By breeding pure-bred hogs men ought to improve in finances, intelligence and character. Good live stock is a powerful aid in making good men. But some men are too coarse-grained to respond to the humanizing and ennobling influences which the care of animals yields. Unfortunately there are men who seem to acquire in the course of their experience certain traits which are suggestive of porcine association. A human hog is an awful commentary on our agricultural civilization.Footnote 1
From the rebuilding of the Temple in c.515 BCE to its destruction at the hands of the Romans in 70 CE, the Temple stood at the center of religious, political, and economic life.Footnote 2 Perhaps the most important figure during this period was Alexander the Great, who brought with him Greek language and culture when he took control of the region in 332 BCE. The effects of Hellenism (fundamentally meaning to speak or act Greek) reverberate throughout this period and, in many ways, even unto today.Footnote 3 In fact, the traditional model of viewing “Hellenistic Judaism” as its own discrete entity is no longer tenable – since all forms of Judaism in antiquity interacted with, and even adopted, Hellenism.Footnote 4
Much like modern politics in the United States, in which debates about policy, law, ideology, economics, et cetera. center around the halls of Washington, D.C., similar debates in antiquity centered around the courtyards of Jerusalem. The institution and leadership of the Temple was a common target for criticism by various stakeholders, from the Teacher of Righteousness mentioned in the Dead Sea scrolls to Jesus.Footnote 5 Against this backdrop, the very definition of what it meant to be included in “Israel” was contested. Significantly, the concept of Judaism as a religious, rather than ethnic, identity develops during this period.Footnote 6 This distinction is important, since one can convert and take upon oneself a new religious identity (e.g. Roman Catholicism), but one cannot convert to join an ethnic identity (e.g. Italian). For the first time, as Shaye Cohen so elegantly summarizes it, “Outsiders could become insiders.”Footnote 7
Competition over what it meant to belong to “Israel,” over proper ritual practice, and over authorized scriptural interpretation fails to distinguish the Hellenistic period from any preceding or following era.Footnote 8 What is important about the Hellenistic period is that the debates that occurred therein set the tone and agenda for those that followed. These arguments extended well beyond the borders of the Hebrew Bible. (In fact, the very boundaries of the biblical canon began to emerge during this time period.) For example, it is only during the Hellenistic period that a general prohibition against intermarriage between Jews and non-Jews appears.Footnote 9 The Hellenistic period is therefore a fascinating era to study, allowing scholars to glimpse at the development of new rituals, laws, concepts, texts, and – in the case of this study – food regulations.
What, how, and with whom one should or should not eat features prominently in debates of this period. Underlying these arguments is a prominent Hellenistic belief: namely, that the law is rational. Of course, “rational” is contextual; it is a subjective rather than an objective term, a fact that I am reminded of every day when I read the news in which various political parties, organizations, and individuals seek to spin the latest poll, tragedy, speech, or (real or perceived) misstep by the opposition. In doing so, each person believes that he/she appeals to a “rational” justification. Further, in doing so, each person believes themself to be appealing to a socially agreed upon set of beliefs and assumptions about what constitutes logical thought and decorum (what Pierre Bourdieu would label “habitus”).Footnote 10 The rational basis provided for these laws, therefore, informs us about what the authors and their presumed audience considered an appropriate and persuasive justification for thought and practice. And, in presuming a rational basis for these laws, Hellenistic Jewish authors continuously appeal to reason as a foundational justification for biblical dietary regulations.
In providing these rationales, Hellenistic authors go well beyond the words of the Torah, where, as noted in Chapter 1, justifications for dietary practice are noticeably terse or absent. Hellenistic texts mark the beginning of a trend that continues into modernity: the need to justify perceived traditional food practices. This is especially the case for biblical texts, as they are seen as divinely ordained. And, since God (and Moses, the divine lawgiver) is understood to be rational, then there must be a logical basis for each and every biblical precept and commandment. To quote the Letter of Aristeas, a text to which we will soon turn, “In general everything is similarly constituted in regard to natural reasoning, being governed by one supreme power, and in each particular everything has a profound reason for it, both the things from which we abstain in use and those form which we partake.”Footnote 11 Biblically mandated practice is therefore understood as being action justified on the grounds of reason.
We will first discuss arguments that assert the rationality of Jewish food laws. Proceeding from this assumption of rationality are several related themes. One is that the animals consumed and/or abstained from are allegories for proper/improper thought and/or action. Another is that the act of sharing food, or commensality, is a socially meaningful practice, and that the rules regulating the shared table (almost completely innovated in the Hellenistic period, though not always recognized as such) are founded on logical principles. Finally, some rationalizations are basically repeated from biblical texts. Throughout, we will see that, though Hellenistic Jewish authors presume that Jews must follow biblical dietary regulations because they are divine commandments, they devote their time to explaining the logical nature of these practices. Or, in the terms that I employ throughout this book, Hellenistic Jewish authors presume revelation as a basis for these practices, but explicitly spell out reason as a foundational justification.
Rational Food Laws
One of the major tasks in translating Judaism into the context of Hellenism was a rather obvious one: translating the biblical text from Hebrew into Greek. If the goal was to explain Judaism in the context of Greek rationality, then rendering this foundational document into Greek would be a sine qua non. Out of this need arose the Septuagint (LXX), a Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible (albeit with some additions and alterations). Given the importance of this task, it is not surprising that the events surrounding this translation became the stuff of legend. Thus, rather than a single translator for the whole text, or a team sharing the workload, we are told that seventy-two Jews separately translated the Hebrew Bible over seventy-two days.Footnote 12
While the specifics of these myths are unimportant for our present concerns, one document that describes this translation event is of tremendous value: the Letter of Aristeas.Footnote 13 In addition to detailing the creation myth of the Septuagint, the Letter of Aristeas provides reason-based explanations for some key biblical legislation. Primary among these laws are those associated with proper diet.Footnote 14 The letter’s reputed author, Aristeas, suggests why food is such a focal subject, noting: “It is my opinion that mankind as a whole shows a certain amount of concern for the parts of their legislation concerning meats and drink and beasts considered to be unclean.”Footnote 15 In short, people want to know.
