In fact the hog was held in very high esteem among the early nations of Europe, and some of the ancients have even paid it divine honors. In the island of Crete it was regarded as sacred. This animal was always sacrificed to Ceres at the beginning of harvest, and to Bacchus at the commencement of the vintage, by the Greeks; probably, it has been suggested, "because this animal is equally hostile to the growing corn and the ripening grape."
The Jews, the Egyptians, and the followers of Mohammed, alone appear to have abstained from it. To the former nation it is expressly forbidden by the laws of Moses. Leviticus xi. 7, says: "And the swine, though he divide the hoof, and be cloven-footed, yet he cheweth not the cud; he is unclean unto you." Mohammed probably founded his prohibition on this one, or was induced, by the prejudices of his followers, to make it. Numerous theories have been advanced by different authors to account for this remarkable prohibition uttered by Moses against a species of food generally so wholesome and nutritious as the flesh of the hog. Maimonides says: "The principal reason why the law prohibited the swine was, because of their extreme filthiness, and their eating so many impurities; for it is well known with what care and precision the law forbids all filthiness and dirt, even in the fields and in the camp, not to mention in the cities. Now, had swine been permitted, the public places, and streets, and houses, would have been made nuisances."
Tacitus states that the Jews abstained from it in consequence of a leprosy by which they had formerly severely suffered, and to which the hog is very subject. And several other writers concur in this view, stating that it was on account of the flesh being strong, oleaginous, difficult of digestion, and liable to produce cutaneous diseases, that it was forbidden. Michaelis observes, that throughout the whole climate under which Palestine is situated, leprosy is an endemic disease; and the Israelites being overrun with it at the period of their quitting Egypt, Moses found it necessary to enact a variety of laws respecting it, and the prohibiting the use of swine was one of these. Plutarch (de Iside) affirms that those who drank the milk of swine became blotchy and leprous.
M. Sonnini states that in Egypt, Syria, and even the southern parts of Greece, swine's flesh, although white and delicate, is so flabby and surcharged with fat, as to disagree with the strongest stomachs, and this will account for its prohibition by the priests and legislators of hot climates, such an abstinence being absolutely necessary to health beneath the burning suns of Egypt and Arabia. "The Egyptians," he says, "were only allowed to eat pork once a year, on the feast-day of the moon, and then they sacrificed a number of these animals to that planet. If at any other time an Egyptian even touched a hog, he was obliged to plunge into the Nile,
