Already in the Iron Age, Greek and Near Eastern cultures had begun to exert considerable influence on one another. Spurred on by the burgeoning pan-Mediterranean trade network, Greek colonists, mercenaries, and merchants began settling in the Near East and initiated a blending of Greek and Near Eastern cultures.1 Cultural hybridity grew even more pronounced after Alexander’s campaigns in the 4th century BC. Greek religious ideas were combined with local Near Eastern theologies, Greek artistic and architectural styles were hybridized with local ones across the region, and people adopted Greek as the lingua franca, largely replacing Aramaic.2
After Alexander’s death in 323 BC, his generals squabbled over the empire and broke it into three parts. In the Near East, the Seleucids controlled Persia, Mesopotamia, and Anatolia. They vied for control over the Levant with the Ptolemies, who were based in Egypt. But Rome’s growing power spelled the end of these dynasties. The Romans took control of Egypt, Syria, the Levant, and Anatolia by the 1st century BC. Referred to as the Byzantine Empire after the 4th century AD, Roman imperial power dominated the western half of the Near East from Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul) even after Rome itself was sacked.3 Yet Roman power in the Near East did not go unchallenged. In eastern Anatolia and northern Syria, Rome contended with powerful Armenian kings. In Iran, the Parthians (ca. 238 BC–AD 224), who had wrested control of the region from the Seleucids, presented a continual military threat. In fact, the centuries of war between the Romans and Parthians, continued by their successor empires, the Byzantines and the Sassanians (AD 224–AD 661), would exhaust both states and lay the groundwork for the Arab Conquest in the 7th century AD.4
The Classical period also witnessed profound changes in the sphere of religion. Of great influence was Zoroastrianism, a uniquely monotheist religion native to Iran that predominated under the Parthian and Sassanian Empires. Syncretic offshoots, such as Manichaeism and Mithraism were popular, if frequently persecuted, throughout the ancient world. In this context of religious profusion and revitalization, Judaism also flourished. Building on earlier dispersals (diasporas) to Egypt and Mesopotamia, large Jewish communities thrived throughout the Mediterranean as well as in Mesopotamia, Anatolia, Upper Egypt/Ethiopia, and Arabia.5 While Jerusalem remained the spiritual hub, synagogues at archaeological sites like Dura-Europos in northern Syria bear witness to the local character of these communities. Similarly, the intellectual centers in Babylonia and Jewish-led political states such as the 5th century AD kingdom of Himyar in modern-day Yemen attest to the regional diversity of Judaism in the Classical period.6
The success of a more globalized Judaism fed on its unique religious, cultural, and political ideology, while articulating with and incorporating elements of Greco-Roman culture and philosophy.7 The Hebrew Bible was translated into Greek in the 3rd century BC (the Septuagint), and several Jewish scholars, perhaps most notably Philo of Alexandria (20 BC–AD 50), wrote in Greek and attempted to merge Greek and Jewish philosophy.8 But Judaism also came into conflict with Greco-Roman imperial ideology, as well as the Greek and, especially, Roman love of pork.9 The antagonism of some of the more radical Jews toward Greek and Roman cultural and political hegemony set off a series of major revolts in the Levant and beyond. These included the Maccabean Revolt (ca. 167–160 BC), the Jewish-Roman War (AD 66–73), the Diaspora Revolt (AD 115–117), and the Bar-Kochba Rebellion (AD 132–135).10 These conflicts cost hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of lives. They ultimately resulted in the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem and the decimation of Jewish communities throughout the Roman Empire.
Judaism in the Classical world also inspired several revitalization movements. Christianity arose in the midst of Roman-Jewish conflict in the southern Levant, but it quickly spread throughout the empire. Although heavily repressed at first, it eventually became the official religion of Rome under Constantine (AD 306–327).11 By the end of the Classical period, Christianity was the dominant religion in the western half of the Near East. This had an important impact on pigs. Christian leaders, especially Paul of Tarsus, advocated the elimination of dietary taboos in an effort to direct their followers’ orthodoxy (believing purely) as opposed to orthopraxy (acting purely).
Pigs were an important feature of Greek and Roman life. They were raised in urban and rural settings, and members of all social classes enjoyed pork. Swine also featured prominently in rituals and feasts, a situation that contrasted with the animals’ more complicated roles in religious and celebratory activities in the Near East during the Iron Age (Figure 8.1). Northern Mediterranean cultures’ decidedly more pork-friendly attitudes would set up conflicts with some of the Near Eastern peoples conquered by the Hellenistic and Roman states.
After their introduction in the Neolithic, pigs were major components of northern Mediterranean agricultural systems. In Greece and Italy, zooarchaeologists have shown that pig bones make up around 10–30 percent, and sometimes more, of the livestock in faunal assemblages from 6000 to 1200 BC.12 But urbanism propelled swine management to new heights.13 Cities first appeared in the northern Mediterranean with the Minoan and Mycenaean palatial states in the middle to late 2nd millennium BC. They became even more prominent after the 7th century BC and the emergence of the city-state (polis) in Greece, southern Italy, and Tuscany.14 The Etruscan site of Poggio Colla provides a good example. Between the 8th and 3rd centuries BC, a period corresponding to the fluorescence of urbanism in the region, pigs increased at the site from 29 percent to 53 percent of the main livestock species.15
Pigs became even more important during the Roman period.16 Swine provided an affordable source of meat for the growing urban masses, one that could be raised within cities.17 To keep the poor fed, the Roman state also supported large-scale swineherding operations, which took advantage of the hardwood nut-bearing forests prevalent in Italy and other parts of Europe. As a result, in many urban centers throughout the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, pigs frequently made up 70–85 percent of livestock taxa.18 Pork consumption also followed Romans and Greeks into the Near East. Their colonists and soldiers ate pork in frequencies not seen in the Near East since the Early Bronze Age.19 Roman military commissaries, in particular, relied on pork, as excavations from dozens of forts installed throughout the Roman Empire have revealed.20
If pork was a staple for the poor, it was a delicacy for the wealthy. The Greek and Roman elite distinguished their haute cuisine from that of the lower social orders by elaborate and sometimes exotic preparation techniques, if the recipes that have survived to the present day are any indication. Many of them, in fact, test the border between animal cruelty and epicureanism. For example, “miscarried womb” (vulva eiectitia), a delicacy celebrated by the Greek philosopher Plutarch (ca. AD 46–120) and the Roman poet Martial (ca. AD 38–104), was prepared by beating a pregnant sow until she miscarried and then cooking her unborn litter.21 Roman banquet-goers also prized sow’s udder (sumen), which allegedly had a delightful milky taste.22 Petronius’s 1st century AD fiction The Satyricon describes another dish (or perhaps a fantasy of one), the “Trojan pig.”23 Conceptually similar to the modern turducken, the Trojan pig called for a hog to be slaughtered, gutted, and stuffed with sausages before being sewn back together, cooked, and served. When diners cut open the roast pig, its edible “intestines” spilled out.
Adventurous readers can try their hand at these and other recipes—if they dare. Archaeologist and amateur chef Eugenia Salza Prina Ricotti24 has published a cookbook on Greek and Roman cuisine, featuring several enticing pork-based recipes such as “rose and brain pudding” and “stuffed suckling.” Those unnerved by some of the delicacies described by Roman writers need not worry. The author does not include recipes that flagrantly violate modern animal cruelty standards.
