The Discovery of Genesis (61 page)

In the Chinese culture the
eldest son or firstborn
must have been the one who inherited the priestly duties of directing the family to God. It was his privilege
to pray to or invoke
God on behalf of the others. He was the family
spokes
man
. In the Hebrew economy, the eldest son also inherited the birthright with its sacred duties.

This tremendous privilege Cain, as the eldest son, had viewed lightly; he thus despised righteous Abel and his offering, which had been acceptable to God.

You might be thinking, “What is so important about the ancient sacrificial system of the Chinese and why compare this with the Hebrew rituals? After all, many other early cultures had animal sacrifices-even human sacrifices!” In truth, there were a vast number of sacrificial systems with a great variety of animal offerings. But these were a corruption of the original meaningful services designated by God as object lessons. Also, the polytheistic peoples, following in the footsteps of the renegade Cain, offered to a multitude of deities. Only the Hebrews and Chinese were strict monotheists.
⁷
Only they understood and appreciated the pathos of the ceremonies.

During the long Hebrew sojourn in Egypt, much of this time in bondage when they were allowed no freedom of worship, they largely forgot the religion of their ancestors, Jacob and Abraham, Noah and Adam. They had lost sight of the significance of the sacrifices and even the ultimate promise of a Messiah. These rites were reinstituted for the Hebrews at Mount Sinai following the great exodus from Egypt, about 1445 B.C. Meanwhile, by this time in China, the original ceremonies were still being faithfully practiced but with little comprehension of the true intent of the offerings, and with considerable adulteration by a growing ancestral worship.

The Chinese actually continued these sacrificial rituals into modern times! The Manchu dynasty extended from A.D. 1644 to A.D. 1911; and with the creation of the Republic of China in 1912, China’s monarchal rule ended for all time. The emperors of this last dynasty still annually engaged in the interesting “border” ceremony of antiquity. At the time of the winter solstice, two hours before midday (refer to the character,
sacrifice
which denotes the time, 9–11 a.m.), the Chinese monarch left the royal palace in a ritual chariot that carried him to the
T’ien Tan.
This great, square, elevated “Temple to Heaven” in Peking is thus described: