[244] Mr. Bevan says that the verb for "defile" (גאל), as a ritual term for the idea of ceremonial uncleanness, is post-exilic; the Pentateuch and Ezekiel used טמא (_Comment._, p. 61). The idea intended is that the three boys avoided meat which might have been killed with the blood and offered to idols, and therefore was not _Kashar_ (Exod. xxxiv. 15). [245] Jos., _Vit._, iii. Comp. Isa. lii. 11. [246] Mark vii. 19 (according to the true reading and translation). [247] Acts x. 14. [248] 1 Cor. xi. 25. This rigorism was specially valued by the Essenes and Therapeutæ. See Derenbourg, _Palestine_, note, vi. [249] Plato, _Alcib._, i. 37; Xen., _Cyrop._, i. 2. Youths entered the king's service at the age of seventeen. [250] Lit. "sadder." LXX., σκυθρωποί. [251] LXX., κινδυνεύσω τῷ ἰδίῳ τραχήλῳ. [252] Perhaps the Assyrian _matstsara_, "guardian" (Delitzsch). There are various other guesses (Behrmann, p. 5). [253] Heb., זֵרֹעִים; LXX., σπέρματα; Vulg., _legumina_. Abn Ezra took the word to mean "rice." Comp. Deut. xii. 15, 16; 1 Sam. xvii. 17, 18. Comp. Josephus (_Vit._, iii.), who tells us how the Jewish priests, prisoners in Rome, fed on σύκοις καὶ καρύοις. [254] Ewald, _Antiquities_, p. 131 f. [255] Pusey (p. 17) quotes from Chardin's notes in Harmer (_Obs._, lix.): "I have remarked that the countenance of the Kechicks (monks) are, in fact, more rosy and smooth than those of others, and that those who fast much are, notwithstanding, very beautiful, sparkling with health, with a clear and lively countenance." [256] The _Chartummîm_ are like the Egyptian ἱερογραμματεῖς. It is difficult to conceive that there was less chance of pollution in being elaborately trained in heathen magic and dream-interpretation than in eating Babylonian food. But this was, so to speak, _extra fabulam_. It did not enter into the writer's scheme of moral edification. If, however, the story is meant to imply that these youths accepted the heathen training, though (as we know from tablets and inscriptions) the incantations, etc., in which it abounded were intimately connected with idolatry, and were entirely unharmed by it, this may indicate that the writer did not disapprove of the "Greek training" which Antiochus tried to introduce, so far as it merely involved an acquaintance with Greek learning and literature. This is the view of Grätz. If so, the writer belonged to the more liberal Jewish school which did not object to a study of the _Chokmath Javanîth_, or "Wisdom of Javan" (Derenbourg, _Palestine_, p. 361).