(3) "When to the gods you sacrifice, Selecting what our portion is, 'Tis shame to tell, do ye not take, And both the thighs, clean to the groins, The loins quite bare, the backbone, too, Clean scrape as with a file, Them swallow, and the remnant give To us as if to dogs? And then, As if of one another 'shamed, With heaps of salted barley hide."

(11) I have made sacrifices for thee of thy cattle and thy victims

(2) When the fire is lighted and the flame flickers, let a man offer his oblations between the two portions of melted butter, as an offering with faith.

(2) For such of the sacrifices as part the hoof, and ruminate, the Scripture represents as clean and acceptable to God; since the just obtain access to the Father and to the Son by faith. For this is the stability of those who part the hoof, those who study the oracles of God night and day, and ruminate them in the soul's receptacle for instructions; which gnostic exercise the Law expresses under the figure of the rumination of the clean animal. But such as have neither the one nor the other of those qualities it separates as unclean.

(21) Wherefore we ought to offer to God sacrifices not costly, but such as He loves. And that compounded incense which is mentioned in the Law, is that which consists of many tongues and voices in prayer, or rather of different nations and natures, prepared by the gift vouchsafed in the dispensation for "the unity of the faith," and brought together in praises, with a pure mind, and just and right conduct, from holy works and righteous prayer. For in the elegant language of poetry,- "Who is so great a fool, and among men So very easy of belief, as thinks The gods, with fraud of fleshless bones and bile All burnt, not fit for hungry dogs to eat, Delighted are, and take this as their prize, And favour show to those who treat them thus," though they happen to be tyrants and robbers?

(5) And Menander writes: "The end of the loin, The bile, the bones uneatable, they set Before the gods; the rest themselves consume." For is not the savour of the holocausts avoided by the beasts? And if in reality the savour is the guerdon of the gods of the Greeks, should they not first deify the cooks, who are dignified with equal happiness, and worship the chimney itself, which is closer still to the much-prized savour?

(7) For a whole burnt-offering and rare sacrifice for us is Christ. And that unwittingly he mentions the Saviour, he will make plain, as he adds: - " For thou who, 'midst the heavenly gods, Jove's sceptre sway'st, dost also share The rule of those on earth."

(3) And unto Thee, O Ahura! will we offer the (thankful) meat-offering with self-humbling praise, and to Thy Righteousness (like Thee a person), and for all the settlements in Thy kingdom which are guarded by Thy Good Mind. For in the perfect preparation of the justly acting (has that offering its power), O Mazda! together with all (others of its kind). Among those like You and worthy of Yourselves, it is a blessing .

(10) I have made there for thee sacrifices of thy adversaries

(26) that a candidate, when first entering the precincts of sanctuary, must offer upon the brazen altar not a poor unoffending bull or ram but its correspondence within his own nature. The bull, being symbolic of earthiness, represented his own gross constitution which must be burned up by the fire of his Divinity. (The sacrificing of beasts, and in some cases human beings, upon the altars of the pagans was the result of their ignorance concerning the fundamental principle underlying sacrifice. They did not realize that their offerings must come from within their own natures in order to be acceptable.)

(18) O thou raised one, thou makest offerings on the altar, and thou washest thy feet upon the stone of ..., the banks of the divine lake; thou comest forth and thou seest Rā upon the four pillars which are the arms of the sky; on the head of Anmutef, and on the arms of Apuat who opens for thee the path; thou seest the horizon where are all the sacred things which thou desirest

(4) And Eubulus, also a comic poet, thus writes respecting sacrifices: "But to the gods the tail alone And thigh, as if to paederasts you sacrifice." And introducing Dionysus in Semele, he represents him disputing: "First if they offer aught to me, there are Who offer blood, the bladder, not the heart Or caul. For I no flesh do ever eat That's sweeter than the thigh."

(13) Let me seize that Thigh which is under the place of Osiris, with which I may open the mouth of the gods and sit by him, like Thoth the Scribe, sound of heart, with thousands of loaves, beer, beef, and fowl upon the table of my father, and the flesh of oxen and birds of various kinds, which I offer to Horus, which I present to Thoth, and which I sacrifice to the Lord of Heaven

(10) Thy throat is like Anubis, thy limbs are necklaces made of gold; thy breasts are two eggs of crystal which Horus has painted blue, thy forearms are adorned with topaz, thy shoulders are well established on their base; thy heart is happy every day, thy whole heart is the work of the two divine Powers, thy body worships the stars of the gods above and below; for thy belly is like a calm sky, and thy bowels are the Tuat which nobody can fathom, and which sends out light in the dark night; its offerings are eatable plants

(15) Thou puttest on the pure garment and thou divestest thy apron when thou stretchest thyself on the funereal bed; haunches are cut for thy ka , and a heart is offered unto thy mummy. Thou receivest a bandage of the finest linen from the hands of the attendant of Rā; thou eatest on thy resting couch bread which has been baked by the fire goddess herself; thou eatest the haunch, thou seizest the meat which has been prepared by Rā in his holy place; thou washest thy feet in silver basins made by the skilful artist Sokaris; thou eatest bread placed on the altar, and prepared by the holy fathers, thou livest upon baked cakes and hot drinks from the store-house; thou inhalest the smell of flowers; thy heart is not reluctant at the sight of offerings; thy ministrants make for thee the loaves and the cakes of the Powers of Heliopolis; and they themselves bring thee the sacred things; thy offerings have been chosen for thee; and thy ordinances are in the gates of the Great Dwelling; thou risest like Sahu and thou arrivest like the morning star; Nut stretches forth her arms towards thee; Sahu, the son of Rā, and Nut, the mother of the gods, the two great gods of the sky, they speak one to another saying: Take him in thy arms; I have brought in my arms the form of N. in the happy day when he is glorified, when his memory is recorded, when he is in the mouth of all generations