The Letter of Aristeas does not disappoint its inquisitive audience. It catalogues several fascinating rationales for Jewish food laws, including both those with and without a biblical basis (e.g. the laws of Leviticus 11 and the newly developing commensality regulations, respectively). Since the vast majority of these discussions relate to either the animals permitted/prohibited therein being allegories for proper/improper human decorum or to emerging commensality restrictions, I discuss them later in this chapter. For our present purposes, however, it is worth noting one of Aristeas’ concluding comments on these matters: “In the matter of meats, the unclean reptiles, the beasts, the whole underlying rationale is directed toward righteousness and righteous human relationships.”Footnote 16 Food laws are about proper comportment, and not just at the table, but in all aspects of daily life.
The fact that the Letter of Aristeas was written in Alexandria, Egypt is important to note. In this era, Alexandria was perceived as a key center of Greek culture and scholarship. For a text that translates Jewish concepts into a Greek rational framework to appear in Alexandria during this time period is about as surprising as discovering today that your waiter in Los Angeles wrote a screenplay; that the latest up-and-coming fiction writer lives in a cramped apartment in an equally up-and-coming neighborhood in Brooklyn; or that an aspiring fashion designer is moving to Milan, Italy. Once a center of culture and scholarship is established, many will seek it out; such was the case in Alexandria. Among the many who flocked to, and flourished in, this milieu was a significant Jewish population. Perhaps the most prominent Jewish citizen of ancient Alexandria, at least from the perspective of history, was Philo.
Philo (c.20 BCE–50 CE; also known as “Philo the Jew”; “Philo of Alexandria”) came from a prosperous and well-connected family. His voluminous writings indicate that he was well educated, a community leader, committed to observance of biblical law, and had a strong philosophical bent. Further, the fact that he wrote in Greek and constantly appealed to Greek philosophical and rational models indicates his desire to articulate how biblical legislation accords with Greek notions of proper thought and action.Footnote 17
Among the many biblical practices that Philo justified in this manner were the food laws.Footnote 18 For Philo, the biblical food prohibitions were both divinely given and rationally justified; they are based both on revelation and reason. These food practices were instructive, and thus must be both followed on the literal level and understood on the allegorical level (though only a select few possessed the capabilities to grasp the latter).Footnote 19 Philo’s exposition of these laws, however, did not occur in isolation from his other theories. The food laws, therefore, are justified on similar grounds to other biblical practices. Two prominent themes in Philo’s discussion of biblical food and other regulations are the laws’ connection to temperance in general and their pedagogical functions as lessons in proper decorum.
Like a proper Greek scholar, Philo extolled the virtues of temperance and decried the depravity of gluttony.Footnote 20 The ability to exercise self-control was a highly valued cultural trait in the Hellenistic world.Footnote 21 While Philo justified many biblical regulations on the grounds of temperance,Footnote 22 the dietary regulations in particular were seen as paragons of this virtue. The belly is ground zero for intemperance and vice; to control desires of the belly is therefore to control all desires. Or, as Philo puts it:
And being a lover of conciseness and wont to abridge subjects of unlimited number by using an example as a lesson [Moses] takes one form of desire, that one whose field of activity is the belly, and admonishes and disciplines it as the first step, holding that the other forms will cease to run riot as before and will be restrained by having learnt that their senior and as it were the leader of their company is obedient to the laws of temperance.Footnote 23
If you harness and control the leader of desire – the belly – then you have essentially neutralized the other desires.Footnote 24
Recognizing the necessity of controlling the belly, Moses enacted legislation concerning food and drink; “to neither of these did he give full liberty but bridled them with ordinances most conducive to self-restraint and humanity and what is chief of all, piety.”Footnote 25 To do so, Moses required people to give the first fruits from their produce as an offering to God.Footnote 26 Much more extensively, Moses limited the foodstuffs that were permitted to eat.
At the same time he also denied to the members of the sacred Commonwealth unrestricted liberty to use and partake of the other kinds of food. All the animals of land, sea or air whose flesh is the finest and fattest, thus titillating and exciting the malignant foe pleasure, he sternly forbade them to eat, knowing that they set a trap for the most slavish of the senses, the taste, and produce gluttony, an evil very dangerous both to soul and body. For gluttony begets indigestion which is the source and origin of all distempers and infirmities. Now among the different kinds of land animals there is none whose flesh is so delicious as the pig’s, as all who eat it agree,Footnote 27 and among the aquatic animals the same may be said of such species as are scaleless …Footnote 28 Having special gifts for inciting to self-control those who have a natural tendency to virtue, he trains and drills them by frugality and simple contentedness and endeavours to get rid of extravagance. He approved neither of rigorous austerity like the Spartan legislator, nor of dainty living, like him who introduced the Ionians and Sybarites to luxurious and voluptuous practices. Instead he opened up a path midway between the two. He relaxed the overstrained and tightened the lax, and as on an instrument of music blended the very high and the very low at each end of the scale with the middle chord, thus producing a life of harmony and concord which none can blame. Consequently he neglected nothing, but drew up very careful rules as to what they should or should not take as food.Footnote 29
Indiscriminate dining puts one on the disastrous road to gluttony.Footnote 30 For this reason, Moses introduced legislation that leads to, what I label, “rational rationing.” By limiting food choices, Moses sent the Israelites down the middle path so as to avoid both physical and moral indigestion.Footnote 31 Moses was not an extremist; he was neither a Spartan nor an Ionian or Sybarite.Footnote 32 Rather, he was a practical legislator who offered precepts that would keep man rational by rationing – but not completely tabooing – potentially irrational foods (i.e. certain, but not all, domesticated quadrupeds and fish).Footnote 33 Too much fat and too much deliciousness lead to an excess of intemperance. But like Goldilocks, there is an amount that is just right.
