[1023] E. B. Tylor, Anthropology (London, 1881), p. 220.
[1024] M. G. Watkins, Gleanings from Natural History (London, 1885), ch. 10.
[1025] The classification, if unscientific and incorrect—e.g. Eels possess rudimentary scales—had as its practical purpose the elimination of the Siluridæ—i.e. the Catfish Clarias, Bagrus, Synodontis, etc.—which even if, as with the Catfish, pleasant to the taste were very unwholesome, causing diarrhœa, rashes, etc. Doctors inform me that even in our day Jews who eat crustaceæ, especially lobsters, are far more liable to these diseases than Christians—presumably from an abstention of centuries. The ban on Eels from their infrequency in Palestine was almost superfluous, but on the Clarias, which abounds in and near the sea of Tiberias, very practical. The abstention, whether originating from supposed reasons of health or from some obscure tabu, was and still is prevalent in Asia, Africa, and South America. A curious trace of it at Rome is discoverable in Numa’s ordinance that in sacrificial offerings no scaleless fish, and no scarus should figure (Pliny, N. H., XXXII. 10). The abstention is sometimes merely partial, as with the Karayás in the Amazon valley, see W. A. Cook, op. cit., p. 96.
[1026] 700! according to the Talmud, Hul., 83b.
[1027] Cf. Nidda, 51b. For authoritative decisions regarding clean and unclean fish, see Hamburger, vol. I., Art. Fisch, Die jüdischen Speisegesetze (Wien, 1895), p. 310 ff.
[1028] Forlong, in his Rivers of Life, asserts that even at the present day the Eastern Jews do not eat fresh fish, but at marriages they place one on the ground, and the bride and bridegroom walk round or step over it seven times as an emblem of fecundity.
It is curious to note the mistake of Pliny in XXXI. 44: “Aliud vero castimonarium superstitioni etiam, sacrisque Judæis dicatum, quod fit e piscibus squama carentibus.” C. Mayhoff’s edition (Lipsiæ, 1897), however, runs, XXXI. 95: “Aliud vero est castimoniarum superstitioni etiam sacrisque Judæis dicatum, quod,” etc.
[1029] Sir Thomas Browne, in his Miscellaneous Writings, discourses of fish mentioned in the Bible.
[1030] Walton (in his Introduction) makes Piscator, after speaking of these four Apostles as “men of mild and sweet, and peaceable spirits (as indeed most fishermen are),” continues, “it is observable that it is our Saviour’s will that his four Fishermen Apostles should have a prioritie of nomination in the catalogue of his Twelve Apostles. And it is yet more observable that at his Transfiguration, when he left the rest of his Disciples and chose only three to accompany him, that these three were all Fishermen.” As a contrast to the excellent character given to the four fisher Apostles by Walton, a learned divine of Worms, J. Ruchard, found it incumbent in 1479 to defend Peter from the charge of instituting abstinence from flesh, so that he could profitably dispose of his fish! Keller, op. cit., p. 335.
[1031] B. J., III. 10, 18. “It is watered by a most fertile fountain. Some have thought it to be a vein of the Nile, as it produces the Coracin fish as well as that lake does, which is near Alexandria.”