This idea of redemption from sin through the sufferings and death of a Divine Incarnate Saviour, is simply the crowning-point of the idea entertained by primitive man that the gods _demanded_ a sacrifice of some kind, to atone for some sin, or avert some calamity. In primitive ages, when men lived mostly on vegetables, they offered only grain, water, salt, fruit, and flowers to the gods, to propitiate them and thereby obtain temporal blessings. But when they began to eat meat and spices, and drink wine, they offered the same; naturally supposing the deities would be pleased with whatever was useful or agreeable to themselves. They imagined that some gods were partial to animals, others to fruits, flowers, etc. To the celestial gods they offered _white_ victims at sunrise, or at open day. To the infernal deities they sacrificed _black_ animals in the night. Each god had some creature peculiarly devoted to his worship. They sacrificed a _bull_ to Mars, a _dove_ to Venus, and to Minerva, a _heifer_ without blemish, which had never been put to the yoke. If a man was too poor to sacrifice a living animal, he offered an image of one made of bread. In the course of time, it began to be imagined that the gods demanded something more sacred as offerings or atonements for sin. This led to the sacrifice of _human beings_, principally slaves and those taken in war, then, their own children, even their most beloved "first-born." It came to be an idea that every sin must have its prescribed amount of punishment, _and that the gods would accept the life of one person as atonement for the sins of others_. This idea prevailed even in Greece and Rome: but there it mainly took the form of heroic self-sacrifice for the public good. Cicero says: "The force of religion was so great among our ancestors, that some of their commanders have, with their faces veiled, and with the strongest expressions of sincerity, _sacrificed themselves to the immortal gods to save their country_."[182:2] In Egypt, offerings of human sacrifices, for the atonement of sin, became so general that "if the eldest born of the family of Athamas entered the temple of the Laphystan Jupiter at Alos in Achaia, he was sacrificed, crowned with garlands like an animal victim."[182:3] When the Egyptian priests offered up a sacrifice to the gods, they pronounced the following imprecations on the head of the victim: "If any evil is about to befall either those who now sacrifice, or Egypt in general, _may it be averted on this head_."[183:1] This idea of atonement finally resulted in the belief that the incarnate _Christ_, the _Anointed_, the _God among us_, was to _save_ mankind from a curse by God imposed. Man had sinned, and God could not and did not forgive without a propitiatory _sacrifice_. The curse of God must be removed from the _sinful_, and the _sinless_ must bear the load of that curse. It was asserted that _divine justice_ required BLOOD.[183:2]