There is more to Philo’s concept of rational rationing. And so, he continues:
Possibly it might be thought just that all wild beasts that feed on human flesh should suffer from men what men have suffered from them. But Moses would have us abstain from the enjoyment of such, even though they provide a very appetizing and delectable repast. He was considering what is suitable to a gentle-mannered soul, for though it is fitting enough that one should suffer for what one has done, it is not fitting conduct for the sufferers to retaliate it on the wrongdoers, lest the savage passion of anger should turn them unawares into beasts. So careful is he against this danger that wishing to restrain by implication the appetite for the food just mentioned, he also strictly forbade them to eat the other carnivorous animals. He distinguished between them and the graminivorousFootnote 34 which he grouped with the gentle kind since indeed they are naturally tame and live on the gentle fruits which the earth produces and do nothing by way of attempting the life of others. They are the calf, the lamb, the kid, the hart, the gazelle, the buffalo, the wild goat, the pygarg, the antelope, and the giraffe, ten in all.Footnote 35 For as he always adhered to the principles of numerical science, which he knew by close observance to be a paramount factor in all that exists, he never enacted any law great or small without calling to his aid and as it were accommodating to his enactment its appropriate number. But of all the numbers from the unit upwards ten is the most perfect, and, as Moses says, most holy and sacred, and with this he seals his list of clean animals when he wishes to appoint them for the use of the members of his commonwealth.Footnote 36
Another component of rational rationing within the Mosaic dietary legislation is the avoidance of carnivorous animals. While we will discuss the allegorical interpretation of these laws later in this chapter, Philo notes here that to eat carnivorous beasts is to retaliate against them; to do so would be to walk down a path leading to savagery.Footnote 37 Rational man should therefore eat only grass-eaters. The connection between biblically tabooed animals and carnivorousness is one common both in antiquity and modernity, though this association is mentioned neither explicitly nor implicitly in the Hebrew Bible.Footnote 38 For Philo, this connection is as logical as the number ten, which Moses chose because, as with all of his legislation, it is the most “appropriate number” for achieving mathematical and rational harmony.Footnote 39 Reason is the foundation upon which all of these laws are built.
The notion that avoiding carnivorous beasts leads to avoiding acting in a blood-thirsty manner also suggests another Philonic rationalization for the biblical food laws: namely, their pedagogical function as a lesson in proper decorum. Though this theme appears most prominently in his discussion of animal allegories, which we examine below, it emerges quite clearly in a different context. While explaining the rationale for the thrice-repeated yet cryptic biblical command “do not cook a kid in its mother’s milk,”Footnote 40 Philo notes:
But so prolific is [Moses] in virtue and versatile in giving admirable lessons, that not content with his own prowess, he challenges it to further contest. He has forbidden any lamb or kid or other like kind of livestock to be snatched away from its mother before it is weaned. He has also forbidden the killing of the mother and offspring on the same day. He now crowns his bounty with the words “Thou shalt not seethe a lamb in his mother’s milk.” For he held that it was grossly improper that the substance which fed the living animal should be used to season and flavour the same after its death, and that while nature provided for its conservation by creating the stream of milk and ordaining that it should pass through the mother’s breasts as through conduits, the license of man should rise to such a height as to misuse what had sustained its life to destroy also the body which remains in existence. If indeed anyone thinks good to boil flesh in milk, let him do so without cruelty and keeping clear of impiety. Everywhere there are herds of cattle innumerable, which are milked everyday by cowherds, goat-herds and shepherds, whose chief source of income as cattle rearers is milk, sometimes liquid and sometimes condensed and coagulated into cheese; and since milk is so abundant, the person who boils the flesh of lambs or kids or any other young animal in their mother’s milk, shows himself cruelly brutal in character and gelded of compassion, that most vital of emotions and most nearly akin to the rational soul.Footnote 41
Philo interprets this biblical prohibition as a lesson in ethics. Seasoning the meat of a baby animal with the very milk that once sustained it is reprehensible, as it mixes the domains of life and death. For Philo, such a practice goes beyond the pale and is simply cruel. This does not mean, however, that Philo disapproves of eating meat and milk in general, a prohibition that the rabbis will propose later.Footnote 42 Here, Philo’s concern is not a general meat-and-milk matter, but rather a specific ethical matter reflected in the “cruelly brutal” practice of consuming the milk of a mother together with the meat of her child.Footnote 43
Though the Hebrew Bible prohibits cooking a kid in its mother’s milk on three separate occasions, it never provides an explicit rationale for doing so. For Philo, however, the reason is crystal clear: an ethical eater is an ethical person. And because an ethical eater would never be so cruel as to flavor the dead with the liquid that once nourished and sustained it, the ethical person must follow this dietary and moral prescription. Once again, the rational man follows rational law; and, for Philo, nothing was more rational than Mosaic legislation.
Finally, Philo advances a rather unsophisticated rationale for the food laws: certain foods are prohibited simply because it is a people’s custom to abstain from them. This explanation appears in the midst of Philo’s description of his participation in a delegation to the Roman Emperor Gaius. At one point, Gaius asked “a grave and momentous question, ‘Why do you refuse to eat pork?’”Footnote 44 Gaius’ question was met with laughter on the part of his audience, but not by the Jewish delegation, which offered a serious response:
We answered, “Different people have different customs and the use of some things is forbidden to us as others are to our opponents.” Then someone said, “Yes, just as many don’t eat lamb which is so easily obtainable,” whereupon Gaius laughed and said, “Quite right too, for it’s not nice.” Under such befooling and reviling we were helpless.Footnote 45
The delegation was obviously upset that its food practices – in particular, the abstention from pork – were the subject of laughter, to the point of perceived ridicule. However, Philo’s and the delegation’s rationale was simply to assert that every group has a custom, and this was theirs. While the pork taboo was an oft-noticed food rule,Footnote 46 their rather weak defense applied to all food practices of all cultures, Jewish or other: the regulations are based on unjustified custom.Footnote 47 Given Philo’s extensive previous rationales, this reason-based justification is striking as a rather terse, feeble, and (even for his ancient audience) unsatisfactory explanation.
Though Philo was perhaps the most prolific extant writer on the subject, he was not the only prominent Jew in antiquity who argued for the superior rationality of Mosaic legislation. Joining Philo in this endeavor was Josephus (37–c.100 CE), a Jew from Jerusalem who, among other things, was: a priest; a rebel general fighting for the Jews during their ill-fated revolt against Rome; a Roman prisoner of war; an adroit reader of the tea-leaves who accurately predicted (to his physical and material benefit) Vespasian’s rise to imperial power; a Roman citizen and wealthy pensioner; and a copious chronicler of Jewish history.Footnote 48 It is in the latter capacity that he has proved most useful to historians for centuries, as his survey of Jewish history, as well as his own exploits, provide much data for an era often either lacking or simply absent from our extant archives. However, scholars have long noted that no one can claim to narrate from a “no-spin zone,” and Josephus is no exception to this rule, so it is necessary to interpret his work with a grain of salt.
