על החוקים לפרטיהם, ספר א מ׳On the Special Laws, Book I 40
א׳
1[220] Two days only are allowed for the use of the preservation-offering as food, and nothing is to be left over till the third day. This for several reasons. One is, that all the meats of the sacred table must be eaten without undue delay, care being taken that they should not deteriorate through lapse of time. It is the nature of stale flesh to decay rapidly, even though seasoned with spices as preservatives.
ב׳
2[221] Another reason is, that the sacrificial meals should not be hoarded, but be free and open to all who have need, for they are now the property not of him by whom but of Him to Whom the victim has been sacrificed, He the benefactor, the bountiful, Who has made the convivial company of those who carry out the sacrifices partners of the altar whose board they share. And He bids them not think of themselves as the entertainers, for they are the stewards of the good cheer, not the hosts. The Host is He to Whom the material provided for the feast has come to belong, and this must not be stowed away out of sight, and niggardliness, the vice of the slave, preferred to kindliness, the virtue of gentle birth.
ג׳
3[222] The final reason is, that the preservation-offering is in fact made in behalf of two, namely soul and body, to each of which he assigned one day for feasting on the flesh. For it was meet that an equal space of time should be appointed for those elements of our nature which are capable of being preserved, so that on the first day as we eat we obtain a reminder of the soul’s preservation, on the morrow of the body’s good health.
ד׳
4[223] And since there is no third thing which, properly speaking, could be the subject of preservation, he strictly forbade the use of the oblation as food on the third day, and commanded that if anything was left over through ignorance or inadvertence, it should immediately be consumed by fire. Even him who had tasted it and nothing more he declares to be guilty. “Poor fool,” he says to him, “thou thinkest to have sacrificed, though thou hast not done so. Sacrilegious, unholy, profane, impure, is the meat which thou hast dressed. I accept it not, base glutton, who even in thy dreams hast caught no glimpse of what sacrifice means.”