CHAP. XIII. OFFERINGS TO THE GODS. 309 



who performed sacrifices, offered herbs, flowers, 

 and trees, or incense of aromatic substances ; for 

 it was unlawful to slay animals." 



" Among the offerings * made to the Egyptian 

 Deities, libations and incense hold, it is true, a 

 promi)ient place, as well as flowers, fruit, and other 

 productions of the soil ; but geese, and other birds, 

 gazelles, capricorns, the legs and bodies of oxen 

 or of the wild goat, and, what is still more remark- 

 able, the head of the victim t, are also placed be- 

 fore them : " and thus the reason given by Ma- 

 crobius is fully disproved. Herodotus also tells us 

 that the oxen, after having been examined by a 

 priest, and marked with his seal, were led to the 

 altar and sacrificed ; and this is fully confirmed by 

 the sculptures in every part of Egypt. 



I shall not here stop to inquire if really, in early 

 times, the Egyptians or other ancient people con- 

 tented themselves with offerings of herbs, incense, 

 and libations, and abstained from sacrifices of 

 victims. This, if it ever was the case, could only 

 have been in their infancy as a nation ; and it is 

 more ])robable, as I have already observed t, that 

 the kind of offering considered most acceptable to 

 the Deity, which was "a firstling of the flock,'* 

 had been established and handed down from the 

 very earliest period, as a type of" the destined per- 

 fect propitiation for sin, which man was taught to 

 expect, 



* Materia Ilierog. p. 15. 



-|- J'ide my Materia Hierog. p. IC; and supra. Vol. II. p. 377. 



j Vide siq)}'(i, p. 144. 146. 



x 3 



