Behind | Impurity and Access to the Divine

We’ve noticed that purity or cleanness is a requirement in Israel for access to the Tabernacle. When someone is unclean, they’re unable to enter the courtyard to offer their sacrifices. If a priest is unclean, they’re unable to perform their priestly duties. This idea of conflict between impurity and divine presence is one that Israel shared with its contemporaries. 

In ancient Egypt, before anyone could enter the temple to pray, they were required to shave their limbs and clip their nails in a rite of purification. In Sumer, a ritual called the su-lah ceremony took place at the entrance to the temple and purified worshipers so that they might approach the dwelling of the gods. The Hittites considered polluting the inner sanctuary a crime punishable by death. 

In all of these cultures, rites of purification become an obsessive concern for encounter with the gods. This applied to both priests and lay people alike. To approach the gods in a state of defilement was to provoke or offend them and potentially damage their relationship with their host community. 

This sensibility was not limited to the ancient Near East. Greek and Roman religions were also preoccupied with restricting impurity from contact with the divine. Consider On the Sacred Disease, attributed to Hippocrates, a Greek physician from the 4th and 5th centuries BCE: 

We ourselves fix boundaries to the sanctuaries and precincts of the gods, so that nobody may cross them unless he be pure; and when we enter we sprinkle ourselves, not as defiling ourselves thereby, but to wash away any pollution we may already have contracted. 

In the New Testament we’ll see Jesus do a number of remarkable things but the most overlooked may be His encounters with the unclean. He approaches lepers, menstruants and even the dead. Throughout His life He breaks down many barriers that had existed between God and impurity. As a result of His life, death and resurrection, the Church develops a unique approach to matters of impurity that we’ll return to when we reach In Front of the Text. 

Quotation cited from: Morb. Sacr. 148.55ff. J., 1.46 G.