851. Church Organization Among the Hungarians of America. Few Hungarians emigrated to the United States previous to 1880, but since that year the number has been increasing year by year. The first congregations of Hungarians were organized by the Board of Home Missions of the Reformed Church in the United States, and by the Presbyterian Church. Those bodies took care of the Hungarian Protestant congregations until 1904, when the Reformed Church of Hungary sent a delegate to the United States to check the division of the Hungarians into two religious bodies and to unite them under the supremacy of the Church of Hungary. But only a few answered. They organized the Hungarian Classis as a part of the Church of Hungary, Rev. Z. Kuthy being chosen dean and Count Degenfeld being elected curator. In 1905 a Hungarian Classis was organized under the supremacy of the Reformed Church in the United States, Rev. A. Csutoros being chosen president. To-day there are about thirty-five Hungarian congregations under the care of the three organizations. IV. PROHIBITORY FOOD LAWS IN ISRAEL. BY IRWIN HOCH DE LONG, D.B., PH.D. In this chapter (Dt. 14), as well as in Leviticus 11, certain animals are enumerated as "unclean," and hence the Israelites or the Hebrew people who were to be a people holy unto the Lord were to abstain from the eating of the flesh of these animals. The systematization of these animals into one group unclean," as this scheme lies before us in Deuteronomy and in the Priestly Document of the Hexateuch, is of a comparatively recent date. The practice, however, of regarding as certain animals as taboo or "unclean" reaches far back into the days preceding Yahwism. The prohibitory food laws are not of a uniform origin, though all of them may be traced back to cultic considerations or motives. They are precautionary measures. That which was regarded as sacred in former times is now forbidden, whether or not it assumed an unclean character under Yahwism. The people were to be weaned away from their former practices and customs. These prohibitory food laws, in the form in which we have them in the Old Testament, are accordingly pedagogical; but pedagogical in this sense, that they are in the interest of Yahwism. The Priestly Writer who allows humankind after the flood to enjoy a meat diet in addition to the vegetable diet of prediluvial days does so on the condition that the blood was not to be eaten. The blood belongs to Yahweh. The Priestly Writer's thought may be that the life of the animal comes from Yahweh and that, therefore, it must be returned to him. If we distinguish here between the Priestly Writer's interpretation and the original practice, it becomes apparent that this It is not because the conception is not the original one. blood was given to Yahweh that it was not eaten, but because man stood in fear of eating the blood it was given to Yahweh; accordingly it is not a gift that was voluntarily offered to make the deity propitious. Man stood in fear of eating the blood because it contained the ?, the life of the animal. To eat or take into one's body a foreign might create trouble; strife and contention might arise between the two "souls" thus brought together, and this in turn might result for the individual in pain and sickness. For this same reason an animal that died of itself, na, or one that was torn to pieces, p, by wild animals was not to be eaten; the blood with the had not been removed. In the light of what has just now been said it is at once apparent why beasts of prey were regarded as "unclean," and consequently were not to be eaten. Furthermore, things in themselves "clean" become "unclean" when they are brought in relation to the worship of foreign gods, as, for instance, meats offered to other gods; or they become "unclean" when they are brought in connection with some form of magic, as, for example, a kid boiled in its mother's milk. The fat of the sacrificial animals was likewise forbidden to be eaten. The motive for this prohibition is not apparent. Is it based, as is claimed, on the conception that the particular seat of the was in the fat of the kidneys? Or is the prohibition of a secondary character, growing out of the changing practice of sacrifice? You will remember that in early times it was not at all necessary to burn that part of the animal which was offered to the deity. The objects of highest value to the early Semites, as to all primitive people in general, are food and drink. These constitute the earliest offerings. Nomadic Israel gave these to Yahweh in the same form in which the Israelites used them for their own nourishment. Yahweh's meal was prepared and offered in just about the same way in which the primitive Israelite prepared his own meal. -The fat of the sacrificial animals be .