• In spite of this, there is one important respect In which the primitive type seems not to be preserved. Krei]uently certain foo<l3 are taboo to people in various stajrca of life or certain physical conditions, or attain to particular orders of people. ElalKirate rules may be found in Snencer and Cillen, I.e. 2.'i8, 467-473 : Frazer, I.e. \. 391. Only sliKnt survivals are to be found amonp the Hebrews, e.q. taboo on wine and whatever conies from the i,'ratie, imposcff on the Nazirite, and hia mother before his birth, and the prohibition of wine to the i>riests before ofTer- inj;. With such sliirht exceptions, the food taboos are binding on all Israelites. In this connexion Saul's taboo on eating foo<l till evening, unwittingly violated by Jonathan (1 S 14343r)_ niay be referred to. We naturally sympathize with Jonathan's ronunon- sense criticism; hut this was somewlmt rationalistic for that age, and the writer repre.sents J" as too much offended by its trans- gression to answer when consulted. Saul wished bv this strong taboo to assure supernatural ai<l, such as would be cheaply purchased bv the impaired etliciency of his men.
t The relation between these laws Is disputed. Some regard the law in Deut. as a secondary aildition. It seems at least probable that the two secliotm are nuitually independent ; and It is not unlikely that they draw on oral or written torah of the priests. Driver and White ai»ign I,v iis-23. 4147 to II. nat-ntsch (* Hanflkom.' Ez.-Lev.) objects that the passages exhibit too little of H's phraseology. Kor a very elaborate analysis see O^. Ilex, ad loc.^ and art. Lrviticds.
t ' I take it, however, that the eating of camel's flesh continued to be regarded by the Arabs as in some sense a religious act, even when it was no longer associated with a fonnal act of sacrillce : for abstinence from the tiesb of camels and wild oasei was jire-scribed by S>iueon Stvlilcs to his Saracen converts ; and traces of an idolatrous significance in feasts of camel's flesh appear in .Mohanmiedan trmlition ' (W, R. Smith, I.e. ias).
i On the Vorksbire superstition of the close GODncxionbetweei hares and witches see Frazer, i.e. Hi. 406.
830 UNCLEAN, UNCLEANNESS
UNCLEAN, UNCLEANNESS
but to touch ; yet once a year sacrificed it to the moon and Osiris, and ate the llesh. Its identifica- tion witli the demon Set or Typhon, the enemy of Osiris, is probably a degradation from its original identification with Osiris himself. Among the Syrians it seems to have been regarded as an in- carnation of Tammuz. Its Hesh was also taboo to worshippers of Attis. It was further supposed to possess magical powers.*
The criterion tliat clean animals must be rumi- nants with cloven hoof excluded the ass, horse, and dog, and all beasts of prey. The ass seems from Jg 6^ to have been commonly used for food : the Midianites 'left no sustenance in Israel, neither sheep, nor ox, nor ass' (of. 2 K &"'). The Arabs seem to have regarded it as a sacred animal, and it was forbidden to his converts by SymeonStylites, just as our abstinence from horse-flesh is due to the prohibition to Christian converts from the worsliip of Odin, to whom it was sacrificed. The story tliat the Jews worshipped the ass may point to tlie worship of it in Syria. The flesh and hoofs were used for magical purposes by the Arabs (see W. R. Smith, Kinship, 308 ; BS'^ 468).t The horse was little used by the Hebrews, even in war ; probably the uncleanness of the ass would be felt to extend to it. Josiah ' took away the horses that the kings of Judah had given to the sun' (2 K 23") ; this connexion with idolatry may account for its uncleanness. Four horses were cast into th^' sea at Rhodes at the annual feast of the sun (W. R. Smith, RS- 293). The dog seems to be sacred from the reference to its use in the mysteries (Is 66^). Among the Harranians dogs were said in the mysteries to be the brothers of men. They seem also to have been sacred among the Carthaginians and Phoenicians. ' In Moslem countries dogs are still regarded with a curious mixture of respect and contempt' (W. R. Smith, I.e. 291, 292). J Beasts of prey were naturallj' regarded as unclean, because they fed on the blood as well as the flesh of their victims. Most of the unclean birds were birds of prey or fed on carrion. Others lived in ruins, and were regarded as companions of the demons who haunted them. (P"or the ostrich as a demon cf. W. R. Smith, I.e. 129, n. 2). It is curious to observe how unclean birds mentioned in these lists are catalogued witli the uncanny monsters whicli are to dwell in the ruins of liabylon (Is 13-''--, Jer 50"") or Edom (Is 34"""'). No list of clean birds is given. See article P'OOD for those that were eaten. It need only be men- tioned that the dove was permitted, though to the Syrians taboo in a high degree.§
fish also were taboo to the Syrians, who regarded ulcers as the penalty for eating them (W. R. Smith, I.e. 292, 449). The Hebrews did not sacrifice, but were permitted to eat tliem. The only restriction was that lish without fins and scales might not be eaten. The reason was, no doubt, their snake-like api)earance, the serpent being unclean (see Food).