her neck, a very rude fall upon the ground... One of them sat upon holding down her head by the horns, the other twisted the halter about the fore-feet, while the third, who had a knife in his hand, instead of taking her by the throat, got astride upon her belly before her hind-legs, and gave her a very deep wound in the upper part of her buttock;... then they cut out two pieces, thicker and longer than our beef-steaks;... it was done adroitly, and the two pieces were spread upon the outside of one of their shields. One of the men still continued holding the head, while the other two were busied in curing the wound; the skin which had covered the flesh that was taken away, was left entire, and flapped over the wound, and was fastened to the corresponding part by two or more small skewers or pins;... they prepared a cataplasm of clay, with which they covered the wound: they then forced the animal to rise, and drove it on before them to furnish them with a fuller meal in the evening." To this may be added a short extract from Salt's narrative": "A soldier, attached to the company, proposed 'cutting out the shulada' from one of the cows they were driving before them;... they laid hold of the animal by the horns, threw it down, and proceeded without further ceremony to the operation. This consisted in cutting out two pieces of flesh from the buttock near the tail, which together... might weigh about a pound; the pieces so cut out being called 'shulada', and composing, as far as I could ascertain, part of the two 'glutei maximi' or larger muscles of the thigh. As soon as they had taken these away, they sewed up the wounds, plaistered them over with cow-dung, and drove the animal forwards, while they divided among their party the still reeking steaks." Formerly, Arab tribes not unfrequently drew blood from a live camel, poured it into a gut, and ate it boiled a black pudding (moswadd), which naturally vanished from the list of Arab delicacies in consequence of Mohammed's law against blood'. Nor is our own time free from similar horrors: the ingenious Chinese delight in ducks' feet roasted by forcing the wretched birds to walk over red-hot sheets of iron till the feet fall off; civilised France rejoices in frogs' legs torn from of the living animals; in order to enlarge the liver of geese for the Strasbourg pâté de foie gras, the geese are confined in hot ovens ; while the Romans sewed up the eyes of cranes and swans which they 7 A Voyage to Abyssinia (1814), pp. 295, 296. * See Freytag, Lex. Ar. II. 447. 9 See supra p. 8; comp. Pococke, Spicileg. p. 320; Sale, Koran, Prelim. Discourse, p. 91. fattened in dark cells or cages'; some English butchers draw, at intervals, small quantities of blood from live calves which during the time suffer agonizing fits, because by this process the flesh becomes more delicately white; some poulterers pluck the feathers from fowls while alive to make the birds appear plumper when sent to market2; and lobsters, crabs, and sometimes eels, are boiled alive. III. THE PROHIBITION OF FAT. The fat of victims, being naturally valued among the richest parts, was from early times devoted to the deity on the altar, both by the Hebrews and other nations. Yet among the former, it was for long periods not interdicted as food. The Deuteronomist rejected it by no law: in three different passages, in which he mentions and permits the slaughtering of animals for food away from the national Sanctuary, he denies to the owner the blood only, and nothing else "only you shall not eat the blood"5; and in the last "Song of Moses" fat is even enumerated among the choicest dainties. But in course of time, fat, like blood, was currently believed to represent the life and strength of the animal, and therefore to involve its "soul" or principle of existence. Hence, in the Book of Leviticus, the prohibition of the one was repeatedly joined with that of the other: "You shall eat neither any fat nor blood"". Both were enforced with equal severity, threatened with the same awful punishment of "excision", and ordained as "eternal statutes" to be observed by the Israelites "for their generations throughout all their dwellings". But here the analogies ended. The prohibition of fat resulted from the consistent development of Levitical theories; it was from the very beginning brought into connection with the advanced sacrificial system; it was never extended to the free and untamed species of 1 Plut. De Esu Carn. II. 1; Plin. H. N. X. 23 or 30. 