see CLEAN
Source: Hispanic World Bible Dictionary
At first, purity was understood exclusively in the sphere of the cult. God is the saint by essence, the pure. The people, the animals, the objects that had some relationship with Him, should also be holy and pure; this very relationship with Him left them holy and pure. In the same way that holiness and purity are contagious, so is impurity. That is why long rules are given so that man does not contract impurities in contact with animals and impure things (Lev 11, 17; 21, 1-22). All these purifying laws ran the risk of falling into exaggerated formalism. As it happened. Already the prophets, transferring the concept of purity to the moral order, attack the excessive formulas of exterior purity, which make us forget the interior purity, that of the heart (Os 6, 6; Am 4. 4-5; 5, 21-25; Is 1, 10-17; Jer 7, 21-23). In messianic times the rites of external purification had reached their climax, with total forgetfulness of internal purity. Jesus lashed out at this suffocating formalism of the scribes and Pharisees, who only cared about external purity and inside were full of the most serious defects (Mt 15, 1-20; 23, 1-37; Mk 7, 1-23; 12, 38-40; Lk 20, 45-47). Jesus Christ removes all importance from cultic purity and vigorously preaches moral purity, thus freeing religion from any external apparatus to place it within man (Jn 4, 23). Nothing is inherently impure; for the pure everything is pure (Rom 14, 14. 20). -> institutions; worship; temple.
MNE
FERNANDEZ RAMOS, Felipe (Dir.), Dictionary of Jesus of Nazareth, Editorial Monte Carmelo, Burbos, 2001
Source: Dictionary of Jesus of Nazareth
PURE
Source: Vine New Testament Dictionary
Purity, a conception common to ancient religions, is the disposition required to approach sacred things; although in an accessory way it can imply the opposite virtue to lust, it is sought not with moral acts, but through rites. Ordinarily this primitive conception tends to deepen, but it does so differently according to the different climates of thought. According to the dualistic perspective, the *soul, pure by essence, must disregard the *body, in which it is imprisoned, and the material things in whose contact it lives. According to biblical faith, which believes the entire creation to be good, the notion of purity tends to become interior and moral, until Christ shows his, the only source in his word and in his sacrifice.
AT. 1. CULTURAL PURITY. 1. In the life of the holy community. Purity, unrelated to morality, provides legal fitness to participate in worship or even in the ordinary life of the holy community. This complex notion, developed particularly in Lev 11-16, appears throughout the OT.
It includes physical cleanliness: removal from everything that is not clean (filth Dt 23,13ss), from what is sick (*leprosy Lev 13-14; 2 Kings 7,3) or corrupted (corpses Num 19,11-14 ; 2 Kings 23,13s). However, the discrimination of *clean and impure animals (Lev 11), often taken from primitive taboos, cannot be explained by the sole reason of hygiene.
Purity constitutes a protection against paganism: as Canaan was contaminated by the presence of pagans, the spoils of war are condemned to destruction (Jos 6,24ff) and the very fruits of this land are prohibited during the first three years of harvest (Lev 19,23ss). Certain animals, such as the pig, are impure (Lev 11,7), undoubtedly because the pagans associated them with their cult (cf. Is 66,3).
Purity regulates the use of everything that is *holy. Everything that concerns worship must be eminently filthy (Ex 25,31; Lev 21; 22), and yet the sacred things themselves can contaminate man if he approaches them unduly (Num 19,7ff; lSa 21,5 ; 2,Sa 6,6a).
The vital forces, source of blessing, are considered sacred, for which sexual impurities are contracted even with their morally good use (Lev 12 and 15).
2. Purification rites. Most of the impurities, if they do not disappear by themselves (Lev 11,24s), are erased with the washing of the body or clothes (Ex 19,10; Lev I7, 15s), with expiatory sacrifices (Lev 12, 6s) and, on the day of atonement, the feast of purification par excellence, by sending to the desert a male goat symbolically loaded with the impurities of the entire people (Lev 16).
3. Respect of the holy community. Latent in this still quite material notion of purity is the idea that *man is a reality such that the *body and the *soul cannot be dissociated, and that his religious acts, however spiritual they may be, do not they cease to be embodied. In a community consecrated to God and desirous of going beyond the natural state of his existence, not just anything is eaten, everything is not used, the generative powers of life are not used in any way. These multiple restrictions, perhaps arbitrary in origin, produced a double effect. They preserved the monotheistic faith against all contamination by the surrounding pagan environment; furthermore, adopted out of obedience to God, they constituted a true moral discipline. Thus the demands of Dic., which are spiritual, were to be revealed.
II. TOWARDS THE NOTION OF MORAL PURITY. 1. The prophets constantly proclaim that neither ablutions nor *sacrifices have value in themselves if they do not involve an interior purification (Is 1,15ss; 29,13; cf. Os 6,6; Am 4,1-5; Jer 7,21ff). This does not mean that the cultic aspect disappears (Is 52, 11), but the true impurity that contaminates man is revealed in its very source, in * sin; legal impurities are only an external image of it (Ez 36, 17s). There is an essential impurity in man, from which only God can purify him (Is 6,5ss). The radical purification of the *lips, of the *heart, of the whole being is part of the messianic promises: “I will pour pure water on you and you will be purified of all your impurities” (Ez 36,25s; cf. Zeph 3,9 ; Is 35.8; 52.2).
