[96] Idem, Questiones Romanæ, 75.
[97] Idem, De carnium esu oratio II. i. 3.
[98] Cicero, De republica, iii. 11.
[99] Marcus Aurelius, Commentarii, vi. 23.
In the Old Testament we meet with several instances of kindly feeling towards animals.[100] God watches over and controls the sustenance of their life. He sends springs into the valleys which will give drink to every beast of the field. He gives nests to the birds of the heaven, which sing among the branches. He causes grass to grow for the cattle; and the young lions, roaring after their prey, seek their food from God.[101] Whilst the Jews, as Professor Toy observes, found it hard to conceive of the God of Israel as thinking kindly of its enemies, they had no such feeling of hostility towards beasts and birds.[102] But at the same time man is the centre of the creation, a being set apart from all other sentient creatures as God’s special favourite, for whose sake everything else was brought into existence. The sun, the moon, and the stars were placed in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the estate of man.[103] For his sustenance the fruits of the earth were made to grow, and to him was given dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.[104] And when the earth is to be replenished after the deluge, the same privileges are again granted to him. The fear of man and the dread of man shall be upon all living creatures, into his hand are they all delivered, they shall all be meat for him.[105] And they are given over to his supreme and irresponsible control without the slightest injunction of kindness or the faintest suggestion of any duties towards them. They are to be regarded by him simply as food.[106]
[100] See Bertholet, Die Stellung der Israeliten zu den Fremden, p. 14. Various passages, however, which are often quoted as instances of tenderness towards animals allow of another and more natural interpretation. This is especially the case with the Sabbatarian injunctions referring to domestic animals.
[101] Psalms, civ. 10-12, 14, 17, 21.
[102] Toy, Judaism and Christianity, p. 81.
[103] Genesis, i. 16 sq.
[104] Genesis, i. 28.