you,

'children of Israel have sinned, trespassed, and re'belled in thy sight. According as it is written in 'the law of Moses thy servant, where it is said, On 'this day there shall be an atonement for and a cleansing from all your sins, and ye shall be clean "before the Lord.' The people followed this prayer with the same response as the priests: 'Blessed be the glorious name of his kingdom for ever and ever.' The other forin is thus expressed :'* I beseech thee, 'O Lord; I have sinned, I have trespassed, I have rebelled; I have [here the particular offence was named]' Now I repent and am ashamed of what 'I have done; nor will I ever return to it again.' They who confound this prayer with the third form cited in the preceding section, and suppose it to have been used over the piacular victims, which I find was the opinion of Grotius, are evidently mistaken. For, to pass over other considerations, this form does not contain the words, and let this be my expiation, with which the third form concludes: and this is the more important, because those words eminently show what is, as will appear in a subsequent chapter, the common opinion of the Jews respecting the design and efficacy of the piacular victims.-The more fully the circumstances of the sin were detailed, the better was the confession considered. Maimonides says: 'He 'who is frequent and long in confession, is worthy ' of praise.'

XII. The consecration of victims by prayers said just before they were slain, was also common among the heathens; but was not accompanied by the imposition of hands enjoined upon the Jews. Speaking of the Egyptians, Herodotus says: "This is

* Maimon. in Teshuva, c. 1.

+ In Euterpe.

'their mode of sacrificing: having brought the devoted animal to the sacrificial altar, they kindle 'the fire, and then, after having poured the wine upon him near the temple, and invoked the god, they kill the victim.' Pliny, beside the passage quoted in the former section, says: 'We see that magistrates of the highest rank have addressed the gods in certain prayers. And that no part may be ' omitted, or said out of its proper order, some one 'reads before from a written form, another officer 'is appointed to listen, and another to command 'silence.' Traces of this custom are found in the poets, as is observed by Vossius:† First the priest 'brought the victim to the altar, leading it with 'his hand. Then in a precomposed form of words 'he consecrated the sacrifice to the god. Seneca in Thyestes says: 'He is himself the priest; with a 'loud voice he chants the death-song in a fatal prayer. He stands before the altar, and the vic'tims devoted to death he himself seizes, places in order, and kills.' So Juvenal in his sixth Satire : He uttered the prescribed words, according to the custom.' The poet says, prescribed words, because they were always repeated after some one who read 'them from a written form, that nothing might be ' omitted or said out of its proper order. Another person was added, who was carefully to listen; and 'another, who was to command silence.' Other prayers used to be said after the killing of the victims, both by the Jews and by the Heathens: but they belong not to our present inquiry, which only respects those by which the victim when placed before the altar was to be consecrated and devoted.

189

CHAPTER XVI.

The Killing of the Victims, the Sprinkling of the Blood, the Flaying and the Manner in which the Victims were to be

of

p.

IMMEDIATELY after the imposition of hands and the prayers connected with that ceremony, the victim was to be slain; and that in such a manner as for all the blood to flow into a vessel placed under its throat. This it was thought would be the case if the greater part of the gullet, windpipe, and jugular veins, were cut through at one stroke, or two at most, with a knife drawn forwards and backwards. In victims killed in a more lingering manner, it was supposed that fear would cause the blood to retire inwards, and there to stagnate.* Care was taken to prevent this, lest those who were to eat the flesh should be defiled by eating the blood. On this subject Maimonides says: How does the killer of a victim proceed? Grasping with his hand the gullet, windpipe, and jugular veins, he holds those parts over the middle ' of a goblet, and cuts them through, or at least through the greatest part of them, so that all the 'blood may flow out into the vessel.' Wherefore to facilitate the slaughter, in the pavement of the court on the north side of the altar were fixed some rings,‡ with which the necks, or, according to others, the feet of the victims used to be fastened. Among the heathens this was accounted an act of extreme impiety. On the north side of the altar were to be slain such victims, whether bullocks, sheep, or goats, * Maimon. in Shechita, c. 3. + In Maase Korban. c. 4. Misna in Middoth, c. 3. § Bartenora in Middoth. c. 3. || Maimon, ibid.

as were numbered among the most holy sacrifices; the burnt offerings, sin offerings, and trespass offerings. This was expressly commanded in the law.* And the peace offerings of the whole congregation being included, as we have already stat deed the same rank, they also were considered as uired to be slain on the same side of the altar. But all the victims denominated light or inferior sacrifices, the peace offerings of individuals, the paschal victim, the firstlings, and the tithes, might lawfully be slain in any part of the court of the priests :† for there was no particular part of that court appointed in the law for this purpose. But all these things are to be understood of victims selected from quadrupeds, and not of birds. For birds were to be killed with the priest's nails at the horns of the great altar and according to the Jews those which were designed for burnt offerings, at the north-eastern horn of it; and those which were for sin offerings, at the south-western horn. In the former the head was to be divided from the body, which was never to be done in the latter.§

II. When the victim was killed, the blood was immediately to be sprinkled; but in different ways and in different places in different kinds of sacrifices. There were some victims, whose blood was to be carried into the tabernacle or temple. Such were all the occasional sin offerings of the whole congregation; the goat for the whole congregation, and the bullock for the family of Aaron, both slain on the day of atonement; and the bullock appointed as an occasional sin offering for the high priest.|| Concerning

Levit. i. 11. vi. 25. vii. 2. § Levit. v. 8.

↑ Ibid.

+ Maimon. in Maase Korban. c. 5. Levit. iv. 16. xvi, 14, 15. iv. 5.

the rest of the sacrifices, it was commanded that the blood of some should be sprinkled on the horns of the great altar, and of others on its sides. When victims for sin offerings were taken from bullocks, sheep, or goats, some of the blood was to be put, by the priest's finger,* upon the horns of the great altar, and the rest of it was to be poured out at the bottom of that altar;† and this according to the rabbies, towards the south-western corner, where there were two holes through which it ran into a subterranean conduit, and thence into the brook Kidron. The blood to be sprinkled on the sides of the altar, the rabbies say, was to be sprinkled, in some cases above the middle of the altar, and in others below it: wherefore, to prevent any mistake, the middle of the altar was encircled with a scarlet line.§ Above the middle was to be sprinkled the blood of those birds which were sacrificed as burnt offerings; and that of those which were designed for sin offerings, below it. Below the middle of the altar, it is also said, was to be poured out the blood of all the victims, with which its sides were to be sprinkled; but not all in the same man

ner.

The blood of the paschal lamb, of the male firstlings, and of the tithes, was considered as rightly sprinkled, if it were only poured out at either corner of the altar which had a base, or projecting foundation; and there was this projection at every corner except the north-eastern. ** But of burnt offerings selected from quadrupeds, of peace offerings, and

* The Jews say that the blood was to be sprinkled with the fore finger. + Levit. iv. 25. 34. + Misna in Middoth, c. 3. § Ibid, Maimon. in Maase Korban, c. 6.

¶ Ibid. c. 5.

** TR.-For some curious information concerning the traditions on this subject, the learned reader is referred to Middoth, Bartenora, & L'Empereur, in Misna Surenhus, tom. v. p. 348, 349. 353, 354.