_THE TEMPLE SACRIFICES._
1 KINGS viii. 62-66, ix. 25.
"I have chosen this house to Myself for an house of
sacrifice."--2 Chron. vii. 12.
"Gifts and sacrifices, that cannot, as touching the conscience,
make the worshipper perfect, being only ... carnal ordinances,
imposed until a time of reformation."--Heb. ix. 9, 10.
The whole sacrificial system with which our thoughts of Judaism are
perhaps erroneously, and much too exclusively identified, furnishes
us with many problems.
Whether it was originally of Divine origin, or whether it was only an
instinctive expression, now of the gratitude, and now of the guilt
and fear, of the human heart, we are not told. Nor is the basal idea
on which it was founded ever explained to us. Were the ideas of
"atonement" or propitiation (_Kippurim_) really connected with those
of substitution and vicarious punishment? Or was the main conception
that of _self_-sacrifice, which was certainly most prominent in the
burnt offerings? Doubtless the views alike of priests and worshippers
were to a great extent indefinite. We are not told what led Cain and
Abel to present their sacrifices to God; nor did Moses--if he were its
founder--furnish any theories to explain the elaborate system laid
down in the Book of Leviticus. The large majority of the Jews probably
sacrificed simply because to do so had become a part of their religious
observances, and because in doing so they believed themselves to be
obeying a Divine command. Others, doubtless, had as many divergent
theories as Christians have when they attempt to explain the Atonement.
The "_substitution_" theory of the "sin offering" finds little or no
support from the Old Testament; not only is it never stated, but there
is not a single clear allusion to it. It is emphatically asserted by
later Jewish authorities, such as Rashi, Aben Ezra, Moses ben-Nachman,
and Maimonides, and is enshrined in the Jewish liturgy. Yet Dr.
Edersheim writes: "The common idea that the burning, either of part or
the whole of the sacrifice, pointed to its destruction, and symbolised
the wrath of God and the punishment due to sin, does not seem to accord
with the statements of Scripture."[329]
Sacrifices were of two kinds, bloody (_Zebach_; LXX., θυσία), or
unbloody (_minchah_, _korban_; LXX., δῶρον, προσφορά). The latter
were oblations. Such were the cakes of shewbread, the meal and drink
offerings, the first sheaf at Passover, the two loaves at Pentecost.
In almost every instance the _minchah_ accompanied the offering of a
sacrificial victim.
The two general rules about all victims for sacrifice were, (1)
that they should be without blemish and without spot, as types of
perfectness; and (2) that every sacrifice should be salted with salt,
as an antiseptic, and therefore a type of incorruption.[330]
Sacrificial victims could only be chosen from oxen, sheep, goats,
turtle doves, and young pigeons--the latter being the offering of the
poor who could not afford the costlier victims.
Sacrifices were also divided generally (1) into free, or obligatory;
(2) public, or private; and (3) most holy or less holy, of which the
latter were slain at the north and the former at the east side of
the altar.[331] The offerer, according to the Rabbis, had to do five
things--to lay on hands, slay, skin, dissect, and wash the inwards.
The priest had also to do five things at the altar itself--to catch
the blood, sprinkle it, light the fire, bring up the pieces, and
complete the sacrifices.
