Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1877-07-06
From Chambers Journol.
Cleanliness As. GndllneSS.

explained away as purely Y symbolical of tn
inward cleansing of the Spirit. The rud
hermlts OF the eastern church regarded tn
healthy human desire TO be clean Us n lust @
the flesh proceeding ont of the natural man
They called attention to the interior cleans
ing necessary to the whole race by defian
disregard of exterior purity in their own per
sons. as OF comparative unlmportance. Thei
real doctrine WAS quickly developed into tn
implied doctrine that Dirt is next to godli
ness, or that Cleanliness is next to ungod
lness." The majority of the Fathers OF th'
Desert III the East, and great company o
the canonized saints of the west, may be de
scribed as holy and dirty. We do not insul
their memories by coupling these qualities
none of them were ashamed of the conjunc
tion, and many of them gloried in it.
The historian Eusebias has recorded
tradition that the Apostle James never USED
a bath. The assertion is most improbable
for not only were all the apostles strict Jews
but st. James. the Bishop of Jerusalem,
could least of all have afforded to despise SC
sacred Jewish habit as cleanliness. and he
was the very apostle whose name was held
IN highest esteem by the judiaizing party in
the church. The reign OF dirt in the church
spread by degrees. st. Pachomius, and his
brother, st. John (who were converted about
the year 3l2), must have had some amount
of cleanliness, for We are told that they never
changed their clothes except when they We're
under the necessity of washing them. st.
Hilarion, however who lived in the same age,
developed the cultus of dirt; for he never
changed any coat until 1t was worn out and
never washed the sackcloth which he had
once put on. The great st. Anthony, as St.
Athanarius tells as in his life of him, had
never washed his feet up to extreme old age;
he says that be was healthier than those who
bathe themselves and often change their
clothes. His disciples followed the example
OF their great ideal patriarch. st. Abraham
of Odessa, another hermit OF the fourth Gen.
tury, whose life was written by the famous
Ephrem, left his wealth and his wife on the
day of his marriage, and lived for fifty years,
mostly in cell two miles from the city
without once washing either his face or his
feet.
The fourth century was undoubtedly tho
era of the religious apotheosis OF dirt. We
shall not SO quickly condemn the dirty men
| who had so great an influence on the develop
ment of the church and of society, if we
look at them in the light of their own day,
instead of the light of ours. They tried
honestly to separate themselves inwardly as
| well as outwardly from an immoral and pes
| tiferous society, which lived in self-indul-
| gence, and sought its pleasure in all sorts..of
interior filth. Bathing was rejected by them
| at first because the sensuous delight and
pleasure it gave in hot Egyptian or Syrian
air, made II the perfection OF bodily selt-in-
dulgence. The hermits had no quarrel with
it because it made the outward flesh clean,
but beceuse it was there and then, quite as
much AS eating and drinking. one of the lux
uries in which the flesh, which they had re-
nounced at baptism, took the greatest de
| light. Attendance at the public baths
which, together with the circuses, We're the
centres of worldly dissipation in the Roman
| lied cities of East and West-was prohibited
to all Christians by repeated canonical legis-
| lation.
| II is certain that at the tirst the public
baths were freely used by the Christians. We
have witness in the very early legend which
tells us that the Apostle John fed from GER
tain bath because the heresiarch Corinthus
was there, and he would not remain under
the same roof. The story, indeed, is self
contradictory; il is not unlike the John who
wanted to call down fire from heaven to burn
the Samaritans but totally unlike the John
who was at the same time writing Gospel
and Epistles breathing charity to every
creature. The so-called ApoStoich CoBstit't-
tionS Books l. C. ~ not only forbid women
to bathe with men, but they further advise
Christian women mot to bath without occa-
sion, nor often, nor in the middle of the day,
nor, if, possible, every day. The Council
of Laodicea (whose date is uncertain). IN its
thirtieth canon, prohibits all clerics, ascetics,
and every male Christian, from washing in
the same baths as women. The synod adds
that this habit is considered reproachtul even
by the pagans. The best Roman emperors,
indeed. had made laws against it, and it may
be recollected that Cicero speaks warmly
IL N ha
ell in Trullo renewed this canon as its own
seventy seventh canon in the year G92, or
dering the degradation of every cleric. and
the accommodation of every layman, who
dared to violate il. II is certain, from many
references throughout the sermons of the
great doctors and lives of the saints, between
the fourth and seventh centuries, that the
public baths were used by the Christians
generally, although the greatest number of
the professed ascetics vigorously abstained,
as st. Epiphanius says IN his PdndriOn, from
either public or private bathing Theodoret
gives story OF the Arian Bishop Eunomias.