Greek and Roman writers also celebrated swine husbandry. Early Greek and Roman natural historians and agricultural scientists wrote at length about pigs for an educated elite audience, the owners of manorial estates and large herds of livestock. Varro (116–27 BC), for example, advised his readers on the proper way to raise pigs. He suggested techniques for identifying good breeding stock (boars and sows should be in good physical condition, be born from litters with large numbers of piglets, and come from a region where fat swine are common; On Agriculture 2.4.4) and when to wean piglets (before two months, especially if one wants to sacrifice them; 2.1.32). Writing a century later, Columella (AD 4–70) advised his readers on when to castrate boars (six months or three to four years if used for breeding; 7.9.4–5) and how to keep sows in good health (provide them cooked barley and clean their sties regularly; 7.9.13–14).
Textual references and a bit of zooarchaeological sleuthing have also revealed that there were two distinct breeds in Roman Italy. For example, Columella (On Agriculture 7.9.1–3) described a small, black, and bristly breed that was herded in forests and fed on nuts, and a large, white, and hairless breed that was raised in sties. Zooarchaeologists have attempted to detect these different breeds from archaeological remains. Pig limb bones recovered from Roman period sites seem to fall into two groups, a larger group of animals that measured about 60–75 cm at the shoulder and a much smaller group that stood at around 80 cm. Hypothetically, the smaller pig bones might have belonged to the black bristly breed, which Roman writers identified as the main source of food for the commoners. These were the animals herded every autumn in hardwood forests to supply the poor with pork. The larger white hairless breed was less common in the archaeological record, but may have been more highly valued as a sacrificial animal.25
The Greek and especially Roman agricultural elite valued pigs in ways that their counterparts in the Near East did not. Large-scale pig husbandry and pork-curing operations helped create a market for pork, turning it into a commodity that could be transformed into wealth. The environmental conditions of the northern Mediterranean supported these endeavors. The nut-bearing forests allowed massive numbers of swine to be fattened before the winter, when colder conditions helped prevent spoilage during curing. Thus, from the outset, the role of pigs in Greek and Roman economies was different from that in much of the Near East.
Evidence that, in sharp contrast to peoples of the Near East, Greeks and Romans perceived pigs as animals translatable into wealth is pervasive. Palace texts from the Mycenaean period (Late Bronze Age) indicate that, from early on, pigs were incorporated into systems of agricultural wealth in the northern Mediterranean region.26 As market economies expanded in the Roman Empire, pork products became even more valuable. Pigs and cured meats were produced on a large scale for profit,27 were taxed,28 and could even be used to pay off debts.29 The value afforded to pork and its consistent demand in Roman markets made pig breeding a major source of income. Columella (On Agriculture 7.9) even advised readers living near towns to wean their piglets as early as possible so as to enable the sow to breed more quickly and thus increase their profits.
Roman authorities attempted to regulate this market in pork. In part, their goal was to keep the masses fed to prevent unrest. Tens of thousands of pigs, which were then fattened in hardwood forests and distributed to the masses, were doled out annually to the lower classes by the Roman state.30 But controlling the pork market was also a part of other forms of economic regulation. For example, in an effort to create greater currency stability, the emperor Diocletian issued an edict in AD 301 setting the maximum prices for meat. It listed several types of pork but set its general price at 12 denarii per pound—higher than the price of mutton or beef at 8 denarii per pound.31 Other cuts of pork were also regulated; the price of pigs’ feet was set at a maximum of 4 denarii per pound, and fattened hog’s liver at 16 denarii per pound. At the top of the list, sow’s vulva and sow’s udder were each set at 24 denarii per pound.32
Beyond their economic value, pigs played important ritual roles in Greek and Roman cultures. In Greece, the archaeological recovery of burnt juvenile pig bones from the Mycenaean (Late Bronze Age) sanctuary of Ayios Konstantinos indicates that piglets long served as sacrificial victims in Greek religion.33 By the Classical period, Greeks regularly sacrificed pigs along with sheep, goats, and cattle to their gods.34 The Thesmophoria rituals, discussed in Chapter 5, offer another example. In this case, piglets helped symbolize and reconcile the dualism of life and death, negotiating humans’ position between the power of the fertility goddess Demeter and that of the chthonic deity Hades.35
Piglets also served in rituals of purification. If a priestess of Demeter had been ritually profaned by entering the house of a dead person or walking into a place where a woman had recently given birth, she would slit a piglet’s throat and drip the blood in a circle around her body to absorb the pollution.36 These examples, offer remarkable parallels to the uses of pigs in purification rituals in the Bronze Age Near East, which were discussed in Chapter 5..
Roman rituals appear to have focused more on sacrificing pigs to ensure fertility and prosperity than on purification and substitution. Figure 8.2 shows Eros, god of love and sex, straddling a pig. Pigs were also a key component of the suovetaurilia—a portmanteau of sus (pig), ovis (sheep), and taurus (bull). These were sacrifices made specifically to Mars in order to purify the land.37 Pig sacrifice was also central to the ancient Latin marriage ritual—so much so that Varro (On Agriculture 2.4.9–10) explained that the word porcus (pig), which was slang for a young woman’s vagina, was simply a metonymic extension of the sacrifices of piglets intended to ensure fertility.
The ritual importance of pigs in Greek and Roman cultures paralleled their roles in mythology and literature, a situation that contrasts sharply with general lack of pigs in the myths and stories in the Near East.38 For example, swine play prominent roles in The Odyssey, one of the core pieces of Greek literature. It is Eumaeus, Odysseus’s faithful swineherd, who is the first to welcome the hero back to Ithaca. Eumaeus feeds and houses his master. He assists him in slaughtering the suitors who have invaded his home (Odyssey 14). In another example, in book 10, the deity Circe, having hosted Odysseus’s crew, lays out a splendid feast. But her hospitality is a trap; upon eating the food, Odysseus’s men metamorphose into pigs. Just as pigs can serve as substitutes for humans in rituals, the gods can transform people into pigs. Finally, let us not forget that it is a wild boar that gores a young Odysseus (Odyssey 19; see Chapter 3, this volume). Though coming close to emasculating him, the boar provides the young hero his first battle scars and test of manhood.
Wild boar embodied the fierce, powerful, and fearless attitude that Greeks and Romans equated with masculinity on the battlefield. In The Iliad (17.323–326), Homer likens Ajax to a wild boar to describe the hero as he crashes through the Trojan lines. Similarly, Mycenaean warriors decorated their helmets with boars’ tusks, perhaps to evoke the power and swiftness of swine. Several Roman legions also used the boar as their emblem, and boar hunts were a quintessential activity of the warrior elite.39 But as much as the wild boar was a symbol of power, it was also one of chaos. For example, in two myths—the Caledonian Boar and the Erymanthian Boar (Ovid, The Metamorphoses 8 and 9)—desperate farmers call upon heroes to kill oversized swine that are ravaging their fields and terrorizing their families. Delivering the Erymanthian Boar alive was one of Herakles’s twelve labors (Figure 8.3).