Sacrifices are chiefly dwelt upon in the Priestly Code; but nowhere
in the Old Testament is their significance formally explained, nor
for many centuries was the Levitic ritual much regarded.[332]
The sacrifices commanded in the Pentateuch fall under four heads. (1)
The burnt offering (_Olah_, _Kalil_),[333] which typified complete
self-dedication, and which even the heathen might offer; (2) the sin
offering (_Chattath_),[334] which made atonement for the offender; (3)
the trespass offering (_Ashâm_),[335] which atones for some special
offence, whether doubtful or certain, committed through ignorance; and
(4) the thank offering, eucharistic peace offering (_Shelem_),[336] or
"offering of completion," which followed the other sacrifices, and of
which the flesh was eaten by the priest and the worshippers.[337]
The oldest practice seems only to have known of burnt offerings and
thank offerings, and the former seem only to have been offered at
great sacrificial feasts. Even in Deuteronomy a common phrase for
sacrifices is "eating before the Lord," which is almost ignored
in the Priestly Code. Of the sin offering, which in that code has
acquired such enormous importance, there is scarcely a trace--unless
Hosea iv. 8 be one, which is doubtful--before Ezekiel, in whom the
_Ashâm_ and _Chattath_ occur in place of the old pecuniary fines (2
Kings xii. 16). Originally sacrifice was a glad meal, and even in the
oldest part of the code (Lev. xvii.-xxvi.) sacrifices are comprised
under the _Olam_ and _Zebach_. The turning-point of the history of
the sacrificial system is Josiah's reformation, of which the Priestly
Code is the matured result.[338]
It is easy to see that sacrifices in general were eucharistic,
dedicatory, and expiatory.
The eucharistic sacrifices (the meal and peace offerings) and the
burnt offerings, which indicated the entire sacrifice of self, were
the offerings of those who were in communion with God. They were
recognitions of His absolute supremacy. The sin and trespass offerings
were intended to recover a lost communion with God. And thus the
sacrifices were, or ultimately came to be, the expression of the great
ideas of thanksgiving, of self-dedication, and of propitiation. But
the Israelites, "while they seem always to have retained the idea
of propitiation and of eucharistic offering, constantly ignored the
self-dedication, which is the link between the two, and which the
regular burnt offering should have impressed upon them as their daily
thought and duty." Had they kept this in view they would have been
saved from the superstitions and degeneracies which made their use
of the sacrificial system a curse and not a blessing. The expiatory
conception, which was probably the latest of the three, expelled the
others, and was perverted into the notion that God was a God of wrath,
whose fury could be averted by gifts and His favour won by bribes.
There was this truth in the notion of propitiation--that God hates,
and is alienated by, and will punish, sin; and yet that in His mercy
He has provided an Atonement for us. But in trying to imagine _how
the sacrifice affected God_, the Israelites lost sight of the truth
that _this_ is an inexplicable mystery, and that all which we can know
is the effect which _it can produce on the souls of man_. If they had
interpreted the sacrifices as a whole to mean this only--that man is
guilty and that God is merciful; and that though man's guilt separates
him from God, reunion with Him can be gained by confession, penitence,
and self-sacrifice, by virtue of an Atonement which He had revealed
and would accept--then the effect of them would have been spiritually
wholesome and ennobling. But when they came to think that sacrifices
were presents to God, which might be put in the place of amendment and
moral obedience, and that the punishment due to their offences might be
thus mechanically diverted upon the heads of innocent victims, then the
sacrificial system was rendered not only nugatory but pernicious. Nor
have Christians been exempt from a similar corruption of the doctrine
of the Atonement. In treating it as vicarious and expiatory they have
forgotten that it is unavailing unless it be also representative. In
looking upon it as the atonement _for_ sin they have overlooked that
there can be no such atonement unless it be accompanied by redemption
_from_ sin. They have tacitly and practically acted on the notion,
which in the days of St. Paul some even avowed, that "we may continue
in sin that grace may abound." But in the great work of redemption
the will of man cannot be otiose. He must himself die with Christ. As
Christ was sacrificed for him he, too, must offer his body a living
sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God. "Without the sin offering of the
Cross," says Bishop Barry, "our burnt offering (of self-dedication)
would be impossible; so also without the burnt offering the sin
offering will, to us, be unavailing."[339]
Many of the crudities, and even horrors, which, alike in Jewish and
Christian times, have been mixed up with the idea of bloody sacrifices,
would have been removed if more attention had been paid to the
prominence and real significance of _blood_ in the entire ritual. As
taught by some revivalists the doctrine of the blood adds the most
revolting touches to theories which assimulate God to Moloch; but the
true significance of the phrase and of the symbol elevates the entire
doctrine of sacrifice into a purer and more spiritual atmosphere.
