cheenc03a.pdf

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SACRIFICE
operation. hut an the means which God has appointed.'
The more positive the conception of religion becomes.
the less motive there is to reek any other explanation
of such practicer than that God has comnranded them.
If, finally, the irrationality of such ceremonies comes to
be felt, and their incongruity with spiritual religion,
allegory and symbolism rill find some profound signi6-
cance in them. Yet the ignornnt multitude will doubtless
continue to have faith in the virtue of the ceremony
itself, and to understand better than their teachers its
true import, because the old animism is still a reality to
them.
A corresponding change is wrought in the conception
of 'uncleanness.' Whereas originally it was a physical
thing whose evil was in itself, it becomes in the trational
religion a pollution offensive to YahwB; it ir incompatible
with his holiness and the holiness which he
demands of all that approach him ; its consequences
are not only natural but penal : il requires to be not
merely purged but expiated. Uncleanness is in this light
a moral wrong, and involver guilt. On the other hand,
a not inconsiderable class of what we regard as moral
offences were included in the category of taboos requiring
purificationr. We have difficulty in reaiiring that
milt . war believed to have the same physically .. . contagious
quality us uncleanness-one man who had
touched hkm (mn) could infect and bring defeat upon
a whole army 1 lorh. 71. Almost equally etranee to us
SACRIFICE
effect and operation of sacrifice the meaning of the
rice: by a .fault of method wcich has been
fnlitfd ni
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, of the OT -.
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the investieation has freauentlv set out from etvmoloeical
God is that he suffers t1;e consequences ("ram), with
its converse, that misfortune is the evidence that persons), biddd?,d?i), . ~. 'make holy,'which isthe positive counter.
he has offended without knowing how. There are
thiugr, however, which must be kept in mind if we
are to understand the piacular aspects of Israelite
sacrifices.
A man who has offended God may seek to propitiate beinn, 'and the priert shall makc propitintion(793 in his hehalf
him by a gift, as he might an earthly ruler; so David
and he &all be forgiven' (SFF Leu.6d~a(iij 16 rs 51 l5zal
0% Nu.58); aim m the puilhcarlon of rhc leper (Lev. 14
a Pmpitiation in the time of plague offers burnt 18-90, cp zg 31 53 the Nazirrre defiled by death (Yu. 6 ir),
and expiation oflerings in the threshing floor of puri6wtion aftcr 'chddblrth, gonorrhar, menorrhrgla (Lev.
Araunah (z S. 24.8-2s). More fre-
12,J ,s,53,); further, in the 3," offering of the congregation
or =n ~nd~v~dual for sn inadvertent omission (Nu. 15sj.8, cp
quently, perhaps, he made a vorv that if God's anger Lev. 4e0 ibjl and in the ruerat strarr of the ritual of the
under which he was suffering were withdrawn, he would Dry of ~ f ~ (Leu. ~ 16). ~ In ~ most ~ of thcw A par;.igar t whcrc
make him a specified sacrifice, either holocaurt or peace the priest is suhject, kijjir (~~LA~xoYoL), 'make propik?tiun;
might equally well be rrmrlrted, 'mrke intercernon; rr m Vg.
offering,%ar both together. with such and such victims. (arara, rog.rp, deprprprprri, etc.), by Sa~din(irfagh/=ra, 'berm&
This wan probably in all periods the most numerous forgiveness'), and other..
class of votive offerings. The same mems by which The propitiatory or expiatory effect of sacrifice is not
man in prosperity sought the continuance and increase restricted to any particular species or class, though
of God's favour were employed to recover it when in specific offence; have prescribed piaculo, not 01%
any way it had been lost.
trespass offerings and sin offerings, but also the private
The r ecirl fiieu/a called sin offerings have r very limited burnt offerine -, iLev. 111, and even lreace offerings and
.a. g. oPempl.o,.mcnt (rce above, 286). They are prercrlbed oblntiona 'atone'; thewhole public cultus is ameans
chiefly for un~nrenrional seremonxal faults or as punfic~tion?;
ihe rrerpsrr offering is even mare narrowly rertr!sted
of propitiating God and obtaining remission far sin and
(=b?re,
5 27). The grcst expiation fur ,he whole paople, in later rmer uncleannejr (E~ek. 4515 Nor is the operation of
11 leas,, wu the icape-goat; not any form of racrifice.
propitiatory sacrifice centred exclusively, ar bar often
been contended, in one part of the ritual, the shedding
Sacrifice5 offered to propitiate the offended deity
and application of the victim's blood: it is only in
require no peculiar rites; the outpouring of the blood,
the burning of the fat or of the holocaust, are precisely
certain peculiar purifications tbat this is really the care ;
the same as when these species of sacrifice are made.
elsewhere the very formulation of the laws shows that
say, in gratitude for the signal goodness of God. The
the whole ceremony has atoning value (see, rg, Lev.
4.6 gr
blood of the sin offerine is smeared upon the horns of
3s 5io rj, efc.). The sin offrring of the pauper,
which is only a little meal, ir.ar effectual us the bloody
sacrifices of his more pmsperoun fellows.
The term hiflppprr is us& in relation to other than
affirm that it is not a purposed heightening of the
sacrificial expiations ; thus uhen a plague broke out.
application.
Aaron went amone - the oeoole . . with a censer of burnine
In the discussion of Hebrew ideas concerning the
incense, and made expiation for the peopleicya $Y,DYI~
and the plague was stayed (Xu. 1646 f [li~zfl); the
slaughter of
I 'IPr .
a guilty man by Phinehns made expiation
>I..ll"l ,mli,.nc\ I. 1, ir.imila,e err..", .ti?. .>f pro.
,