Early Christianity and the Hazard of Soap

Greeks and Romans were known for public baths, and many other cultures on the planet also believed in being clean, and still do. However, the expression 'Cleanliness is next to Godliness' is nowhere to be found in the entire Christian Canon of Scripture, including the apocryphal / pseudo-epigraphical texts. There must be a reason for this.

To listen today to Christian proponents, one would think their religion brought civilization to the world, and they wish every person on the planet accept Jesus Christ as LORD and personal Savior, to advance mankind and call this progress. We are not where we are in America today because of religion, we are where we are today because of heresy against religious authority.

While researching various topics, I have not found a single Catholic or Protestant explanation for an interesting phenomenon exhibited by early Christians: they had a tendency not use water and soap, despite the fact every other people of every other religion, given the proper technological sophistication (ability to make fire to render fat in a pot or cauldron), did. Jungle tribes do the best they can without soap by using rivers to wash clothes and various items. Many early Christian *monks,* *saints,* and *nuns *did not even do that, and their vile practices were emulated by throngs of believers.

The early converts believed, for some reason, that the cleaner the body, the more polluted the soul; how this was interpretation of Scripture is unclear. And so we have account of nuns who did not wash their feet and never took a bath. Monks who starved themselves on purpose, never changed their clothes unless they fell apart, and others who endured chronic sickness as a testament to their *faith* due to dismally poor hygiene and nutrition habits. Many of the monks lived in caves, tombs, trees, and wells. They fasted, abstained from sex, and had little to no regard for material possessions. And they were exalted for all believers of Christ everywhere.

However, the most horrid tale is that of a certain Saint Simeon Stylites, who, to this day, is still idealized by a small few, and considering his *achievements,* the average person will wonder why:

- at 13 he became interested in Christianity, and before 16 joined a monastery

- he was observed to go through Lent neither drinking nor eating on at least 2 occasions

- he bound a rope around his body so tightly his skin putrefied and released a stench intolerable to anyone around him; from his skin worms dropped as he moved

- these *sacraments* had believers pestering him for *advice* and *prayers,* so he he built three pillars upon which he would stay exposed to the elements for 39 years (he stayed at the top of the highest pillar at sixty feet high where he died on September 2, 459 A.D.)

- he would not allow any women, including his own mother, to come near him on the pillar (when his mother died he, in a great display of *ascetic spirit,* asked for her remains to be brought so he could say goodbye)

- he had the habit of bowing in various positions to pray, and had an interesting one where, upright, he would bend his body almost to his feet... a famous tale is of a spectator trying to could how many times he did this: the spectator got tired of counting when he reached 1,244

- one leg was covered with hideous ulcers from which worms fell out, and his biographer Saint Anthony was instructed to pick the worms up, put them back in his body, and tell the worms: 'Eat what God has given you.'

- it was *said* when he died a star shone over his pillar, and over the next one hundred years, monks seeking to imitate his way of life were a common sight on pillars throughout the area

The only thing more *interesting* than this was that they somehow found uninitiated to convert, and to adopt practices of mindless self torture and useless, nonsensical habits, and then be revered as a true Christian.

With water and soap, I would have rather been a true Heretic.