* 
'528 SAC.' 
fl. Free-will offerings, or such as were paid inconsequence 
of a vow, xaotcrr'fioia. and tvH.la.ia ; for a victory obtained, 
the first-fruits offered by husbandmen for a plentiful harvest, 
and the like. 2. Propitiatory offerings, iXac-rina, to avert 
the anger of some offended deity, and such were alL sacri¬ 
fices used in expiation. 3. Petitionary sacrifices, adfitKa , 
for success in any enterprise. 4. Sacrifices expressly com¬ 
manded by some oracle or prophet, ra amo uavltiag. 
The custom of the Greeks, from whom the Romans bor¬ 
rowed theirs, was, that the priest coming to the altar, should 
ask aloud, Ti$ n Se ? Who is here ? The people answered, 
n o\\oi Kat ayaOoi, Many good persons: then the usher went 
through the temple, crying, Enag enag eerie, fie&rfkoi, that is, 
.Out with the wicked. The Romans commonly used the 
words, Nocentes, Profani, abscedite. All those who were 
driven out of the temples among the Greeks, were compre¬ 
hended under these general words, /3e£',r)Xoi, apwioi, anaBaoti. 
-The profane being withdrawn, they cried, Favete linguis, 
or animis, and Pascite linguam, to require silence and 
attention during the sacrifice. 
These ceremonies ended, the chief sacrificer being sat 
down, and the rest of them standing, the magistrates or 
private person, who offered sacrifice, came before him, and 
presented him with the first-fruits and victim, and sometimes 
made a short discourse, by way of compliment, as we find 
Homer makes Ulysses do, when he presented the high priest 
with Iphigenia to be sacrificed. As any person came to 
present his offering, he washed his hands in a place appointed 
in the temple for that purpose. 
Lastly, when the offering was made, the priest that offi¬ 
ciated perfumed the victim with incense, and sprinkled it 
with the lustral water; and having washed his hands, and 
got up again to the altar, he prayed to the god to whom he 
presented the sacrifice, with a loud voice, that he would 
accept of those offerings, and be pleased with the victim he 
sacrificed to him for the public good, and for such and such 
tilings in particular. In the close of the offertory and 
prayer, made by the priest to the god, he came down the 
steps of the altar, and from the hand of one of his assistants, 
received the sacred paste, called tnola falsa, made of barley 
or wheat flour, mixed with salt and water, which he threw 
upon the head of the victim, sprinkling a little wine upon 
it, which was called immolatio. Servius says, the priest 
scattered little bits of this paste upon the head of the victim, 
and also on the altar where the sacred fire burned, and on 
the knives, by way of consecration. 
He then took wine in a vessel called simpulum, and 
having tasted it himself first, and made his assistants do the 
same, to shew that they partook of the sacrifice, he poured it 
between the horns of the victim, pronouncing these words of 
the consecration, Mactus hoc vino inferis esto. This done, 
he pulled off the hairs from between the horns, and threw 
them into the fire; and commanded the victimarius (who 
asked him. Agon ? Shall I strike ?) to knock down the 
victim with a blow on the head with a hammer or axe; 
upon which another assistant, named popa, presently thrust 
a knife into its throat; whilst a third received the blood, 
with which the priest sprinkled the altar. 
When the victim was slain, they flayed him, if it was not 
a burnt-offering (for they then burned skin and all); they 
then took the flesh of the head, and adorning it with garlands 
and flowers, fastened it to the pillars of the temples, as well 
as the skins, as ensigns of religion; carrying them about in 
procession ill public calamities. Not but that the priests 
oft wore the skins, and others went to sleep upon them in the 
temple c*f ffSsculapius and Faunus, that they might receive 
•favourable responses in their dreams, or be cured of their 
maladies. They then opened the victim’s entrails, and after 
circumspectly viewing them, to draw presages therefrom, 
according to the art of the aruspices, they floured them with 
.incal, and sprinkled them with wine, and made a present of 
them to the gods, reddehant extadiis, by throwing them into 
the fire in small bits, boiled or parboiled; and hence the en¬ 
trails were called porriccc. 
