At the same time,
however, it is true that in the case of the bloody offerings a new
motive ultimately came to be associated with the original idea of
the gift. The life of which the blood was regarded as the
substance (2Samuel xxiii.17) had for the ancient Semites something
mysterious and divine about it; they felt a certain religious
scruple about destroying it. With them flesh was an uncommon
luxury, and they ate it with quite different feelings from those
with which they partook of fruits or of milk. Thus the act of
killing was not so indifferent or merely preparatory a step as
for example the cleansing and preparing of corn; on the contrary,
the pouring out of blood was ventured upon only in such a way as
to give it back to the Deity, the source of life. In this way, not
by any means every meal indeed, but every slaughtering, came to
be a sacrifice. What was primarily aimed at in it was a mere
restoration of His own to the Deity, but there readily resulted a
combination with the idea of sacrifice, whereby the latter was
itself modified in a peculiar manner. The atoning efficacy of the
gift began to be ascribed mainly to the blood and to the
vicarious value of the life taken away.
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