(>) The recovery of a leper was marked by two series of rites (Lv 141-^2), In tije first stage one bird was killed over a vessel of running water, and another, after being dipped in the coloured water, was allowed to escajje (w.**- 7). in the second stage the man offered a Guilt-offering, a Sin-offering, and a Burnt-offering (vv. 13. 3l)_with the peculiar provision that blood from the Guilt-offering was smeared on the right ear, the right thumb, and the right great toe of tlie offerer (yM). The same rite was observed for the purification of houses infected in some such way as is typified to us by * dry-rot ' (1433ff. ; gee art. Lkprost).
In the matter of these purificatory rites, two outstanding facts have to be explained — the temporary isolation of persons and families under certain physical or pathologieiU conditions, and the association of sacrifices of an expiatory kind with their readniission to the life of the community. The temporary isolation has its manifest explanation in a regard to the nealtli of the community, wliich recognized permanent sources of danger in the sexual life aa well as in leprosy and the death- bed. Less apparent is it why the same kinds of sacrifice whiih expiated guilt should have been required in coniiexiou with events with no moral complexion — such as the natiu'al calamity of disease, and the joyous event of birth. But the matter becomes partially intelligible when we recall the doctrine, widely operative in OT, as to the strictly retributive character of natural evils. When sickness was interpreted as a judgment because of open or secret sin, when deatli, especially premature or sudden death, was similarly construed, the obvious pro- cedure was to apprnarh God with a remembrance of the pro- curing cause, and to make atonement for tlie guilt. Nor is it ditlicult to bring child-bearing within the same sphere of ideas The pangs of child-birth were naturally regarded from this standpoint as penal : in J they were inten'rt.'ted oa a punish- ment expressly Inflicted because of woman's share in the prunal sin (Gn S^^); and it is quite intelligible that on restora- tion to the fellowship of her people the mother's sacrifice should be directed to cancel the gudt in which her sufferings were believed to have their spriDg. See, further, art. Unclkan, Unclbannebb.
(c) The Consecration of persons and things for sacred uses appears as a further prominent function of the Levitical Sacrifices. The ceremonies at the consecration of the priests have been discussed elsewhere (see I'liIKSTS AND Lkvites, pp. 70f., B'^).
The consecration of the teni])le - fiirniture b^' means of sacrifice, esp. the Sin - olVerinp, is a pmminent feature in the ordinances of Ezekiel J4;jjMr.j [jj KxoduH minute instrtictionH are ;;iven as to the conHcciation of the tahornade in all ity parts by means of holy oil (30--''- 40>"**, of. Lv j^io. iij ')^\^^. \^\^.ix of giving to a building and to its furniture the character of physical holiness was certainly antique, and even v<-'t maintains it.4 ground in oppositi<m to the view that the only character which consecration can confer on mntorial objects is reservation for religious uses. It hod its
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SACRIFICE
roots in the conception tliat God is merely a visitor on eartli, and tliat He can only appear in those places which ha%-e been detached from the earthly sphere, and which have acquired certain of the characters of His heavenly home {Jn 4-''- ^').
(2) The Sacrificial Theurij vf the Lcvitical legisla- tion.— The theory has been the subject of keen and prolonj;ed controversy. That the sacriliiial worship was ordained as a means of grace, and indeed as a condition of pardon and communion, is evident ; but we have further to ask wliat was the precise function ascribed to sacrifice in the legal economy. And at this stage, it may be conlidently premised, the sacrilicial theory has shed the anthropopathic ideas which oiieratcd in the earlier ages. If the ritual embodieil forms and phrases descending from the period of religious childhood, the crude ideas whicli first shaped thtm had been outgrown and forgotten. The theology of the prophets had too deeply saturated the religious thought of Israel to make it possible for any but an elevated doctrine to gain official recognition. The gift-theory of Spencer, as Bahr observed, is involved in insurmountable dilliculties if the attempt is made to prove its vitality and persistence in an age whose conscious- ness was dominated by the unity and spirituality of God (Syinbdik, ii. 275). Equally does the same objection press against the view that the sacrifice may still have been construed as a gratifying meal ; while it is generally admitted that tlie theory of a communion physically mediated by tlie sacri- licial feast, whatever part it may have previously jilayed, was now quite outside the horizon of Israel's religious teachers. Another theory, which has also had some vogue, may be summarily set aside as belonging to a plane of thought incom- patible with the deeply religious spirit of the Pentateuch. This is the view which reduces the system to the level of police regulations by inter- preting the sacrifices as essentially hues, and as [)riniarily designed to punish and check wrong- doing. The explanations of the Levitical sacri- ficial tlieory which have so far survived in the controversial struggle operate with higher forms of thought. These explanations vary not a little in detail, but substantially they may be reduced to three types according as they seek to elucidate the subject with the help of the three Christian categories of substitutionary satisfaction, prayer, and sacrament. In addition, there is a widely dillused ojiinion that either no sacrificial theory is propounded, or that it is not consistently carried through in the later legislation.