The central significance of the whole doctrine lies in the ancient
opinion that "the blood" of the sacrifice was "its life." This
was why an expiatory power was ascribed to the blood. There was
certainly no transfer of guilt to the animal, _for its blood remained
clean and cleansing_. Nor was the animal supposed to undergo the
transgressor's punishment; first, because this is nowhere stated, and
next, because had that been the case, fine flour would certainly not
have been permitted (as it was) as a sin offering.[340] Moreover,
no wilful offence, no offence "with uplifted hand," _i.e._, with
evil premeditation, _could_ be atoned for either by sin or trespass
offerings;--though certainly so wide a latitude was given to the notion
of sin as an _involuntary_ error as to tend to break down the notion
of moral responsibility. The sin offering was further offered for some
purely accidental and ceremonial offences, which could not involve
any real consciousness of guilt.[341] "The blood of the covenant"
(Exod. xxiv. 4-8) was not of the _sin_ offering, but of peace and
burnt offerings; and though, as Canon Cook says, we read of blood in
paganism as a propitiation to a hostile demon, "we seem to seek in vain
for an instance in which the blood, as a natural symbol for the soul,
was offered as an atoning sacrifice."[342] "The atoning virtue of the
blood lies not in its material substance, but in the life of which it
is the vehicle," says Bishop Westcott. "The blood always includes the
thought of the life preserved and active beyond death. It is not simply
the price by which the redeemed were purchased, but the power by which
they were quickened so as to be capable of belonging to God." "To drink
the blood of Christ," says Clement of Alexandria, "is to partake of the
Lord's incorruption."[343]
Besides the points to which we have alluded, there is a further
difficulty created by the singular silence _respecting sin offerings
of any kind_, except in that part of the Old Testament which has
recently acquired the name of the Priestly Code.[344]
The word _Chattath_, in the sense of sin offering, occurs in Exod.
xxix., xxx., and many times in Leviticus and Numbers, and six times
in Ezekiel. Otherwise in the Old Testament it is barely mentioned,
except in the post-exilic Books of Chronicles (2 Chron. xxix. 24) and
Ezra (viii. 25).[345] It is not mentioned in any other historic book;
nor in any prophet except Ezekiel. Again, as we have seen, the Day of
Atonement leaves not a trace in any of the earlier historic records
of Scripture, and is found only in the authorities above mentioned.
Through all the rest of Scripture the scape-goat is unmentioned, and
Azazel is ignored. Dr. Kalisch goes so far as to say that "there is
conclusive evidence to prove that the Day of Atonement was instituted
considerably more than a thousand years after the death of Moses and
Aaron.[346] For even in Ezekiel, who wrote B.C. 574, there is no Day
of Atonement on the tenth day of the seventh month, but on the first
and seventh of the first month (Abib, Nisan)." He thinks it utterly
impossible that, had it existed in his time, Ezekiel could have blotted
out the holiest day of the year, and substituted two of his own
arbitrary choice.[347] The rites, moreover, which he describes differ
wholly from those laid down in Leviticus. Even in Nehemiah there is
no notice of the Day of Atonement, though a day was observed on the
twenty-fourth of the month. Hence this learned writer infers that even
in B.C. 440 the Great Day of Atonement was not yet recognised, and that
the pagan element of sending the scape-goat to Azazel, the demon of the
wilderness, proves the late date of the ceremony.
It is interesting to observe how utterly the sacrificial priestly
system, in the abuses which not only became involved in it, but
seemed to be almost inseparable from it, is condemned by the loftier
spiritual intuition which belongs to phases of revelation higher than
the external and the typical.
