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ing seclusion during tabooed seasons (supra). Again, the pro- 

 hibition : " Ye shall kindle no fire throughout your habitations 

 upon the Sabbath day "*" which in another passage*^ is amplified 

 into the rule requiring all cooking to be done on the preceding 

 day, may be first compared with the taboos observed by " the 

 shepherd of the great peoples " in Babylonia. On four " evil 

 days " he is not to eat roasted meat or baked bread, and on the 

 nineteenth day he may eat nothing which has been touched by fire 

 (supra). In a remarkable calendar of the unlucky days observed 

 by the Egyptians (infra), we find an extensive series of regula- 

 tions regarding the use of fire. On the fifth of the month Athyr, 

 fire might not be looked at, and if it went out, it might not be 

 rekindled. On the eleventh of Tobi no one might approach a 

 fire-place, for, said the scribe, on that day the god Ra had once 

 burst into flame to devour his enemies and the effects of his meta- 

 morphosis were felt on every anniversary of the day. These 

 taboos, which reach back into a remote period of Egyptian his- 

 tory, are still found among the peasants of Thebes and the Said 

 who on certain days of the year refuse to kindle a fire, and on 

 others avoid approaching the flame, even of a candle or a lamp, 



tion which they occupied at the beginning of the festival. A. J. Reinach 

 (Cultes, mythcs, ct religions, Paris, 1906, ii. 444), wittily compared this 

 with the practice of various animals, who, when in danger and unable to 

 flee, fait le mort. Immobility is obviously the most favorable condition in 

 which to avoid evil influences and spirits. 



*'^ Exodus, XXXV. 3. 



■*' Ibid., xvi. 23. The rules forbidding the lighting of fires and cooking 

 on the Sabbath were very strictly observed by the Essenes (Josephus, 

 Bcllum Judaicum, ii. 8). In the Mishna (Shabbath, iv. i) the prohibition 

 to bake and boil on the Sabbath is interpreted to mean that food may be 

 kept hot on the Sabbath, provided its existing heat is not increased, which 

 would be " boiling." Hence the food must be put only into such sub- 

 stances as would maintain but not increase the heat. The prohibition to 

 kindle a fire on the Sabbath was naturally extended to one of extinguish- 

 ing a fire as well as lights and lamps (Shabbath. xvi. 6). In mediaeval 

 times Rabbi Solomon ben Adret had a lock made to his stove, and kept 

 the key over the Sabbath to prevent his too considerate housemaid from 

 lighting a fire on Saturdays (I. Abrahams, Jezvish Life in the Middle 

 Ages, LondoTi, 1896, p. 83). 



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