Perhaps the most unique role that pigs played in Greek and Roman cultures was on the battlefield. Swine were not merely symbols of aggression and chaos; they were actually deployed as weapons. Soldiers used these “war pigs” primarily as a way to deter elephant troopers—effectively making pigs the anti-tank weapon of the Classical period. The secret lay in elephants’ alleged terror at the sound of pigs’ squeals, something documented by numerous writers, including Pliny the Elder (History of Nature 8.9). There are several recorded examples of armies deploying pigs. In 266 BC, Antigonus II Gonata besieged Megara with soldiers and elephant-mounted troops. The Megarans poured pitch on pigs, lit them on fire, and sent them screaming toward Antigonus’s lines. The burning swine so terrified the elephants that they panicked and trampled Antigonus’s soldiers (Aelian, On the Characteristics of Animals 16.36). Similarly, in AD 544, the Byzantine defenders of Edessa staved off defeat by suspending a pig from the walls of the city, which squealed and so unnerved Sassanian elephants that the besiegers had to withdraw (Procopius, History of the Wars 8.14.30–43).
The zooarchaeology of the Classical period Near East has yet to fully blossom. Only in the past decade or so have scholars begun to take serious interest in how food formed, maintained, and offered passage through cultural barriers at this time.40 However, one feature that clearly stands out in the available zooarchaeological data from the Classical period is the renewed interest in swine husbandry, especially at military outposts and urban centers.
The impact on pig husbandry was most notable in those regions that had been under Greek and Roman hegemony for the longest period: Anatolia, Egypt, and parts of Syria and the Levant.41 The shift was not uniform, however. Pigs remained unpopular (less than10 percent) at many sites, especially those located in the countryside. But in forts and cities, there was a spike in pork consumption that grew over the course of the Classical period. For example, the percentage of pigs recovered from the city of Pergamon in western Anatolia rose from 25 percent in the Hellenistic to up to 39 percent of the livestock species in the Roman period.42 At other sites, especially those occupied in the Roman and Byzantine periods, pigs dominated the livestock assemblages. For example, at 4th–5th century AD Kom al Ahmar in Upper Egypt, pigs account for 69 percent of the livestock remains.43
The increase in pig husbandry was due to both the spread of Hellenistic culture and the settlement of Greek and Roman colonists, soldiers, and administrators in the Near East. For these newcomers, pork was a cherished food reminiscent of home fare. They ate pork and raised pigs for the same reason that Americans line up at Starbucks in Japan or McDonalds in Europe. But for native Near Easterners, eating pork, especially when it was cooked in Greek or Roman styles, was a way to connect with a cosmopolitan, pan-Mediterranean culture. For that reason, while people of all social classes raised and ate swine, pork was especially popular among the elite and upwardly mobile. For example, pig bones compose 60 percent of the bones of livestock mammals found in the kitchen waste of wealthy households at Ephesus in western Anatolia.44 But pigs were also a cheap source of meat with which commanders provisioned their troops; many Hellenistic and Roman forts in the Near East contain higher percentages of pig bones than are found at nearby settlements, occasionally reaching as high as 80 percent.45
Outside the core regions of Greek and Roman influence, there were few changes in pig husbandry. In the Khabur Basin in northern Syria, swine continued to play a minor role in the agricultural economy, representing 10–15 percent of the remains of livestock.46 However, even on the edges of the Greek and Roman world one finds potential evidence of its influences. For example, excavators at Tell Beydar uncovered a pit containing several pig fetuses.47 The bones suggested sacrifices similar to those offered in the Thesmophoria rituals in Greece and two millennia earlier at Tell Mozan, 50 km to the northeast.
In Iran and Mesopotamia, areas that mostly fell under the control of the Parthian and Sassanaian Empires, the zooarchaeological data are extremely sparse. The role of pigs remains unclear. On the one hand, the almost complete lack of pig bones (less than 1 percent) from the faunal assemblage recovered from the city of Hatra48 in central Iraq suggests that pork was eaten infrequently.49 On the other hand, Parthian and Sassanian artists regularly depicted their royalty hunting wild boar. Additionally, at some military outposts near the Caspian Sea—forts associated with the 5th–6th century AD Gorgan Wall—excavations have revealed modest proportions of domestic pig remains (10–15 percent).50
Zooarchaeological studies have shown that people changed how they raised pigs in the Classical period. One recent study investigated the dynamics of pig husbandry at Gordion Tepe in central Anatolia, a settlement occupied throughout the Hellenistic and Roman periods that would eventually support a Roman garrison.51 At Gordion, the proportion of pig bones increased during this time from 12 percent to 26 percent, a change mirrored by a relative increase in bread wheat and cattle bones. This suggests that the town’s economy reorganized itself in order to feed the garrison. Not only did the soldiers rely more heavily on pork, but pig husbandry also became more intensive. The age at which most pigs were slaughtered declined from about 18–30 months to 8–12 months, as shown in Figure 8.4. It seems that the soldiers fattened their pigs in sties—probably on cereal fodder—and slaughtered them shortly after weaning. This strategy may have been adopted as a way to increase the rate of pork production.
Zooarchaeological examinations of pig bones from Sagalassos, a prominent Hellenistic and Roman city in southwestern Anatolia, and its nearby satellite, Düzen Tepe, indicate changes in pig husbandry.52 Similar to what occurred in Gordion, the relative abundance of pigs compared with other major domestic animals increased at these sites from 13 percent in the Hellenistic period to 32 percent in the Late Roman periods. Pigs were also slaughtered at younger ages.53
The shifts at Sagalassos and Düzen Tepe were accompanied by changes in the rates of dental hypoplasias. While the overall rate of hypoplastic defects decreased over time, suggesting husbandry strategies better able to minimize the dietary deficiencies that occurred during weaning, the rate increased on deciduous premolars, teeth formed during fetal development. This suggests that pigs in the Roman and Byzantine periods were under more stress in utero than those in the Hellenistic period. One could interpret the data as indicating a decline in sows’ perinatal nutrition. Another interpretation is that during the Roman period farmers selectively bred their livestock for increased litter sizes, which would result in greater nutritional competition between littermate fetuses and thus higher rates of hypoplasias.54
Researchers working at Sagalassos and Düzen Tepe also measured ratios of stable isotopes of carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen from pig remains in order to examine shifting husbandry conditions. They found two main patterns. First, there was an increase over time in the ratio of the nitrogen-15 isotope to nitrogen-14 in pig bone collagen—the main skeletal protein.55 This likely reflects one or a combination of two scenarios: the diets of livestock raised by Roman period pig breeders were richer in animal protein, and/or pigs were fed cereals grown in heavily fertilized fields. Both cases imply that food (and pork) production grew more intensive over the Classical period, with pigs regularly foddered with high-quality food.