Thus in the Old Testament no series of inspired utterances is more
interesting, more eloquent, more impassioned and ennobling, than
those which insist upon the utter nullity of all sacrifices in
themselves, and their absolute insignificance in comparison with the
lightest element of the moral law. On this subject the Prophets and
the Psalmists use language so sweeping and exceptionless as almost to
repudiate the desirability of sacrifices altogether. They speak of them
with a depreciation akin to scorn. It may be doubted whether they had
the Mosaic system with all its details, as we know it, before them.
They do not enter into those final elaborations which it assumed, and
not one of them so much as alludes to any service which resembles the
powerfully symbolic ceremonial of the Great Day of Atonement. But they
speak of the ceremonial law in such fragments and aspects of it as
were known to them. They deal with it as priests practised it, and as
priests taught--if they ever taught anything--respecting it. They speak
of it as it presented itself to the minds of the people around them,
with whom it had become rather a substitute for moral efforts and an
obstacle in the path of righteousness, than an aid to true religion.
And this is what they say:--
"Hath the Lord as great delight in sacrifice," asks the indignant
SAMUEL, "as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is
better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams."[348]
"I hate, I despise your feasts," says Jehovah by Amos, "and I will
take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Yea, though ye offer Me
your burnt offerings and meal offerings, I will not accept them:
neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts. Turn
thou away from Me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the
melody of thy viols. But let judgment roll down as waters, and
righteousness as a mighty stream."[349]
"Wherewith shall I come before the Lord," asks MICAH, "and bow
myself before the most high God? Shall I come before Him with burnt
offerings, with calves of a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with
thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I
give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the
sin of my soul? He hath showed thee, O man, what is good: and what
doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy,
and to walk humbly with thy God?"[350]
HOSEA again in a message of Jehovah, twice quoted on different
occasions by our Lord, says: "I desire mercy and not sacrifice, and
the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings."[351]
ISAIAH also, in the word of the Lord, gives burning expression
to the same conviction: "To what purpose is the multitude of your
sacrifices unto Me? saith the Lord: I am full of the burnt offerings
of lambs, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood
of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he-goats. When ye come to appear
before Me, who hath required this at your hands, to trample My
courts? Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination
unto Me; new moon and sabbath, the calling of assemblies,--I cannot
away with iniquity and the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your
appointed feasts My soul hateth: they are a cumbrance unto Me; I am
weary to bear them.... Wash you, make you clean!"[352]
The language of JEREMIAH'S message is even more startling: "_I
spake not unto your fathers_, nor commanded them in the day that I
brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or
sacrifices: but this thing I commanded them, saying, Obey My voice."
And again--in the version of the LXX., given in the margin of the
Revised Version for the unintelligible rendering of the Authorised
Version--he asks: "Why hath the beloved wrought abomination in My
house? Shall vows and holy flesh take away from thee thy wickedness,
or shalt thou escape by these?"[353]
Jeremiah is, in fact, the most anti-ritualistic of the prophets. So
far from having hid and saved the Ark, he regarded it as entirely
obsolete (iii. 16). He cares only for the spiritual covenant written
on the heart, and very little, if at all, for Temple services and
Levitic scrupulosities (vii. 4-15, xxxi. 31-34).[354]
THE PSALMISTS are no less clear and emphatic in putting sacrifices
nowhere in comparison with righteousness:--
"I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices;
Nor for thy burnt offerings which are continually before Me.
I will take no bullock out of thine house,
Nor he-goats out of thy folds.
* * * * *
Will I eat the flesh of bulls,
Or drink the blood of goats?
Offer unto God thanksgiving;
And pay thy vows unto the Most High."[355]
And again:--
"For Thou desirest not sacrifice, else would I give it Thee:
Thou delightest not in burnt offering.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit:
A broken and contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not
despise."[356]
And again:--
"Sacrifice and offering Thou hast no delight in;
Mine ears hast thou opened:
Burnt offering and sin offering hast Thou not required."[357]
And again:--
"To do justice and judgment
Is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice."[358]
And again:--
"I will praise the name of God with a song,
And magnify it with thanksgiving.
