ABLUTION, a ceremonial purification, practised in nearly every age and nation. It consisted in washing the body in whole or part, so as to cleanse it symbolically from defilement, and to prepare it for religious observances. Among the Jews we find no trace of the ceremony in patriarchal times, but it was repeatedly enjoined and strictly enforced under the Mosaic economy. It denoted either— (1.) Cleansing from the taint of an inferior and less pure condition, and initiation into a higher and purer state, as in the case of Aaron and his sons on their being set apart to the priesthood; or (2.) Cleansing from the soil of common life, in preparation for special acts of worship, as in the case of the priests who were commanded, upon pain of death, to wash their hands and feet before approaching the altar; or (3.) Cleansing from the pollution occasioned by particular acts and circumstances, as in the case of the eleven species of uncleanness mentioned in the Mosaic law; or (4.) The absolving or purifying one’s self from the guilt of some particular criminal act, as in the case of Pilate at the trial of the Saviour. The sanitary reasons which, in a warm climate and with a dry sandy soil, rendered frequent ablution an imperative necessity, must not be allowed to empty the act of its symbolic meaning. In the Hebrew different words are used for the washing of the hands before meals, which was done for the sake of cleanliness and comfort, and for the washing or plunging enjoined by the ceremonial law. At the same time it is impossible to doubt that the considerations which made the law so suitable in a physical point of view were present to the mind of the Lawgiver when the rite was enjoined. Traces of the practice are to be found in the history of nearly every nation. The ...

purification by washing the body, either in whole or part. Ablutions appear to be almost as ancient as external worship itself. Moses enjoined them; the Heathens adopted them; and Mohammed and his followers have continued them: thus they have been introduced among most nations, and make a considerable part of all superstitious religions. The Egyptian priests had their diurnal and nocturnal ablutions; the Grecians, their sprinklings; the Romans, their lustrations and lavations; the Jews, their washings of hands and feet, beside their baptisms; the ancient Christians used ablution before communion, which the Romish church still retains before the mass, sometimes after; the Syrians, Copts, &c, have their solemn washings on Good Friday; the Turks their greater and less ablutions, &c. Lustration, among the Romans, was a solemn ceremony by which they purified their cities, fields, armies, or people, after any crime or impurity. Lustrations might be performed by fire, by sulphur, by water, and by air; the last was applied by ventilation, or fanning the thing to be purified. All sorts of people, slaves excepted, might perform some kind of lustration. When a person died the house was to be swept in a particular manner; new married persons were sprinkled by the priest with water. People sometimes, by way of purification, ran several times naked through the streets. There was scarcely any action performed, at the beginning and end of which some ceremony was not required to purify themselves and appease the gods.