. The word 'fat' is used in Genesis iv. 4; Exodus xxiii. 18 in a very general sense. It is not quite clear what is meant by the blessing of the Zebah in 1Samuel ix. 13; perhaps a kind of grace before meat. -- Footnote

They supplement each other like two corresponding halves; the `Olah is, as the name implies, properly speaking, nothing more than the part of a great offering that reaches the altar. One might therefore designate as `Olah also that part of a single animal which is consecrated to the Deity; this, however, is never done; neither of the blood nor of the fat [Q+R] is the verb H(LH used, but only of the pieces of the flesh, of which in the case of the minor offering nothing was burnt. But the distinction is merely one of degree; there is none in kind; a small Zebah, enlarged and augmented, becomes an `Olah and Zebahim; out of a certain number of slaughtered animals which are eaten by the sacrificial company, one is devoted to God and wholly given to the flames. For the rest, it must be borne in mind that as a rule it is only great sacrificial feasts that the historical books take occasion to mention, and that consequently the burnt-offering, notwithstanding what has been said, comes before us with greater prominence than can have been the average case in ordinary life. Customarily, It is certain, none but thank-offerings were offered; necessarily so if slaughtering could only be done beside the altar. Where mention is made of a simple offering in the Books of Samuel and Kings, that it is a thank-offering is matter of course. 1Samuel ii. 12 seq. is in this connection also particularly instructive.

From what has been said it results that according to the praxis of the older period a meal was almost always connected with a sacrifice. It was the rule that only blood and fat were laid upon the altar, but the people ate the flesh; only in the case of very great sacrificial feasts was a large animal (one or more) given to Jehovah. Where a sacrifice took place, there was also eating and drinking (Exodus xxxii. 6; Judges ix. 27; 2Samuel xv. 11 seq.; Amos ii. 7); there was no offering without a meal, and no meal without an offering (1Kings i. 9); at no important Bamah was entertainment wholly wanting, such a LESXH as that in which Samuel feasted Saul, or Jeremiah the Rechabites (1Samuel ix. 22; Jeremiah xxxv. 2). To be merry, to eat and drink before Jehovah, is a usual form of speech down to the period of Deuteronomy; even Ezekiel calls the cultus on the high places an eating upon the mountains (1Samuel ix. 13,19 seq ), and in Zechariah the pots in the temple have a special sanctity (Zech. xiv. 20). By means of the meal in presence of Jehovah is established a covenant fellowship on the one hand between Him and the guests, and on the other hand between the guests themselves reciprocally, which is essential for the idea of sacrifice and gives their name to the Shelamim (compare Exodus xviii. 12, xxiv. 11). In ordinary slaughterings this notion is not strongly present, but in solemn sacrifices it was in full vigour. It is God who invites, for the house is His; His also is the gift, which must be brought to Him entire by the offerer before the altar, and the greater portion of which He gives up to His guests only affer that. Thus in a certain sense they eat at God's table, and must accordingly propare or sanctify themselves for it. /1/

-- Footnote 1. In order to appear before Jehovah the guest adorns himself with clothes and ornaments (Exodus iii. 22, xi. 2 seq.; Hosea ii. 15 [A.V. 13]; Ezekiel xvi. 13; compare Koran, Sur. xx. 61), sanctifies himself (Numbers xi. 18) and is sanctified (1Samuel xvi. 5; Exodus xix. 10, 14). The sacrificial meal is regarded as Kodesh (hallowed) for not only the priests, but all the sanctified persons eat Kodesh (1Samuel xxi. 5 seq. On what is meant by sanctification light is thrown by 1Samuel xxi. 5; 2Samuel xi. 2. Compare L) LPNW XNP YB) ( Job xiii. 16; Leviticus vii. 20; Matthew xxii. 11-13). Jehovah invites the armies of the nations to His sacrifice, for which He delivers over to them some other nation, and calls the Medes, to whom He gives Babylon over, His sanctified ones, that is, His guests (Zephaniah i. 7 seq.; Jeremiah xlvi. 10; Ezekiel xxxix 17; Isaiah xiii. 3). -- Footnote

Even on occasions that, to our way of thinking, seem highly unsuitable, the meal is nevertheless not wanting (Judges xx. 26, xxi. 4; 1Sam xiii. 9-12). That perfect propriety was not always observed might be taken for granted, and is proved by Isaiah xxviii. 8 even with regard to the temple of Jerusalem; "all tables are full of vomit, there is no room." Hence also Eli's suspicion regarding Hannah was a natural one, and by no means so startling as it appears.

