DEFILEMENT AND PURIFICATION, CEREMONIAL.
I. Defilement.
1. The Region of Polluting Exist-
ences. Animals (§ 1). Women in Childbirth (§ 2). Leprosy (§3). Bodily Secretions (§ 4). Death (§ 5). Booty (§ 6).
2. The Character of this Impurity. The Hebrew Tame (§ 1).
Impurity not Simply Physical (§2).
But Religious-Ethical-Esthetic (§3).
3. Antiquity and Development of the
Idea in Israel. Evidence in the Prophetic Writings (§1).
4. Ethnic Analogies.
5. Origin of the Old Testament Doc-
trine of Uncleanness. Unsatisfactory Explanations (§1).
The Principal Idea the Relationship to Death (§ 2). II. Purification.
1. The Removal of Uncleanness. Women in Childbirth (§ 1). Leprosy (§ 2).
Emissions (§ 3). Dead Things (§ 4). Booty (§ 5).
2. Underlying Conceptions. III. Postcanonieal Development.
I. Defilement: In order to define what Old Testament purification covers, it is necessary first to describe what is there declared to defile or make impure.
1. The Eeg-ion of Polluting Existences : Certain animals polluted if they were eaten (see Dietary Laws of the Hebrews). Unclean animals might J be brought to God neither as free-will
inals " offerings (Gen. viii. 20) nor as firstlings (Num. xviii. 15) nor as tithes (Lev. xxvii. 32), but contact with living unclean animals is not forbidden.
In the case of women in childbirth (Lev. xii.) the cause of uncleanness is not the fact of giving birth, but the condition resulting which resembles that of the menses. The duration of the uncleanness is seven or fourteen days followed by thirty-three or sixty-six days, according as the child is male or female, during the whole of which period (forty or eighty days) the woman is barred from approach to things holy. The period of seven or fourteen days involves a completer or more " contagious " impurity than that of the remaining thirty-three or .sixty-six days. The manner of purification of person and clothing by washing is as in the menses (cf. Lev. xv. 11, IG-l.S, 21,27).
2. Women in Child- •birth.
Leprosy (not always the real leprosy; cf. P Haupt, Babylonian Elements of the Levitic Ritual, 3 Le ros 1900)> during its contin-
uance, defiled the person or thing with which it came into contact. " House-leprosy " defiled any who entered the house pronounced leprous by the priest.
Certain secretions of the human body (Lev. xv.), such as unhealthy secretions from the male organ (vv. 1-12), defiled by contact with the person afflicted. The case in vv. 16-18 is peculiar; nocturnal emissions polluted things *"secr^e^^^ which they touched (verse 17); the tions' ^^'^ ^'^^ ^^'^ emission polluted
persons whom he touched, e.g., the wife by his side. Lev. xix. 20 reprehends the lying together of persons of different stations in life (a freeman and a bondmaiden). In the earlier instance (Lev. XV. 18) sexual intercourse is not involved by the phrase " lie with " (cf. Lev. xv. 24 with XX. 18; in the former passage the phrase carries only the meaning " being in the same bed," while the latter passage makes sexual intercourse under the circumstances named a capital offense). The section Lev. xv. 16-18 deals with involuntary emission and does not involve defilement through sexual intercourse. This (correct) interpretation was the view of the Masoretes and of Luther (the
RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Decree
Defilement and Purification
latter translates " the woman near whom such a one lies "); but another view, that verse 18 made sexual intercourse a defilement became common among the Jews. The Old Testament makes the sexual act only relatively polluting; for example, before performing a religious act or touching a sacred object (cf. Ex. xix. 15; I Sam. xxi. 5-6; I Cor. vii. 5), just as drinking of wine was not absolutely and always forbidden to the priests, but only when sacred functions were to be performed. A woman's menses (Lev. xix. 19-24) rendered her unclean for seven days, anything that she touched till the evening, and the husband who occupied the bed with her while she was in that condition for seven days. Any other issue of the kind carried the same disability.
Death rendered unclean. The dead body of unclean beasts made him that touched them unclean for one day (Lev. xi. 8, 24-25, 28). Lev. xi. 29-38 names eight varieties of creeping animals the dead bodies of which defiled things and persons, D th ^■'^''^P* fountains, cisterns, and seed, unless the last were soaking in water. These animals were generally found near human habitations. The body of a clean beast which had died, i.e., was not slaughtered in the legal way, defiled for the day him that touched or ate it (Lev. xi. 39-40; cf. Ex. xxii. 31; Lev. xxii. 8). A corpse rendered unclean for seven days him who touched it, defiled the tent and any who entered it, as well as any uncovered vessel which was in the tent (Num. xix. 11-14). Contact with a corpse in the open, with a human bone or a grave, defiled for seven days ; and whoever engaged in the purification of such a defiled person was himself unclean till the evening (Num. xix. 7-8, 10, 21-22).