This also shall please the Lord
Rather than a bullock that hath horns and hoofs."[359]
Surely the most careless and conventional reader cannot fail to
see that there is a wide difference between the standpoint of the
prophets, which is so purely spiritual, and that of the writers and
redactors of the Priestly Code, whose whole interest centred in the
sacrificial and ceremonial observances.
Nor is the intrinsic nullity of the sacrificial system less
distinctly pointed out in the New Testament. The better-instructed
Jews, enlightened by Christ's teaching, could give emphatic testimony
to the immeasurable superiority of the moral to the ceremonial. The
candid scribe, hearing from Christ's lips the two great commandments,
answers, "Of a truth, Master, Thou hast well said that He is one; and
there is none other but He: and to love Him with all the heart, ...
and to love his neighbour as himself, is much more than all whole
burnt offerings and sacrifices."[360]
And our Lord quoted Hosea with the emphatic commendation, "Go ye and
learn what that meaneth, I desire mercy, and not sacrifice."[361]
And on another occasion: "But if ye had known what this meaneth, I
desire mercy, and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the
guiltless."[362]
The presenting of our bodies, says St. Paul, as a living sacrifice
is our reasonable service; and St. Peter calls all Christians a holy
priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifice.[363]
"It is impossible," says the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews,
"that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins;" and he
speaks of the priests "daily offering the same sacrifice, the which
can never take away sins."[364]
And again:--
"To do good and to distribute forget not: for with _such_ sacrifices
God is well pleased."[365]
The wisest fathers of Jewish thought in the post-exilic epoch held
the same views. Thus the son of Sirach says: "He that keepeth the law
bringeth offerings enough."[366] And Philo, echoing an opinion common
among the best heathen moralists from Socrates to Marcus Aurelius,[367]
writes, "The mind, when without blemish, is itself the most holy
sacrifice, being entirely and in all respects pleasing to God."[368]
And what is very remarkable, modern Judaism now emphasises its belief
that "neither sacrifices nor a Levitical system belong to the essence
of the Old Testament."[369] Such was the view of the ancient Essenes,
no less than of Maimonides or Abarbanel. Modern Rabbis even go so far
as to argue that the whole system of Levitical sacrifice was an alien
element, introduced into Judaism from without, tolerated indeed by
Moses, but only as a concession to the immaturity of his people and
their hardness of heart.[370]
Such, too, was the opinion of the ancient Fathers,--of the author of
the Epistle of Barnabas, of Justin Martyr, Origen, Tertullian, Jerome,
Chrysostom, Epiphanius, Cyril, and Theodoret, who are followed by such
Roman Catholic theologians as Petavius and Bellarmine.[371]
This at any rate is certain:--that the Judaic system is not only
abrogated, but rendered impossible. Whatever were its functions, God
has stamped with absolute disapproval any attempt to continue them.
They are utterly annulled and obliterated for ever.
"I am come to repeal the sacrifices." Such is the ἄγραφον δόγμα
ascribed to Christ; "and unless ye desist from sacrificing, the
wrath of God will not desist from you."[372] The argument of St.
Paul in the Epistles to the Romans and Galatians, and of the writer
of the Epistle to the Hebrews, show us why this was inevitable; and
they were but following the initiative of Christ and the teaching
of His Spirit. It is a mistake to imagine that our Lord merely
repudiated the inane pettinesses of Pharisaic formalism. He went
much further. There is not the slightest trace that He personally
observed the requirements of the ceremonial law. It is certain that
He broke them when He touched the leper and the dead youth's bier.
