Commentaria in Leviticum
Morally: Priests and people alike attended these sacrifices with great silence, as Aristeas testifies, in his book On the Seventy-two Interpreters. ...lest the prayer offered for the salvation of all be hindered; when the Gentiles show such reverence to their idols, what will Christians say they render? Hence this example is handed down: When Alexander king of the Macedonians was sacrificing, a barbarian boy, who held the lights for him, caught the fire on his arm, and remained motionless with his body burned, and neither betrayed his pain by a groan nor showed his suffering by silent tears. So great was the discipline of reverence in the barbarian boy that it overcame nature. And he feared not gods, who were none, but the king. Then he brings another example of the faithful: “It is a frequent saying that when the croaking of very many frogs drowned the ears of a religious congregation, the priest of God commanded them to be silent, and to pay reverence to the sacred prayer; then suddenly the surrounding noises ceased. Shall the marshes then be silent, and men not be silent?” If heaven is the temple, as St. Chrysostom says, see what the angels do in heaven. In the temple itself you also hear this, if you listen to the sacred rite: “The Angels praise Thy majesty, the Dominations adore, the Powers tremble; the Virtues of the heavens and of the heavens of heavens, and the blessed Seraphim, celebrate it together in joyful company.” Do the same yourself in the temple, praise, pray to God, according to that of Psalm 28: “In his temple all shall speak his glory”; and Psalm 64: “A hymn, O God, becometh thee in Sion,” that is, in the temple; in the Hebrew it is, “To thee silence is praise, O God, in Sion.” For silence is a kind of praise, both internal, of the soul venerating God, and external, because it stirs up others to the praise of God, when they see such modesty and religion in sacred rites. St. Cyprian, in his book On the Lord’s Prayer: “The priest,” he says, “prepares the minds of the brethren, by saying: Lift up your hearts. And while the people answer: We have them lifted up to the Lord, let them be admonished that they ought to think of nothing else but God.” Blessed Cassius, bishop of Narni, celebrating Mass daily with tears, heard from God, through the vision of a certain priest: “Do what thou doest, work what thou workest.” Let the priest therefore say to himself: “Do that for which thou hast come”; let the people who assist say the same.
On account of this religion and reverence of the sacrifices, the priests who were about to sacrifice had to prepare themselves for them: First, by purifying themselves and washing themselves at sacred rites. Among the Romans Numa ordained that a herald, going before the sacrifices, should cry out with a loud voice: “Hoc age” (Mind what you do), bidding minds to be applied to the sacrifice. And, as Cicero writes, book 1 On Divination, and Seneca, in his book On the Happy Life, by the cry “Favour with your tongues” silence was enjoined, that the sacrifice might be duly performed, no ill-omened voice interrupting. What, then, shall our priests and Christians do? since even the poet Virgil indicates faithful silence at rites, and the mysteries are named from myein, that is, the closing of the mouth.
Let the talkative in church hear, let the immodest hear St. Ambrose, book 3 On Virgins: “Is there anything,” he says, “more unworthy than that the divine oracles should be handled by men who are unclean?” The Gentiles did the same. Hence Aeneas would not sacrifice “until I have washed myself in a living stream,” as he himself says, Aeneid 2. Secondly, by abstaining from wine and every drink that can intoxicate, according to the law, Leviticus 10:8. So among the Gentiles, those to be initiated into the rites of Isis abstained for ten days from flesh and wine. Thirdly, by abstaining from the use of marriage and from all lust:
“The barking of dogs, the lowing of oxen, the grunting of swine, please God more than the singing of clerics who live luxuriously,” says St. Augustine. So Numa Pompilius, when he sacrificed for the fruits of the earth, abstained from eating flesh and from Venus. It is well known that the priests of the Mother of the gods cut off their virility, and those who performed the greatest rites, that they might remain in chaste religion. Among the Gentiles pipers and harpers played before the sacrifices, with organs, cymbals, psalteries, and so on; then the Roman priest, with a woollen fillet [...] and live apart from the contagion of women, they unmanned themselves with certain herbs, that they might be wholly intent on the god and on divine things. Hence that enactment: “Let them approach the gods chastely, let them bring piety, let them put away riches; whoso does otherwise, God will be the avenger.” Hence King Agesilaus said that “the gods are delighted no less by religious works than by chaste sacrifices.” The hierophants of the Athenians, after their priesthood, unmanned themselves by drinking hemlock, that they might perform the sacred rite chastely and holily. The Egyptian priests, laying aside business, never indulged with women, and abstained from flesh and wine. The Gymnosophists were so continent that they were nourished only on fruits, rice and meal. Nay, we find it observed by the ancients that he who was about to perform a divine rite was wont, to lighten his faults, first to declare himself guilty, to repent of the harm, to confess what he had done, to lower his countenance, and to compose himself to all modesty.
