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

I. The filth of this animal: For since the animal is most foul in appearance, so that a person already abhors it, it also wallows in mud, and loves the most filthy and impure places where it can defile itself, so that it rises up all the filthier from them. And MAIMONIDES brings forward this cause in More Nebochim, Part III, chap. 48, from the version of Buxtorf: I say that all those foods which are prohibited in our law contain noxious nourishment, and there is nothing among all those forbidden things that is, except for it, the חזיר Chasir that is, the pig? Because God is going to restore him להחזירו to Israel. We can read the opinions of others concerning the distinction between clean and unclean animals in the works of the very great BUDDEUS, Ecclesiastical History of the Old Testament, Vol. I, p. 734 sq. J. CYPRIAN on Franz, p. 483, compare the renowned WOLF, Philological Curiosities, Vol. I, p. 1154, and J. H. HOTTINGER'S Laws of the Hebrews, p. 204. Whence some of the Jews sometimes judge more mildly that the eating of pork will be lawful in the time of the future age, that is, of the Messiah, and that from this the name חזיר Chasir pig received its name from חזר restoring, returning. מפני שעתיד הקבה להחזירו because it is going to happen that God (S.B.) will restore it to Israel, as is read in the MIDRASH TANCHUMA. So also in Midrash Tillim, folio 57, 3, on Psalm 146:7, the words יהוה מתיר אסורים The Lord is the one who frees the bound, which are translated as "The Lord is the one who frees the bound," they write thus: מהו מתיר אסורים יש אומרים כל הבהמה שנטמאה בעולם הזה מטהר אותה הקבה לעתיד לבוא What do those words "frees the bound" signify? There are those who say that God (S.B.) will make all the beasts that have been considered unclean in this world clean in the future world [that is, in the time of the Messiah]. Compare JOH. MEIER, formerly a famous professor in the Belgian Academy of Harderwijk, Treatise on the Times and Feast Days of the Hebrews, p. 105. HOORNBEECK, On the Conversion of the Jews, Book VII, chap. 1, p. 465. J. H. MAJUS in Synopsis of Jewish Theology, p. 224. P. GALATINUS On the Arcana of the Catholic Truth, Book XI, chap. 12, p. 590. However, it is clear that the Jews think differently about the state of those who have departed from this life, who had eaten pork while they were alive, from the Midrash Yalkut Shimoni, Part I, fol. 145, col. 1, cited by the famous D. MILL in Selected Dissertations, p. 157, where the highest reward of virtue in the blessed life is ascribed to those who had not eaten swine's flesh.