ABSTRACT
All sacrifices laid upon the altar were taken by the ancients as being literally the food of the gods. In English idiom there is a tendency to narrow the word sacrifice to such oblations as involve the slaughter of a victim. In the Authorised Version of the Bible "sacrifice and offering" is the usual translation of the Hebrew zeba? uminha, that is, "bloody and bloodless oblations." Why sacrifice is the typical form of all complete acts of worship in the antique religions, and what the sacrificial act means, is an involved and difficult problem. The problem does not belong to any one religion, for sacrifice is equally important among all early peoples in all parts of the world where religious ritual has reached any considerable development. The some distinctions, which are undoubtedly ancient, and applicable to the sacrifices of other Semitic nations, suggest some heads under which a preliminary survey of the subject may be conveniently arranged.