With regard to the subject at hand, Josephus accords with much of what has been previously discussed, as he in general also considered Mosaic legislation to be supremely rational, and instructive in virtue, temperance, and piety.Footnote 49 For example, in a passage that could easily have been written by Philo, Josephus states:
All schemes of education and moral training fall into two categories; instruction is imparted in the one case by precept, in the other by practical exercising of the character. All other legislators, differing in their opinions, selected the particular method which each preferred and neglected the other … Our legislator, on the other hand, took great care to combine both systems.Footnote 50 He did not leave practical training in morals inarticulate; nor did he permit the letter of the law to remain inoperative. Starting from the very beginning with the food of which we partake from infancy and the private life/dietFootnote 51 of the home, he left nothing, however insignificant, to the discretion and caprice of the individual. What meats a man should abstain from, and what he may enjoy; with what persons he should associate.Footnote 52
Josephus continues to detail various aspects of biblical law that are informed by both methods. Mosaic legislation is therefore the most complete, rational legal system. It is telling that Josephus begins his list with food laws and next moves on to those controlling social intercourse (perhaps implying commensality). In all matters, biblical law is viewed as based on reason.
The Mosaic combination of precepts and practical exercises allowed for an integrated system that promotes the Greek ideals of temperance, piety, and virtue.Footnote 53 For Josephus, this explains why biblical law forbids slaughtering a parent and its offspring on the same day: in order to inculcate “gentleness and humanity.”Footnote 54 Additionally, this system explains why Jews are exceedingly brave when facing martyrdom. Their simple lifestyle, which “others find difficult to tolerate” and includes “simple diet, discipline which leaves no room for freak or individual caprice in matters of meat and drink” leads them to virtuous action; thus, “our willing obedience to the law in these matters results in the heroism which we display in the face of death.”Footnote 55 Josephus goes even further in his argument for the Mosaic lifestyle with an intriguing claim:
Our earliest imitators were the Greek philosophers, who, though ostensibly observing the laws of their own countries, yet in their conduct and philosophy were Moses’ disciples,Footnote 56 holding similar views about God, and advocating the simple life and friendly communion between man and man. But that is not all. The masses have long since shown a keen desire to adopt our religious observances; and there is not one city, Greek or barbarian, nor a single nation, to which our custom of abstaining from work on the seventh day has not spread, and where the fasts and the lighting of lampsFootnote 57 and many of our prohibitions in the matter of food are not observed. Moreover, they attempt to imitate our unanimity, our liberal charities, our devoted labour in our crafts, our endurance under persecution on behalf of our laws. The greatest miracle of all is that our Law holds out no seductive bait of sensual pleasure,Footnote 58 but has exercised this influence through its own inherent merits; and as God permeates the universe, so the Law has found its way among all mankind.Footnote 59
If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then this is quite complimentary to the Mosaic lifestyle. Both philosophers and the masses see the inherent merits of this Law.Footnote 60 The veracity of this claim need not concern us; the very fact that Josephus considers this argument to be persuasive suggests that, at the very least, his audience would not find this claim completely spurious. In short, Moses’ rationality is legitimized by its adoring Greek public.
A final argument for the rationality of biblical food laws comes from 4 Maccabees. Part of a series of books that narrate the supposed events surrounding the rise of Hasmonean (also known as the Maccabean) dynasty,Footnote 61 4 Maccabees includes an elegant explanation for biblical dietary regulations:
Observe in the first place how, in regard to the things that hinder temperance, reason is complete master of the passions. Temperance, as I understand it, is control over desires, and of desires some relate to the soul and others to the body, over both of which reason obviously holds sway. When we are attracted to forbidden foods, how do we come to reject the pleasures to be gained from them? Is it not because reason has the power to control the appetites? I believe it is. Accordingly, when we crave seafood or fowl or the meat of four-legged beasts or any sort of food at all that is forbidden to us under the Law, it is through the mastery of reason that we abstain. For the proclivities of our appetites are restrained and held in check by the prudent mind, and all the motions of the body are muzzled by reason.Footnote 62
Here, the rational man still craves forbidden foods; however, he uses reason to exercise temperance.Footnote 63 While similar to many of the explanations that we have already encountered (especially Philo’s), 4 Maccabees advances a slightly different argument. As James Rhodes notes: “For 4 Maccabees, it is the individual who is able, with the help of devout reason, to quell the desire for things forbidden (4 Macc 1:33–35). For Philo, it was Moses who drew the soul back to reason by disciplining the appetites of the belly (Spec. 4,95–96).”Footnote 64 Reason still exerts force upon rational man, but the direction of this force differs in 4 Maccabees. In essence, it is the difference between centripetal and centrifugal forces.
Whatever the direction of the force, Mosaic legislation (i.e. revelation) and the powers of reason combine to lead one down the virtuous path. However, there is another guide on this journey: the animal itself.
Animal as Allegory
Though animals themselves might be irrational, they have the ability to instruct rational man on proper thought and action. Because animals possess this capability, there is much to learn from the animals permitted and tabooed by the supreme rational agent, Moses. In doing so, we will largely consult two sources: the Letter of Aristeas and Philo.Footnote 65 Though similar in many ways, we will consider each source separately, in order to understand better the nuances of each author.
The Letter of Aristeas articulates a clear thesis regarding animal allegories: “Everything pertaining to conduct permitted us toward these creatures and towards beasts has been set out symbolically.”Footnote 66 There is a symbolic explanation for each of the biblical dietary food laws. It is from this symbolic explanation that the Letter of Aristeas derives ethical benefits. As Svebbaken argues:
The animals exemplify certain noble and ignoble character traits, which Moses either commends or condemns symbolically through the designations “clean” and “unclean.” To eat or abstain as prescribed does not in itself affect the character of the moral agent, who must first correctly discern and then embrace the moral exhortations Moses expresses symbolically through his legislation.Footnote 67
The symbolism prompts proper action by a moral agent. Proper action without proper understanding, however, does not yield proper results.
