(9) I am the sacrifice, I am the worship, I am the oblation to the manes, and I am cereal. I am the hymn, I am the melted butter, I am the fire, and I am the offering.

(22) Like the earth or like a fetus I devour blood, If that 'Faithful Spirit' should shed my blood, At night I boil on the fire like a cooking-pot, It repents me that I planned a stratagem, Tell him to sate his wrath on my poor life, He is the 'Feast of Sacrifice,' and I his loving cow. The cow, whether it eats or sleeps, Know me to be that cow of Moses which gave its life, That cow of Moses was made a sacrifice, That murdered man leapt up from his deadness

(34) Mercy was shown to it previously to vengeance, Because flesh and skin grow not without tender care, How should they not grow when warmed by the Friend's love. If vengeance follows as a necessary consequence, That you may make an offering of that substance, Mercy follows again to compensate for it, I am Abraham, and you his son under the knife. Lay down your head! 'I have seen I must sacrifice you.' Yield your head to vengeance, your heart to constancy, That I may cut your throat like an Ismailian's.

(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."

(32) And on the fifteenth of this month, he brought to the altar fourteen oxen from amongst the cattle, and twenty-eight rams, and forty-nine sheep, and seven lambs, and twenty-one kids of the goats as a burnt- offering on the altar of sacrifice, well pleasing for a sweet savour before God.

(3) Therefore it was enjoined upon the Hebrews To offer still, though sometimes what was offered Might be commuted, as thou ought'st to know. The other, which is known to thee as matter, May well indeed be such that one errs not If it for other matter be exchanged. But let none shift the burden on his shoulder At his arbitrament, without the turning Both of the white and of the yellow key; And every permutation deem as foolish, If in the substitute the thing relinquished, As the four is in six, be not contained. Therefore whatever thing has so great weight In value that it drags down every balance, Cannot be satisfied with other spending. Let mortals never take a vow in jest; Be faithful and not blind in doing that, As Jephthah was in his first offering, Whom more beseemed to say, 'I have done wrong, Than to do worse by keeping; and as foolish Thou the great leader of the Greeks wilt find, Whence wept Iphigenia her fair face, And made for her both wise and simple weep, Who heard such kind of worship spoken of.'

(1) Your next inquiry is of greater consequence, and is concerning things of a greater nature. How, therefore, shall I be able, briefly and sufficiently, to give you an answer to a question which is extremely difficult, and requires a long explanation? Nevertheless I will answer it, and without failing in alacrity. I will also endeavour to follow what you have concisely indicated and tacitly signified. But I will unfold to you my dogma concerning sacrifices [which is as follows]. It is by no means requisite that sacrifices should be offered for the sake of honour alone, in the same manner as we honour benefactors; nor for the sake of returning thanks for the goods imparted to us by the Gods; nor yet for the sake of first fruits, or as a remuneration by certain gifts of more venerable goods bestowed on us by the Gods. For these things are also common to men, and are assumed from the common polity of mankind, but by no means preserve the transcendency of the Gods and the order of them as exempt causes.

(101) To make these, I say, pure and clean, And, to please God, have quenched those fires, So that the fire of lust, that erst breathed flame, Has become a holy garden and a guiding light, Since you have turned the fire of wrath to meekness, And the darkness of ignorance to shining knowledge, Since you have turned the fire of greed into bounty, And the vile thorns of malice into a rose-garden; Since you have quenched all these fires of your own For my sake, so that those poisons are now pure sweets;

(15) And he offered new offerings on the altar, the first-fruits of the produce, unto the Lord, an heifer and a goat and a sheep on the altar as a burnt sacrifice unto the Lord ; their fruit-offerings and their drink-offerings he offered upon the altar with frankincense.

(14) And he said unto him : ." Take Me an heifer of three years, and a goat of three years, and a sheep of three years, and a turtle-dove, and a pigeon."

(21) And eat no blood at all of animals or cattle, or of any bird which flieth in the heaven. y. And if thou dost slay a victim as an acceptable peace-offering, slay ye it, and pour out its blood upon the altar, and all the fat of the offering offer on the altar with fine flour (and the meat-offering) mingled with oil, with its drink- offering — offer them all together on the altar of burnt-offering ; it is a sweet savour before the Lord.

(21) For forty years meat and drink came from heaven, My staff became a mighty serpent in my hand, The staff became a snake, and my hand bright as the sun; Have not these incidents, and hundreds more like them, Banished these doubts from you, O cold-hearted one? The calf lowed through magic, And you bowed down to it, saying, 'Thou art my God.' The golden calf lowed; but what did it say, That the fools should feel all this devotion to it? You have seen many more wondrous works done by me,

(9) Yea, with these Yasnas of Your sacrifice would I approach You, praising back to You (in answer to Your mercies), O Ahura! and Thou, O Righteousness! in (the holy) actions of Your Good Mind, (as he moves within us), so long indeed as I shall have the power, commanding at my will o’er this my sacred (privilege) and gift. (And doing as) the wise man (thus), may I (like him) become a supplicant who gains his ends.

(10) (And since these champions thus join in that reward), then therefore will I place as well in Thy protection (Thy) Good Mind (in the living) and the spirits (of the dead. Yea, I confide our very) self-humbling praises, (which we offer, unto Thee), by which (Thine) Âramaiti (who is our Piety, exists), and likewise sacrificing zeal. And this would we do to further Thy great Sovereign Power (among Thy folk), and with undying (?) strength.

(2) Now wilt thou see, if thence thou reasonest, The high worth of a vow, if it he made So that when thou consentest God consents: For, closing between God and man the compact, A sacrifice is of this treasure made, Such as I say, and made by its own act. What can be rendered then as compensation? Think'st thou to make good use of what thou'st offered, With gains ill gotten thou wouldst do good deed. Now art thou certain of the greater point; But because Holy Church in this dispenses, Which seems against the truth which I have shown thee, Behoves thee still to sit awhile at table, Because the solid food which thou hast taken Requireth further aid for thy digestion. Open thy mind to that which I reveal, And fix it there within; for 'tis not knowledge, The having heard without retaining it. In the essence of this sacrifice two things Convene together; and the one is that Of which 'tis made, the other is the agreement. This last for evermore is cancelled not Unless complied with, and concerning this With such precision has above been spoken.