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284 EPISTLES OF MÂNÜskihar. by him himself about it, and it has arranged much deliverance from sin!.
6. Of this, too, I am aware, that, except there where a purifier is in no way reached, his great duty—which is just the purification in which there is a washer who is cleansed (masidó) in the religious mode for the profession of the priesthoodis then a means which the high-priests should allow? 7. A washing which is not religiously ritualistic is ranked as an operation among the useless ones; it is vicious and grievously criminal, because the special means which, by preserving the soul s, is the perfect happiness of men, is the puri
That is, any one who explains the scriptures in a new fashion to suit his own purposes, which he thereby represents as beneficial, is merely carrying out the wishes of the fiend. The author is here, referring to the heretical teachings of his brother, regarding purification, which are further described in the sequel.
* That is, whenever a properly-qualified purifier is procurable, the priests should require him to purify any one who happens to be defiled by contact with dead matter by means of the Bareshnüm ceremony (see App. IV). It appears from the sequel, and from Eps. II and III, that the heresy of Zâd-sparam consisted chiefly of a misinterpretation of Vend. VIII, 278-299 (see App. V), which passage directs that a man in the fields, who has touched a corpse not yet eaten by dogs or birds, shall wash himself fifteen times with bull's urine, that he shall then run to some village, asking three different men on the way to cleanse him with the proper ceremony, and if they decline they each take upon themselves a share of the sin; when arrived at the village he shall ask a fourth time to be cleansed, and if no one will perform the ceremony he must wash himself with bull's urine and water in the ordinary manner, and shall be clean. The erroneous teaching of Zâd-sparam was that the fifteen times' washing was sufficient, without the subsequent ceremonial cleansing; and the object of these epistles was to combat that view of the law.
The ceremonial purification is supposed to cleanse the soul,
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