which belongs to the same epoch as the Pdnd-
riOn. Uunomias was SO unpopular with the
Christian majority in Samosata, who were
nearly all Catholics. that scarcely any Chris
tain of repute or social standing would 60 to
church. One day, when he was in the baths,
he saw that many persons stood waiting
without. He seems to have fancied that they
refrained from bathing at the same time ont
of respect TO his august office, for he kindly
told his servants to bid them enter freely and
bathe with hip. They still continued stand
ing silently at the edge, if waiting; and
he. out of consideration-stillt thinking their
respect withheld tnen-hastily left the water. |
The Christians however, refused to enter
until all the water had been withdrawn, and
tba lat al hot th.t hRl ltaa
might be polluted with his heresy il they
used the water in which he had bathed him
self century later, st. Gaudentius of
Brescia, i'll one of his sermons advising all
Christians to sanctiiy all their actions with
the sign of the cross, tells them to use it
also lat the bath when you come in, and
when you go out"
When the monks, in latter times, studied
the lives of the early solicaries of the fourth
century, they were shocked at the discovery
Of their own declension from primitive dirt
and purity, "Our fathers" says the Abbot
Alexander, never washed their faces, but
We frequent the public baths. Mr.. Lecky !
quotes from The Spiritual M,Gdo,r the signi-
ticant story of Abbot Theodosius. At his
urgent prayer, God once suddenly opened IL
stream; AS soon AS his monks began To- use
it, not for drinking only, but for Washing
the stream miraculous dried up. They had
dug up pit III which to bathe themselves.
As soon as they had filled up this incentive |
to luxury. the water again flowed. 1t was
the luxury of the act which they feared. |
Could any one have convinced these simple |
men that washing is AZ necessary to bodily |
soundness drinking is the legend would |
not have recorded the drying up OF the water |
the moment they began to Dig bath.
The only persons to whom bathing wns nc |
tually prohibited by the legislation OF tho |
early church were the penitents who were
ordered to refrain from the bath until the !
day of the absolution and restoration. their |
bodily uncleanness was to remain upon them |
IL symbol and reminder of their spiritual |
uncleanness. The catechumens who were
under preparation for baptism ut Easter |
were obliged to abstain from the bath |
throughout Lent, until the dny on which the !
Saviour washed the feet of his apostles, |
Mandy Thursday. This had become fixed |
custom in the beginning of the fifth century,
for the reason of IT was one of those series |
of questions put by Januarlus to st Augns- !
tine, to which the great African gave those |
answers, so full of hheralty and common
SENSE which compose his two long epistlrs
ID Luaariam tIl and 5jl You ask me"
he writes, 'whence originated the custom of
using the bath ON that day When think
over IT, nothing occurs to me as more proba-
hle than that 1t WAS intended To AVOID thhl
offence to dcccncy which must bc gwen at
the baptismal font, If the bodies of those to
whom It, ns sacramento liz 10 he administered.
are not clennsed ON some preceding day FROM
the uncleanness they have contracted
through their long abstinence from washings
during Lent And this once granted to those
who nre about to receive baptism, Others de
sired to Join them in the luxury of II bath"
When the lives of the Fathers OF the DE
sert were rendered INTO Latin. and studied
IN the western nations. the western charc-
ter offered some amount of opposition to the
dirty element in the example Of the hermits
In the beginning of the sixth century, St
Cpsarius of Aries, who had been educated IN
that centre of Gallican intelligence (and IA
NJ. Mlchelet will have it, of Gallicnn ration