Page:Ginzburg - The Legends of the Jews - Volume 5.djvu/59

Rh $undefined$ , no creature could exist on account of the awful odor he emits.This statement has nothing to do with the medieval legend concerning the offensive odor of the devil, but it is related to the ancient identification of Leviathan with the sea.The latter has an offensive odor.Comp. vol. III, p. 25 (end of paragraph).  $undefined$ Baba Batra 74b, where a reason is given why the female monster and not the male was put to death.Comp. note 118 and the following note.  $undefined$ PK 29, 188a–188b; Baba Batra 75a; Alphabetot 98.The contest between the angels and the monsters is variously described in the sources quoted above, and especially noteworthy is the description of Alphabetot.Gabriel receives the order from God to drag out Leviathan from the Great Sea (=Ocean, or the Mediterranean Sea; comp. Baba Batra 74b and note 73), for which purpose the angel provides himself with the necessary implements.He succeeds in hooking Leviathan, but is swallowed up in his attempt to drag him out on dry land.Whereupon God Himself is obliged to seize Leviathan, and He slays him in the presence of the pious.Then Michael and Gabriel are sent against the male and female Behemoth, but being unable to carry out God's command (this is the way the fragmentary text is to be emended), He Himself is then obliged to accomplish it.For further details concerning Leviathan and Behemoth, comp. Pirke Mashiah, 76; BHM VI. 150; WR 13.3; Kalir in the piyyut (end of Lamentations in Roman Mahzor), who made use of old sources which are no longer extant, in his description of the two monsters and of their contest which ends with the annihilation of both.Comp. further vol. I, pp. 29 and 30 with reference to Ziz and Behemoth.It is noteworthy that the tannaitic literature does not contain anything concerning Leviathan and Behemoth (the remark in Sifra 11.10 that Leviathan is a clean fish has hardly anything to do with the view that it will be eaten at the Messianic banquet, comp. also Hullin 67b and note 139, beginning), nor concerning the Messianic banquet.The word used in Abot 3.25 need not be taken literally, as may be seen from Tosefta Sanhedrin 8.9.Only in post-tannaitic literature, especially in later Midrashim, does the Messianic banquet play a great part.Comp., besides the sources already quoted, Nistarot R. Simeon 80; BHM V, 45–46; VI, 47; Alphabet R. Akiba 33.Comp. also vol. IV, pp. 115–116 and 249.Luzzatto, in his notes on the Roman Mahzor II, 212b, correctly remarked that the legend about the Messianic banquet wants to convey the view that this will be the