Booty taken from Gentiles rendered unclean for seven days (Num. xxxi. 23-24). This impurity of 6 B t booty differed from that of heathen lands (Amos vii. 17), which was rather unholiness and did not render unclean the Hebrew who dwelt there.
2. The Character of this Impurity: This depends on the meaning of the Heb. tame, " unclean," which is connected with the ideas " submerged," " besmirched," " concentrated," hence " dark," "gloomy." The usage involves both external ^ impurity and that of the spirit (Is,
Hebrew ^' ^5 Num. v. 13; Lev.
Tame xviii. 19). The actions described in these passages are " abominations," as was the Moloch cult. The word is used of immorality and irreligion, and takes in both express abominations and such unsanctity as that of a heathen land (cf. II Kings v. 17-19) and its population. The synonyms of tame give various consonant meanings, such as " degraded," " soiled," " smirched," applicable in both the physical and the moral spheres, just as the antonym kodhesh refers to both physical and moral states.
Considerations which decide the character of uncleanness are the following. Impurity was not eimply physical, since the usual sources of the evil did not belong to the region of this impurity. Yet defilement of a bed might be wrought by a corpse or by excrement, and ablutions were a partial means
to holiness. The ultimate thought was relation to the deity. In the case of childbirth the distinction 2 between absolute and relative impurity
purity y*^^ °^ *be flow of blood, and
not Simply ^.11 menses stoppage of the flow Physical. W^o facto restored purity so far as the
basis was physical. Even then impurity had for Israelites a moral-religious significance, since for the reestablishment of purity a religious rite was performed (e.g.. Lev. xii. 6-8). That a spring or cistern or seed for sowing was not contaminated by a dead unclean beast proceeded from the thought that the spring and the seed renewed themselves, while the body of water in the cistern was relatively large. Against the merely physical character of uncleanness can be alleged the fact that through eating of creeping things the soul was thought to be defiled (Lev. xi. 43), and the fact that the impurity of a woman is regarded as more absolute than that of a man. This appears in the doubling of the period of impurity after the birth of a girl as compared with that following the birth of a boy, and in the circumstance that issue from a woman defiles for seven days, from a man only one (Lev. xv. 18, 24). Yet washing or aspersion with water and searing with fire point to the external character of the impurity. On the other hand, the Old Testament teaches that animals and things inanimate suffer under man's culpability.
Impurity had then the significance of a religiousethical abnormality. But this was not all, since it was not always mere psychological immorality.
Impurity is sometimes called baseness 3. But or sin, which, however, did not com-
municate itself as contagion nor was Ethical purged exactly through sacrifice. Esthetic ^® noteworthy that the person who
came into contact with the sin-offering of the Day of Atonement was not called unclean (Lev. xvi. 24, 26, 28), as was he who touched the ashes which purified from contact with the dead (Num. xix. 7, 8, 10). If then impurity has an ethical-religious character, it has also an external character as a secondary factor. It is best to gather these qualities in one phrase, and to speak of impurity as religious-ethical-esthetic.
3. Antiquity and Development of the Idea in Israel: From those prophetical writings the date of which is certain the following is gathered, those passages where unclean is taken in a mere religioethical sense, and as not immediately belonging here, being put in brackets: [Amos: unclean is the land outside of Palestine (vii. 17).] Hosea: Israel shall eat unclean things in Assyria (ix. 3-4); [Israel is defiled on account of irreligion and immorality (3).] [Micah: uncleanness (i.e., abomination) causes destruction (ii. 13). Isaiah: the Israel of the time of salvation will defile his former idols (xxx. 22).] Jeremiah: the houses of Jerusalem shall be defiled as the place of Tophet (xix. 13). This defilement was brought about by Josiah (II Kings xxiii. 10), since he defiled the high places in the cities of .Judah, not by physical defilement (as II Kings x. 27), but as, in the case of the altar at Bethel (II Kings xxiii. 15-16), by bones out of the sepulchers. [Israel has polluted himseC_hy
Defilement and Purification