Second, ratios of oxygen-18 to oxygen-16, which vary in drinking water between summer and winter, indicated intensive breeding strategies. Sequential sampling of the enamel along the length of pig incisors, when matched against the known ages in life at which those tissues form, enables researchers to reconstruct the seasons in which pigs were born. This technique was used to show that, at Sagalassos, sows in the Byzantine period gave birth throughout the year.56 Getting one’s sows to give birth multiple times per year is an important component of highly productive pig husbandry strategies. This evidence therefore adds further weight to the conclusion that Roman and Byzantine pig breeders practiced more intensive forms of management in order to meet the demands of a growing hunger for pork.57
These examples highlight the fact that in many corners of the Near East, pork became more popular and pig breeders ramped up swine production. But while the pork industry boomed in places, it increased the exposure of those who harbored pork taboos to an animal they abhorred.58 Ground zero for the resulting clash of cultures was among the Jewish populations in the Levant.
Before examining the clash between Greco-Roman and Jewish cultures over pigs, we need to take a slight detour into the historical context. The Classical period saw the development of a new type of Judaism, one that was increasingly nationalistic and identity-conscious. During this time, the Hebrew Bible was redacted into its final form, one that included new texts that debated the nature of Jewish identity—especially, the books of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Isaiah. These debates inspired the formation of different sects. The Jewish historian Josephus (ca. AD 37–100) described three of these sects: the Essenes, Sadducees, and Pharisees, the last of which were likely the traditional forebears of Rabbinic Judaism. Another sect would develop into its own religion—Christianity.59 Each of these came into conflict with Greco-Roman culture. It is not difficult to see why. Greco-Roman and Jewish identities were both totalizing, both “supranational cultural systems that transcend[ed] birth.”60 And while Jewish and Greco-Roman philosophy borrowed heavily from each other, members of each group perceived themselves as diametrically opposed.61
But let’s start at the beginning. Following on the heels of Cyrus’s conquest of Babylon in 539 BC, contingents of exiled Jews returned to the Levant and rebuilt the Temple. Jews living in the newly reconstituted province of Judea thrived under Persian rule, whose rulers promoted the Torah and embraced it as an ethnospecific code of law for the Jews.62 Respect for Jewish customs and halakha continued into the early Hellenistic period. In the aftermath of his victory over the Persians at Issus (333 BC), Alexander peacefully took over the Levant. A likely apocryphal story63 told by Josephus describes Alexander visiting Jerusalem, paying homage to the Temple, and guaranteeing the right of Jews to follow their ancestral laws (Antiquities of the Jews 11.8). Indeed, while Greeks believed their own culture to be superior and delighted in spreading Hellenism, Greek imperialism exhibited a remarkable tolerance of local traditions. Alexander’s successors founded colonies and created institutes of Greek learning, but they recognized and, perhaps begrudgingly, respected the cultural diversity of the lands they had conquered.64
In Judea, for reasons that remain unclear, the situation changed dramatically during the reign of the Seleucid king Antiochus IV (reigned 175–164 BC). Under his predecessor, Antiochus III (reigned 222–187 BC), the Greek-speaking population in the Levant had grown and the cultural tapestry of the region had become more Hellenistic. Many Jews adopted Greek names and customs. Continuing the tradition of Greek tolerance, Antiochus III asserted Jews’ rights to their ancestral laws.65 But Antiochus IV suddenly reversed this long-standing policy. According to 1 Maccabees (1:45–50), he forbade male circumcision, rededicated the Temple in Jerusalem to Zeus Olympios-Ba’al Shamim, and, just for good measure, sacrificed pigs at the Temple.66
These outrages sparked a holy war celebrated by Jews to this day as Hanukkah. As every Jewish child learns, the winter holiday commemorates the refusal of a priest named Mattathias to obey Antiochus IV and the revolt carried out by Mattathias’s sons, especially Judah Maccabee. The historical reality is a bit more complex. Depending on one’s perspective, the Maccabees may have been the quintessential religious freedom fighters extolled every November/December by rabbis across the globe. Or they may have been conservative reactionaries who found in Antiochus IV’s desecrations a casus belli to purge Judea of Hellenistic influence.67 Or they may have been power-hungry thugs who took advantage of a tense political situation to seize control of Judea.68
Whatever one’s opinion of the Maccabees, they managed to wrest control of the southern Levant from the Seleucids—at least temporarily. Judah was killed in battle in 160 BC, despite an alliance with Rome (1 Maccabees 8), and the Seleucids were able to collect tribute and establish vassalage over Judea. But in 140 BC, Judah’s brother, Simon, established the Hasmonean Dynasty.
The Hasmoneans ruled as Seleucid vassals until the empire collapsed in 110 BC, at which point Judea became independent. The Hasmonean Dynasty was expansionistic and oppressive, forcing the Jerusalem form of Judaism on peoples throughout their territory.69 Beleaguered by revolts, Hasmonean independence did not last long. In 63 BC, during a war of succession between the brothers John Hyrcanus and Aristobulus (note the Greek names or epithets of the Jewish leaders), Pompey marched on Jerusalem and annexed Judea to Rome.70
The Mishnah, or the first part of the Talmud (redacted ca. AD 200), recounts the fateful moment when Judea, torn in civil war between Hyrcanus and Aristobulus, gave itself up for Roman annexation. In the parable, Aristobulus was besieging his brother in Jerusalem. The two sides, however, made arrangements so that the Temple sacrifices could continue as normal. The besieged would lower a basket filled with money to Aristobulus’s men, who would replace the money with an animal. These animals, both sides knew, were supposed to be fit for sacrifice. That is, they should be sheep, goats, or cattle. But one of Aristobulus’s soldiers, who knew “Greek wisdom,” convinced his comrades that as long as the Temple continued to function, Jerusalem would not fall. So one day, instead of a sheep, the soldiers sent up a pig. As Hyrcanus’s men lifted up the basket, the pig dug its feet into the walls of the city. This cosmic outrage caused the whole of Israel to shake. The priests who witnessed this scene declared, “Cursed be the man who raises pigs, and cursed be the man who teaches his son Greek wisdom” (Bava Kamma 82b).
The first few decades of Roman rule in the Levant were uncertain. Oppression of Jewish practice was not, at first, the order business. In the years after Pompey’s conquest, Rome itself descended into two decades of civil war that ended with Octavian (Augustus) defeating Cleopatra and Mark Antony at Actium (31 BC) and becoming Rome’s first emperor. Josephus described this as a time of intrigue and diplomacy for Jewish leaders, among them the still-active Hyrcanus and Aristobulus (The Jewish War, book 1). But power was ultimately consolidated under the kingship of Herod, son of an adviser to Hyrcanus.
Cunning, brutal, and paranoid, Herod (reigned 37–4 BC) knew how to balance his fealty to Rome with his own ambitions. Originally siding with Antony, he quickly pledged allegiance to Octavian after Actium. He happily accepted elements of Romanization and established Greek and Roman colonies such as Caesarea, a coastal city obsequiously named in honor of his Roman patron. He allowed Roman statues to be erected, built stadiums, and even, according to Josephus, sponsored the Olympic games (The Jewish War 1.21.12). Like other Near Eastern and Greek and Roman elites, he displayed his prowess through royal hunts—including ones for wild boar (The Jewish War 1.21.13). Under Herod’s rule, the Jewish vassal state prospered and into the realm poured money that Herod spent lavishly on popular projects—for example, refurbishing the Temple.71 But Herod was known as much for his cruelty as his competence. So infamous was he for executing members of his family that one story (likely apocryphal) recounts Octavian, taking a poke at Jewish dietary customs, quipping that he’d rather be Herod’s pig than his son.72
Herod kept the peace by serving Roman imperial interests and cultivating Jewish popular sentiment. His policy promoted two processes—Romanization and Judaization—that were simultaneously entangled and paradoxical. These processes were entangled because they fed off one another.73 The Romans viewed the local Jewish elite as a ready-made administrative apparatus. They were happy to encourage Jewish nationalism as long as it entailed ultimate loyalty to Rome. Meanwhile, Judea’s position in the Roman Empire allowed it to profit from trade with Arabia and facilitated the collection of money from the sizable Jewish communities that had sprung up throughout the Mediterranean region. This money funded the refurbishment of the Temple in Jerusalem and the construction of synagogues.
