230 HAUPT— MANNA, NECTAR, AND AMBROSIA. 



The Arabic equivalent of the stem of Heb. qetort^ means to exhale 

 an odor in roasting. If you return to camp in the evening after 

 having been out gunning all day, the smell of frying bacon is a sweet 

 savor. The Hebrews sacrificed to Jhvh the fat of the victim. 

 Lev. 3, i6 states : All the fat is the Lord's (cf. Lev. 7, 25 ; i S 2, 16; 

 2 Chr. 7, 7; Gen. 4, 4). The fat pieces burnt on the altar were, 

 according to Lev. 3, 3.4, the fat that covers the entrails, i.e. the great 

 omentum, and the fat that is about the entrails, i.e. the mesenterial 

 fat, the two kidneys and the fat that is on them, and the caudate lobe 

 of the liver. The priests said the fat was the best and richest part 

 of the animal.'^ Liver and kidneys and the surrounding fat were re- 

 garded as important seats of life and emotion. We find in the 

 Hebrew psalms : my liver exulted for / tvas glad and my reins ad- 

 monished me at night for Thou art never out of my thoughts ( JAOS 

 32, 124; JHUC325, 39). 



The practice of offering the fat pieces appears in a new light if 

 we compare a story of Prometheus in Hesiod's Theogony (c. 735 

 B.C.) in which the Boeotian poet describes the origin of the world and 

 the birth of the gods. Socrates, who drank the cup of hemlock in 

 399, regarded the stories of the gods as the inventions of lying poets 

 (EB^^ 25, 333*"). According to Hesiod (Theog. 536), gods and men 

 met on a certain occasion at Mecone, which is the ancient name of 

 Sicyon, near the Gulf of Corinth. 10 m. N.W. of Corinth. The 

 business of the assembly was to decide what portions of the slain 

 animals the gods should receive in sacrifice. On one side Prometheus 

 arranged the best parts of the ox, covered with offal ; on the other, 

 the bones covered with fat, as the meat was covered in Homeric sacri- 

 fices. Zeus was invited to make his choice, chose the fat, and found 

 only bones beneath. Similar fables recur in Africa and North 

 America (EB" 22, 436^). 



If nectar, which is connected with Heb. qetorj;, fragrant steam of 

 the burnt-offering inhaled by Jhvh, appears in the Homeric poems 

 as the drink of the gods, we must remember that the Arabic term for 

 to smoke tobacco is to drink smoke, Arab, sariha- d-duxana. The 

 same term was formerly used in English. Ben Jonson (1598) says: 



" See the translation of Leviticus, in the Polychrome Bible, p. 65, 11. 33-38. 