How different from this picture is that suggested by the Priestly Code! Here one no longer remarks that a meal accompanies every sacrifice; eating before Jehovah, which even in Deuteronomy is just the expression for sacrificing, nowhere occurs, or at all events is no act of divine worship. Slaying and sacrificing are no longer coincident, the thank-offering of which the breast and right shoulder are to be consecrated is something different from the old simple Zebah. But, precisely for this reason, it has lost its former broad significance. The _mizbeah_, that is, the place where the _zebahim_ are to be offered, has been transformed into a _mizbah ha-'olah_. The burnt-offering has become quite independent and comes everywhere into the foreground, the sacrifices which are unconnected with a meal altogether predominate,--so much that, as is well known, Theophrastus could declare there were no others among the Jews, who in this way were differentiated from all other nations. /1/ Where formerly a

-- Footnote 1. Porphyry, De Abstin. ii.26. Compare Joseph., Contra Apion, ii. 13: )OUTOI )EUXONTAI <?> UEIN (EKATOMBAS TOIS QEOIS KAI XRWNTAI TOIS (IEREIOIS PROS )EUWXIAN. -- Footnote

thank-offering which was eaten before Jehovah, and which might with greater clearness be called a sacrificial meal, was prescribed, the Priestly Code, as we shall afterwards see, has made out of it simple dues to the priests, as, for example, in the case of the first-born and of firstlings. Only in this point it still bears involuntary testimony to the old custom by applying the names _Todah, Neder, and Nedabah_, of which the last two in particular must necessarily have a quite general meaning (Leviticus xxii. 18; Ezekiel xlvi. 12), exclusively to the thank-offering, while _Milluim_ and paschal sacrifice are merely subordinate varieties of it.

II.II.4. What the thank-offering has lost, the sin and trespass offering have gained; the voluntary private offering which the sacrificer ate in a joyful company at the holy place has given way before the compulsory, of which he obtains no share, and from which the character of the sacred meal has been altogether taken away. The burnt-offering, it is true, still continues to be a meal, if only a one-sided one, of which God alone partakes; but in the case of the sin-offering everything is kept far out of sight which could recall a meal, as, for example, the accompaniments of meal and wine, oil and salt; of the flesh no portion reaches the altar, it all goes as a fine to the priest. Now, of this kind of sacrifice, which has an enormous importance in the Priestly Code, not a single trace occurs in the rest of the Old Testament before Ezekiel, neither in the Jehovist and Deuteronomist, nor in the historical and prophetical books. /1/

-- Footnote 1. How great is the difference in Deuteronomy xxi. 1-9; how very remote the sacrificial idea! -- Footnote

`Olah and Zebah comprehend all animal sacrifices, `Olah and Minhah, or Zebah and Minhah, all sacrifices whatsoever; nowhere is a special kind of sacrifice for atonement met with (1Samuel iii. 14). Hos. iv. 8 does indeed say: "They eat the sin of my people, and they are greedy for its guilts," but the interpretation which will have it that the priests are here reproached with in the first instance themselves inducing the people to falsification of the sacred dues, in order to make these up again with the produce of the sin and trespass offerings, is either too subtle or too dull. /2/

-- Footnote 2. The sin and guilt are the sacrificial worship generally as carried on by the people (viii. 11; Amos iv. 4); in the entire section the prophet is preparing the way for the here sharply accentuated reproach against the priests that they neglect the Torah and encourage the popular propensity to superstitious and impure religious service. Besides, where is there any reproach at all, according to the Pentateuch, in the first section of iv. 8? And the second speaks of (WNM, not of )#MM. -- Footnote

It would be less unreasonable to co-ordinate with the similarly named sin and trespass offering of the Pentateuch the five golden mice, and the five golden emerods with which the Philistines send back the ark, and which in 1Samuel vi. 3, 4, 8 are designated _asham_, or, still better, the sin and trespass monies which, according to 2Kings xii. 17 [A.V. 16], fell to the share of the Jerusalem priests. Only the fact is that even in the second passage the _asham_ and _hattath_ are no sacrifices, but, more exactly to render the original meaning of the words, mere fines, and in fact money fines. On the other hand, the _hattath_ referred to in Micah vi. 7 has nothing to do with a due of the priests, but simply denotes the guilt which eventually another takes upon himself. Even in Isaiah liii. 10, a passage which is certainly late, _asham_ must not be taken in the technical sense of the ritual legislation, but simply (as in Micah) in the sense of guilt, borne by the innocent for the guilty. For the explanation of this prophetic passage Gramberg has rightly had recourse to the narrative of 2Samuel xi. 1-14. "Upon Saul and upon his house lies blood-guiltiness, for having slain the Gibeonites" is announced to David as the cause of a three years' famine. When asked how it can be taken away, the Gibeonites answer,

"It is not a matter of silver and gold to us with respect to Saul and his house; let seven men of his family be delivered to us that we may hang them up unto the Lord in Gibeah of Saul upon the mountain of the Lord."

