sacrificer's Usage Examples:

and Mauss describe a sacrifice as "a religious act, which, by the consecration of a victim, modifies the moral state of the sacrificer or of certain material objects which he has in view," i.

And it is also probable that certain persons combined in their own individuality the functions of magician and sacrificer as well as soothsayer.

In the former case the sacrificer is raised to a higher level; he enters into closer communion with the gods.

the only permitted method of kindling it, (b) the tracing on the ground of the vedi, or magical circle, to destroy impurities, (c) the digging of the hole which constituted the real altar, (d) the preparation of the post which represented the sacrificer and to which the victim was tied, and other minor details.

The building of this altar is spread over a whole year, during which period the sacrificer has to carry about the sacrificial fire in an earthen pan for at least some time each day, until it is finally deposited on the completed altar to serve as the offering-fire for the Soma oblations.

"In the latter either some material object, not necessarily animate, is deprived of a portion of its sanctity and made fit for human use, or the sacrificer himself loses a portion of his sanctity or impurity.

It is equally impossible to give a general survey of the purposes of sacrifice; not only are they too numerous but it is rare to find any but mixed forms; the scapegoat, for example, is also a messenger to the dead, and its flesh is eaten by the sacrificers.

Other persons attached to a temple were priests, augurs, sacrificers, barbers, officials in charge of the curtains, masons, 'c.

This they did by sacrificing a victim and effecting communion with the god by the application of its blood to the altar; or, more directly, by the sacrifice of the animal-god and the contact of the sacrificer with its blood.

The object of the sacrifice being to bridge the gulf between the sacred and profane worlds, the sacrificer had to remain in contact with the victim, either personally, or, to avoid ritual perils, by the intermediary of the priest.

The sacrificer may aim at causing a speedy death or a slow one.

By a natural series of transitions the gift theory became transformed, in the minds of the sacrificers, into the homage theory, which again passed by an easy transition into the renunciation theory.

Synonyms:

religious person,

Antonyms:

nonreligious person,