Romanization and Judaization were also paradoxical because Jewish identity, which had become increasingly nationalistic since the Maccabean revolt, defined itself largely against the Greek/Roman “other.” 74 The cultivated antagonism occasionally sparked hostilities (e.g., in Caesarea: The Jewish War 2.13.7) as more Greek- and Latin-speaking peoples populated the Levant.75 Meanwhile, Roman authorities demanded allegiance to the imperial cult, which required sacrificing and bowing before its idols, in direct contradiction to the tenets of Judaism.
While Herod was able to manage these tensions during his reign, his successors were unable to do so. Things began to unravel. Tensions increased after a series of poorly handled crises, such as the desecration of a Torah scroll by a Roman soldier. In another episode, Pontius Pilate arrogantly paraded Roman military standards into Jerusalem, despite their condemnation by the priests as idolatrous effigies (The Jewish War 2.9.2–3). Jewish rebel groups formed and Roman authorities, rarely winners of hearts and minds, turned from tolerance to oppression.76 Resentment simmered for decades but erupted in a major rebellion in AD 66–73. The “Jewish War,” according to Josephus, left over one million dead (The Jewish War 6.9.3). This is probably an exaggeration, but it is nevertheless likely that the decimation of the Jewish population during the 1st and 2nd centuries AD was so vast that it would not recover until the 18th century.77 However, the most painful episode for the Jews was the destruction of the Second Temple by Titus in AD 70. Judaism, as it had been, was “shattered.”78
The Jewish War was succeeded by several other uprisings, each accompanied by a catastrophic loss of life and further oppression against Jews. They included the Diaspora Revolt (or Kitos War; AD 115–117), which was fought primarily in Cyrenaica, Cyprus, and Egypt, and the Bar Kochba Revolt in the Levant (AD 132–135). The Romans exacted revenge by several means: they razed towns and villages and executed civilians; Vespasian (reigned AD 69–79) introduced a special tax on Jews throughout the empire; and Hadrian (reigned AD 117–138) banned Jews from Jerusalem, renamed the province of Judea “Palaestina” after the Philistines, and even outlawed circumcision.79
While the results of these rebellions may have been predictable,80 they were no less devastating. They left Judea stripped of the political autonomy it had enjoyed to varying degrees since the Persian period. On a cultural and religious level, the rebellions marked a turning point in Jewish history. The “shards” of Judaism81 would be picked up and pieced back together by local rabbis in northern Palestine, Mesopotamia, Egypt, and other parts of the Old World. A new form of “Rabbinic” Judaism would emerge and persist over the next two millennia. Meanwhile, Jews were increasingly defined as a minority outcast group, especially after one of Judaism’s sects, Christianity, was adopted as the Roman state religion in the early 4th century AD.82
The conflicts between Jewish and Greco-Roman cultures often drew upon, and occasionally centered around, their divergent attitudes toward pigs and pork. In the context of imperialism and Jewish nationalism, pig hatred and Jewish identity became caught in a positive feedback loop driven, on the one hand, by the Greek and especially Roman fixation on Jews’ aversion to swine and, on the other, by many Jews’ distrust of Greek and Roman culture. Each perceived the other as an existential threat. In the process, the pork taboo was elevated to a position of prominence in the Jewish dietary laws.
The Greek and Roman love of pigs and pork expanded into the Near East in the Classical period. The Levant, including Judea, was no exception. Zooarchaeological data indicate an uptick in pig husbandry during the 4th–2nd centuries BC, with pigs comprising as much as 15–20 percent of the recovered bones of domestic livestock at some sites compared with the 1 percent or less typical of the Persian period (see Table A.5 in the appendix).83 Under Roman and Byzantine rule, pig husbandry expanded even further, especially in regions like the Galilee and northern coastal region, where the temperate climate encouraged swine production.84 For example, at 58 percent, pigs dominated the livestock bone assemblage at Caesarea.85 By the Byzantine period in what is now northern Israel, 10–50 percent of the domestic mammals slaughtered in the majority of cities were pigs.86
This increase in pigs represented a radical break with tradition. In aggregate, people inhabiting the Levant raised pigs in quantities not seen since the 4th millennium BC. However, there was significant variation. Settlements where Jewish populations are historically attested had much lower proportions of pig remains (less than 5 percent and often less than 2 percent) throughout the Hellenistic and Roman period.87 Similarly, relative abundances of pigs are much higher at sites with archaeological evidence of Hellenistic material culture than at sites with mikvah baths and other elements of Jewish material culture.88
It is simplistic to assume that the people who ate pork necessarily identified themselves—and were identified by others—as Greek, Roman, or otherwise non-Jewish. Nor can we assume that sites without pork were necessarily inhabited exclusively by Jews.89 For one thing, this assumption ignores the so-called Hellenized Jews, those who had adopted elements of Greco-Roman culture and incorporated them into local Levantine customs. Most, perhaps all, Jews in the Classical period had adopted some elements of Hellenic culture.90 Some Jews, while still firmly grasping their self-perception as Jews, must have succumbed to curiosity and tried pork, that meat held in such high esteem by the rest of the Hellenistic world. There is, in fact, scattered textual evidence for this rejection of tradition—namely Jews who raised pigs.91 They include the Talmudic legal discussion of damages done by pigs (e.g., Bava Kama 17b) and the story of the swineherd and his pigs in the exorcism of the Gerasene demoniac (e.g., Matthew 8:28–34). But perhaps most convincing are the bones themselves. While sites associated with Jewish populations contain low relative numbers of pig remains, they rarely contain no pig remains.
Nevertheless, the politics of food surrounded conceptualizations of Jewish, Greek, and Roman identity in the Levant. Although debates on the social and political significance of food for Jewish identity took a variety of forms—for example, whether it was acceptable to share meals with non-Jews—nothing played a larger role than pork.92 Pork became the metonym for relinquishing Jewish identity. Its power was fed by mutually reinforcing Greco-Roman and Jewish perceptions of each other.
One of the most significant developments in the Classical period was the weaponization of pork against Jews. The genesis of this type of behavior is not difficult to imagine; whenever one group has a unique taboo or custom, at least one person from a rival group will decide to provoke the former by breaking the taboo or—even better—tricking its members into breaking it. Such episodes occur more frequently when the two groups are at odds and when there is a greater temptation to vilify and mock the traditions of the “other.”
