PURITY AND LEGAL IMPURITY. - From the ritual or legal point of view, most non-Christian religions consider "pure" whatever they regard as close to God and full of his power; "impure" whatever is alien and opposed to his sphere. In the Bible the precepts concerning purity, even in cases where the indication of the cause is lacking, tend to make Yahwistic worship exclusive, opposing whatever occurs in magic and in polytheistic cults. What belongs to the God of Israel is considered sacred and holy, and therefore exalted, powerful, luminous.
Impure are bodily effluvia insofar as, bringing a diminution of physical strength, they are opposed to sacredness considered as power. Impure are the dead, considered "powerful," that is, in possession of forces opposed to that of Yahwistic cultic sacredness. Foreign gods are "excrement," they are "nothing." Impure are the pagan peoples, their land, their foods. Impure are certain animals sacred in paganism. An attempt is then made to classify these animals on the basis of external signs: cloven hoof and ruminants for quadrupeds, fins and scales for fish. The supposed concerns for "hygiene" are lucubrations of modern scholars.
Water, the blood of sacrifices, oil, and confession as an expression of evil, almost in a physical sense, serve for catharsis. With them one marks, at the hour of sunset, the end of the state of impurity. The ash obtained from a red cow is endowed, as is also red on its own, with cathartic power. Crimson threads, as also cedar wood, serve to combat impurity. A bird, a dove, placed in contact with the impure object, serves to carry away the impurity. The confession of sins upon running waters serves the same purpose. The use of water in cathartic rites is constant; water is by nature an element antithetical to impurity, so much so that in Lev. 11:36 we read that fountains, cisterns and reservoirs shall not contract uncleanness. Equally constant is the changing of garments, and frequent is the obligation to shave. The action of the cathartic rite is certainly efficacious.
The laws on impurity are treated at length in chapters 11-16 of Leviticus. In them impurity presents itself as a fluid, which penetrates men, animals and things through contagion.
In animal beings impurity can be intrinsic or participated. A person can become impure for physical reasons (leprosy: Lev. 13:3; Num. 5:2), for natural necessities (childbirth: Lev. 12:2-5), independent of his will (ibid. 15:25) or through necessary and undesired contacts (e.g., with a dead person: Num. 6:7; 9:6). Certain animals are impure by nature (Lev. 11:10 ff.). In things impurity can be participated through contact (the saddle of the man sick with gonorrhea, his bed, that of the menstruating woman: ibid. 15:9, 21, 24, 26); there is also mention of the leprosy of houses and garments (ibid. 14:34; 13:47).
In Ezekiel it is said that impurity is contracted through idolatrous acts (Ezek. 20:7, 18, 30, 31; 22:3, 4; 23:7, 17) or in any case by straying from God (ibid. 15:11; 20:43). In Ps. 24:4 there is mention of purity of heart. The concept of purity becomes interiorized. The struggle between pure and impure, which plays so great a part in the "priestly code," preludes the struggle between good and evil.
The state of purity reintegrates the missing element in the impure man: Naaman is declared pure after having been healed of leprosy (II Kings 5:14); "Wash me from my sin" prays David (Ps. 50 [51]:4), that is: reintegrate in me whatever is missing, deficient. The state of purity is the necessary prelude for entering the field of sacral forces (II Chron. 30:17).
Bibliography10 works
Eugenio Zolli