The Letter of Aristeas’ exposition on this subject begins with a sweeping statement: “In general everything is similarly constituted in regard to natural reasoning, being governed by one supreme power, and in each particular everything has a profound reason for it, both the things from which we abstain in use and those from which we partake.”Footnote 68 Since every decision is governed by reason, then one need “not take the contemptible view that Moses enacted this legislation because of an excessive preoccupation with mice and weasels and suchlike creatures.”Footnote 69 Rather, “everything has been solemnly set in order for unblemished investigation and amendment of life for the sake of righteousness.”Footnote 70 It is for this reason that Moses permitted domesticated and herbivorous birds, but prohibited wild and carnivorous fowl, since the latter dominate the former and unjustly find food at their expense; “and not only that, they also seize lambs and kids and outrage human beings dead or alive.”Footnote 71 In labeling wild birds of prey “impure,” Moses binds those bound by the law to act righteously and to not exert their strength over those who depend upon them. They are to act like the gentle permitted birds and not the predatory prohibited birds. Permitted and prohibited animals are allegories for pious and impious action. Therefore, Moses uses these creatures to teach proper decorum.Footnote 72
Subsequently, the Letter of Aristeas’ symbolic interpretation of the biblical food laws addresses the two required physical traits of permitted domesticated quadrupeds: split hoofed and ruminant. A split hoof, “that is the separation of the claws of the hoof, is a sign of setting apart each of our actions for good, because the strength of the whole body with its action rests upon the shoulders and legs. The symbolism conveyed by these things compels us to make a distinction in the performance of all our acts, with righteousness as our aim.”Footnote 73 Like a fork in the road, the split hoof marks two distinct paths and is thus symbolic of the distinct, and separate, path upon which Jews tread. This distinguishes Jews from non-Jews, the majority of whom are deemed indecorous, especially in regard to sexual matters.Footnote 74 Further, the characteristics of the split hoof and, especially, rumination combine “quite clearly [to] express, to those who perceive it, the phenomenon of memory.”Footnote 75 “Rumination,” according to the Letter of Aristeas, “is nothing but the recalling of (the creature’s) life and constitution, life being usually constituted by nourishment.”Footnote 76 To remember one’s food is therefore to remember one’s life, since the very basis of life is food.Footnote 77 This act of remembering, of ruminating on God like a ruminant beast does on grass, is also found in other scriptural commandments, of which the Letter of Aristeas lists several.Footnote 78 Accordingly, these laws are based on “sound reason,” endow Jews with a “distinct characteristic of memory,” are by “no chance accident … ordained as part of our very soul,” and finally are “bound up with truth and the expression of the right reason.”Footnote 79 In sum, they serve to distinguish Jews as highly rationale.
Continuing in the same allegorical vein, the Letter of Aristeas argues that no action or word should be done or uttered “to incline toward injustice.”Footnote 80 This principle is encountered in the biblical legislation regarding “mischievous” animals like weasels, mice, and similar creatures.Footnote 81 Mice act unjustly by polluting and defiling everything with which they come into contact.Footnote 82 The Letter of Aristeas continues:
The species of weasel is unique: Apart from the aforementioned characteristic, it has another polluting feature, that of conceiving through its ears and producing its young through its mouth. So for this reason any similar feature in men is unclean; men who hear anything and give physical expression to it by word of mouth, thus embroiling other people in evil, commit no ordinary act of uncleanliness, and are themselves completely defiled with the taint of impiety.Footnote 83
Ignoring the obvious biological inaccuracy, the Letter of Aristeas’ claim about weasel reproduction demonstrates how tabooing the weasel functions on the symbolic level. Gossip and slander enter into one’s ear and unjustly leave one’s mouth, mimicking the supposed reproductive process of the weasel. It is for this reason that the weasel is an allegory for these vices. So why is weasel verboten? Not out of a preoccupation with weasels, but because the “Law forbids harming anyone in thought or in deed.”Footnote 84
The Letter of Aristeas concludes its “brief résumé of these matters” by reminding its readers
that all the regulations have been made with righteousness in mind, and that no ordinances have been made in scripture without purpose or fancifully, but to the intent that through the whole of our lives we may also practice justice to all mankind in our acts, remembering the all-sovereign God. In the matter of meats, the unclean reptiles, the beasts, the whole underlying rationale is directed toward righteousness and righteous human relationships.Footnote 85
Biblical food laws are about just and righteous thought, speech, and action; they regard building righteous relationships with other humans. These regulations are therefore rational and not capricious.Footnote 86 Understanding the permitted and prohibited animals in their proper symbolic manner (i.e. allegorically) thus prompts the moral agent to appropriate thought, speech, and action.
Philo’s discourse on this subject is similar in many ways to the Letter of Aristeas’. However, Philo’s rendering implies that the symbolic interpretation is more concretely embodied in the animal itself.Footnote 87 The proper ingestion of the proper animal with the proper understanding, therefore, results in a change in one’s mental, moral, and physical body. We shall return to the extended section of Special Laws, 4 discussed above, in which Philo lays out these embodied and embodying allegories as rationalizations for biblical food laws.
After detailing the reasons why there are ten permitted domesticated quadrupeds, Philo continues:
[Moses] adds a general method for proving and testing the ten kinds [of permitted beasts], based on two signs, the parted hoof and the chewing of the cud. Any kind which lacks both or one of these is unclean. Now both these two are symbols to teacher and learner of the method best suited for acquiring knowledge, the method by which the better is distinguished from the worse, and thus confusion is avoided. For just as a cud-chewing animal after biting through the food keeps it at rest in the gullet, again after a bit draws it up and masticates it and then passes it on to the belly, so the pupil after receiving from the teacher through his ears the principles and lore of wisdom prolongs the process of learning, as he cannot at once apprehend and grasp them securely, till by using memory to call up each thing that he has heard by constant exercises which act as the cement of conceptions, he stamps a firm impression of them on his soul. But the firm apprehension of conceptions is clearly useless unless we discriminate and distinguish them so that we can choose what we should choose and avoid the contrary, and this distinguishing is symbolized by the parted hoof. For the way of life is twofold, one branch leading to vice, the other to virtue and we must turn away from the one and never forsake the other.Footnote 88
Philo explicitly compares the physical process of acquiring proper knowledge to that of proper ruminant digestion. The mind digests learning, breaking it down into its constituent parts and extracting vital nourishment in a manner that exactly correlates with how a ruminant digests and then absorbs nutrients. Further, the cleft hoof is directly mapped onto the fork in a road, with one path leading to virtue and the other to vice.Footnote 89
Elsewhere, Philo further embodies the allegorical symbolism of the cleft hoof. After arguing that only those memories that are exerted on good things are in fact good, Philo states that the hoof must be parted “in order that, the faculty of memory being divided into two sections, language as it flows through the mouth, for which Nature wrought lips as twin boundaries, may separate the beneficial and the injurious forms of memory.”Footnote 90 The split hoof is both an allegory for and a literal embodiment of these binaries: good/bad memory exerted on good/bad subject, split/whole hoof, and properly/improperly parted lips.Footnote 91 Further, man’s mind and beasts’ bodies must possess these mental and physical characteristics because one without the other is useless.Footnote 92 This explains the impurity of swine and the camel, as each lacks one of the two required characteristics. “For indeed distinguishing without memory and without conning and going over of the things that are best is an incomplete good (as is memory without distinguishing between good things and their opposites), but the meeting and partnership of both in combination is a good most complete and perfect.”Footnote 93 To lack one of these characteristics is therefore to be incomplete; to have both is to be whole.