This was done; all the seven were hanged.

_A*sham_ and _hattath_ as offerings occur for the first time in Ezekiel, and appear, not long before his day to have come into the place of the earlier pecuniary fines (2Kings xii. 17 [16]), which perhaps already also admitted of being paid in kind; probably in the seventh century, which seems to have been very open to the mystery of atonement and bloodshedding, and very fertile in the introduction of new religious usages. /1/

-- Footnote 1. Consider for example the prevalence of child sacrifice precisely at this time, the introduction of incense, the new fashions which King Manasseh brought in, and of which certainly much survived that suited the temper of the period, and admitted of being conjoined with the worship of Jehovah, or even seemed to enhance its dignity and solemnity. -- Footnote

The sin and trespass offerings of the Pentateuch still bear traces of their origin in fines and penalties; they are not gifts to God, they are not even symbolical, they are simply mulcts payable to the priests, partly of fixed commutation value (Leviticus v. 15). Apart from the mechanical burning of the fat they have in common with the sacrifice only the shedding of blood, originally a secondary matter, which has here become the chief thing. This circumstance is an additional proof of our thesis. The ritual of the simple offering has three acts:

(1.) the presentation of the living animal before Jehovah, and the laying on of hands as a token of manumission on the part of the offerer;

(2.) the slaughtering and the sprinkling of the blood on the altar;

(3.) the real or seeming gift of the sacrificial portions to the Deity, and the meal of the human guests.

In the case of the burnt-offering the meal in the third act disappears, and the slaughtering in the second comes into prominence as significant and sacred, inasmuch as (what is always expressly stated) it must take place in the presence of Jehovah, at the north side of the altar. In the case of the sin and trespass offering the third act is dropped entirely, and accordingly the whole significance of the rite attaches to the slaughtering, which of course also takes place before the altar, and to the sprinkling of the blood, which has become peculiarly developed here. It is obvious how the metamorphosis of the gift and the meal into a bloody atonement advances and reaches its acme in this last sacrificial act.

This ritual seems to betray its novelty even within the Priestly Code itself by a certain vacillation. In the older corpus of law (Leviticus xvii.-xxvi.) which has been taken into that document, all sacrifices are still embraced under one or other of the two heads ZBX and (LH (xvii. 8, xxii. 18, 21); there are no others. The _asham_ indeed occurs in xix. 21 seq., but, as is recognised, only in a later addition; on the other hand,it is not demanded /1/ in xxii.14,

-- Footnote 1. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the _asham_ here, in the case of property unlawfully held, is simply the impost of a fifth part of the value, and not the sacrifice of a ram, which in Leviticus v. is required in addition. In Numbers v. also, precisely this fifth part is called _asham_. -- Footnote

Where it must have been according to Leviticus v. and Numbers v. And even apart from Leviticus xvii.-xxvi there is on this point no sort of agreement between the kernel of the Priestly Code and the later additions, or "novels," so to speak. For one thing, there is a difference as to the ritual of the most solemn sin-offering between Exodus xxix., Leviticus ix. on the one hand, and Leviticus iv. on the other; and what is still more serious, the trespass-offering never occurs in the primary but only in the secondary passages, Leviticus iv.-vii., xiv.; Numbers v.7, 8, vi. 1, xviii. 9. In the latter, moreover, the distinction between _asham_ and _hattath_ is not very clear, but only the intention to make it, perhaps because in the old praxis there actually was a distinction between KSP XT)WT and KSP )#M, and in Ezekiel between X+)T and )#M. /2/

