Page:The Hog.djvu/27

25 their ritual from the institutions of Moses, hold the flesh of the hog in utter abhorrence. Paxton, in his Illustrations of Scripture, vol. i., says, "The hog was justly classed by the Jews among the vilest animals in the scale of animated nature; and it cannot be doubted that his keeper generally shared in the contempt and abhorrence which he had excited. The prodigal son in the parable had spent his all in riotous living, and was ready to perish through want, before he submitted to the humiliating employment of feeding swine." We pass over Paxton's description of the hog as the "vilest of animals," because there is no sense in the expression, and its presumed meaning is unworthy notice. It cannot, however, be doubted, from the passage in Luke, (xv. 15,) and from others well known, that herds of swine were kept by the Jews, perhaps for sale and profit. Dr. J. Kitto says, "There does not appear to be any reason in the law of Moses why the hog should be held in such peculiar abomination. There seems nothing to have prevented the Jews, if they had been so inclined, to rear pigs for sale, or for the use of the lard. In the Talmud there are some indications that this was actually done; and it was probably for such purpose that the herds of swine, mentioned in the New Testament, were kept, although it is usual to consider that they were kept by the foreign settlers in the land. Indeed the story which accounts for the peculiar aversion of the Hebrews to the hog, assumes that it did not originate until about one hundred and thirty years before Christ, and that previously some Jews were in the habit of rearing hogs for the purposes indicated.

The same writer, in a note upon Luke viii. 32, enters at greater length into this subject. "We have already," he says, "intimated our belief that there was much error in supposing that the law which declared that certain kinds of animals were not to be used for food, should be understood as prohibiting them from rearing, for any other purpose, the animals interdicted as food. There was certainly nothing in the law to prevent them from rearing hogs, more than from rearing asses, if they saw fit to do so. It appears, in fact, that the Jews did rear pigs for sale to their heathen neighbors, till this was forbidden after the principle of refining upon the law had been introduced. This prohibition demonstrates the previous existence of the practice; and it did not take effect till about seventy years B.C., when it is alleged to have originated in a circumstance which occurred between Hyrcanus and Aristobulus, the sons of King Alexander Janneus. Aristobulus was besieging Hyrcanus in Jerusalem; but not wishing to interrupt the services of the temple, he permitted an arrangement under which money was let down from the temple in a box, in return for which the lambs required for the daily sacrifices were sent up. It at last occurred to a mischievous