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CHAPTER XXII.

That Piacular Victims, by a Vicarious Punishment, expiated those Sins on Account of which they were sacrificed, shown to have been the Opinion of the ancient Christians and Jews, as well as of the Heathens.

HAVING proved that the piacular victims by a vicarious punishment expiated the sins on account of which they were offered, and shown that no sufficient arguments can be alleged for a contrary opinion; we proceed to confirm what we have advanced by the concordant testimonies of the Christian fathers, and most learned Jewish doctors; to which we shall also add the suffrages of the Heathens.

We begin with the Christian fathers. They certainly thought, not only that the sins of the offerers were laid upon the victims, but also that the lives of the victims were given for those of the offerers. The former appears to have been the opinion of Origen, who from the imposition of hands practised upon the victims infers that the sins of men were laid upon Christ. His words are:* 'He laid his hands upon the head of the calf, that is, he laid the sins ' of mankind upon his own head: for he is the head. ' of the body the church.' Cyril of Alexandria† represents the same rite as indicating that Christ bore our sins, that is the punishment of them. But on this point Theodoret is still more explicit : On the head of the victim the offerer laid his hands, as it 'were his actions; for hands are significant of ac'tions; and for these he offered the sacrifice.'

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II. But the Christian fathers believed also that the Homil. ad Levit. i. + De Adorat. L. xi. Quæst. 1. ad Levit.

lives of the victims were sacrificed instead of the lives of the offerers. Thus the author last quoted :* "The priests laid their hands, not upon all victims, 'but upon those which were offered for themselves, ' and especially their sin offerings; but upon others 'the offerers themselves laid their hands. This was a symbol of the substitution of the victim in the C room of the offerer for whom it was slain.' Thus the same writer in another place: As thou, says he, ' hast an immortal soul, so an irrational animal has 'the blood for a soul: wherefore he commands the 'animal's soul or life, that is, the blood, to be offered ' instead of thy immortal and rational soul.'

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Similar passages are found in Eusebius of Cæsarea: An attentive observer may learn this very thing also from the law respecting sacrifices; which enjoins every one who offers a sacrifice, to lay his hands on the head of the victim, and holding it by the head to bring it to the priest, as offering 6 the animal instead of his own head. Wherefore its language respecting every victim is, Let the offerer present it before the Lord, and lay his hands upon the head of his offering: and this was observed

in every sacrifice, no victim being offered in any 'other way: whence it is concluded that the lives of 'the victims were given instead of the lives of the 'offerers.'

And this was the opinion of Eusebius, not only respecting those victims which were prescribed by the law of Moses, but also respecting those which were offered by Abel, Noah, Abraham, and others of the faithful in earlier ages. The following passage, which we have already had occasion to quote, refers to the

* Quæst. Ixi. ad Exod.

+ Demonstr. Evang. L. i. c. 10.'

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patriarchs who lived before Moses was born:* For

as pious persons, who were familiar with God, and 'had their minds enlightened by the Divine Spirit, saw that they needed a great remedy for the expia'tion of deadly sins, they concluded that a ransom 'for their salvation ought to be presented to God, the disposer of life and death. And having nothing 'to consecrate to him, more excellent or valuable ' than their own lives, they offered the brutes in their stead, sacrificing other lives in the room of their 'own.' And a little after: As long as men had no 'better victim, none that was great, valuable, and

worthy of God, it behoved them to offer him animal 'sacrifices in ransom for their own life, and as sub'stitutes for their own nature.' He thought that these victims were required to be sacrificed, till Christ should offer himself a sacrifice for all nations. He calls Christ the great and precious ransom of both 'Jews and Greeks, the expiation of the whole world, 'the victim who laid down his lifet for all men, Athanasius also designates Christ as whose life was given as a ransom :'

a lamb and as the term lamb has an evident allusion to the Jewish victims, so the annexed description shews that this writer considered the lives of those victims as sacrificed instead of the lives of the offerers. The same opinion appears to have been held by the author of the Answers to the Orthodox according to whom 'the blood of the victims was carried into the sanc'tuary instead of the life of the offerers.'

III. There is reason to believe that respecting the piacular victims the Christian fathers were all agreed; + Αντιψυχών ↑Пgobαтov auṛı↓uxov. De Incarnat. Verbi. § Resp. ad Quæst. 99.

* Demonstr. Evang. L. i. c. 10.

because the opinion which some have maintained has received no opposition from the rest, and it is common to them all, whenever they speak of Christ as a piacular sacrifice, to express themselves in terms which imply that his death was a vicarious punishment.* But we shall pass these; for our present object is, not to explain the Jewish sacrifices by the Sacrifice of Christ, but to illustrate the Sacrifice of Christ by the Jewish sacrifices.

IV. As it is particularly desirable to know the opinion of every nation respecting their own religious rites, let us next examine how the Jewish piacular victims have been represented by the Jews themselves. All that they have advanced relating to this subject may be referred to three heads. The first contains those passages, in which every offerer placing his victim before the altar is said to have laid his sins upon the head of that victim. The second includes those which affirm the victims, whose blood was carried into the sanctuary and whose carcasses were burned without the camp, to have been polluted by the sins of the guilty thus laid upon them. The last comprehends those passages in which the life of the victim is said to have been given for the life of the offender, and one is described as an atonement, ransom, or redemption for the other.

V. To the first class of testimonies belongs the comment of R. Levi Ben Gersont on these words, "And Aaron and his sons shall put their hands on

* TR.—The language of Chrysostom, on II Corinth. v. 21. is too striking to be overlooked: Him who knew no sin, who was righteousness itself, he hath made sin; that is, hath suffered to be condemned (ws μagtwλov) as a sinner, to die as a person accursed.' Hom. ii. ad II Corinth. apud Suicer. Thesaur. tom. i. Col. 204. Vide etiam Œcumen. in Heb. ix. ibid. + Ad Exod. xxix. 10,

"the head of the bullock."

This,' says he,' was the imposition of their both hands, and was designed to indicate, that their sins were removed from themselves, and transferred to this animal.' The same author remarks on another passage:*The impo'sition of hands was a tacit declaration on the part of every offerer, that he removed his sins from himself, and transferred them to that animal.' To the same purpose is the language of Isaac Ben Arama:† 'Whenever any one sins through ignorance, or even 'with knowledge, he transfers his sins from himself,

and lays them upon the head of his victim. And 'this is the design of those confessions,-I have 'sinned, I have been rebellious, I have done perversely; as appears from the confessions of the high priest pronounced over the bullock sacrificed as his 'sin offering on the day of atonement.' Among other observations respecting the bullock sacrificed as a sin offering for the whole congregation, Abarbinel says :‡ 'After the confession the sins of the children of Israel ' rested upon him.' Whence we may infer it to have been the opinion of this rabbi, that those sins, of which solemn confession was made over a piacular victim, devolved upon the victim immediately on that confession.

VI. If it be doubted whether those who considered the sins of the offerers as transferred to the victims, believed that those sins were expiated by the death of the victims as by a vicarious punishment, this doubt must at once be removed by the concluding words of the deprecation pronounced over a piacular victim; Let this be my expiation:' which as we shall presently show is understood by all the Jews as equi

* Ad Levit. i.

+ Ad Levit. iv.

Ad Num. xix.