CHAPTER ELEVEN
Purity and Pollution
Andreas Bendlin
Introduction
‘‘Purity’’ and ‘‘pollution’’ are not given or natural physical or mental states. They must
be understood as two categories constructed in relation to religious and social con-
ventions. They create temporary differentiation among what, in another context or at
another time, would remain undifferentiated. As we shall see momentarily, childbirth
and death and contact therewith, menstruation, consumption of certain foods, or
sexual intercourse were inevitable and often acceptable parts of daily life in the Greek
Mediterranean world. If any such condition had unpleasant physical consequences,
one would live with such consequences as best one could and naturalize their presence.
But there existed social situations and religious contexts in Greek culture where those
very biological conditions and dietary or sexual practices were interpreted as represent-
ing a state of ritual pollution. The paradox inherent in religious purity regulations is, as
the Greek evidence illustrates, that the unexceptional can also signify a transgression.
And contrary to what is usually claimed, the opposite of pollution is not purity: with
regard to both purity and pollution, the opposite is normality. Purity and pollution are
two powerful religious categories by means of which Greek religion enforces a religious
world-view upon the daily lives of ordinary Greeks. Whenever they access the realm of
the sacred (which is said to be pure), and whenever they return from a state of pollution
to their ordinary lives, religion requires purification of them. Religious scruple about
purity limits access to the divine; religious scruple interprets childbirth and death,
menstruation, certain foods, or sexual intercourse as ritually polluting. But it would be
wrong to naturalize purity and pollution as the two dominant interpretative models in
Greek culture. As we shall see, the distinction between purity and normality or between
pollution and normality that religion maintains can only be temporary, and any
differentiation which has been maintained needs to be abandoned, if we wish to return
(and return we must) to our daily lives. Those very biological conditions and social
practices which, a moment ago, signified ritual pollution become normality again.