Will I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats? But is it to be supposed, can any suppose it possible, that I, the Lord of heaven and earth, the invisible Author of all things, both visible and invisible, can need material sustenance, and can condescend to find any sustenance in bulls' flesh and goats' blood?
Scarcely did even the grossest of the heathen take this view. A vapour, an odour ( κνίσση), was thought to ascend from the victims sacrificed, and this penetrated to the Olympian abodes, and gratified, or, as some would say, "fed" the gods.
But such coarse feeding as that suggested in the text was hardly imagined by any, unless it were by utter savages and barbarians.