-- Footnote 2. The three sections, Leviticus iv. 1-35 (hattath), v.1-13 (hattath-asham), and v. 14-26 (asham), are essentially not co-ordinate parts of one whole, but independent pieces proceeding from the same school. For v. 1-13 is no continuation of or appendix to iv. 27-35, but a quite independent treatment of the same material, with important differences of form. The place of the systematic generality of chap. iv. is here taken by the definite individual case, and what is analogous to it; the ritual is given with less minuteness, and the hierarchical subordination of ranks has no influence on the classification of offences. In this section also _asham_ and _hattath_ occur interchangeably as synonymous. In the third section a ram as an _asham_ is prescribed (v. 17-19) for the very case in which in the first a he-goat or a she-goat is required as _hattath_ (iv. 22, 27). The third section has indeed in form greater similarity to the second, but cannot be regarded as its true completion, for this simple reason, that the latter does not distiguish between _hattath_ and _asham_. If Leviticus v. 13-16, 20-26 be followed simply without regard being had to vers. 17-19, the _asham_ comes in only in the case of voluntary restitution of property illegally come by or detained, more particularly of the sacred dues. The goods must be restored to their owner augmented by a fifth part of their value; and as an _asham_ there must be added a ram, which falls to the sanctuary. In Num v. 5-10 the state of the case is indeed the same, but the language employed is different, for in this passage it is the restored property that is called _asham_, and the ram is called )YL HKPRYM. Comp. Leviticus xxii. 14. -- Footnote

II.III.

The turning-point in the history of the sacrificial system was the reformation of Josiah; what we find in the Priestly Code is the matured result of that event. It is precisely in the distinctions that are characteristic of the sacrificial law as compared with the ancient sacrificial praxis that we have evidence of the fact that, if not all exactly occasioned by the centralisation of the worship, they were almost all somehow at least connected with that change.

In the early days, worship arose out of the midst of ordinary life, and was in most intimate and manifold connection with it. A sacrifice was a meal, a fact showing how remote was the idea of antithesis between spiritual earnestness and secular joyousness. A meal unites a definite circle of guests, and in this way the sacrifice brought into connection the members of the family, the associates of the corporation, the soldiers of the army, and, generally speaking, the constituents of any permanent or temporary society. It is earthly relationships that receive their consecration thereby, and in correspondence are the natural festal occasions presented by the vicissitudes of life. Year after year the return of vintage, corn-harvest, and sheep-shearing brought together the members of the household to eat and to drink in the presence of Jehovah; and besides these there were less regularly recurring events which were celebrated in one circle after another. There was no warlike expedition which was not inaugurated in this fashion, no agreement that was not thus ratified, no important undertaking of any kind was gone about without a sacrifice! /1/

-- Footnote 1. Sacrifice is used as a pretext in 1Samuel xvi. 1 seq.; 1Kings i. 9 seq. Compare Proverbs vii. 14. -- Footnote

When an honoured guest arrives, there is slaughtered for him a calf, not without an offering of the blood and fat to the Deity. The occasion arising out of daily life is thus inseparable from the holy action, and is what gives it meaning and character; an end corresponding to the situation always underlies it. Hence also prayer must not be wanting. The verb H(TYR, to "burn" (fat and _minha_), means simply to "pray," and conversely BQ# )T YHWH, "to seek Jehovah," in point of fact not unfrequently means to "sacrifice." The gift serves to reinforce the question or the request, and to express thankfulness; and the prayer is its interpretation. This of course is rather incidentally indicated than expressly said (Hos. v. 6; Isaiah i. 15; Jeremiah xiv. 12; 1Kings viii. 27 seq.; Proverbs xv. 8); we have a specimen of a grace for the offering of the festival gift only in Deuteronomy xxvi. 3 seq.; a blessing is pronounced when the slaughtering takes place (1Samuel ix. 13). The prayer of course is simply the expression of the feeling of the occasion, with which accordingly it varies in manifold ways. Arising out of the exigencies and directed to the objects of daily life, the sacrifices reflect in themselves a correspondingly rich variety. Our wedding, baptismal, and funeral feasts on the one hand, and our banquets for all sorts of occasions on the other, might still be adduced as the most obvious comparison, were it not that here too the divorce between sacred and secular destroys it. Religious worship was a natural thing in Hebrew antiquity; it was the blossom of life, the heights and depths of which it was its business to transfigure and glorify.

The law which abolished all sacrificial seats, with a single exception, severed this connection. Deuteronomy indeed does not contemplate such a result. Here, in marked opposition to what we find in the Priestly Code, to eat and be merry before Jehovah is the standing phrase for sacrificing; the idea is that in concentrating all the worship towards Jerusalem, all that is effected is a mere change of place, the essence of the thing remaining unaltered. This, however, was a mistake. To celebrate the vintage festival among one's native hills, and to celebrate it at Jerusalem, were two very different things; it was not a matter of indifference whether one could seize on the spot any occasion that casually offered itself for a sacrificial meal, or whether it was necessary that one should first enter upon a journey. And it was not the same thing to appear by oneself at home before Jehovah and to lose oneself in a large congregation at the common seat of worship. Human life has its root in local environment, and so also had the ancient cultus; in being transplanted from its natural soil it was deprived of its natural nourishment. A separation between it and the daily life was inevitable, and Deuteronomy itself paved the way for this result by permitting profane slaughtering. A man lived in Hebron, but sacrificed in Jerusalem; life and worship fell apart. The consequences which lie dormant in the Deuteronomic law are fully developed in the Priestly Code.