Ruminant, ungulate, and domesticated beasts with four legs are not the only animals that possess this pedagogic potential for Philo. He therefore continues, making explicit how each category of permitted/prohibited creature displays this combination of embodied and embodying allegory. Accordingly, he turns next to aquatic creatures, which are biblically mandated to have both fins and scales.
Any that fail to possess both or one of these marks are swept away by the current unable to resist the force of the stream; those who possess both throw it aside, front and stem it and pertinaciously exercise themselves against the antagonist with an invincible ardor and audacity. When they are pushed they push back, when pursued they hasten to assail, where their passage is hampered they open up broad roads and obtain easy thoroughfares. These two kinds of fish are symbolical, the first of a pleasure-loving soul, the latter of one to which endurance and self-control are dear. For the road that leads to pleasure is downhill and very easy, with the result that one does not walk but is dragged along; the other which leads to self-control is uphill, toilsome no doubt but profitable exceedingly. The one carries us away, forced lower and lower as it drives us down its steep incline, till it flings us off on to the level ground at its foot; the other leads heavenwards the immortal who have not fainted on the way and have had the strength to endure the roughness of the hard ascent.Footnote 94
Though Philo can often be tedious, akin to reading the fine print of a software user agreement, he can sometimes be delightful and clear. When scholars encounter the latter, it is a joy, as it makes our job of interpreting quite simple. Further, when this happens, it is often easier to cite Philo rather than attempt to summarize clumsily what he so elegantly stated. This passage (like many in this section) is such an instance.
According to Philo, fish with fins and scales can swim against the literal tide, just as the moral person swims against the figurative tide. Fish and humans without these physical features are seekers of pleasure; however, fish and humans with these physical features possess the positive characteristics of endurance and self-control. Once again, we encounter a two-fold path, wherein the former takes the easy, low, and wrong road, and the latter take the high, hard, and correct road.Footnote 95 The criteria of fins and scales are therefore symbolic of the strength needed to lead a moral life. They are embodied and embodying allegories for action.
A similar rationale underlies biblical injunctions vis-à-vis reptiles (i.e. flying insects and land swarmers).Footnote 96
Holding to the same method he declares that all reptiles which have not feet but wriggle along by trailing their belly, or are four-legged and many footed are unclean for eating. Here again he has a further meaning: by the reptiles he signifies persons who devote themselves to their bellies and fill themselves like a cormorant, paying to the miserable stomach constant tributes of strong drink, bake-meats, fishes and in general all the delicacies produced with every kind of viand by the elaborate skills of cooks and confectioners, thereby fanning and fostering the flame of the insatiable ever-greedy desires. By the four-legged and many footed, he means the base slaves not of one passion only, desire, but of all. For the passions fall under four main heads but have a multitude of species, and while the tyranny of one is cruel the tyranny of many cannot but be most harsh and intolerable. Creeping things which have legs above their feet, so that they can leap from the ground, he classes among the clean as for instance the different kinds of grasshoppers and the snake-fighter as it is called; and here again by symbols he searches into the temperaments and ways of a reasonable soul. For the natural gravitation of the body pulls down with it those of little mind, strangling and overwhelming them with the multitude of the fleshly elements. Blessed are they to whom it is given to resist with superior strength the weight that would pull them down, taught by the guiding lines of right instruction to leap upward from earth and earth-bound things into the ether and the revolving heavens, that sight so much desired, so worthy a prize in the eyes of those who come to it with a will and not half-heartedly.Footnote 97
This passage reminds me of two well-known food-related words that are often erroneously used as synonyms: gourmet and gourmand.Footnote 98 Both appreciate food, but the latter does so to excess. Philo’s principle of rational rationing allows for one to be a food-lover, but not a glutton. The tabooed reptiles are therefore no gourmets; they are gourmands. These reptiles/gourmands fall prey to their unchecked passions; they descend into depravity by the pull of their own desires.
Philo here relies on two metaphors: locomotion on one’s belly and desires of the belly, and leaping locomotion and the ability to rise above desire.Footnote 99 In regard to the first metaphor, Philo clearly views a creature that propels itself on its belly as symbolic of one who seeks pleasures of the belly.Footnote 100 Though the second metaphor also connects locomotion with desire, it is more complex than the first one, which relies on the simple (and perhaps obvious) association of using one’s stomach for propulsion, whether for physical, moral, or desirous purposes. Means of locomotion generates the symbolism in the second case, but this connection is a little less obvious. It is perhaps for this reason that Philo clearly enjoys this symbolism, employing it on several other occasions. For example, “These are symbols of the souls which though rooted like reptiles to the earthly body have been purified and have strength to soar on high, exchanging earth for heaven, and corruption for immortality.” This is in contrast to those who lack the leaping criteria, and hence, though their soul was reared in heaven, “have left that home for earth the region of things mortal and evil.”Footnote 101 The “snake-fighter” (ὁ ὀφιομάχης), in particular, receives special allegorical attention by Philo.Footnote 102 As noted above, the snake-fighter is a reptile with jointed legs above its feet that can leap heavenward.Footnote 103 According to Philo, “the snake-fighter is, I think, nothing but a symbolic representation of self-control, waging a fight that never ends and a truceless war against intemperance and pleasure.”Footnote 104 The stakes of this war are monumental, since temperance does not only represent “simplicity and abstemiousness, and … a severe and lofty mode of life,” but intemperance, with its focus on extravagance and luxury, leads to effeminacy in both soul and body, which “in the view of right-minded people is worse than death.”Footnote 105 The temperate man is a man of virtue (or “manliness,” from the Latin vir, meaning “man”). Those with proper locomotion, like the snake-fighter, can use their jointed legs to leap above physical and moral boundaries, and avoid the fate worse than death: effeminacy.
