Hillel the Elder
Similarly, Hillel the Elder taught that washing one's body in the bath-house was a religious duty. For if the statues of kings, which were inscribed in theatres and circuses, were scoured and washed by the person appointed to look after them, how much more should a person, who has been created in the Image and Likeness of God, as says, "For in the image of God made He man." A Midrash thus taught that , "The merciful man does good to his own soul," applies to this teaching of Hillel the Elder.