2. The sages characterize the condition required to please God, by the purity of the hands, of the heart, of the forehead, of prayer (Job 11,4.14s; 16,17; 22,30), therefore by a irreproachable moral conduct. The wise, however, are aware of a radical impurity of man before God (Pros, 20,9; Job 9,30s); it is a presumption to believe oneself to be pure (Job 4,17). However, the sage strives to morally deepen purity, whose sexual aspect begins to be accentuated; Sarah kept herself pure (Tob 3,14), while the pagans are delivered to a degrading impurity (Wis 14,25).
3. In the psalmists one sees the concern for moral purity assert itself more and more, in a cultural framework. God’s love turns to pure hearts (Ps 73,1). Access to the sanctuary is reserved for the man with innocent hands, with a pure heart (Salt 24.4), and God repays the pure hands of those who practice *justice (Salt 18,21.25). But since only he can give this purity, he is begged to purify hearts. The Miserere manifests the moral effect of the purification that he expects from God alone. “Wash me clean of all malice… purify me with the hyssop and I will be pure.” Even more: picking up the heritage of Ezekiel (36,25s) and crowning the tradition of the OT, he exclaims: “Oh God! create in me a pure heart” (Ps 51:12), a prayer so spiritual that the NT believer can adopt it literally.
NT. I. PURITY ACCORDING TO THE GOSPELS. 1. The legalistic trend still exists in the time of Jesus and underlines the law by emphasizing the material conditions of purity: repeated ablutions (Me 7,3s), thorough washings (Mt 23,25), flight from sinners who spread impurity (Mk 2,15ss), signs placed on the tombs to avoid contamination by inadvertence (Mt 23,27).
2. Jesus enforces certain rules of legal purity (Mk 1,43s) and initially seems to condemn only the excesses of observances added to the law (Mk 7,6-13). However, he ends up proclaiming that the only purity is the interior (Mk 7,14-23 p): “Nothing that enters a man from outside can stain him…, because from within, from the heart of man, evil proceeds.” wishes.” In this sense, demons can also be called “impure spirits” (Mk 1,23; Lk 9,42). This liberating teaching of Jesus was so new that the disciples will take a long time to understand it.
3. Jesus grants his intimacy to those who give themselves to him in the simplicity of faith and love, to two “pure hearts” (Mt 5:8). To * see God, to appear before him, not in his temple in Jerusalem, but in his * kingdom, the same moral purity is not enough. It requires the active presence of the Lord in existence; only then is he the radically pure man. Jesus says this to his Apostles: “God has purified you thanks to the word that I have spoken to you” (Jn 15:3). And even more clearly: “He who has bathed does not need to wash, he is all clean; you also are clean” (Jn 13:10).
II. THE APOSTYLICAL DOCTRINE. 1. Beyond the division between pure and impure. A supernatural intervention was necessary for Peter to draw this triple conclusion from the word of Christ: there is no longer any impure food (Acts 10,15; 11,9); the same uncircumcised are not defiled (Act 10,28); now God already purifies by faith the hearts of the pagans (Acts 15,9). For his part, Paul, armed with the teaching of Jesus (cf. Mk 7), boldly declares that for the Christian “nothing is impure in itself” (Rom 14:14). Having already passed the regime of the old law, the observances of purity become “elements without force”, from which Christ has freed us (Gal 4,3.9; Col 2,16-23). “The reality is in the body of Christ” (Col 2,17), since his risen body is the germ of a new universe.
2. The rites incapable of purifying the inner being were replaced by Christ by his fully effective *sacrifice (Heb 9; 10); purified from sin by the blood of Jesus (1Jn 1, 7.9), we hope to have a place among those who “whitened their garments in the blood of the lamb” (Ap 7,14). This radical purification is actualized by the rite of *baptism which derives its efficacy from the *cross: “Christ gave himself up for the Church in order to sanctify her by cleansing her by bathing in water” (Eph 5:26). While the ancient observances only obtained a completely external purification, the *waters of *baptism cleanse us of all stains by associating us with the risen Jesus Christ (1Pe 3, 21s). Certainly we are purified by hope in God, who through Christ has made us his children (1Jn 3,3).
3. The transposition of the ritual plane to the plane of spiritual health is particularly expressed in the Epistle to the Corinthians, in which Paul invites Christians to expel from their lives the “old yeast” and replace it with “unleavened unleavened purity”. and truly” (1Cor 5,8; cf. Jas 4,8). The Christian must purify himself of all impurity of body and spirit in order to finish the work of his sanctification (2Cor 7,1). The moral aspect of this purity is further developed in the pastoral epistles. “Everything is pure for the pure” (Tit 1,15), because now…