THE HOG. 85

bidden to eat their flesh: “There was an herd of many
wine feeding on the mountain.” ‘Indeed, there was no-
thing in the law of Moses to prevent their doing so, and
this was accordingly done openly, for the sake of selling
them to their heathen neighbours, until if was prohibited
about seventy years before the Christian era. This inter-
diction is said to have arisen from the following circum-
stance :—‘ When Aristobulus was besieging Hyrcanus in
Jerusalem, not wishing to interrupt the service of the Tem-
ple, he permitted an arrangement, under which money was
let down from the Temple in a box, in return for which, the
“lambs required for the daily sacrifices were sent up. It at
- last occurred to a mischievous old man that there would be
no overcoming the adverse party while they employed them-
selves in the service of God, and therefore one morning he
put a hog in the box instead of a lamb. When half-way
up, the pig reared himself up, and happened to rest his fore
feet upon the Temple wall; whereupon, continues the story,
Jerusalem and the land of Israel quaked. In consequence
of this, an order was issued by the Council, ‘Cursed be he
that breedeth hogs.’ Such is the origin of the order
against rearing hogs, as related in the Babylon Talmud.
One of the enforcements of this prohibition is curious, as