Examples of the weaponization of pork abound. Many are likely apocryphal, but nevertheless their telling and retelling indicate how pork, or even the idea of pork, drove a wedge between Greeks/Romans and Jews. The earliest stories of soldiers or mobs forcing Jews to eat pork date to the Maccabean revolt. The books of Maccabees (2 Maccabees 6:18–7:42; 4 Maccabees 5–18) relate the story of a woman named Hannah and her seven sons, who, being forced at sword point to consume pork, chose to die instead of violating halakha. Antiochus IV also allegedly sacrificed swine at the altar of the Temple, perhaps in willful violation of Jewish custom (1 Maccabees 1: 45–50). That story bears a strong resemblance to that of Cleon of Gordiucome at Comana (Strabo, Geography 12.8.9). Finally, during an anti-Jewish riot in Alexandria in AD 38, the mob allegedly forced some Jewish captives to eat pork.93
Even when not directly violating Jews’ taboo on pigs, Greeks and especially Romans took pains to mock Jewish custom. On his ambassadorial visit to the emperor Caligula in AD 40, Philo of Alexandria relates how the Roman leader mocked the Jewish delegation, asking, “Why do you refuse to eat pork?” (Embassy to Gaius 45.361). Deriding Jewish custom was a favorite pastime of Roman satirists and intellectuals, who especially harped upon Jews’ avoidance of pork.94 Petronius (AD 27–66), for example, mused that the Jews worshipped a “pig-god.”95 Writers as diverse as Juvenal, Seneca, Tacitus, Cicero, Plutarch, and Apion ridiculed Jews as descendants of lepers who, expelled from Egypt, had invented laws like pork avoidance so that they could self-righteously keep themselves separate from other peoples.96 In deed and in writing, belittling the prohibition on pork became a cheap and easy way to terrorize Jews, a dress rehearsal for the long European tradition swine-focused anti-Semitism.97
The adoption of pig husbandry in the Levant, its contradiction to Jewish Law, and the use of pigs as a weapon against Jews all set in motion a process of increasing negative identification between Jews and pork. Historian Jordan Rosenblum98 has articulated this process succinctly. His thesis hinges on the notion “you are what you eat,” an admittedly glib aphorism that nevertheless captures an anthropological truism: food is an essential feature of social identity.99 But food is much more than a badge of identity that people can affix to themselves or remove at other points. Through the act of ingestion, food, quite literally, becomes a part of the self. As Rosenblum100 puts it, “[F]ood becomes embodied in each individual. It operates as a metonym for being part of the self” (emphasis in original).
For Rosenblum, the pig was a fundamental feature of Roman citizenship. Pigs figured prominently in Greco-Roman economies, mythology, and religion. Rosenblum argues that the Roman self-identification with pig husbandry was more pronounced even than that of the Greeks, observing that Latin texts spend more time discussing Jews’ taboo on pig than Greek texts do.101 Unlike the Greeks, Roman writers tended to ridicule the taboo as irrational and alien.102 Swine were quintessential features of the Roman cosmopolitan identity; the taboo on pork therefore prevented Jews from being able to “ingest Romanness.”103
For their part, Jews identified pigs not only with Romanness, but with its worst quality: something appearing to bestow wealth and happiness while in reality bringing oppression. Pork, in other words, epitomized the existential threat of Roman imperialism. Thus, the story of Aristobulus and Hyrcanus was retold again and again by the early rabbis. But they often switched the characters, casting the Romans (“the Evil Empire”) as the besiegers instead of the Jewish Aristobulus.104 According to the rabbis, just as the pig, which has cloven hooves but is not kosher, may appear to be good to eat, so too did Roman culture appear to offer benefits while in reality stripping Jews of their essential Jewishness.105 Even today, the pig remains a potent symbol of the temptation to acquire material wealth at the expense of one’s spiritual health. In a story from the Chassidic tradition (17th century to present), a rich man gives his poor yet pious brother a tour of his estate. Seemingly out of the blue, the pious man interrupts his wealthy sibling. A pig, he explains, wallows in the mud and can only dream of more mud. The parable’s message is clear: the rich brother’s worldly pleasures beget only a desire for more material wealth. They distract him from what is most important.106
In fact, the material wealth flowing into the Levant in the Classical period was significant, especially during the reign of Herod. While elevating Judaism to new glory, the marriage to Rome represented to some Jewish sects an existential threat, prosperity being purchased with the soul of Judaism. A classic scene in the 1979 film Monty Python’s Life of Brian neatly captures this contradictory dynamic. In the film, the rebel leader (played by John Cleese) gathers a band of Jewish rebels to attack the Romans, condemning them for taking the Jewish homeland. “What have they ever given us in return?” he demands. Shyly, one of the rebels pokes his hand up and says, “The aqueduct?” The leader blinks and concedes the point. Then another rebel chimes in, “and the sanitation.” That, too, is conceded. Another adds, “the roads.” And on it goes . . .
The scene’s historical insight is no less significant than its comedic value. It lays bare the contradictions of being Jewish in Roman Judea.107 On the one hand, Roman occupation brought wealth (at least into the hands of the elites) that could be used to make the Temple more spectacular and support Jewish religious and social projects. But, on the other, it brought Roman soldiers, administrators, and culture (including pigs). That Romanization and Judaization went hand in hand did not sit well with many. The pig, an animal Romans loved to eat, became a useful metaphor for this contradiction and the insidiousness of Roman rule.
Roman administrators and soldiers were not blind to the evolving symbolism of pigs in Jewish thought. Rosenblum108 argues that it was the recognition of the increasing anti-Roman quality of the pig taboo that inspired more frequent outbreaks of pork weaponization as well as the Roman intellectual fixation on mocking Jewish food laws. For both Jews and Romans, the coerced ingestion of pork came to be symbolic of the Roman demand for acquiescence to imperial authority and the surrender of one’s Jewish identity.109 Ingesting pork could unravel an individual’s Jewishness, while on a deeper level threatening the orthopraxic foundation of Jewish identity.110
Forcing a Jew (or Muslim) to eat pork was, and remains today, a form of identity rape. It strips individuals of the personhood that they have cultivated over a lifetime and imposes another upon them. As such, it is an attack not only on the individual, but also on the constitution of the group to which they belong. When Donald Trump, as president of the United States, threatened to shoot jihadi terrorists with bullets dipped in pigs’ blood,111 he was not simply proposing a harsh treatment of criminals, but proposing a form of torture whose real target is Islam. By legitimizing the use of pork as a weapon, Trump assaults Muslims’ right to practice their faith and derides Islam’s central tenets. Whether or not they are acted upon, such threats recast religious taboo as personal weakness, something that can be exploited by those who do not subscribe to such prohibitions. This type of intolerance, which is as old as the Hellenistic period, is one of the most enduring legacies of the pork taboo.
