are offered in sacrifice unto idols (1 Cor. viii. 4); and as here. Rev., uniformly, things sacrificed to adols.
The eating of idol meats, which was no temptation to the Jewish Christian, was quite otherwise to the Gentile. The act of sacrifice, among all ancient nations, was a social no less than a religious act. Commonly only a part of the victim was con- sumed as an offering, and the rest became the portion of the priests, was given to the poor, or was sold again in the markets. Hence sacrifice and feast were identified. The word originally used for killing in sacrifice ($vew) obtained the general sense of killing (Acts x.18). Among the Greeks this identification was carried to the highest pitch. Thucydides enumerates sacrifices among popular entertainments. “ We have not forgotten,” he says, “to provide for our weary spirits many relaxations from toil. We have regular games and sacrifices throughout the year” (ii., 38). So Aristotle: “ And some fellowships seem to be for the sake of pleasure ; those of the followers of Love, and those of club-diners; for these are for the sake of sacrifice and social intercourse” (“ Ethics,” viii., 9, 5). Suetonius relates of Claudius, the Roman Emperor, that, on one occasion, while in the Forum of Augustus, smelling the odor of the banquet which was being prepared for the priests in the neighboring temple of Mars, he left the tribunal and placed himself at the table with the priests (“ Claudius,” 33). Also how Vitellius would snatch from the altar-fire the entrails of victims and the corn, and consume them (“ Vitellius,” 13). Thus, for the Gent- » ile, “refusal to partake of the idol-meats involved absence from public and private festivity, a withdrawal, in great part, from the social life of his time.” The subject is discussed by Paul in Rom. xiv. 2-21, and 1 Cor. viii. 1-xi. 1. The council of Jerusalem (Acts xv.) forbade the eating of meat offered to idols, not as esteeming it forbidden by the Mosaic law, but as becoming a possible occasion of sin to weak Christians. In his letter to the Corinthians, among whom the Jewish and more scrupulous party was the weaker, Paul, in arguing with the stronger and more independent party, never alludes to the de- cree of the Jerusalem council, but discusses the matter from the stand-point of the rights of conscience. While he admits