UNCLEANNESS. As used in the Old Tes tament, a term having several shades of meaning. In its primary sense it signifies a bodily condi tion which during its continuance excluded from the 'holy community.' Such a condition might be produced by a variety of causes, as childbirth (Lev. xii.), contact with a dead body (Num. xix. 11-12), or leprosy (Lev. xiii.-xiv.). Various purificatory rites are prescribed in the Penta teuehal codes to free from this condition. In a wider sense the term 'unclean' is applied to ani mals prohibited as food (Lev. xi.; Dent. xiv. 3-21), and the fruit of trees was unclean (i.e. could not be eaten) for the first three years (Lev. xix. 23). Certain functions of the body were very generally regarded in early times as render ing a person unfit to perform the rites of reli gion, or, in other words, to approach the deity. These functions are all connected in some way with the phenomena of reproduction.
The stipulations in regard to certain animals regarded as unclean belong in a different cate gory. In all parts of the world certain animals are regarded as sacred either because a clan re gards itself as descended from a particular ani mal or because for other reasons the animal in question is regarded as affording protection to the clan. Accordingly the animal formerly re garded as sacred comes to be avoided as unclean. And connection with the widespread symbolism of giving to deities the shapes of animals leads to the conception that certain animals are to be avoided because of their demoniac nature. In the Pentateuchal regulations all these factors may be traced—the sanctity attached to certain an pals, their position as totems, as well as the later con ception which regarded them as the abode of evil spirits.
In primitive religions disease is ascribed to the presence of a demon or evil spirit in the body, brought there by the power of a sorcerer or witch. A cure is thought to be effected by cer
tain rites in which sympathetic magic plays a prominent part. In the Pentateuchal codes, how ever. an advance in religious ideas is manifested by designating a diseased person as one 'smitten' by God. The disease chiefly dealt with is a form of leprosy, which is still common in the East. From disease to death is but a short step, and the primitive views held in regard to death lead to precautions to be exercised by those who are obliged to come into contact with a dead body. On the one hand, death itself indicates the tri umph of the evil spirit, while on the other, the uncertainty as to the whereabouts of the soul or spirit of the dead person incites fear and like wise leads to precautions against the unexpected return of the spirit which has perhaps only tem porarily disappeared. By a natural extension of the term the dead person is regarded as unclean.
The rabbinical schools in Babylonia and Pales tine elaborated the subject still further, and in the Talmud the laws and degrees of the various kinds of uncleanness are set forth in great detail accompanied with minute discussions of casuis tical problems raised in connection with the sub ject. The extension' of the term unclean to the fruits of trees for the first three years is quite secondary, and dates from the late period when it had acquired the general sense of forbidden, without reference to any genuine uncleanness con nected with the transgression involved. The pro hibition appears to have been a purely economic regulation to insure productiveness. Consult the commentaries on the passages cited and the He brew arcluvologies of Nowack and Benzinger; also Stade, Geschichte des Yolkes Israel, vol. i. (Berlin, 1887).