FISHES THE FOOD OF MAN. 11 



mentions as curing any kind of meat with salt 

 for provisions. They used fossil salt, which 

 they got from the African deserts ; sea-salt, and 

 everything belonging to the sea, being abhorred 

 by them. The priests abstained even from the 

 fish of the Nile ; but whether because they 

 considered the natives of the river too sacred to 

 be eaten by them, or too impure from their 

 possible communication with the sea, authors 

 are not agreed. Clement of Alexandria gives 

 the former reason, and Plutarch the latter." 



During their sojourn in Egypt, the Israelites 

 adopted, more or less completely, the customs 

 and even the superstitious rites of their masters, 

 and hence, after their deliverance, arose the 

 necessity of enjoining upon them a new code of 

 laws, in order to draw a line of distinction 

 between them and idolatrous nations. On this 

 principle, the Levitical dispensation descends to 

 the regulation of minutiae of high importance, 

 under the then existing circumstances. 



Among these stringent laws are several 

 respecting' animals to be used or rejected as 

 food ; and we find that, though fishes generally 

 were not forbidden, (and perhaps under the 

 term fishes other aquatic creatures are included,) 

 those destitute of fins and scales were not to be 

 eaten. " And all that have not fins and scales 



