formed from ἱλος, "whole", and καυσιν, "I consume with fire"), a kind of sacrifice, wherein the whole offering is burnt or consumed by fire, as an acknowledgment that God, the creator, preserver, and lord of all, was worthy of all honour and worship, and as a token of men's giving themselves entirely up to him. It is called also in Scripture a burnt-offering. Sacrifices of this sort are often mentioned by the heathens as well as Jews; particularly by Xenophon, Cyroped. lib. viii. p. 446. ed. Hutchins. 1738, who speaks of sacrificing holocausts of oxen to Jupiter, and of horses to the sun; and they appear to have been in use long before the institution of the other Jewish sacrifices, by the law of Moses; (see Job. i. 5. xli. 8. and Gen. viii. 20. xxii. 13.). On this account, the Jews, who would not allow the Gentiles to offer on their altar any other sacrifices peculiarly enjoined by the law of Moses, admitted them by the Jewish priests to offer holocausts; because these were a sort of sacrifices prior to the law, and common to all nations. Du- Holocausts, ring their subjection to the Romans, it was no uncommon thing for those Gentiles to offer sacrifices to the God of Israel at Jerusalem. Holocausts were deemed by the Jews the most excellent of all their sacrifices. It is said that this kind of sacrifice was in common use among the heathens, till Prometheus introduced the custom of burning only a part, and reserving the remainder for his own use. See Sacrifice.