400 PECULIAR CONTROVERSIAL METHODS xi 



provisions for the ransoming of unclean beasts 

 (Lev. xxvii. 27) and for the redemption of their 

 sucklings (Numbers xviii. 15) sufficiently prove this. 

 As the late Dr. Kalisch has observed in his '' Com- 

 mentary " on Leviticus, part ii. p. 129, note : 



Though asses and horses, camels and dogs, were kept by the 

 Israelites, they were, to a certain extent, associated with the 

 notion of impurity ; they might be turned to profitable account 

 by their labour or otherwise, but in respect to food they were an 

 abomination. 



The same learned commentator (loc. cit. p. 88) 

 proves that the Talmudists forbade the rearing of 

 pigs by Jews, unconditionally and everywhere ; 

 and even included it under the same ban as the 

 study of Greek philosophy, " since both alike were 

 considered to lead to the desertion of the Jewish 

 faith." It is very possible, indeed probable, that 

 the Pharisees of the fourth decade of our first 

 century took as strong a view of pig-keeping as 

 did their spiritual descendants. But, for all that, 

 it does not follow that the practice was illegal. 

 The stricter Jews could not have despised and 

 hated swineherds more than they did publicans ; 

 but, so far as I know, there is no provision in the 

 Law against the practice of the calling of a tax- 

 gatherer by a Jew. The publican was in fact 

 very much in the position of an Irish process- 

 server at the present day more, rather than less, 

 despised and hated on account of the perfect 

 legality of his occupation. Except for certain 



