SACRIFICE
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SACRIFICE
taught by the Divine Spirit, it became their duty thus to shadow forth the great and venerable victim, really acceptable to (jod, which was, in time then future, des- tined to be offered in behalf of the whole human race (^Deinoiist. Evang. i, 8, 24, 25).
Among the considerations urged in support of the opinion that sacrifice must have originated in a divine command, it has been suggested as exceedingly doubt- ful whether, independently of such a command, and as distinguished from vegetable oblations, animal sacrifice, which involves the practice of slaughtering and burn- ing an innocent victim, could ever, under any aspect, have been adopted as a rite likely to gain the favor of God. Our own course of scriptural education prevents us, perhaps, from being competent judges on this point; but we have means of judging bow so singular a rite must strike the minds of thinking men not in the same degree prepossessed by early associations. The ancient Greek masters of thought not unfrequently expressed their astonishment how and upon what rational princi- ples so strange an institution as that of animal sacrifice could ever have originated ; for as to the notion of its being /j/crt^w^r to the Deity, such a thing struck them as a manifest impossibility (lamblic. Be Vit. Pythar/. p. 106-118; Porphyr. />« .4 fc/in. p. 96 ; Theophrast. et For- phyr. ap. Euseb. Pi-cep. Evang. p. 90, 91). Those who do not believe that sacrifices were of divine institution must dispose of this difficulty by alleging that, when men had come to slay animals for their own food, they might think it right to slay them to satisfy their gods; and, in fact, Grotius, who held the human origin of sac- rifices, and j'et believed that animal food was not used before the Deluge, is reduced to the expedient of con- tending that Abel's offering was not an animal sacri- fice, but only the produce — the milk and wool — of his best sheep. This, however, shows that he believed ani- mal sacrifice to have been impossible before the Deluge without the sanction of a divine command, the exist- ence of which he discredited.
A strong moral argument in favor of the divine in- stitution of sacrifice, somewhat feebly put by Hallet (Comment, on Heh. xi, 4, cited by Magee, On the Atone- ment), has been reproduced with increased force by Fa- ber {Prim. Sacrifice, p. 183). It amounts to this: (1.) Sacrifice, when uncommanded by God, is a mere act of gratuitous superstition ; whence, on the principle of Paul's reprobation of what he denominates will - wor- ship, it is neither acceptable nor pleasing to God. (2.) But sacrifice during the patriarchal ages was accept- ed by God, and was plainly honored with his approba- tion. (3.) Therefore, sacrifice during the patriarchal ages could not have been an act of superstition uncom- manded by God. (4.) If, then, such was the character of primitive sacrifice — that is to say, if primitive sacri- fice was not a mere act of gratuitous superstition un- commanded by God — it must, in that case, indubitably have been a divine, and not a human, institution. If it be held that any of the ancient sacrifices were expiato- r\', or piacular, the argument for their divine origin is strengthened, as it is hard to conceive the combination of ideas under which the notion of expiatory sacrifice could be worked out by the human mind. This diffi- culty is so great that the ablest advocates of the human origin of primitive animal sacrifice feel bound also to deny that such sacrifices as then existed were piacular. It is stronglj' insisted that the doctrine of an atonement by animal sacrifice cannot be deduced from the light of nature or from the principles of reason. If, therefore, the idea existed, it must either have arisen in the fer- tile soil of a guessing superstition, or have been divine- ly appointed. Now, we know that God cannot approve of unwarranted and presumptuous superstition ; if, there- fore, he can be shown to have received with approba- tion a species of sacrifice undiscoverable by the light of nature, or from the principles of reason, it follows that it must have been of his own institution.
The question of the existence of expiatory sacrifice
before the law, however, is more difficult, and is denied by Outram, Ernesti, Dodcrlin, Davison, and many oth- ers, who believe that it was revealed under the law, as well as by those who doubt its existence under the Mo- saical dispensation. The arguments already stated in favor of the divine institution of primitive sacrifice go equally to support the existence of piacular sacrifice, the idea of which seems more urgently to have required a divine intimation. Besides, expiatory sacrifice is found 10 have existed among all nations in conjunc- tion with eucharistic and impetratory sacrifices ; and it lies at the root of the principle on which human sac- rifices were offered among the ancient nations. The expiatory view of sacrifice is frequently produced by heathen writers : " Take heart for heart, fibre for fibre. This life we give you in the place of a better" (Ovid, Easfi, vi, 161). This being the case, it is difficult to believe but that the idea was derived, along with ani- mal sacrifice itself, from the practice of Noah, and pre- served among his various descendants. This argument, if valid, would show the primitive origin of piacular sacrifice. Now there can be no doubt that the idea of sacrifice which Noah transmitted to the postdiluvian world was the same that be had derived from his pious ancestors, and the same that was evinced by the sacri- fice of Abel, to which we are, by the course of the argu- ment, agaii> brought back. Now if that sacrifice was expiatory, we have reason to conclude that it was di- vinely commanded; and the supposition that it was both expiatory and divinely commanded makes the whole history far more clear and consistent than any other which has been or can be offered. It amounts, then, to this — that Cain, by bringing a eucharistic of- fering, when his brother brought one which was expia- torj', denied virtually that his sins deserved death, or that he needed the blood of atonement. Some go fur- ther, and allege that in the text itself God actually commanded Cain to offer a piacular sacrifice. (See this question discussed below.)