MEPHISTOPHELES.
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“A scrap is for our compact good.
Thou under-signest merely with a drop of blood.”
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“Blood is a juice of very special kind.”[188]
Even “within modern memory in Europe,” there have been traces of the primitive rite of covenanting with God by the proffer of one’s blood. In the Russian province of Esthonia, he who would observe this rite, “had to draw drops of blood from his fore finger,” and at the same time to pledge himself in solemn covenant with God. “I name thee [I invoke thee] with my blood, and [I] betroth thee [I entrust myself to thee] with my blood,”—was the form of his covenanting. Then he who had given of his blood in self-surrendering devotedness, made his confident supplications to God with whom he had thus covenanted; and his prayer in behalf of all his possessions was: “Let them be blessed through my blood and thy might.”[189]
Thus, in ancient Egypt, in ancient Canaan, in ancient Mexico, in modern Turkey, in modern Russia, in modern India, and in modern Otaheite; in Africa, in Asia, in America, in Europe, and in Oceanica: Blood-giving was life-giving. Life-giving was love-showing. Love-showing was a heart-yearning after union in love and in life and in blood and in very being. That was the primitive thought in the primitive religions of all the world.
LECTURE II.