2 The Times of April 6, 1868, reporting a conviction for this cruelty, records that one poulterer in Salop alone killed in that way between 5000 and 6000 fowls a week. 3 1 Sam. II. 15, 16; comp. Comm. on Levit. I. p. 320. 4 The opinion of Maimonides that "the fat of the entrails is too nutri tious, injures digestion, and produces cold and thick blood" (Mor. Nev. III. 48, comp. 41), was not shared by the ancient world. 5 Deut. XII. 16, 23; XV. 23. 6 Deut. XXXII. 14; comp. Comm. on Lev. I. p. 132 note 1. 7 Lev. III. 17; VII. 23-27. ונכרתה הנפש האכלת 25 .Lev. VII 8 .מעמיה 9 Lev. III. 17. the clean quadrupeds ()10, but was always restricted to those set apart for lawful victims 11 to the ox, the sheep, and the goat 12; it was more especially confined to the fat and the fat parts burnt on the altar as "an offering made by fire of a sweet odour to the Lord" 13, and therefore described more frequently than the blood as "the food of the Lord" 14, namely, the net of fat spreading over the intestines, and the fat found between the guts and easily detached from them, the two kidneys with their fat, the great lobe of the liver, and, of sheep of the kind ovis laticaudata, also the fat tail by which that species is distinguished 15; while the remaining fat, imbedded in the flesh and requiring to be cut out, was probably permitted to be eaten 16, unless the animal had died of itself, or had been torn by wild beasts 17, in which cases the whole carcase was rendered unclean, though the fat could be used for any purpose except food 18. The apparently universal principle and injunction, “All the fat belongs to the Lord" 19, and "You shall not eat any fat" 20, are not in contradiction to the more limited command, "You shall not eat any fat of ox or of sheep or of goat"21; for they cannot be misunderstood in a code which treats exclusively of sacrificial laws. The Levitical writer, content with giving practical reality to his theories, ordered all sacrificial animals, even those destined for food, to be killed as victims at the common altar22, and he declared their fat to be too holy for 10 Comp. Talm. Chull. 59b; Maimon. De Cib. Vet. I. 9; etc. מן הבהמה אשר יקריב ממנה אשה 11 הלב ליהיה 12 Lev. VII. 23, 25. 13 Lev. III. 5, 11, 16; XVII. 6. 14 Lev. III. 11, 16; Ezek. XLIV. 7 ; comp. Comm. on Levit. I. p. 7 notes 22, 23. 15 Comp. Comm. on Levit. I. pp. 489-493. But Jewish tradition decided, with very questionable justice, that the tail of sheep was "called fat only with respect to sacrifices" (Yoreh Deah § 64. 5), but was not interdicted as food, because the tail of no other quadruped was demanded for the altar - an opinion not shared by the Karaites and opposed by the Samaritan codex (which reads in Exod. XXIX. 22 and Lev. VIII. 25 b, and not as our text); see Comm. 1. c. p. 494; comp. also Geiger, Jüd. Zeitschr. I. 134, 135; Fürst, Gesch. des Karäerthums, I. 84, 85. The arguments by which Ebn Ezra (on Lev. VII. 23) professes to have convinced a Karaite of the lawfulness of eating the fat tail, are by no means tenable. 16 See Comm. on Lev. I. p. 133 note 7. human consumption: he left out of sight the fat of other clean animals withdrawn from the control of the priesthood'. IV. MEAT OF ANIMALS THAT DIED OF THEMSELVES (~‡‡≥). The aversion generally felt to partaking of the flesh of animals that have died of themselves (b) 2, is so natural, that we may suppose something like a regular custom to have in this respect been fixed from very early times among most nations that passed beyond the first and ruder stages of culture. Pythagoras taught that, in order to obtain purity (áyveía), it was above all necessary to keep aloof from the flesh of beasts that have died of themselves. The Romans declared, that "Every thing that dies of itself bears the character of sad gloom"; hence their priests were forbidden to wear shoes or sandals made of the skins of animals that had not been regularly slaughtered or sacrificed. Sanitary motives, no doubt, helped to strengthen the antipathy; for the flesh of such beasts is often unwholesome, it was certainly deemed difficult of digestion. But no people embodied and perpetuated their feeling of reluctance so consistently as the Hebrews. As soon as their principal notions with respect to legi 1 The subject is more fully discussed in Comm. on Lev. I. pp. 39, 129-133, to which we refer. The infinitesimal Rabbinical regulations, mainly aiming at the removal of certain vessels and skins (727 DF), in order to obviate the eating of the very least particle of blood or fat, may be seen in Yorch Deah § 64; comp. Maimon. De Cib. vet. c. VII; Mitsv. Hashem fol. 24b, § p. 2 From cognate with: (comp. Jer. IX. 21; Ezek. XXIX. 5), and therefore kindred in meaning with carcase (Judg. XIV. 8; comp. 2 Ki. IX. 37; Lat. mortua pecus); it is rendered by the Septuagint σῶμα, νεκρόν, θνησιμαῖον; by the Vulg. morticinum; the Koran (II.168; V. 4; etc.); Josephus (Ant. III. ΧΙ. 2) κρέως τοῦ τεθνηκότος αὐτομά tw; óov; Pseudo-Phocylides (ver. 139) κτήνος θνητόν; the Talmud (Chull. 