reader any sense of the lucidity or of the argumentative force of the original.
Robertson Smith shows that sacrifice at the altar was the essential part of the rite of old religions. It plays the same role in all religions, so that its origin must be traced back to very general causes whose effects were everywhere the same.
But the sacrifice—the holy action κατέζογη (sacrificium ίερουργία)—originally meant something different from what later times understood by it: the offering to the deity in order to reconcile him or to incline him to be favorable. The profane use of the word was afterwards derived from the secondary sense of self-denial. As is demonstrated the first sacrifice was nothing else than “an act of social fellowship between the deity and his worshipers.”
Things to eat and drink were brought as sacrifice; man offered to his god the same things on which he himself lived, flesh, cereals, fruits, wine and oil. Only in regard to the sacrificial flesh did there exist restrictions and exceptions. The god partakes of the animal sacrifices with his worshipers while the vegetable sacrifices are left to him alone. There is no doubt that animal sacrifices are older and at one time were the only forms of sacrifice. The vegetable sacrifices resulted from the offering of the first-fruits and
