Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume III/Ethical/On Prayer/Of Washing the Hands

Chapter XIII.&#8212;Of Washing the Hands.

But what reason is there in going to prayer with hands indeed washed, but the spirit foul?&#8212;inasmuch as to our hands themselves spiritual purities are necessary, that they may be &#8220;lifted up pure&#8221; from falsehood, from murder, from cruelty, from poisonings, from idolatry, and all the other blemishes which, conceived by the spirit, are effected by the operation of the hands.&#160; These are the true purities; not those which most are superstitiously careful about, taking water at every prayer, even when they are coming from a bath of the whole body. When I was scrupulously making a thorough investigation of this practice, and searching into the reason of it, I ascertained it to be a commemorative act, bearing on the surrender of our Lord. We, however, pray to the Lord:&#160; we do not surrender Him; nay, we ought even to set ourselves in opposition to the example of His surrenderer, and not, on that account, wash our hands.&#160; Unless any defilement contracted in human intercourse be a conscientious cause for washing them, they are otherwise clean enough, which together with our whole body we once washed in Christ.