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Thei sacrificen boles and kyn and gotes and schepe. Swyn only thei ne sacrificen not nouther eten be cause that thei demen hem unclene.Klagabalus, by way of syortula, gave away all manner of animals except pigs; “for he abstained from them by the law of the Phoenicians” (Herodian 5, 6,9; cf. Dio Cassius 79,11). Suidas 8.v. Aouvivos alludes to the custom as Syrian, and Sophronius (Migne 87, 3, p. 3624) in the case of a girl from Damascus ascribes it to the worship of Adonis. See Baudissin, p. 142 sgg. “In Palestine and Syria the animal was used in certain exceptional sacrifices which were recognized as idolatrous (Isaiah 65, 4; 66, 17) and it was an open: uestion whether it was really polluted or holy” (Cook, 48). here was similar uncertainty in Egypt; see Herodotus 2,47, and Plutarch, Jsis and Osiris, 8. Lucian is perhaps thinking of the pig as holy in connection with the Eleusinian mysteries, and Demeter worship generally. It was holy also in Crete, and apparently in Babylon (Ninib). But othere men demen hem not unclene but holy. And amonges briddes the dowve semeth hem wondur holy thing, and thei ben not wont so moche as to touchen hem; and gif thei touchen hem maugree hem selven, thei ben unclene that day. Therfore dowves lyven: amonges hem and entren here houses and gadren here mete for the moste part atte erthe.“In Syria by the sea is a city named Ascalon. ... I saw there an impossible number of doves at the crossways and about every house. When I asked the reason, they said it was not permissible to catch them; for the inhabitants, from a remote period, had been forbidden to enjoy them. So tame is the creature through security that it always lives not only under the same roof with man but at the same table, and abuses its immunity” (Philo Judaeus, quoted by Eusebius, Pracp. Evang. 8, 14, 50). See Hehn, Kulturpflanzen und Haustiere,6 p. 329 sqq.; Baudissin, Studien, ii, p. 191.
