a thousand years after this period the dog was highly esteemed in Egypt for its sagacity and other excellent qualities; for, when Pythagoras, after his return from Egypt, founded a new sect in Greece, and at Croton, in southern Italy, he taught, with the Egyptian philosophers, that, at the death of the body, the soul entered into that of different animals. He used, after the decease of any of his favourite disciples, to cause a dog to be held to the mouth of the dying man, in order to receive his departing spirit; saying, that there was no animal that could perpetuate his virtues better than that quadruped.
was in order to present the Israelites from errors and follies like these, and to prevent the possibility of this species of idolatry being established, that the dog was afterward regarded with utter abhorrence among the Jews
. This feeling prevailed during the continuance of the Israelites in Palestine.
in the New Testament the Apostle warns those to whom he wrote to "beware of dogs and evil-workers;"
and it is said in The Revelations that "without are dogs and sorcerers," &c.