CLEAN AND UNCLEAN

The Jewish rules about uncleanness can be roughly classified under five main heads: sexual impurity, un-cleanness due to blood, uncleanness connected with food, with death, and with leprosy. This division is not scientific; some rules are equally in place in more than one class; but at present none but a rough classifi-cation is possible.

1. Sexual impurity. — All primitive religions display great terror of any functions connected, however re-motely, with the organs of reproduction. Sexual inter-course produced uncleanness; and later animism taught that demons watched over such periods and must be averted with scrupulous care. The time when marriage is consummated was especially dangerous, and this idea is clearly seen in To 8'-', though this instance is unique in Jewish sacred literature. But, apart from this, the Jews considered all intercourse to defile till evening, and to necessitate a purificatory bath (Lv 15"). Under certain circumstances, when cleanness was especially important, complete abstinence from women was re-quired (Ex 19'8). Thus, too, from 1 S 21' it appears as if soldiers on a campaign came under this regulation; perhaps because war was a sacred function, duly opened with religious rites (cf. 2 S 11"), and this may also be the cause for a bridegroom's exemption from military service for a year after marriage (Dt 24').

Unciroumcision was regarded as unclean. The reason for this is not obvious; rites of circumcision were per-formed by many primitive nations at the time of puberty (whether for decorative purposes, or in order to prepare a young man or woman for marriage, or for some other reason), and it is possible that among the Jews this custom had been thrown back to an earlier period of life. Or it may be that they regarded circumcision as imposing a distinct tribe-mark on the infant. The condition of unciroumcision might be held as unclean because it implied foreign nationality. Taboos on strangers are very common in savage nations.

Seminal emission made a man unclean till the evening, and necessitated bathing and washing of clothes (Lv 151S- ")■

Childbirth was universally regarded as a special centre of impurity, though among the Jews we find no evidence that the new-bom child was subject to it as well as the mother. The mother was completely unclean for seven days; after that she was in a condition of modified impurity for 33 days, disqualified from entering the sanctuary or touching any hallowed thing. (These periods were doubled when the baby was a gill.) After this, in order to complete her purification, she must offer a lamb of the first year and a pigeon or turtle dove, though poorer people might substitute another pigeon or dove for the lamb (Lv 12, cf. Lk 2").

Analogous notions may perhaps be traced in the prohibition of any sexual impersonation (Dt 22'), any mingling of different species (Dt 22'-", Lv 19"), and in the disqualifications on eunuchs, bastards, and the Ammonites and Moabites, the offspring of an incestuous union (Dt 23'-*); though some of these rules look like the product of later refinement.

Human excreta were sources of uncleanness (Dt 2312-M) ; but the directions on this subject very possiWy date from the epoch of magical spells, and arose frotp the fear lest a man's excrement might iaH"'into an enemy's hands and be used to work magic against him.

The prohibition to priests of woolen garments which caused sweat, is possibly an extension of a similar notion (Ezk 44"-"). Finally, the abstinence from eating the sinew of the thigh, which in Gn 32^2 is explained by a reference to the story of Jacob, may have originated in the idea that the thigh was the centre of the repro-ductive functions.

2. Uncleanness due to blood. — The fear of blood dates back in all probability to the most primeval times, and may be in part instinctive. Among the Jews it was a most stringent taboo, and their aversion from it

CLEAN AND UNCLEAN

was reinforced by the theory that it was the seat of life (Dt 122'). A clear instance of the all-embracing nature of its polluting power is seen in Dt 22'. The same idea would probably cause the abstinence from eating beasts of prey, carrion birds, and animals which had died without being bled (Ezk 4", Ex 22", Lv 17" 22'). To break this rule caused defilement (1 S 14», Ezk 33^'). Such a taboo is so universal and ancient that it cannot reasonably be accounted for by the Jewish hatred for heathen offerings of blood.

The taboos on menstrual blood and abnormal issues must come under this category or that of sexual im-purity. Menstruation was terribly feared. It was exceedingly dangerous for a man even to see the blood. The woman in such a condition was unclean for seven days, and her impurity was higtily contagious (Lv 15"-'*). Similarly, abnormal issues produced contagious unclean-ness for seven days after they had stopped. The purification required was the offering of two turtle doves and two young pigeons. A man had also to bathe and wash his clothes, but we are not told that a woman was under the same necessity, though it is hardly credible that she was exempt (Lv la'-"- a-").

3. Uncleanness connected with food. — Anthropology no longer explains all food taboos as survivals of totem-ism, though no doubt this explanation may account for some. It appears rather that 'theriolatry' was the more general phenomenon. For reasons which cannot even be conjectured in many cases, certain animals were treated as sacred, and tabooed accordingly; it might be that the animal was very useful or very dangerous or very strange; the savage had no con-sistent theory of taboo. Some animals may be cases of sympathetic taboo; they were not eaten from the fear lest their quaUties should be imparted to the consumer. In later times some animals might be tabooed from more elaborate motives. But food taboos cover so wide a range, and appear in many cases so inexplicable, that no single derivation of them can be adequate.

The Jews themselves dated the distinction between clean and unclean animals from an early antiquity (cf. Gn 72 and S""); Gn 9', however, appears to embody a theory of antediluvian vegetarianism.

The lists of clean and unclean beasts are given in Lv 11 and Dt 14'«- It is impossible to give any certain explanation of the separate items. Clean animals are there classified as those wiiich part the hoof, are cloven- footed, and chew the cud. But this looks like an attempt of later speculation to generalize regulations already existent. The criterion would exclude the ass, horse, dog, and beasts of prey, which are nowhere mentioned as unclean. The last class, as we have seen, would probably be so on different grounds.' The horse and dog seem to have been connected with idolatrous rites (2 K 23", Is 66'), and so perhaps were forbidden. But Jg 6* appears to treat the ass as an ordinary article of diet. (The circumstances in 2 K 62* are exceptional.) The rule that a kid must not be seethed in its mother's milk (Ex 23" 3i», Dt 14") is difficult to account for. A ;nagical ,^inception appears to underUe the prohibi-Hon, and it has been suggested that some nations used to sprinkle the broth on the ground for some such purposes. In that case the taboo would be of great antiquity. But the matter is not at present satis-factorily explained. The taboo on the tree in Eden (Gn 3') hardly calls for discussion. So far as we know, it had no subsequent history; and the general colouring of the story makes it improbable that the prohibition had any origin in Jewish custom.

4. Uncleanness connected with death. — Death, as well as birth, was a source of great tprror to the savage. The animistic horror of ghosts and theories of a con-tinued existence after death, gave a rationale for such terror; but it probably existed iiVpre-animistic days, and the precautions exercised with regard to dead bodies were derived'partly f rojp the intrinsic mysterious-

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