Elsewhere, Philo makes another locomotion-related point. Observing that reptiles both with no feet and with multiple feet are tabooed, Philo derives an important symbolic lesson: that one should be neither atheist nor polytheist.Footnote 106 Only the monotheist possesses the right amount of legs, and vice versa. Biblical laws relating to reptiles therefore teach more than just self-control; they also instruct the careful reader/eater in the importance of monotheism.
Before turning to Philo’s summary of his discourse in Special Laws, 4, it is worth noting what Philo does not do: namely, he fails to provide an extensive allegorical interpretation for biblical laws relating to fowl. However, such an interpretation is likely implied in his brief remarks on the subject.
Having discoursed on the subject of the different kinds of animals on land and in the water and laid down the best possible laws for distinguishing between them, he proceeds to examine also the remaining parts of the animal creation, the inhabitants of the air. Of these he disqualified a vast number of kinds, in fact all that prey on other fowls or on men, creatures which are carnivorous and venomous and in general use their strength to attack others. But doves, pigeons, turtledoves, and the tribes of cranes, geese and the like he reckons as belonging to the tame and gentle class and gives them to any who wish full liberty to make use of them as food.Footnote 107
It is odd for Philo to miss an opportunity to pontificate on a subject. As even the review of texts in this chapter has likely indicated, Philo enjoyed pursuing a subject long beyond necessary to make his point. Therefore, it is curious that Philo would fail to articulate his point here. Perhaps this reticence is due to the fact that Philo had only just discussed why the “gentle-mannered soul” should abstain from consuming carnivorous animals.Footnote 108 Philo might have expected his reader to connect the dots between his previous argument and the allegorical interpretation he advanced immediately thereafter. This would make sense; if eating birds of prey leads one to act vengefully, then one should eat gentle creatures, which aid in the cultivation of self-control and proper decorum.Footnote 109 Philo furthers this argument with the following line, in which he justifies biblical taboos against consuming animals that die a natural death and by the hands of an animal of prey.Footnote 110 Though he does not turn this into an allegory about the animal, Philo argues against such practices on various grounds, including sharing a proverbial table with creatures of prey, health, respect for Nature, and self-control.Footnote 111 Perhaps sometimes even for Philo a connection is clear enough that brevity can suffice.
In concluding his discourse on permitted and prohibited creatures, Philo offers an elegant summary of his thesis:
Thus in each element of the universe, earth, water, air he withdrew from our use various kinds of each sort, land creatures, water creatures, flying fowls, and by this as by the withdrawal of fuel from a fire he creates an extinguisher to desire.Footnote 112
The dietary laws are therefore intended to extinguish the flames of desire. Permitted and prohibited creatures are symbolic of fire retardants and flammables, respectively.Footnote 113 Philo’s focus on these animals as embodied and embodying allegories of self-control and desire is explained further by the context in which this extended discourse appears: an exposition on the Tenth Commandment. Commonly known in archaic English as “Thou shalt not covet,” Philo follows the LXX translation of the text, and cites the commandment as “You shall not desire.”Footnote 114 For Philo, diet (both literally and symbolically) is a primary means of preventing gluttony and controlling desire.Footnote 115
Rationalizing Commensality Restrictions
Commensality, the act of sharing a meal with another, is a socially meaningful practice. With whom one chooses or refuses to dine serves to define the borders of a given community.Footnote 116 Though these regulations will be read back into later times, it is only in the Hellenistic period when concerns regarding the community-building (and – destroying) potential of commensality begin to emerge. And fitting with the larger trend we have already encountered, when these concerns appear, they are justified on rational grounds.
With the exception of the Book of Daniel, commensality restrictions are notably absent from biblical texts. This statement might seem surprising, as one would expect to find condemnation of such practices in Ezra and Nehemiah, two books famous for their efforts to erect firm boundaries between Judeans and other nations.Footnote 117 Yet, we find no such restrictions. Further, the Ammonites and the Moabites are explicitly hated because they failed to offer the post-Exodus Israelites commensality.Footnote 118 If the hated Other is deemed as such because of its refusal to engage in commensality, then it would seem that such restrictions are simply absent from the biblical corpus.
Daniel is therefore the anomalous case in the Hebrew Bible. Daniel is further abnormal in that it was written quite late comparable to the remainder of the Hebrew Bible. Despite its claims to have been written in the sixth century BCE, it was most likely written several centuries later.Footnote 119 The assertions that Daniel makes, as we shall see, are reasonable in a Hellenistic context. Therefore, when Daniel claims to refuse to eat the food provided by a Gentile king lest, in doing so, he might “defile himself,”Footnote 120 he is speaking from a different context than the vast majority of the Hebrew Bible.
What does Daniel therefore teach us? He raises a concern for eating a Gentile’s food and drink, though he is willing to consume water and vegetables.Footnote 121 However, since we are concerned with the rationalizations for these rules, Daniel actually has very little to offer. Despite making a claim that, given other biblical texts, seems to come like a bolt out of the blue, Daniel does not actually justify his practice. Like many innovations, it is simply stated as fact.
