Exodus 22:29

The first of thy ripe fruits - This offering was a public acknowledgment of the bounty and goodness of God, who had given them their proper seed time, the first and the latter rain, and the appointed weeks of harvest.

From the practice of the people of God the heathens borrowed a similar one, founded on the same reason. The following passage from Censorinus, De Die Natali, is beautiful, and worthy of the deepest attention: -

Illi enim (majores nostri) qui alimenta, patriam, lucem, se denique ipsos deorum dono habebant, ex omnibus aliquid diis sacrabant, magis adeo, ut se gratos approbarent, quam quod deos arbitrarentur hoc indigere. Itaque cum perceperant fruges, antequam vescerentur, Diis libare instituerunt: et cum agros atque urbes, deorum munera, possiderent, partem quandam templis sacellisque, ubi eos colerent, dicavere .

"Our ancestors, who held their food, their country, the light, and all that they possessed, from the bounty of the gods, consecrated to them a part of all their property, rather as a token of their gratitude, than from a conviction that the gods needed any thing. Therefore as soon as the harvest was got in, before they had tasted of the fruits, they appointed libations to be made to the gods. And as they held their fields and cities as gifts from their gods, they consecrated a certain part for temples and shrines, where they might worship them."

Pliny is express on the same point, who attests that the Romans never tasted either their new corn or wine, till the priests had offered the First-Fruits to the gods. Acts ne degustabant quidem, novas fruges aut vina, antequam sacerdotes Primitias Libassent . Hist. Nat., lib. xviii., c. 2.

Horace bears the same testimony, and shows that his countrymen offered, not only their first-fruits, but the choicest of all their fruits, to the Lares or household gods; and he shows also the wickedness of those who sent these as presents to the rich, before the gods had been thus honored: -

Dulcia poma,

Et quoscumque feret cultus tibi fundus honores,

Ante Larem gustet venerabilior Lare dives