וַיַּרַח יְהוָה אֶת רֵיחַ הנִּיחחַ . longed to Yahweh, to his table, the altar, and herein seems to lie the reason why the fat of the sacrificial animals was forbidden to be eaten. You must not eat that which belongs to Yahweh and to his table. In Genesis 32: 33, we read of a practice or custom among the Israelites not to eat the nan (traditionally the nervus ischiadicus (?); the region of the groin (2) is, however, in question, and hence anatomists think of the tendon of the psoas or of the adductor longus), "the sinew of the hip." The motive for this practice is a religious one. Strangely enough the practice has not been taken up or incorporated into the legal system. But now! what is to be said about the prohibition against the eating of the flesh of so-called "unclean" animals? It is hardly necessary to remind you that "clean" and "unclean " in this connection have no ethical or esthetic content.* * Never * By this statement is not meant that the Priestly Writer had no ethical or esthetic interest; it is made in passing to call attention to the fact that the primitive distinction between "clean and "unclean" is based on cultic and religious, rather than on ethical and esthetic motives. We may perhaps quote in this connection the following succinct characterization of the tendency of the priestly writers in this respect: "Mais ils [les chapitres XI-XV du Lévitique] cadrent admirablement avec sa tendance dominante [c'est à dire, la tendance du code sacerdotal] et prouvent que la pureté levitique avait plus d'importance pour ses auteurs que la pureté morale. Par là notre code a de nouveau favorisé l'idée antique et grossière d'une sainteté dénuée de caractère éthique, et cela d'autant plus que la sainteté extérieure ou lévitique y est seule prise en theless let us ask: Is this prohibtion the outcome of a disgust or loathing to eat certain things? Or is this prohibition the result of medicinal and hygienic motives? We answer: It is not likely that any one of these motives is in back of this prohibition. A disgust or loathing to eat this or that thing is often rather the result of training or of a law which prescribes against the use of certain objects as food. Originally, in a low state of civilization, man is not very fastidious or dainty in his eating habits, neither is the child; the former may be witnessed among the Semitic nomads even to-day-they eat what is at hand-the latter in almost any home where there are infant children. Again, the intelligence of medicine and hygiene is lacking in this stage of civilization, where magic and medicine have not yet become differentiated. If, then, this prohibition is not likely to be based on any of the motives just now mentioned we must turn in another direction to find the motive for the prohibition against the eating of the flesh of certain animals. Only from the standpoint of the still explicable details can the sense of the whole be determined. In the case of the swine the motive of the prohibition is at once apparent: it is a totem. Recall the 2,* sons of the considération. Sous ce rapport, l'ecole sacerdotale a poussé les choses si loin qu'elle n'a pas seulement présenté comme impurs certains animaux, des fonctions ou des états naturels de la vie humaine qui n'ont absolument rien de commun avec la vie morale, mais même du linge, des objets mobiliers et des maisons. Cette impureté exige également des sacrifices expiatoires. En face de prescriptions de ce genre, on comprend que Reuss ait pu dire du Code sacerdotal que l'important n'y est pas la pureté du coeur, mais celle des corps et des plats. Cette appréciation est toutefois une exagération, l'ecole sacerdotale n'ayant certainement pas méconnu l'importance et la valeur de la vie morale." •". . . die Priesterfamilie חזִיר I Chr. 24 15, die mit den in der Inschrift etwa aus dem 1. Jahrhundert v. Chr. (Rev. arch. 1864 pl. 7) identisch sein wird. Die Punktation soll den Anstoss tilgen, den der Name bietet." For further instances of the occurrence of this name among Semites and others see NÖLDEKE, Beiträge zur semitischen Sprachwissenschaft, Strassburg, 1904, p. 84 sub voce "Schwein" and note 4; idem, Geschichte der Perser und Araber zur Zeit der Sasaniden, Leiden, 1879, p. 240. On the discovery of pig bones in Palestinian excavations, |