The refusal by a Jew to eat the food and/or sit at the table of a non-Jewish authority figure (e.g. a political, military, or religious ruler) becomes a trope in late Hellenistic-period texts.Footnote 122 Interestingly, these sources neither reference foodstuffs explicitly prohibited by the Hebrew Bible, nor do they justify these practices. Thus, we learn that Judah and the Maccabees hid in the mountains and ate herbs so as to avoid defilement.Footnote 123 In the Greek version of Esther, Esther is careful to point out that she has not partaken of the king’s food.Footnote 124 In the book of Judith, Judith provides her own food and refuses to use the silver dinnerware, consume the food, and imbibe the wine of the non-Jewish general Holofernes; and when she ultimately dines at Holofernes’ table, she eats her own food.Footnote 125 In Joseph and Aseneth, Joseph consumes the Egyptian priest Pentephres’ food, but at a separate table; it is only after Joseph and Aseneth wed, following Aseneth’s “conversion” experience, that Joseph engages in commensality with his in-laws.Footnote 126 In Tobit, Tobit avoids eating Gentile food, though he does note that his abstention is unique among his people.Footnote 127 Josephus discusses an otherwise unattested Jewish preference for olive oil prepared by fellow Jews, states that two Jewish priests imprisoned in Rome maintained their piety by eating only figs and nuts, and notes that Ptolemy appointed Nicanor to prepare food for the translators of the LXX according to the Jewish custom (a tradition that appears in the Letter of Aristeas as well).Footnote 128 However, he also reports that the Tobiads ate and drank at the table of Ptolemy seemingly without concern.Footnote 129 Further, the food laws of separatist sects like the Qumran community and the Essenes might reflect some of these general concerns.Footnote 130
Tacit in many of these texts is the fact that this novel concern about eating foreign food and/or with foreign people creates social distinction. As is discussed elsewhere in this book, this emerging desire of Jews to separate themselves at the table was noticed by both contemporary Jews and non-Jews, and was sometimes perceived to be misanthropic.Footnote 131 Though pejorative, there is some evidence for the latter interpretation, as two texts make the connection between sharing a table with others and with sharing in their (perceived) improper practices.
In the book of Jubilees, a mid-second-century BCE retelling of the events leading up to the Revelation at Mt. Sinai, Abraham’s blessing for his grandson Jacob includes the following injunction:
And you, also, my son, Jacob, remember my words, and keep the commandments of Abraham, your father. Separate yourself from the gentiles, and do not eat with them, and do not perform deeds like theirs. Because their deeds are defiled, and all of their ways are contaminated, and despicable, and abominable.Footnote 132
It would seem that, by eating with them, one would learn about their deeds; and the performance of deeds like theirs would be tantamount to engaging in contaminating, defiling, despicable, and abominable practices.Footnote 133 This connection (and hence rationale) is not completely explicit, however.Footnote 134
For a more direct connection between social separation at meals and the separation from improper practice, we must turn again to the Letter of Aristeas, which states:
In his wisdom the legislator [i.e. Moses], in a comprehensive survey of each particular part, and being endowed by God for the knowledge of universal truths, surrounded us with unbroken palisades and iron walls to prevent our mixing with any of the other peoples in any matter, being thus kept pure in body and soul, preserved from false beliefs, and worshipping the only God omnipotent over all creation … So to prevent our being perverted by contact with others or by mixing with bad influences, he hedged us in on all sides with strict observances connected with meat and drink and touch and hearing and sight, after the manner of the Law.Footnote 135
The metaphorical barriers that Moses erected at the table prevent Jews from eating with the wrong crowd, who would teach them perverted practices. This explicit rationale for commensality regulations fits with an earlier statement in the Letter of Aristeas, wherein the high priest Eleazar explains the food laws to a Greek delegation. In setting up the allegorical elucidation that follows (discussed previously, above), he comments that “through bad relationships men become perverted, and are miserable their whole long life; if, however, they mix with wise and prudent companions, they rise above ignorance and achieve progress in life.”Footnote 136 Since biblical food laws prevent “bad influences” and encourage “progress in life,” then choosing the people who surround the table is therefore as important as choosing the food placed upon that table.
In subsequent chapters, we will encounter a vast expansion in commensality regulations and a proportional increase in reason-based rationalizations for these practices.Footnote 137 In these discussions, we should notice the legacy of the Hellenistic period, where these concerns first arose. Like the statue emerging from a block of marble, we have only begun to glimpse at the form that will soon emerge.
Rephrasing Biblical Rationales
In addition to offering new rationales, based on reason, revelation, and allegory, Hellenistic sources also rephrased justifications of food laws found in the Hebrew Bible itself. While many of these texts amount to no more than summaries of the biblical laws and narratives, some add new food regulations. Given that these rationales are drawn from the Bible itself and that we have already discussed these texts in Chapter 1, my treatment of this topic will be rather concise.
One of the most commonly repeated rationalizations for biblical food taboos concerns the connection between blood and life.Footnote 138 In addition to mentioning it while quoting or summarizing Genesis, this justification is also woven into larger exegetical agendas (as, for example, Philo does in the midst of his larger discourse, discussed above).Footnote 139 The injunction against consuming the sciatic nerve, and the story that underlies it, also proved popular.Footnote 140 Other topics include: biblically forbidden animals;Footnote 141 consuming animals that died from natural causes or were killed by prey animals;Footnote 142 slaughtering a parent and its offspring on the same day;Footnote 143 sending the mother bird away from her nest;Footnote 144 eating forbidden fat;Footnote 145 and possibly the prohibition against cooking a kid in its mother’s milk.Footnote 146
These sources do not add much to the discussion, as they either summarize the biblical text itself or just reinforce arguments made elsewhere in their corpus (the latter is especially true with regard to Philo). The approach that many of these sources take is therefore best summarized by Josephus, who states:
Moreover, as concerning animals, [Moses] distinguished in detail those which might be eaten and those on the contrary from which one must perpetually abstain. On these, whenever the occasion may come for treating of them, we shall discourse at length, supplying the reasons which influenced him in ruling that some of them were eatable and in enjoining us to abstain from others.Footnote 147
Sometimes highlighting the rules, sometimes adding to them, and often simply summarizing them, various biblical laws and their rationales reappear in Hellenistic texts.
Conclusion
Discussing biblical food laws in the Hellenistic period, Martin Goodman observes that, “Whatever the rationale of such taboos, there can be no doubt of their power, nor of their tendency, as a result, to expand far beyond the restrictions envisioned in the Bible.”Footnote 148 While Goodman is right that these laws did extend beyond biblical restrictions – a subject that will grow in importance in subsequent chapters of this book – it is most important to note the power of these taboos. They were not just statutes preserved in some archaic document. They were rules to govern one’s daily existence. This latter point explains the need to rationalize this legislation. While one could perhaps participate in an infrequent ritual without pondering too deeply its meaning, this was not an option in regard to food, the ingestion of which is physically required on a regular basis (preferably many times a day!). And each encounter with food potentially leads to a question of powerful import: why do “We” eat the way “We” do?
Of course, “what” We eat – and even who “We” are – was (and continues to be) a matter of some debate. One such debate is recorded in the New Testament, to which we shall now turn.
