preliminary to marriage,(1437) but in Jewish life it assumed a religious meaning and became endeared to the people as the consecration of the child as the future head of a family. The idea underlying the institution (as Zunz correctly calls it)(1438) is the sanctification of the Jewish household as represented by its male members. The member of a people that is to be holy unto God must bear the seal of the covenant on his flesh; as a potential father of another generation, the sign he bore had a deeper meaning for the future of the people.(1439) The rationalistic view that the Mosaic law is merely hygienic, although found as early as Philo, is quite erroneous.(1440) 5. The same rationalist view(1441) is often applied to the dietary laws of the Mosaic Code, but without any justification from the Biblical point of view. These laws prohibit as unclean various species of animals, or such as have fallen dead or as the prey of wild beasts, or certain portions like blood and suet.(1442) The Holiness Code states its reason for these prohibitions very emphatically: “I am the Lord your God, who have set you apart from the peoples. Ye shall therefore separate between the clean beast and the unclean, and between the unclean fowl and the clean; and ye shall not make your souls detestable by beast, or by fowl, or by any thing wherewith the ground teemeth, which I have set apart for you to hold unclean. And ye shall be holy unto Me; for I the Lord your God am holy, and have set you apart from the peoples, that ye should be Mine.”(1443) The Deuteronomic Code gives the same reason for the prohibition of the unclean beasts: “For thou art a holy people unto the Lord thy God.” It seems that these prohibitions of “unclean” foods were intended originally for the priesthood and other holy men, as appears in Ezekiel and elsewhere.(1444) As a matter of fact, the same class of animals from which the Israelites were commanded to abstain were also forbidden to the priests or saints of India, Persia, Mesopotamia, and partly of Egypt.(1445) The natural conclusion is that the Mosaic law intended these rules as a practical expression of its general principle that Israel was to be “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”(1446) In other words, Israel was to fill the usual place of the priest among the nations of the ancient world, a priest-people observing the priestly laws of sanctification. Whatever the origin of these customs may have been, whether they were tabu laws in connection with totemism or some other primitive view, the Priestly Code itself admits their lack of an Israelitish origin by recognizing that they were known to Noah.(1447) They were simply adopted by the law-giver of Israel to make the whole people feel their priestly calling.