The prohibition to "seethe a kid in its mother's milk" has caused considerable difference of opinion among com- mentators. Michaelis (art. ccx) thought it was meant merely to encourage the use of olive-oil instead of the milk or butter of an animal, wliich we commonly use in cookery, where the Orientals use the former. This will not satisfy any mind by which the clue of symbolism, so blindly held by the Eastern devotee, and so deeply interwoven in Jewish ritual, has once been duly seized. Mercy to the beasts is one of the under-currents which permeate that law. To soften the feelings and human- ize the character was the higher and more general aim. When Paul, commenting on a somewhat similar precept, says, " Doth God care for oxen, or saith he it altogether for our sakes?" he does not mean to deny (iod's care f'or oxen, but to insist the rather on the more elevated and tnore human lesson. The milk was the destined sup- port of the young creature: viewed in reference to it, the milk was its "life," and had a relative sanctity re- sembling that of the forbidden blood (comp. Juvenal,xi, 68, "Qui plus lactis habetquam sanguinis," s|)eaking of a kid destined for the knife). No doubt the abstinence from the forbidden action in the case of a young creature already dead, and a dam unconscious probably of its loss, or whose consciousness such a use of her milk could in
UNCLEANNESS
634
UNCLEANNESS
nowise quicken, was based on a sentiment merely. But tlie practical CDnsequcnce, tliat milk must i)e t'orefrone or elsewhere obtained, would prevent the sympathy from beiuic an empty one. It would not be the passive emotion which becomes weaker by repetition, for want of an active habit witii wiiiih to ally itself. And thus its operation would lie in indirectly (piickenint^ sympa- thies for the brute creation at all other times. The Talmudists took an extreme view of the precept, as for- biddiug sjenerally the cooking of Hesh in milk (Mishna, Choliii^ viii; Hottinger, Ler/. llehr. p. 117, 141).
It remains to mention the sanitary aspect of the case. 8wi«ie are .said to be peculiarly liable to disease in their own bodie.s. This probably means that they are more easilv led than other creatures to the foul feeding which priKtuces it; and, where the average heat is great, de- comp<isition rapi<l, and malaria easily excited, this ten- dency in the animal is more mischievous than else- where. A meazel or mezel. from whence we have " mea- .sled pork," is the old English word for a " leper," and it is asserted that eating swine's flesh in .Syria and Egypt tends to pnxluce that disorder (IJartholinus, De Moi-bis JHbLc.xiu; \\'iniderb.'ir,p.ol). liut there is an indctinite- iiess about these assertions which prevents our dealing with them scientitically. Meazel or mezel maj' well, in- deed, represent " le|)er," but wliich of all the morbid symptoms cla.ssed under that head it is to stand for, and whether it tneans the same, or at least a parallel, <lisorder in man and in pig are indeterminate questions. See Lki'eis. The prohibition on eating fat was salubri- ous in a region where skin diseases are frequent and vir- ulent, and that on blood had, no doubt, a similar tenden- cy. The case of animals dying of themselves needs no remark : the mere wish to insure avoiding disease, in case they had died in such a state, woulil dictate the ride. Yet the benolicial tendency is veiled under a cer- emonial difference, for the ''stranger" dwelling with the Israelite was allowed it, although the latter was forbid- den. Thus is their distinctness before God, as a nation, ever put prominently forward, even where more common motives appear to have their turn. As regards the an- imals allowed for food, comparing them with those for- bidden, there can be no doubt on which side the balance of wholesomeness lies. Nor would any dietetic econo- mist fail to pronounce in favor of the Levitical dietary code as a whole, as insuring the maximum of public health, and yet of national distinctness, procured, how- ever, by a minimum of the inconvenience arising from restriction.
Literature. — Bochart, Ilierozoicon ; Forskal, Descrip- tiones A nimalium, etc., qu(e in Itinere Orientali Observa- r»V, with b\s Jcones Rerum Xuturalium; and Kosenmlil- ler, Ihindbuch <kr bibl. A lleiihnm.sk'mide, vol. iv, Natural llistury, may be consulted on some of the questions con- nected with this subject ; also, more generally, Mai- monides, De Cibis Vetitis ; Reinhard, De Cibis Hebrce.o- ruin Prohibitis. — Smith. See Food.
Uncleanness (chiefly nX"Cu3, used in the almost technical sense of Levitical derilement) is the term by which, in the law of Jloses, is indicated that condition which caused the temporarj' suspension of a Hebrew man or woman from religious and social privileges as a subject of the Theocracy.
1. About seventy specific cases of possible unclean- ness are described, and others implied. Various modes of classifying them have been resorted to. The old Jewish writers made two classes, according to the length of the ceremonial suspension. The lighter class em- braced the instances of uncleanness for the day; the heavier class, those of a longer period {fesict/id, in Ugol. XV, 1148; Maimonides, Coiisliln/iimcs, in Ugol. viii, 58, where the contaminated of the lighter class is called D1^ h'^Z'.i.de die laraiidus ; comp. Lightfoot, //ajw. ()/" 0. T. \^\Vorks by Pitman, ii, \'2'2]; although he gives four classes, according to time ). Other writers (see Cor- nelius ii Lapide on Lev. xv, "22) make also two classes,