Oh boy, this is a big can of worms you’re handing me - but one I’ll open up with pleasure, because I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately.
Before I begin, I should clarify a couple of things:
- as we all know, Ancient Greek religious practise varied from region to region and city to city, and the information we have about many places (especially rural) is limited. For all we’re aware, villagers in Euboea may just have purified themselves by throwing salt at each other. Thracian farmers might’ve done it via an equivalent of the Ice Bucket Challenge. Who knows? I’m exaggerating a bit, but the bottom line is that just because it isn’t attested doesn’t mean it didn’t happen somewhere.
- in my opinion, if something works for you and isn’t disrespectful to the Gods, it isn’t a bad thing. I’d rather see happy, genuine, non-historical worship than no worship at all.
- I myself am a reconstructionist. Historical continuity matters to me. While I’m aware that we can’t know everything, and that our understanding is constantly evolving alongside academic research, I want my practise to be well-rooted in the past wherever possible. As such, I consider it very important that people with beliefs similar to mine understand Ancient Greek practise as best we can, before we adapt it to suit our modern world.
- I’m still learning about this subject. I’m fairly sure the information below is accurate, but if I make any mistakes, please let me know!
That said, let’s move on to the fact that many Hellenic polytheists’ interpretation of pollution and purification is, historically, pretty wrong.
We do know that purification before prayer or ritual is important. Ancient texts are clear on this: the Iliad and Odyssey, among many other works, repeatedly show people washing their hands before approaching the Gods (Il. 9.171-172, 16.227-230). It seems that this was most basic and essential act for any type of ritual. At its bones, it was a way of keeping clean before something important, like washing our hands before dinner - in fact, hand-washing before dinner was done in exactly the same way as for ritual (Od. 1.146). The most common description, χεῖρας νίψειν, simply means ‘to wash one’s hands’.
But something modern Hellenic polytheism seems to have lost is the large variety of religious terms used to describe pollution and purification. Not all kinds of purification were the same. Some were done with simple running water, like the examples above. Others feature what modern Hellenic polytheists call lustral water, or khernips (χέρνιψ) - fire extinguished in pure water. (Yet others include torches, barley groats and other purifying agents, which we’ll leave aside for the purpose of this post.) The point is: all of this is lustral water, but not all of it is khernips, and not all of it was necessary for everyday worship.
Let’s take a side-step through the question of miasma and katharmos. These are two highly specific religious terms which are unfortunately often narrowed down to ‘dirty’ and ‘clean’. Miasma (μίασμα), in fact, refers to a metaphorical stain caused by impious behaviour: that is, murder, incest, adultery, sacrilege, and other severe crimes. Jean Rudhardt describes it as ‘a bloodstain, a defilement attached to the hands of those who did dirty work’ and ‘the fears of a guilty conscience’. Miasma affects its surroundings, which is why criminals were exiled and banned from communal rites. Specific purification rites were required, and in fact, this often included the criminal’s exclusion from lustral water until their crime was expiated.
Miasma is a bad thing. Average people did not and do not have it. Let me say this again: you do not have miasma. If you do have miasma, please turn yourself into your local police station today.
What you probably do have is lyma (λῦμα), literally ‘the thing you wash away’. This is pollution caused by common occurrences like birth, death, and sex. You incur it through your everyday life, sometimes knowingly, sometimes not - like by walking past places where people have recently died, or by coming into contact with people who have recently had sex. Lyma is also caused by rightful death, like the execution of a criminal, or killing people on a battlefield. Lyma is not a bad thing.
This is what you wash away with clean, running water before interacting with the Gods. Βy doing this, and by being hosios (ὅσιος, another specific religious term for following the right order of things, conform to the laws which regulate acceptable behaviour towards other humans and Gods), you become katharos (καθαρός, pure). This is your natural, human purity.
Did you hear that? Religiously, humans are naturally pure. We need cleansing because of what we do and what happens around us, not because we’re inherently ‘dirty’ in the Gods’ eyes.
Back to purification. By now I’ve established that there’s two types - expiatory rites for miasma, which often prevent you from taking part in religious ceremonies, and clean, running lustral water to wash away your everyday lyma. However, there’s a third type, and this type is khernips.
Khernips literally means ‘handwash’. You can still see this meaning in use in the Odyssey, in the often reused lines χέρνιβα δ’ ἀμφίπολος προχόῳ ἐπέχευε φέρουσα / καλῇ χρυσείῃ ὑπὲρ ἀργυρέοιο λέβητος / νίψασθαι: ‘then a handmaid brought khernips in a beautiful golden pitcher and poured it over a basin, so he could wash’ (Od. 1.136-138, 4.52-54, 7.172-174, etc). But its meaning in Classical Greek religion is very specific: it refers to lustral water in which a burning brand is extinguished, sprinkled on the altar and participants before a major communal sacrifice (θυσία, thusia). This water was sacred, and unclean people were not permitted to touch it. According to Jean Rudhardt, this is because khernips was not simply meant to purify you. It was meant to consecrate you - to bring you into that sacred state necessary for important rites.
The bottom line of all this? There are different types of lustral water, just like there are different types of pollution, and not all apply to everyday household worship. While I firmly believe that purification before prayer and ritual is vital, I don’t think we need to do much more than wash our hands. Like I said at the beginning, if the whole extinguishing-fire-in-water thing works well for you, great - and for all we know, maybe it was common in some parts of Ancient Greece! Ancient Greek religion and religious terms are a very complex subject (despite the length of this post, I actually had to gloss over a number of finer points I’m not qualified to discuss) and it’s absolutely possible that we’re missing out on something. But as of now, this is what we know, and as a reconstructionist, it’s what I choose to draw from.
Lastly, if you’re interested in reading more about the subject, I recommend Jean Rudhardt’s Notions fondamentales de la pensée religieuse et actes constitutifs du culte dans la Grèce classique (unfortunately, I’m not sure if you can find it in English?), as well as Robert Parker’s Miasma: Pollution and Purification in early Greek Religion. Lesley Maditinou, a Hellenic reconstructionist, also wrote a thorough and accurate article about the subject here.
I will now close this can of worms, but I hope I was successful in sorting through some of it :)