This is the reason why the sacrifice combined with a meal, formerly by far the chief, now falls completely into the background. One could eat flesh at home, but in Jerusalem one's business was to do worship. Accordingly, those sacrifices were preferred in which the religious character came to the front with the utmost possible purity and without any admixture of natural elements, sacrifices of which God received everything and man nothing,--burnt-offerings, sin-offerings, and trespass-offerings.

If formerly the sacrifice had taken its complexion from the quality of the occasion which led to it, it now had essentially but one uniform purpose--to be a medium of worship. The warm pulse of life no longer throbbed in it to animate it; it was no longer the blossom and the fruit of every branch of life; it had its own meaning all to itself. It symbolised worship, and that was enough. The soul was fled; the shell remained, upon the shaping out of which every energy was now concentrated. A manifoldness of rites took the place of individualising occasions; technique was the main thing, and strict fidelity to rubric.

Once cultus was spontaneous, now it is a thing of statute. The satisfaction which it affords is, properly speaking, something which lies outside of itself and consists in the moral satisfaction arising out of the conscientiousness with which the ritual precepts, once for all enjoined by God on His people, are fulfilled. The freewill offering is not indeed forbidden, but value in the strict sense is attached only to those which have been prescribed, and which accordingly preponderate everywhere. And even in the case of the freewill offering, everything must strictly and accurately comply with the restrictions of the ordinance; if any one in the fulness of his heart had offered in a _zebah shelamim_ more pieces of flesh than the ritual enjoined, it would have been the worse for him.

Of old the sacrifice combined with a meal had established a special relation between the Deity and a definite society of guests; the natural sacrificial society was the family or the clan (1Samuel i. 1seq., xvi. 1 seq., xx. 6). Now the smaller sacred fellowships get lost, the varied groups of social life disappear in the neutral shadow of the universal congregation or church [(DH, QHL]. The notion of this last is foreign to Hebrew antiquity, but runs through the Priestly Code from beginning to end. Like the worship itself, its subject also became abstract, a spiritual entity which could be kept together by no other means except worship. As now the participation of the "congregation of the children of Israel" in the sacrifice was of necessity always mainly ideal, the consequence was that the sacred action came to be regarded as essentially perfect by virtue of its own efficacy in being performed by the priest, even though no one was present. Hence later the necessity for a special sacrificial deputation, the _anshe ma'amad_. The connection of all this with the Judaising tendency to remove God to a distance from man, it may be added, is clear. /1/

-- Footnote 1. It is not asserted that the cultus before the Iaw (of which the darker sides are known from Amos and Hosea) was better than the legal, but merely that it was more original; the standard of judgment being, not the moral element, but merely the idea, the primary meaning of worship. Nor is it disputed further that the belief in the dependence of sacrifices and other sacred acts upon a laboriously strict compliance with traditional and prescriptive rites occurs in the case of certain peoples, even in the remotest antiquity. But with the Israelites, judging by the testimony of the historical and prophetical books, this was not on the whole the case any more than with the ancient Greeks; there were no Brahmans or Magians in either case. Moreover, it must be carefully noted that not even in the Priestly Code do we yet find the same childish appreciation of the cultus as occurs in such a work as the Rigveda, and that the strict rules are not prescribed and maintained with any such notion in view as that by their observance alone can the taste of the Deity be pleased; the idea of God is here even strikingly remote from the anthropomorphic, and the whole cultus is nothing more than an exercise in piety which has simply been enjoined so once for all without any one being in any way the better for it. -- Footnote

Two details still deserve special prominence here. In the Priestly Code the most important sacrifice is the burnt-offering; that is to say, in point of fact, the _tamid_, the _holocaustum juge_, consisting of two yearling lambs which are daily consumed upon the "altar of burnt-offering," one in the morning, another in the evening. The custom of daily offering a fixed sacrifice at a definite time existed indeed, in a simpler form, /2/

-- Footnote 2. See Kuenen, Godsdietzst van Israel, ii. 271. According to 2Kings