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the Jews had burnt offerings sacrificed for them, and when, on the outbreak of the war with Rome, Eleazar forbade any sacrifice to be accepted from a non-Jew, his prohibition marked an open breach with Roman sovereignty (Josephus, War, II., xvii. 2).

The second Israelitic form of animal sacrifice was the peace offering and communal meal. Regular family feasts were held on such occasions as new moons or annually (I Sam. xx. 5-6), and while these were primarily social, the code of Lev. vii. 11 sqq. recognizes a number of forms of communal meal with a distinctly religious basis: thanksgivings, vows, and freewill offerings, all comprised under the general terms of " peace offerings " or " sacrifices " (in the restricted sense of the term). Of these the first was the most important, probably serving as a thanksgiving for some special boon; the second was offered in accordance with a vow made if some specific prayer was granted; and the third seems to have been a spontaneous impulse of piety. In the lastnamed the strictness of the rule as to the physical perfection of the sacrificial victim was somewhat relaxed (Lev. xxii. 23); and while male victims were preferred for the communal meal (Lev. ix. 4, 18; Num. vii. 17 sqq.), female animals were not excluded (Lev. iii. 6). The communal sacrifices also included offerings of food and drink, especially in the thanksgiving offerings (Lev. vii. 12; Num. xv. 3 sqq.).

In sacrifices of this type the victim was not slaughtered on the north side of the altar, as in the burnt offering, but the chief difference between the two categories was that in the communal sacrifice the fat covering the intestines, kidneys, liver, etc. (and, in the case of sheep, the tail), alone were burned as being the choicest parts, and so most acceptable to Yahweh (Lev. iii. 3-5, 9-11, 14-16, ix. 19-20). The breast of the victim was devoted to the " wave offering " (Lev. vii. 30), in which the priest placed the object to be waved upon the hands of the sacrificer, then put his own hands under the hands of the one who brought the offering, and moved them backward and forward, thus apparently indicating the reciprocity of giving and accepting between the sacrificer and the divinity. The upper part of the right hind leg (A. V., " shoulder ") was made a " heave offering," a term originally connoting, no doubt, some sort of dedicatory gesture (Lev. vii. 32). The heave offering and the wave offering were the share of the priests, who might eat them with their families at any place ritually clean (Lev. x. 14), the priests also receiving one cake of each oblation (Lev. vii. 14) and the two lambs of the Passover peace offering (Lev. xxiii. 19-20). As a rule, however, the sacrificers ate the offering at a sacred meal celebrated by larger or smaller numbers (cf. Deut. xxvii. 7; I Kings viii. 63). To these communal meals guests, especially Levites and the poor, were also invited (Deut. xvi. 11), although only those who were ritually pure might partake (Lev. vii. 19-21). Such communal meals were essentially joyous in character. Whatever remained must be preserved from defilement. The sacrifice of thanksgiving must be eaten on the day it was offered (Lev. vii. 15; xxii. 30); all other communal meals must be consumed at latest on the

second day; and on the third day all fragments remaining must be burned (Lev. vii. 16 sqq., xix. A sqq.), as must all sacrificial meat coming in contact with anything unclean (Lev. vii. 19).

Among special sacrifices the most important were the sin and the guilt (A. V.," trespass ") offerings, the former primarily an expiation for some ethical fault, the latter a satisfaction for the reparation of some injury. The guilt offering was especially required in

case of defrauding or materially injuring 5. Sin and the temple or private individuals. In

Offerings. tion should be made in full, with a fine of one-fifth of the amount and a ram as the guilt offering (Lev. v. 14-16); and a similar punishment was imposed on one who had defrauded or otherwise financially injured his fellow (Lev. vi. 1-7), Num. v. 5-10 also requiring public confession on the part of the defendant and stipulating that the fine should go to the priest if the man injured should " have no kinsman to recompense the trespass unto " (Num. v. 5-10). Other forms of infringement of the rights of fellow Israelites were also to be atoned for by guilt offerings (Lev. xix. 20-22), while a leper and an unclean Nazirite, as having their capacity to worship Yahweh temporarily interrupted, were likewise obliged to offer guilt offerings (Lev. xiv. 11 sqq.; Num. vi. 12). In similar fashion Ezra required a ram as a guilt offering from those who had trespassed against Yahweh by marrying gentile wives (Ezra x. 18-19); and Lev. v. 17-19 also makes provision for a guilt offering in case of unwitting transgression of the law. The ritual of the guilt offering is given in Lev. vii. 1-7. The victim is a ram, except in the case of the leper and the Nazirite, when it is a yearling lamb (Num. vi. 12) ; and the laying on of hands was observed (cf. Lev. iv. 33 with vii. 7), probably with open acknowledgment of the transgression for which the sacrifice was made. Throughout the ceremony the form of the sacrifice was stressed as a debt to Yahweh and his representatives.

The underlying concept of the sin offering, on the other hand, is not so much that of paying a debt as of cleansing the sacrificer from sin, so that the chief factor is the use of the blood of the sacrificial victim. The sacrifices here are far more varied than in the guilt offering, depending both on the circumstances of the sacrificer and on his particular fault. The victim in the case of very grave sins was a young bullock, which was offered on the Day of Atonement, in case the high priest sinned in his official capacity of representative of the people, in the event of a sin committed by the people as a whole, and at the consecration of priests and Levites (Lev. xvi. 3 sqq., iv. 3 sqq., 13 sqq.; Ex. xxix. 10-14, 36; Num. vii. 8). A ram was sacrificed for the people on the Day of Atonement (Lev. xvi. 5), as well as at other feasts and new moons (e.g., Num. xxviii. 15, 22, 30, xxix. 5), and in case of unwitting sin on the part of a ruler or of the entire people (Lev. iv. 23; Num. xv. 24). A she-goat or young ewe was sufficient atonement for the sin of an ordinary Israelite (Lev. iv. 28, 32, v. 6); while a yearling ewe was required as a sin offering in cleansing a leper (Lev. xiv. 10) and at the comple-