Note 2 — VI THE SELF-OFFERING OF THE MESSIAH. THE SUPPER

While the faithful by partaking of the sacred cake and the fiery Soma cup united themselves with the God and were filled with his “spirit,” the sacrificial gifts which had been brought to him burnt upon the altars. These consisted likewise of Soma and Sacred Cake, and caused the sacred banquet to be of such a kind that it was partaken of by Agni and men together. The God was at and present in the banquet dedicated to him. He consumed the gifts, transformed them into flame, and in sweet-smelling smoke bore them with him up to heaven. Here they were partaken of by the other divine beings and finally by the Father of Heaven himself. Thus Agni became not merely an agent at the sacrifice, a mystic sacrificial priest, but, since the sacrificial gifts simply contained him in material form, a sacrificer, who offered his own body in sacrifice.2 While man sacrificed God, God at the same time sacrificed himself. Indeed, this sacrifice was one in which God was not only the subject but also the object, both sacrificer and sacrificed. “It was a common mode of thinking among the Indians,” says Max Müller, “to look upon the fire on the altar as at the same time subject and object of the sacrifice. The fire burnt the offering and was accordingly the priest as it were. The fire bore the offering to the Gods and was accordingly a mediator between God and men. But the fire also represented something divine. It was a God, and if honour was paid to this God, the fire was at once subject and object of the sacrifice. Out of this arose the first idea, that Agni sacrificed to himself, that is, that he brought his own offering to himself, then, that he brought himself as a victim—out of which the later legends grew.”3 The sacrifice of the God is a sacrificing of the God. The genitive in this sentence is in one case to be understood in an objective, in the other in a subjective sense. In other words, the sacrifice which man offers to the God is a sacrifice which the God brings, and this sacrifice of the God is at the same time one in which the God offers himself as victim.