But intolerance also breeds more deeply entrenched positions on the part of the oppressed. The increasing mobilization of pigs in the existential battle for identity in the Classical period created a feedback loop, with each party responding to developments in the other by ramping up their own attitudes toward swine.112 Identity is defined not simply in terms of belonging, but also in contrast to an “other” and its practices. But this process rebounds on members of the “other” group. That is, when a group of people begin to focus on the specific norms (e.g., avoiding pork) of a rival group, they can inspire members of the rival group to more faithfully practice those norms (avoiding pork with greater intensity). That is why, when it becomes important to demonstrate their identity, members of ethnic groups often retreat into stereotypes of themselves. They are ready-made markers of difference. But in the process, they reinforce those stereotypes, imbuing them with greater energy and reproducing them as more salient symbols of self-identification.113
In the case of Jewish-Roman relations, the confrontation between pork-loving and pork-hating peoples entrenched these two ideologies further. Romans saw themselves as a pork-loving people, while Jews increasingly saw themselves, and were perceived, as pork haters. The outcome was an intensification of the pig taboo and its elevation to the type of food avoidance most important for reproducing Jewish identity. Along with observing the Sabbath and circumcising their sons, avoiding pork became one of the core features of daily Jewish practice throughout the world for centuries to come.114
The sanctions against pigs grew stronger in the Rabbinic period (AD 73–600). The writers of the Talmud (compiled ca. AD 200–600) elaborated on the Torah by adding additional restrictions on daily practices. In doing so, they laid the foundations for the body of laws that Jews now refer to as kashrut, which distinguish kosher from nonkosher foods.115 Among other things, the rabbis augmented the taboo on pork, drawing on the intense emotions already surrounding pigs. By the middle centuries of the first millennium AD, the taboo had grown so prominent that it was extended to include pig husbandry and even the ownership of pigs. These were justified as part of a process to build a “fence” around halakha (Bava Kamma 82b). That is, they were measures taken to prevent the observant from even coming close to breaking Yahweh’s commandments. Some rabbis even avoided uttering the Hebrew word for pig (khazir), using instead the phrase “another thing” (davar acher) when referring to the animal (e.g., Shabbat 129b).
Jesus’s followers developed their own unique sect of Judaism. This new form of Jewish religious expression would enjoy success in proselytizing to people throughout the Roman world and beyond. But that success had an unforeseen consequence. As the sect grew, it diverged from Judaism, the religion of a specific ethnic group, to become a faith that could be readily adopted by “gentiles” (Hebrew goyim), or “(other) nations.” This ultimately transformed it into a religion in its own right.116 Although heavily persecuted for three centuries, Christianity would ultimately be adopted, and in the process modified further, by the emperor Constantine in the early 4th century AD. Several decades later, Christianity became the official state religion of the Roman and later Byzantine Empires by the Edict of Thessalonica in AD 380.117
This is not the place to discuss the evolution of Christianity and its impact on European history, but Christianity’s relationship to Judaism and its appeal to people throughout the Roman Empire did have important consequences for pigs. Jesus and his early followers were Levantine Jews, and they almost certainly adhered to halakha.118 But in the years following his death, Jesus’s apostles began to debate the relevance of Jewish Law.119 On one side, James, ostensibly Jesus’s brother, and Peter advocated strict retention of halakha. On the other side was Paul, a tentmaker from Tarsus who converted from an anti-Christian Pharisee to a believer in Christ (Acts 9:1–4).
Paul justified his argument for abandoning much of halakha on principles adopted from Hellenistic philosophy. In this way he departed from other Jewish scholars who had been inspired to reconcile the practice-based features of Judaism with the spiritual-focused teachings of Plato and Aristotle. Philo of Alexandria, a contemporary of Paul, argued that the Torah and its laws contained within them hidden meanings and allegories. As we saw in Chapter 6, Philo’s allegorical argument for the pig taboo was that its inability to ruminate reflected its disorderly life and intellectual limitations (On Husbandry 32). But Philo did not by any means suggest that one should abandon Jewish Law. In fact, his argument was that by following it one could learn of the inner truths contained within it.120
Paul and later Christians saw it differently. For them, Christianity embodied a community of people incorporated into the spirit of Christ (Ephesians 4:16). It therefore had nothing to do with halakha.121 To be Christian was not to do, but to believe—and, especially, to believe properly. This philosophical position marked a subtle, but crucial divergence from Judaism. Christianity moved away from orthopraxy and toward orthodoxy.122 While Jewish Talmudic scholars debated practices—what was and wasn’t allowed by the Torah—Christian theologians would increasingly focus on the proper definition of Christ and how to reside in spiritual unity with him.123
But Paul must also have been thinking practically. He had set up Christian communities throughout Syria, Anatolia, and Mesopotamia and had converted a number of Jews and non-Jews to the faith.124 While his followers were keen on adopting Christianity, many had reservations about halakha, especially two features: male circumcision and pork avoidance. Both of these had, historically, been barriers to the spread of Judaism.125 Indeed, the decision to abandon much of Jewish Law was in part responsible for the spread Christianity, laying the foundations for its domination in Europe, North Africa, and the Near East. Between AD 200 and 250, the number of Christian adherents increased from around 200,000 to one million.126
The decision to put pork back on the table may also have been influenced by the specific populations targeted for proselytization. Christian missionaries promoted a universalist (“catholic”) belief system intended to unite people across ethnic, linguistic, and political boundaries.127 But the religion appealed especially to the marginalized elements of the Roman Empire. Christians glorified the poor, preached charity, and even elevated the status of women living under the decidedly masculinist Roman and Jewish cultures.128 If attracting the lower classes of the Roman Empire was Christians’ goal—as it appears to have been—then pork, a staple of the urban poor, would have to be tolerated. And if the Christian leaders were going to scratch the pork taboo, they might as well eliminate the vast majority of the food laws.
Eliminating the taboos was no easy task. Christian thinkers had to show that those parts of the Bible that enjoined people to follow the food laws were meaningless; in doing so, they not only upended centuries of tradition, but contradicted what was supposed to be the word of God filtered through Moses. For this reason, early Christians’ transition away from the Pharisee sect of Judaism, which was led and largely shaped by Paul (Acts 23:6), may have been a halting, contradiction-riddled process marked by internal struggle.129 But Paul’s ultimate focus on orthodoxy and the limitations of orthopraxy resonated with Christians in his time and in the decades to come. The New Testament is filled, therefore, with admonishments against taking halakha too seriously and neglecting one’s spiritual fitness:
there is nothing from without a man, that entering into him can defile him: but the things which come out of him, those are they that defile the man. (Mark 7:15)
Going further, some Christian thinkers even argued that Jewish Law was harmful because it obscured the true message of Christ. For example:
Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron; forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth. For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving (1 Timothy 4:1–5).
The tone of these critiques of Jewish Law grew more radical as time went on. Within roughly a century after Jesus’s execution, Christian leaders began forcefully endorsing the abandonment of halakha. The Epistle of Barnabas, written around the turn of the 1st–2nd centuries AD, condemned Jewish meat prohibitions. Barnabas argued that God had given them to Moses as metaphors for proper behavior, not actual restrictions on food.130 Swine, for example, were emblematic of people who prayed only in times of trouble and neglected God when they were satiated and happy (Barnabas 10:3). Thus, like Philo, Barnabas emphasized the allegorical nature of Jewish Law and the Torah. Unlike Philo, he declared that obedience to the spirit of the law, as he defined it, was more important than submission to the letter of the law.