The law insisted on the centralisation of worship, but Jesus said,
"The day cometh, and now is, when neither in Jerusalem, nor yet in
this mountain, shall men worship the Father. God is a Spirit, and
they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth." The
law insisted, with extreme emphasis, on the burdensome distinctions
between clean and unclean meats. Jesus said that it is not that
which cometh from without, but that which cometh from within which
defileth a man, and this He said "_making all meats clean_."[373]
St. Paul, when the types of Mosaism had been for ever fulfilled in
Christ, and the antitype had thus become obsolete and pernicious,
went further still. Taking circumcision, the most ancient and most
distinctive rite of the Old Dispensation, he called it "concision"
or mere mutilation, and said thrice over, "Circumcision is nothing,
and uncircumcision is nothing, but 'a new creature'"; "but faith
working by love," "but the keeping of the commandment of God." The
whole system of Judaism was local, was external, was minute, was
inferior, was transient, was a concession to infirmity, was a yoke of
bondage: the whole system of Christianity is universal, is spiritual,
is simple, is unsacrificial, is unsacerdotal, is perfect freedom.
Judaism was a religion of a temple, of sacrifices, of a sacrificial
priesthood: Christianity is a religion in which the Spirit of God
"Doth prefer
Before all temples the upright heart and pure."
It is a religion in which there is no more sacrifice for sin, because
the one perfect and sufficient sacrifice, oblation and satisfaction,
has been consummated for ever. It is a religion in which there is no
altar but the Cross; in which there is no priest but Christ, except
so far as _every_ Christian is by metaphor a priest to offer up
spiritual sacrifices which alone are acceptable to God.
* * * * *
The Temple of Solomon lasted only four centuries, and they were for
the most part years of dishonour, disgrace, and decadence.[374]
Solomon was scarcely in his grave before it was plundered by Shishak.
During its four centuries of existence it was again stripped of
its precious possessions at least six times, sometimes by foreign
oppressors, sometimes by distressed kings. It was despoiled of its
treasure by Asa, by Jehoash of Judah, by Jehoash of Israel, by Ahaz,
by Hezekiah, and lastly by Nebuchadnezzar. After such plunderings it
must have completely lost its pristine splendour. But the plunder of
its treasures was nothing to the pollutions of its sanctity. They
began as early as the reigns of Rehoboam and Abijah. Ahaz gave it a
Syrian altar, Manasseh stained it with impurities, and Ezekiel in its
secret chambers surveyed "the dark idolatries of alienated Judah."
And in the days when Judaism most prized itself on ritual faithfulness,
the Lord of the Temple was insulted in the Temple of the Lord, and its
courts were turned by greedy priests and Sadducees into a cowshed, and
a dovecot, and a fair, and a usurer's mart, and a robber's den.
From the first the centralisation of worship in the Temple must
have been accompanied by the danger of dissociating religious life
from its daily social environments. The multitudes who lived in
remote country places would no longer be able to join in forms of
worship which had been carried on at local shrines. Judaism, as the
prophets so often complain, tended to become too much a matter of
officialism and function, of rubric and technique, which always tend
to substitute external service for true devotion, and to leave the
shell of religion without its soul.[375]
Even when it had been purified by Josiah's reformation, the Temple
proved to be a source of danger and false security. It was regarded as
a sort of Palladium. The formalists began to talk and act as though it
furnished a mechanical protection, and gave them licence to transgress
the moral law. Jeremiah had sternly to warn his countrymen against this
trust in an idle formalism. "Amend your ways and your doings," he said.
"Behold, ye trust in lying words which cannot profit. Will ye steal,
murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense unto
Baal, and walk after other gods whom ye have not known, and come and
stand before Me in this house, which is called by My name, and say, We
are delivered; that ye may do all these abominations?"
The Temple of Solomon was defaced and destroyed and polluted by
the Babylonians, but not until it had been polluted by the Jews
themselves with the blood of prophets, by idolatries, by chambers of
unclean imagery. It was rebuilt by a poor band of disheartened exiles
to be again polluted by Antiochus Epiphanes, and ultimately to become
the headquarters of a narrow, arrogant, and intriguing Pharisaism.
It was rebuilt once more by Herod, the brutal Idumean usurper, and
its splendour inspired such passionate enthusiasm that when it was
wrapped in flames by Titus, it witnessed the carnage of thousands of
maddened and despairing combatants.
