The Seba library treats Robertson Smith in 5 passages, across 2 authors (including Harrison, Jane Ellen, Freud, Sigmund).
Robertson Smith, fired by the recent discoveries of totemism, saw what had necessarily escaped Dr Tylor, that the basis of primitive sacrifice was, not the giving a gift, but the eating of a tribal communal meal.
Harrison identifies Smith’s central theoretical contribution as the replacement of the gift-theory of sacrifice with the communal meal hypothesis, crediting totemism research as the catalyst.
, Themis: A Study of the Social Origins of Greek Religion, 1912thesis
At this point I will interrupt my survey of Robertson Smith’s line of thought and restate the gist of it in the most concise terms. With the establishment of the idea of private property sacrifice came to be looked upon as a gift to the deity.
Freud summarizes Smith’s evolutionary account of sacrifice, showing how the shift from communal sacramental killing to gift-offering marks a critical transition in the history of religion and guilt.
, Totem and Taboo, 1913thesis
they have not diminished to any important extent the impression produced by Robertson Smith’s hypothesis.
Freud acknowledges that subsequent scholarly critiques of Smith’s hypothesis have not substantially undermined its intellectual force or its reception.
, Totem and Taboo, 1913supporting
Even Robertson Smith, great genius though he was, could not rid himself wholly of animism and anthropomorphism. To him primitive sacrifice was a commensal meal, but shared with the god.
Harrison qualifies her admiration for Smith by noting that his conception of the communal meal retained the animistic assumption of divine participation, limiting the radicalism of his own insight.
, Themis: A Study of the Social Origins of Greek Religion, 1912aside
A somewhat detailed account of savage ceremonial has been necessary in order that the gist of sacramental sacrifice should be made clear.
Harrison’s ethnographic elaboration of the communal distribution of the slain animal enacts Smith’s theoretical framework by grounding it in concrete comparative data on sacrificial meals.
, Themis: A Study of the Social Origins of Greek Religion, 1912supporting