The elimination of the food laws also served political ends. Beginning in the 2nd century, Christian thinkers perceived a need to distance themselves from Judaism. At that time, many Christians were simply Jews who also followed the teachings of Jesus. They frequently attended synagogues and participated in Jewish festivals with other Jews.131 But the prevailing opinion among church leaders was that Christianity was not simply a revitalization movement within Judaism, but a radically new ideology.132 Recognizing that the sharing of food binds people together, Christian leaders advocated for the elimination of the taboo on pork and other foods as a means of driving a wedge between Christians and Jews.133
By the 4th century AD, Christian leaders were not only preaching against Jewish practices, but also admonishing their followers not to participate in Jewish festivals or eat Jewish food. Resorting to hyperbole, they demonized Jewish food as anti-Christian. For example, Ephrem the Syrian’s “Hymn on Unleavened Bread” warned Christians not to eat Passover matzo, as it was made by hands “filthy with [Christ’s] blood.”134 Over the next several centuries, Church Fathers repeatedly demanded that members of their flocks avoid eating with Jews. In effect, while Christianity had eliminated taboos on pork and other foods, it had placed one on any food prepared by or eaten in the company of a Jew. Later, the popes applied the same taboo on food consumed with “judaized” Muslims.135
This cultivated sense of disgust for traditional Jewish practices soon inspired more violent forms of anti-Jewish behavior. Church Fathers like John Chrysostom (ca. AD 349–407) actively preached against Jews and their “sinful” practices.136 Pogroms and attacks on Jews soon followed, including one in AD 388 led by the Bishop of Callinicum (modern-day Raqqa, Syria) on a local synagogue.137 In part because of these attacks, by the 6th century most Jews in Europe and the Near East had withdrawn from Christian-dominated civic society into their laws and local rabbinic authorities.138 Thus began the long history of hostile Christian-Jewish relations, ghettoization, and persecution.
However, some Christians continued to avoid pork. For example, in his Answer to Faustus, a Manichean (ca. AD 410), Augustine of Hippo conceded diversity in Christian food practices, noting that while some followers ate any type of meat, some abstained from pork and others from the meat of quadrupeds (30.3).139 Augustine defended his own consumption of pork by invoking the Christian interpretation that the Leviticus taboos were intended to prohibit only what swine symbolized—greed, gluttony, and thoughtlessness (the lack of spiritual rumination) (6.7).140 While the Catholic Church and most other Christian denominations adopted Augustine’s approach, various sects to this day avoid pork. They include members of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, which dates back to the 4th century AD, and Seventh-Day Adventists, a 19th century American revitalization movement that, among other things, advocates a return to the dietary laws of the Old Testament.
The elimination of the pig taboo had important implications for Christian cultures and their relationship to Judaism. In Europe, communal pork consumption became an important feature of celebrations, including major holidays such as Easter and Christmas.141 But pork was also used to force Christianity upon others. For example, the Spanish Inquisition demanded not only that Jews and Muslims eat pork to prove their conversion, but also that they enjoy it.142 Indeed, the fact that pork was taboo to Jews and Muslims gave it a special power. Eating pork was an act of denouncing Judaism and proclaiming Christ. An 18th century song from Burgundy, reproduced by the historian Claudine Fabre-Vassas, declares:
While the Jewish law
Prohibits lard as heretical
The same is not so in Christian lands.
Let us eat fresh pork, Let us eat!
The more we enjoy the piglet
The better Catholics we become.143
With the exception of a few passages, the Hebrew Bible (or Old Testament) rarely features pigs.144 Swine play a more prominent role in the New Testament. However, their significance is decidedly mixed.
In the parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11–32), a young man demands and squanders his inheritance on worldly pleasures. Destitute, he ends up a swineherd. Raising pigs epitomizes the son’s wantonness and the misery it has brought him. However, it is in his poverty that the son regains piety. Starved and desirous even of the food his pigs are eating, he comes to his senses and returns to his father, who welcomes his wayward child back with open arms.
Pigs also appear as unclean things alongside dogs. As we saw in Chapter 5, the connection between swine and canines dates back to the Bronze Age, but it remained a theme in early Christian writings.145 In the book of Matthew, for example, Jesus demands:
Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you. (Matthew 7:6)146
Metaphorically, pigs and dogs represent that which can corrupt the wisdom of Christ’s teachings; the passage is a warning against hypocrisy. But in mobilizing these images, Jesus is referencing the polluting nature of pigs and dogs, something his audience would have understood.
The flip side of pigs’ polluting nature is their use as substitutes, something common to many Near Eastern traditions as well as Roman and Greek religions. The New Testament also plays on the imagery of swine soaking up sin. In Matthew (8:28–34), two individuals (or one in Mark 5:1–21 and Luke 8:26–40) become possessed by demons. They confront Jesus in the Galilean countryside, where a herd of swine is feeding. The demons, knowing Jesus is about to exorcise the men, request, “[I]f thou cast us out, suffer us to go away into the herd of swine” (Matthew 8:31). Jesus does just this, although perhaps not as the demons had intended, for he sends the herd charging off a cliff into the Sea of Galilee.
Pigs appear in perhaps their most positive light as companions of the Egyptian ascetic monk Antony (or St. Anthony, ca. AD 251–356; Figure 8.5). The patron saint of skin diseases and livestock, he is often viewed as the father of Christian monasticism.147 His association with pigs is somewhat unclear, but seems to relate to his battling demons in the desert. If so, then swine may represent the vessels that demons inhabited in order to torment Antony.148 Whatever its genesis, the pig was later depicted as a faithful companion of Antony and served as a symbol of his ministry. His missions, which doubled as hospitals, raised pigs,149 and dedications of parts of pigs (ears, heads, feet, and even sausages) on his behalf are still common in southern Europe as offerings for souls stuck in purgatory.150
The Classical period represents an incredibly dynamic era in the history of pigs in the Near East. On an economic level, pig husbandry expanded in many parts of the Near East. Zooarchaeological data show that, in some places (e.g., the Levant), people ate pork at rates not seen for almost 3,000 years. This increase in the number of pigs raised in the Near East can be directly tied to the animals’ popularity in Greek and Roman cultures.
In the context of expanded swine production and consumption, the Jewish taboo evolved significantly. While the origins of the taboo must be sought in earlier times, it was the antagonistic encounters between Jews and their Greek and Roman overlords that refashioned pork avoidance into one of the core features of Judaism. The Torah applied no special status to the abstention of pork compared with, for example, that of rabbits or fish without scales and fins. But by the end of the 6th century AD, swine represented the taboo animal par excellence for the Jewish peoples, redolent of the existential threat posed by living under foreign domination and, increasingly, their Christian neighbors.
For Christians, pigs came to signify their faith’s divergence from Judaism. Theologically speaking, the meat taboos in Leviticus and Deuteronomy represented the orthopraxic doctrine that early Church Fathers rejected in favor of orthodoxy. For them, then, the existential threat was the pork taboo and other elements of halakha, which they feared could distract their followers from Christ’s truth. But rejecting the pork taboo presented other benefits to Christian leaders. It helped win converts and spread Christianity. On a political level, the rejection of the pig taboo helped Christians distinguish themselves from Jews as members of a separate (and in their eyes, superior) religion.
