Disquisitio philol. de Iudaeorum odio et abstinentia a porcina, eiusque c ausis

and the Feast of Palms, and he concludes these things from the attire of the High Priest and other ridiculous causes that could stir up laughter in anyone, or even in Cato. Other matters can be read there at greater length, and they are unworthy of refutation.

2. PORPHYRY, On Abstinence, Book I, § 14, thinks they abstain because ὅτι οὐδὲ ὅλως ἐν τοῖς ὅροις ἐφύετο it simply did not grow in that region at all.

3. ANTIOCHUS EPIPHANES, in his speech to the old man Eleazar in JOSEPHUS Book V, On the Maccabees, attributes it to the notable obstinacy and contumacy of the Jews.

4. CALLISTRATUS, in PLUTARCH Symposium, Book IV, 5, suspects that the Jews abstain from pigs because they hold them in honor, just as the Egyptians do, who worship the pig.

5. To the preceding, I shall add PHILO JUDAEUS, who attributes the abstinence to a turbid and muddy life, in addition to the fact that it does not chew the cud. Book on Agriculture, p. 208.

6. The opinion is derived from the scabies and vitiligo with which either the Jews or the Egyptians were afflicted, which many of the ancients mentioned and whom I shall list here. TACITUS, History, Book V, chap. 4: THEY ABSTAIN FROM THE PIG, in memory of the disaster, because their own bodies were once disfigured by the scabies to which that animal is prone. The same author, chap. 3, after reporting the opinions of many concerning the origin of the Jews, says: Most authors agree that a pestilence that disfigured bodies having arisen throughout Egypt, King Bocchoris, having approached the oracle of Hammon to seek a remedy, was ordered to purge the king- and that race of men, as hateful to the gods, to other lands.

Concerning Bacchic rites derived by the Greeks from the Jews, and used by the latter for the Feast of Tabernacles. Philological Observations, Part I, Obs. 2, pp. 17–78. The famous THEODORUS HASEUS had promised that he would edit a special dissertation on the cult of Bacchus attributed to the Jews in his diatribe, On Ass-Worship, or the Calumny of Asinine Worship once cast upon Jews and Christians by the Gentiles, p. 33 (Erfurt and Leipzig, 1716, 4to). However, that most learned man, being prevented by a premature death, could not fulfill his promise.