Fourth, they approached the sacrifices with bare feet, which, like the hands, were washed, as I said on Exodus 30:19. Moreover they were clothed in a pure and religious garment. The Gentiles imitated the same. Hear Plato: “In sacrifices the priest, adorned with a beautiful garment and golden crowns, performs the divine rite.” And it was in a pure and white garment, for the most part of woven linen, sometimes of purple and gold. Men who had triumphed, and those who had held magistracy, in the dress of a triumph, or in the praetexta, with washed hands and crowned with leaves, holy and venerable, worshipped and sacrificed with bare feet, according to Plutarch. Virgil adds:
They brought the fountain and the fire, veiled in linen, and their temples bound with vervain.
So also the Egyptian priests were called and were linen-clad. Among the Greeks the priest about to sacrifice said beforehand, “Who is here?”; those who were present at the rites answered, “Many and good.” Hence Virgil: “Far hence, far hence be ye profane.” Moreover, during the sacrifice the Levite sang, and the Roman, veiled and crowned with leaves, clad in a pure garment, holding the altar with his hands, in the morning, turned to the East, with a prepared formula and ancient words, prayed to the divinities and poured out vows, which prayer he repeated three times.
Then he turned himself to the right and revolved, and put his hand to his mouth, and sat, as though the gods held the prayers ratified; then, plucking the bristles from between the horns of the victim, he cast them into the fire; and at last he drew an oblique iron knife from the forehead to the tail of the victim, and turned himself to the East. Meanwhile others set vessels under the falling victim to receive the blood; others flayed the victim; presently the soothsayer, the flamen or the priest searched the viscera and entrails with an iron knife, and made inspection of the entrails, that is, consulted the gods by the entrails, and attentively examined whether the omen was favourable; and then the entrails were said to be rendered when, being approved, they were laid on the altar. For the first part of the sacrifice was to pour a libation, the second to immolate, the third to render, the fourth to obtain a favourable omen. For to obtain a favourable omen was to sacrifice rightly and to obtain one’s petition. They called entrails what in victims lies within, as heart, lung, spleen, liver. The entrails having been inspected, from every viscus and member they wrapped the first-fruits and the cut-off parts in meal of spelt, and offered them in baskets to the sacrificer; and then the victim was called perfect: these the priest laid on the kindled altars and burnt with fire, adding frankincense, costus and other perfumes. From the remaining parts of the victim they prepared a supper, on which those who had been at the rites feasted; it was lawful to bring a small portion to the household, but to admit strangers was unlawful; they ate standing, with round loaves used in honour of the gods. During the meal they sang praises and hymns to the gods to whom the sacrifice had been made, which we see diligently observed in Virgil in the case of Hercules. The divine rite being finished, the priest proclaimed Ilicet, as if to say, “It is lawful to depart.” Among the Greeks and Egyptians, according to Apuleius, the words Laos aphesis were chanted, that is, the dismissal of the people. So Christians, when the sacrifice is finished, hear: Ite, Missa est. All this Giraldus relates at length, Syntagma 17.