‘For of the quadrupeds we should not slay
In future aught but swine. For they have flesh
Most delicate: and about the swine is nought
For us: excepting bristles, dirt, and noise.’
Some eat them as being useless, others as destructive of fruits, and others do not eat them because they are said to have strong propensity to coition. It is alleged that the greatest amount of fatty substance is produced by swine’s flesh: it may, then, be appropriate for those whose ambition is for the body; it is not so for those who cultivate the soul, by reason of the dulling of the faculties resulting from eating of flesh. The Gnostic, perhaps, too, will abstain for the sake of training, and that the body may not grow wanton in amorousness. ‘For wine,’ says Andokides, ‘and gluttonous feeds of flesh make the body strong, but the soul more sluggish.’ Accordingly such food, in order to a clear understanding, is to be rejected.”[73]
In a chapter in his Miscellanies, discussing the comparative merits of the Pagan and of the Jewish code of ethics, he displays much eloquence in attempting to prove the superiority of the latter. In the course of his argument he is led to make some acknowledgment of the claims of the lower animals which, however incomplete, is remarkable as being almost unique in Christian theology. He quotes certain of the “Proverbs,” e.g., ‘The merciful man is long-suffering, and in every one who shows solicitude there is wisdom,’ and proceeds (assuming the indebtedness of the Greeks to the Jews):—
“Pythagoras seems to me to have derived his mildness towards irrational animals from the Law. For instance, he interdicted the employment of the young of sheep and goats and cows for some time after their birth; not even on the pretext of sacrifice allowing it, on account both of the young ones and of the mother; training men to gentleness by their conduct towards those beneath them. ‘Resign,’ he says, ‘the young one to the mother for the proper time.’ For if nothing takes place without a cause, and milk is produced in large quantity in parturition for the sustenance of the progeny, he who tears away the young one from the supply of the milk and the breast of the mother, dishonours Nature.”
Reverting to the Jewish religion, he asserts:—
“The Law, too, expressly prohibits the slaying of such animals as are pregnant till they have brought forth, remotely restraining the proneness of men to do wrong to men; and thus also it has extended its clemency to the irrational animals, that by the exercise of humanity to beings of different races we may practise amongst those of the same species a larger abundance of it. Those too that kick the bellies of certain animals before parturition, in order to feast on flesh mixed with milk, make the womb created for the birth of the fœtus its grave, though the Law expressly commands ‘but neither shalt thou seethe a lamb in his mother’s milk.’[74] For the nourishment of the living animal, it is meant, may not be converted into sauce for that which has been deprived of life; and that which is the cause of life may not co-operate in the consumption of its flesh.”[75]