The entrails being burned, and the other ceremonies 
■; £ sac 
finished, they believed the gods to be satisfied; and that they 
could not fail to find.the vows accomplished, which they ex¬ 
pressed by the word litare.q. a. all is finished, and well done ; 
whereas non litare, on the contrary, intimated there was 
.something wanting to the perfection of the sacrifice, and that 
the gods were not appeased. The priest afterwards dis¬ 
missed the people with this form, Ilicet . 
Hence it may be observed, that the sacrifices consisted of 
four principal parts; the first called lilatio, or the pour¬ 
ing a little wine upon the victim; the second immolatio, when, 
after they had scattered the crumbs of salted paste thereon, 
they killed it; the third redditio, when they offered the en¬ 
trails to the gods; and the fourth litatio, when the sacrifice 
was perfected, and accomplished without any fault. For a 
more particular account of the materials and rites of sacrifice, 
see Potter’s Archaeol. Graec. tom. i. p. '200, &c. 
To SA'CRIFICE, v. n. To make offerings; to offer sacri¬ 
fice. 
Some mischief is befallen 
To that meek man who well had sacrific'd. Milton. 
SA'CRIFICE, s. [■.sacrifice , Fr. sacrificium, Lat.] The 
act of offering to Heaven. 
God will ordain religious rites 
Of sacrifice. Milton. 
The thing offered to Heaven, or immolated by an act of 
religion. 
Go with me like good angels to my end, 
And as the long divorce of steel falls on me, 
Make of your prayers one sweet sacrifice. 
And lift my soul to heav’n. Shahspcare. 
Any thing destroyed, or quitted for the Sake of something 
else: as, fie made a sacrifice df his friendship to his interest. 
—Supposing a man to be in the talking world one-third part 
of the day, whoever gives another quarter of an hour’s hear¬ 
ing, makes him a sacrifice of more than the four hundred 
thousandth part of his conversable life! Tatler. —Any thing 
destroyed. 
SA'CRIFICER, s. One who offers sacrifice; one that 
immolates. —Let us be sacrificers, but not butchers, Shahs, 
pcare. 
SACRIFI'CIAL, adj. Performing sacrifice; included in 
sacrifice. • 
Rain sacrificial whisp’rings in his ear; 
Make sacred even his stirrup. Shakspeare. 
SACRIFICIOS, a small and desert island of the Pacifies 
ocean near the coast of the province of Tecoantepec, in 
Mexico. Lat. 15.40. N. long. 98. 6. W. 
SACRIFICIOS, an island in the Atlantic ocean, on the 
coast of the province and government of Vera Cruz. It is 
uninhabited. 
SA'CRILEGE, s. [ sacrilege, Fr. sacrilegium, Lat.] The 
crime of stealing or profaning by unworthy uses things 
belonging to the church. 
Then gan a cursed hand the quiet womb 
Of his great-grandmother with steel to wound. 
And the hid treasures in her sacred tomb 
-With sacrilege to dig. Spenser. 
All persons not in holy orders, who shall be indicted, 
whether in the same county where the fact was committed, 
or in a different county, of robbing any church, chapel, or 
other holy place, are excluded from their clergy, by 
23 H. VIII. c. 1. 25 H. VIII, c. 3. 5 & 6 Ed. VI. 
c. 10. And all persons in general are ousted of their clergy 
for their felonious taking of any goods out of any parish 
church, or other church or chapel, by the 1 Ed. VI. c. 12. 
But the word robbing being alwaystaken to carry with it 
some force, it seems no sacrilege is. within these statutes, 
which is not accompanied with the actual breaking of a 
church, &c. And the statute 23 Hen. VIII. is the only 
statute which extends to accessaries to these robberies, ex? 
ceptthe offenceamountto burglary; in -which case accessaries 
•before are ousted of clergy, by 3 & 4 W. & M. c. 9. 
SACRILEGIOUS, 