"As 'mid the cedar courts and gates of gold
The trampled ranks in miry carnage rolled
To save their Temple every hand essayed,
And with cold fingers grasp'd the feeble blade;
Through their torn veins reviving fury ran
And life's last anger warm'd the dying man."
Yet that last Temple had been defiled by a worse crime than the other
two. It had witnessed the priestly idols and the priestly machinations
which ended in the murder of the Son of God. From the Temple sprang
little or nothing of spiritual importance. Intended to teach the
supremacy of righteousness, it became the stronghold of mere ritual.
For the development of true holiness, as apart from ceremonial
scrupulosity, its official protectors rendered it valueless.
We are not surprised that Christianity knows no temple but the hearts
of all who love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity and truth; and
that the characteristic of the New Jerusalem, which descends out of
heaven like a bride adorned for her husband, is:--
"And I saw no temple therein."[376]
Abundantly was the menace fulfilled in which Jehovah warned Solomon
after the Feast of Dedication that if Israel swerved into immorality
and idolatry, that house should be an awful warning--that its
blessing should be exchanged into a curse, and that every one who
passed by it should be astonished and should hiss.[377]
FOOTNOTES:
[329] He refers to Wünsche, _Die Leiden des Messias_.
[330] Mark ix. 49.
[331] Lev. vi. 17, vii. 1, xiv. 13. On this whole subject see
Edersheim, pp. 79-111.
[332] See Judg. vi. 19-21; 1 Sam. ii. 13, xiv. 35; 1 Kings xix. 21; 2
Kings v. 17.
[333] LXX., ὁλοκαύτωμα.
[334] LXX., περὶ ἁμαρτίας. _Chattath_ and _Ashâm_ both imply guilt,
debt, sin. "The trespass offering affected rights of property, but no
precise definition of the two kinds of expiatory offerings can be based
upon the statements made in the Pentateuch in respect to them. Perhaps
they cannot all be referred to the same time and to one author; for
they prescribe both sin and trespass offerings in cases of Levitical
impurity, and also for moral offences. All Levites attempting to
establish palpable distinctions between them must inevitably fail."
(Kalisch, _Leviticus_, part ii., p. 272). The general scheme of
sacrifices, as they now stand in the Pentateuch, is as follows:--
Sacrifice (_Zebach_, _Minchah_).
|
+----------------+----------------+-------------+
| | | |
Burnt offering. Peace offering. Expiatory Offering of
| offering. Purification.
| | |
| | +-----+--+----------+
| | | | |
| | Child Leprosy. Issue.
| | birth.
| +----+----------+------------+
| | | |
| Sin offering Trespass Offering
| (_Chattath_). offering Jealousy.
| (_Ashâm_).
|
+--------+---------+-+--------+--------------+
| | | | |
Thank Praise. Paschal Firstborn Firstfruits.
offerings. Lamb. of animals.
[335] LXX., πλημμελεία.
[336] LXX., θυσία σωτηρίον.
[337] The phrase "wave offering" indicates the ceremony used by the
priests in presenting peace offerings to God.
[338] For the full development of these views, see Wellhausen's
_Prolegomena_.
[339] See Bishop Barry's article on Sacrifice in Smith's _Dictionary
of the Bible_, to which, in this paragraph, I am much indebted.
[340] Lev. v. 11-13.
[341] See Kuenen, _Rel. of Israel_, ii. pp. 259-76.
[342] _Speaker's Commentary_, Leviticus, p. 508. In Lev. xvii. 11--"For
the soul of the flesh is in the blood, and _I have ordained it for you
upon the altar_ to make atonement for your souls; for the blood it is
which makes atonement by means of the soul"--Kurtz points out that the
blood is simply _chosen as a symbol_, and the superstition that there
is any atoning virtue in the blood itself is excluded.
[343] _Pæd._, ii. 2, § 19.
