SACRILEGE 



SACY 



67 



at others so as to make it more fitly express the 

 religious wants of the new time, they oegin to 

 practise the whole with a fresh zeal. 



In primitive Israel the central feature of sacrifice 

 (shelem, zebah) is always the common meal, pro- 

 vided for by the slaughter of the sacred animal 

 and by various kinds of cereal oblation (minha). 

 Time gradually robs the meal of its sacred char- 

 acter, and then the holocaust ('6/a) becomes 

 common. After the Exile the great sacrifice is 

 th- -in-offering (asham), which culminates in the 

 solemn ritual of the day of atonement. It is gener- 

 ally supposed that the central idea of the sin-offering 

 is that of sulwtitntion Jehovah accepting the life 

 of the victim for that of the sinner. That is prob- 

 ably a mistake. Just as in the earlier sacrificial 

 meal, so here, the significant part of the rite is 

 not the shedding, but the application of the life- 

 blood, followed by the burning of certain portions 

 of the flesh and eating of others. Some of the 

 etails may readily lend themselves to a new inter- 

 pretation, but the origin and primary significance 

 of the ritual can be understood only when its dis- 

 tinrtive features are compared with those of the 

 sacrificial feast. 



The thinkers of Greece and the prophets of 

 Israel wage a constant polemic against the |>opular 

 superstitions connected with the sacrificial system 

 borne of the latter seem to break away entirely 

 from ritual, others do much to give it an ethical 

 and spiritual meaning. Christianity embraces 

 whatever is true both in the sacramental and in 

 the dedicatory idea of sacrifice. The former 

 idea receives its perfect expression in the first 

 Christian rite, the latter in the first rule of Chris- 

 tian ethics, which transfigures sacrifice into self- 

 sacrifice. But the followers of Christ are slow to 

 nse to the height of His teaching. Material sacri- 

 fice is always easier than spiritual. Many of the 

 errors connected with the old sacrificial systems 

 lurvive as well in crude unethical conceptions of 

 the Christian atonement as in the maw of th- 

 Church of Korne. 



the astronomical writings of the Arabians. His 

 treatise, De Sphcera Mundi, a paraphrase of a 

 portion of Ptolemy's Almagest, enjoyed great re- 

 nown as a manual among the scholastics. First 

 published in 1472, it passed by 1647 through forty 

 editions, besides translations and commentaries 

 bee an article by C. L. Kingsford in vol. xxvii. of 

 the Diet. A'at. Biog. ( 1891 ). 



Sacrum, or Os SACRUM, is a triangular bone 

 situated at the lower part of the vertebral column 

 (of which it is a natural continuation), and wedged 

 between the two innominate Itones so as to form 

 the keystone to the pelvic arch. It is readily seen 

 to consist of five vertebrae with their bodies and 

 processes, all consolidated into a single bone. It* 

 anterior surface (see illustrations at PELVIS ) is con- 

 cave, not only from above downwards, but also from 

 side to side. The posterior surface is convex, and 

 presents in the middle vertical line a crest, formed by 

 the fusion of the spines of the vertebra-, of which 

 the bone is composed. The last sacral vertebra 

 has, however, no spine, and the termination of 

 the vertebral canal is here very slightly protected. 

 The sacrum of man differs from that o'f the lower 

 animals by its greater breadth in comparison with 

 its length. This proportion is expressed in the 



following way : 



= sacral inde *. I n 



IN 



- n 7~*T~.~* - *- Mvrijfv-T* \ft ui. 



; yors rimitive Culture (2 voU. 1871); J. G 

 Frier's Totemum( 1887) ; Wellh.ien'i Jfejfe arrtuchen 

 Beidtnthumet ( 1887) ; and epeoilly Kobertnon Smith's 

 Belvjwa of Hit Semitet (1889). 



Sacrilege i not now a legal, but is a popular 



i used to denote the breaking into a place of 



orship and stealing therefrom. In England who 



iver breaks and enters any church, chapel, meeting- 



onse, or other place of divine worship and commit* 



any felony therein, or whoever, being in such 



places, shall commit any felony therein, and break 



t of the same, is guilty of felony and liable to 



!>enal servitude for life, or for not less than three 



years, or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 



two years, with hard labour. The legal offence of 



reaking and entering a place of worship with in 



; to steal comes under the head of burglary or 



kOOMbreaking. In Scotland there is no increase of 



iventy in the punishment by reason of the sacred 



character of the things stolen. 



Sacristan, an official attached to a church who 



charged with the care of it, and in particular of 



the sacred vestments and utensils. These are kept 



B tacruty, or vestry, which in continental 



hurches is often a spacious building. The Eng- 



ame sexton is an early corruption of this word. 



Sarrobosco, JOANNES DE (or JOHN HOLY- 



tn English mathematician of whom little 



known except that he seems to have been a 



'e of Halifax, to have studied at Oxford, and 



it at Pans as praiaMr of Mathematics, where 



". .li|-l in 1244 or liV.. He was one of the 



' doctors of the middle ages who made use of 



the male European the average sacral index is 

 U2, in the negro 106, in the Australian aboriginal 

 99, in the orang 87, in the gorilla 72. In the 

 female the sacrum is broader than in the male 

 the sacral index of the European female being 

 about 116 (Turner, Challenger Reports, Zoology 

 xvi.) The sacrum and its connections are illus- 

 trated at PELVIS. 



Various reasons have been assigned for the 

 name given from of old to this Iwne ; Littre accepts 

 the view that it was liecause it was a part that 

 had special significance with the ancients in sacri- 

 fices. Another reason is based on the view main- 

 tamed by the Jewish rabbins, who held that this 

 part of the skeleton, which they called 'Inz,' re- 

 sisted decay, and became the germ from which the 

 body would be raised. 



Sar.v. AJJTOINE ISAAC, BARON SILVESTRE DE, 

 the founder of the modern school of scientific 

 Arabists, was born at Paris on 21st September 

 He was trained for the civil service, and 

 whilst labouring in the Mint he made himself 

 master of the chief Semitic languages, as well as 

 Persian, and to some extent of Turkish. He had 

 already gained the reputation of a sound Oriental 

 scholar through papers contributed to Eichhorn's 

 tonum and other learned journals, when the 

 excesses of the republicans caused him to retire 

 from government service, and devote himself 

 wholly to his favourite pureu'ite. He published 



1/93 his first ambitious work, a translation of 

 the Persian Annales de Mirkkond along with 

 Memoires sur Diverse* Antiquitet de la Perse. 

 Two years later he was called to fill the chair of 

 Arabic in the newly-founded Institute of Oriental 

 Languages; and to this he added in 1806 the 

 duties appertaining to the professorship of Per- 

 sian. He held besides several public appoint- 

 ments, nearly all simultaneously with his pro- 

 fessorships, such as that of a member of the 

 Corps Legislatif (1808), rector of the university of 

 15), perpetual secretary of the Academy 



Inscriptions, founder and member of the Asiatic 

 Society, and member of the Chamber of Peers. As 

 a teacher he was held in the very highest esteem 

 he wrote valuable text-bookB-Sramma.Ve Arabe 

 t vols. 1810), the fruits of fifteen years' labour; 

 Chrettomathie Arabe (3 vols. 1806), and its sup- 

 plement, Anthologie Grammaticale (1829) which 



