blood was then received in a vessel and partly poured out upon the altar, partly sprinkled on those around, that they might be delivered from sin. Especially all who wished to have a portion in the sacrifice had to touch the victim and the sacrificial ashes. According to the oldest usage the whole victim was burnt; later only certain portions—the head and feet (the extremities for the whole), the entrails, especially the heart as the seat of life, the shanks as the place of strength, and the fat as the best portion. Then red wine, unmixed, was poured upon the flames. The sacrificers consumed the rest, as in the Hebrew thank-offerings and among the Egyptians and Indians, in a sacred festive meal; among the Arcadians, masters and slaves altogether. Such meals were usual from the most ancient time after the completion of the sacrifice, and in them originally the gods were considered to sit as guests with men. All sang thereby, as law and custom determined, sacred hymns, that during the meal moral comeliness and respect might not be transgressed, and the harmony of song might consecrate the words and the conduct of the speakers. By this common partaking of the pure sacrificial flesh, the communion of the offered meats, a substantially new life was to be implanted in the partakers; for all who eat of one sacrifice are one body. "Hence the first Christians obstinately refused to eat of the flesh of heathen victims. 'I had rather die than feed on your sacrifices.' 'If any one eat of that flesh he cannot be a Christian.'[91] At the end of the feast, as it seems, the herald dismissed the people with the words λαοῖς ἄφεσις—Ite, missa est."