[344] The Priestly Code is that part of the Pentateuch which is
occupied with public worship and the function of priests--viz., most
of Leviticus; Exod. xxv.-xl.; Numb. i.-x., xv.-xx., xxv.-xxxvi. (with
inconsiderable exceptions)
[345] In Psalm xl. 6, "Sin offering hast Thou not required." The
Psalm is perhaps of the age of Jeremiah.
[346] He argues that even in Chronicles it is not mentioned; and that
there was no curtain (_Parocheth_) before the Holiest in Solomon's
Temple (1 Kings vi. 31, 32. Comp. Ezek. xli. 23, 24; 1 Kings viii. 8).
He considers that 2 Chron. iii. 14 (the only place in the Old Testament
where _Parocheth_ occurs except in the P.C.) cannot overthrow 1 Kings
vi. 21, which speaks only of chains of gold between the Holy and the
Holiest. (There was a curtain in Herod's Temple, Matt. xxvii. 51; Heb.
ix. 3). But if there was no _Parocheth_ in Solomon's Temple, the rule
of Lev. xvi. 2, 12, 15 could not have been observed.
[347] This caused immense perplexity to the Rabbis. _Shabbath_, xiii.
2; _Chagigah_, xiii. 1; _Menachoth_, xlv. 1.
[348] 1 Sam. xv. 22.
[349] Amos v. 21-23.
[350] Micah vi. 6-8. Some suppose that the words are attributed to
Balaam (see verse 5).
[351] Hosea vi. 6.
[352] Isa. i. 11-16.
[353] Jer. vii. 22, xi. 15.
[354] Jer. xxxiii. 14-26 seems to speak in a different tone, but is
probably an interpolation. It is not found in the LXX.
[355] Psalm l. 8-14.
[356] Psalm li. 16, 17. It is difficult to believe that the two last
verses of the Psalm are not a later addition.
[357] Psalm xl. 6.
[358] Prov. xxi. 3.
[359] Psalm lxix. 30, 31.
[360] Mark xii. 32, 33. So in the Talmud: "Acts of justice are more
meritorious than all sacrifices" (_Succoth._, lxix. 2).
[361] Matt. ix. 13.
[362] Matt. xii. 7.
[363] Rom. xii. 1; 1 Peter ii. 5.
[364] Heb. x. 4, 11.
[365] Heb. xiii. 16.
[366] Ecclus. xxxv. 1-15.
[367] Comp. Ov., _Trist._, ii. 1, 75; Ep. xx. 81; Persius, ii. 45;
Varro, _ap._ Arnob., _c. Natt._, vii. 1. "Dii veri neque desiderant
ea, neque deposcunt."
[368] Philo, _De Victimis_, 5.
[369] A. Geiger, _Judenthum und seine Geschichte_, Sect. 5.
[370] Vajikra R., 22 and 34 _b_. They got over Jer. xxxiii. 18 (in
Yalkuth, on the passage) by saying, "He that doeth repentance it is
counted to him as if he offered all the sacrifices of the land." They
held that the place of sacrifices was taken by prayer, penitence, and
good works. See Edersheim, _Jesus the Messiah_, i. 275.
[371] See Spencer, _De Legg. Ritual._, iii.; _Dissert._, ii., chap. 1.
[372] Evang. Ebion, _ap._ Epiph., _Hær._, xxx. 16.
[373] Mark vii. 19.
[374] It was twice repaired--about B.C. 856 in the reign of Joash,
and about two centuries later under Josiah.
[375] See Isa. xxix. 13, 14; Ezek. xxxiii. 31; Matt. xv. 7-9; Col. i.
20-22, etc. Comp. Wellhausen, pp. 77-79.
[376] Rev. xxi. 22.
[377] 1 Kings ix. 6-9. The phrase "at this house which is high" is
uncertain. The Vulgate has "domus hæc erit in exemplum"; the Peshito
and Arabic have "and this house shall be destroyed."