Yes.-i'U fur M ih.'iinini'dan Ablution.
Jews, seeing that the law imposed this obligation on the priests only, not on the people. Connected as these Moslem ablutions are with various forms and imitative ceremonies, and recurring so frequent!}' as they do, the avowedly heavy yoke of even the Mosaic law seems light in the comparison. See Bathe.
In the third class of ablutions washing is regarded as a purification from positive defilements. The Mo- saical law recognises eleven species of uncleanness of this nature (Lev. xii-xv), the purification for which ceased at the end of a certain period, provided the un- clean person then washed his bocty and his clothes ; but in a few cases, such as leprosy and the defilement contracted by touching a dead body, he remained un- clean seven days after the physical cause of pollution had ceased. This was all that the law required ; but in later times, when the Jews began to refine upon it, these cases were considered generic instead of specific — as representing classes instead of individual cases of defilement — and the causes of pollution requiring purification by water thus came to be greatly in- creased. This kind of ablution for substantial un- cleanness answers to the Moslem glmsl (Lane, ib. p. 90 ; Reland, ib. p. CG-77), in which the causes of de- filement greatly exceed those of the Mosaical law, while they are perhaps equalled in number and mi- nuteness by those which the later Jews devised. The uncleanness in this class arises chiefly from the nat- ural secretions of human beings and of beasts used for food, and from the ordure of animals not used for food ; and, as among the Jews, the defilement may be communicated not only to persons, but to clothes, utensils, and dwellings — in all which cases the purifi- cation must be made by water, or by some representa- tive act where water cannot be applied. Thus in drought or sickness the rinsing of the hands and face may be performed with dry sand or dust, a ceremony that is termed layemmum (Lane, ib.). See Un'CLEAN- ness.
Of the last class of ablutions, by which persons de- clared themselves free from the guilt of a particular action, the most remarkable instance is that which oc- curs in the expiation for an unknown murder, when the elders of the nearest village washed their hands over the expiatory heifer, beheaded in the valley, say- ing, " Our hands have not shed this blood, neither have our eyes seen it" (Deut. xxi, 1-9). It has been thought by some that the signal act of Pilate, when he washed his hands in water and declared himself innocent of the blood of Jesus (Matt, xxvii, 24), was a designed adoption of the Jewish custom ; but this sup- position does not appear necessary, as the practice was also common among the Greeks and Romans (see Smith's Diet, of Class. Antiq. s. v. Lustratio). See Murder.
Other practices not indicated in the law appear to have existed at a very early period, or to have grown up in the course of time. From 1 Sam. xvi, 5, com- pared with Exod. xix, 10-14, we learn that it was usual for those who presented or provided a sacrifice to purity themselves by ablution ; and as this was everywhere a general practice, it may be supposed to have existed in patriarchal times, and, being an estab- lished and approved custom, not to have required to be mentioned in the law. There is a passage in the apocryphal book of Judith (xii, 7-9) which has been thought to intimate that the Jews performed ablutions before prayer. Rut we cannot fairly deduce that meaning from it (camp. Ruth iii, 3); since it is con- nected with the anointing (q. v.), which was a custom- ary token of festivity (see Arnald, in loc.). It would indeed prove too much if so understood, as Judith bathed in the water, which is more than even the Mos- lems do before their prayers. Moreover, the authority, if clear, would not be conclusive. See Pitrification.
Put after the rise of the sect of the Pharisees, the practice of ablution was carried to such excess, from
ABLUTION
23
ABNER
the affectation of extraordinary purity, that it is re- peatedly brought under our notice in the New Testa- ment through the several animadversions of our Sav- iour on the consummate hypocrisy involved in this fas- tidious attention to the external types of moral purity, while the heart was left unclean (e. g. Matt, xxiii, 25). All the practices there exposed come under the head of purification from uncleanness ; the acts involving which were made so numerous that persons of the strict- er sect could scarcely move without contracting some involuntary pollution. For this reason they never en- tered their houses without ablution, from the strong probability that they had unknowingly contracted some defilement in the streets ; and they were especial- ly careful never to eat without washing the hands (Mark vii, 1-5), because they were peculiarly liable to be defiled ; and as unclean hands were held to com- municate uncleanness to all food (excepting fruit) which they touched, it was deemed that there was no security against eating unclean food but by al- ways washing the hands ceremonially before touch- ing any meat. We saj- "ceremonially," because thjs article refers only to ceremonial washing. The Israelites, who, like other Orientals, fed with their ringers, washed their hands before meals for the sake of cleanliness. See Eating. But these cus- tomary washings were distinct from the ceremonial ablutions, as they are now among the Moslems. There were, indeed, distinct mimes for them. The former was called simply f^^Xii,netilah', or washing, in which water -was poured upon the hands ; the latter was call- ed rtb"Q::, tebildh', plunging, because the hands were immersed in water (Lightfoot on Mark vii, 4). It was this last, namely, the ceremonial ablution, which the Pharisees judged to be so necessary. When, therefore, some of that sect remarked that our Lord's disciples ate " with unwashen hands" (Mark vii, 2), it is not to be understood literally that they did not at all wash their hands, but that they did not plunge them ceremonially according to their own practice [vvyfiy, not "oft," as in the Auth. Vers., but with the fist, q. d. "up to the elbow," as Theophylact interprets). And this was expected from them only as the disciples of a religious teacher ; for these refinements were not practised by the class of people from which the disciples were chiefly drawn. Their wonder was, that Jesus had not inculcated this observance on his followers, and not, as some have fancied, that he had enjoined them to neglect what had been their previous practice. (See Otho, Lex. Rabb. s. v. Lotio.) See Wash.