Ritual Impurity
Ritual Impurity
Ritual Impurity
Vassa Larin
275
276 ST VLADIMIR'S THEOLOGICAL QUARTERLY
The reasons for this are numerous. In an age before the Church's
teaching had crystallized into a defined dogmatic system, there
were many ideas, philosophies, and outright heresies floating in the
air, some of which found their way into the writings of early Chris-
tian writers. Pioneers of Christian theology such as Tertullian,
Clement, Origen, Dionysius of Alexandria and others, highly-
educated men of their time, were in part under the influence of the
pre-Christian philosophical and religious systems that dominated
the classical education of their day. For example, the so-called "Stoic
axiom," or the Stoic view that sexual intercourse is justifiable solely as
a means for procreation,28 is repeated by Tertullian,29 Lactantius,30
and Clement of Alexandria.31 The Mosaic prohibition of sexual
intercourse during menstruation in Lev 18:19 thus acquired a new
rationale: it was not only "defiling"; if it could not result in procre-
ation it was sinful even within wedlock. Note in this context that
Christ only mentions sexual intercourse once in the Gospel, "... and
the two shall become one flesh" (Mt 9:5), without mentioning pro-
creation.32 Tertullian, who embraced the ultra-ascetical heresy of
Montanism in his latter years, went further than most and even con-
sidered prayer after sexual intercourse impossible.33 The famous
Origen was notoriously influenced by the contemporary eclectic
Middle Platonism, with its characteristic depreciation of all things
physical, and indeed of the material world in general. His ascetical
and ethical doctrine, while primarily biblical, is also to be found in
Stoicism, Platonism, and to a lesser degree in Aristotelianism.34 Not
28 S. Stelzenberger, Die Beziehungen derfrühchristlichen SittenUhre zur Ethik der Stoa.
Eine moral-geschichtliche Studie (München 1933), 405ff.
29 De monogamia VII 7, 9 (CCL 2, 1238, 48fï).
30 Div. InstitutionesYl 23 (CSEL 567, 4fi).
31 Paed. II/X92, lf (SC 108, 176f).
32 Cf. Behr, "Marriage and Asceticism," 7.
33 De exhortatione castitatis X 2-4 (CCL 15/2, 1029, 13ff). Cf. Wendebourg,
"Reinheitsgesetze," 159.
34 Innumerable studies have been written on Origen's relationship with the philo-
sophical currents of his time. For a summary of recent scholarship on the topic see
D. I. Rankin, From Clement to Origen. The Social and Historical Context of the
Church Fathers (Aldershot-Burlington, 2006), 113-40.
282 ST VLADIMIR'S THEOLOGICAL QUARTERLY
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generations of Eastern Christians have understood him: a
menstruating woman is not to enter "the temple of God" for she is "not
wholly clean (ο µη πάντη καθαρός) both in soul and in body" One
wonders whether this suggests all other Christians are wholly "clean,"
or katharoi. Hopefully not, since the Church denounced "those who
call themselves katharoi* or "the clean ones," an ancient sect of the
54
Novatians, at the First Ecumenical Council, Nicaea I in 325.
Things were not much different in the West, where church practice
generally viewed menstruating women as "impure" until the turn
of the sixth/seventh century. At this time St Gregory the Great,
Pope of Rome (590-604), the Church Father to whom tradition
ascribes (wrongly) the composition of the Liturgy of the
Presanctified Gifts, expressed a different opinion on the matter. In
601, St Augustine of Canterbury, the "Apostle of England," (ca
604) wrote to Gregory and asked whether menstruating women
should be allowed to go to church and receive communion. I shall
cite Pope Gregorys response at length:
not be judged. Pious people see sin even there, where there is
none.
Now one often performs innocently that which originates
in a sin: when we feel hunger, this occurs innocently. Yet the
fact that we experience hunger is the fault of the first man.
The menstrual period is no sin; it is, in fact, a purely natural
process. But the fact that nature is thus disturbed, that it ap-
pears stained even against human will—this is the result of a
sin. ...
So if a pious woman reflects upon these things and wishes
not to approach communion, she is to be praised. But again,
if she wants to live religiously and receive communion out of
love, one should not stop her.61
In the Early Middle Ages the policy laid down by Gregory fell into
desuetude and menstruating women were restricted from com-
munion and often instructed to stand before the entrance of the
church. These practices were still common in the West as late as the
seventeenth century.
Conclusion
I shall conclude briefly, since the texts have spoken for themselves.
A close look at the origins and character of the concept "ritual
im/purity" reveals a rather disconcerting, fundamentally non-
Christian phenomenon in the guise of Orthodox piety. Regardless
of whether the concept entered church practice under direct Judaic
and/or pagan influences, it finds no justification in Christian
anthropology and soteriology. Orthodox Christians, male and
female, have been cleansed in the waters of baptism, buried and res-
urrected with Christ, who became our flesh and our humanity,
trampled death by death, and liberated us from its fear. Yet we have
retained a practice that reflects pagan and Old-Testament fears of
the material world. This is why a belief in "ritual im/purity" is not
primarily a social issue, nor is it primarily about the depreciation of
women. It is rather about the depreciation of the incarnation of our
Lord Jesus Christ and its salvific consequences.