94a,etc.); Ralbag (on Deut. XIV. 21) пnov muhan a*m mba; see Comm. on Lev. I. 553; comp. infra p. 15 note 9. 3 Diog. Laert. VIII. 33, áñéɣεodal vyostòlwv zpeñv; Aelian, Var. Hist. IV. 17, ἀπέχεσθαι . . . τῶν θνησειδίων παντὸς μᾶλλον. 4 Festus sub Mortuae pecudis: sua morte extincta omnia funesta sunt. 5 Fest. 1. c. Mortuae pecudis coris calceos aut soleas fieri flaminicis nefas habetur, sed aut occisae alioquin aut immolatae; comp. Talm. Chull. 94a, "a man must not sell sandals made from the skin of a beast that died of itself, as if they came from an animal duly killed”, etc.; see Bernays, Ueber das Phokylideische Gedicht, p. XXIX. 6 Maim. Mor. Nev. III. 48. 7 See Lev. XVII. 15, 16; XXII. 8; Deut. XIV. 21; comp. Ezek. IV. 14; XLIV. 31. timate and forbidden food had been settled, they connected meat of animals that died of themselves, whether quadrupeds or birds, with the injunctions relating to blood, and thus clearly marked the meat as condemned by a sacred principle of religion. They considered such animals as suffocated in their blood, which, prevented from flowing out, and settling in the body, precluded the free and normal departure of life. On these grounds the law was no doubt based in earlier times. But gradually, as theocratic views prevailed, it was referred to another principle of even deeper importance and still wider application in the system of Hebrew theology, the principle of the holiness of Israel, the chosen people of a holy God: "You shall not eat of anything that dies of itself, ... for thou art a holy people to the Lord thy God" 10. The animal dying prematurely of itself no doubt harbours within it the germ of dissolution; even while living it par Comp. Ezek. XLIV. 31, 7 ja ומן הבהמה Hence the New Testament usu ally expresses by пvixτóv suffocated (Acts XV. 20, 29; XXI. 25); the affinity between a and blood appears clearly in Tertullian (Apol. c. 9): "qui propterea quoque suffocatis et morticinis abstinemus, ne sanguine contaminemur vel intra viscera sepulto"; Pseudo-Clemens (Recogn. IV. 36) even explains "morticinum quod est suffocatum". The Koran (V. 4) includes, therefore, among the forbidden meat that of - and kill (المخنقة) animals strangled ed by a blow or fall, and the general rule among Mahommedans is, "It is forbidden to eat any quadruped or bird which has shed no blood in dying" (comp. supra p. 8; Niebuhr, Beschreib. v. Arab. p. 179). From this point of view the Talmud(Pesach.22) sidered from another side, the ox may be regarded as , since it was possibly a healthy animal (see infra). However, it appears that the term was gradually, against its original and etymological meaning, extended to the flesh of all unclean and of all clean beasts that had not been slaughtered in the customary manner, yet not to the flesh of those that had actually been torn by wild beasts (which extension of meaning may be traceable even in the Old Testament itself); while, on the other hand, in the later Talmudical phraseology, the word is applied to unlawful meat or food of whatever kind, especially to beasts wounded or afflicted with an organic defect כל שאין כמוה היה hence the maxim) TE, Mishn. Chullin III. 1; comp. Talm. סתם טרפה ... הוא,393.Elias Levit. Tishb רק רז"ל שמשו בה בשר בהמה שנטרפה both : (דרך השאלה לשאר איסורי מאכלות the flesh of נבלה justly classes among the goring ox that has been stoned to death (comp. Exod. XXI. 28, 29); but the flesh was prohibited for food not merely as , but as that of an animal accursed for having destroyed a human life (comp. Maim. De Cib. vet. IV. 22); although con ... words, therefore, approached each other in meaning (comp. Maim. De Cib. vetit. IV. 8, 9, 17 fin.; Mor. and ,(טיפה תחלת נבלה היא, .Nev. III both were employed to represent all uncleanness in food. 10 Deut. XIV. 21. |