`And when they saw some of his disciples eat bread with defiled...

`And when they saw some of his disciples eat bread with defiled, that is to say, with unwashed, hands, they found fault. For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, except they wash their hands oft, eat not, holding the tradition of the elders.' (See also Matthew 15:2 and Luke 11:38). Having divine authority, Jesus did not follow the tradi­tion of the elders. He had authority to render a verdict on the law himself.

It is a mere fact that the washing of hands with the invocations involved does not appear in the law. The quarrel was apparently so involved that some of the disciples of Jesus in fact did not understand the principles of his interpretation. Even at the end of his ministry the issue was unclear. Peter demands an ablution before the meal in John 13:9.

`Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head.' It is as though Peter had got the impression that the practice of Jesus was stricter than that of the Pharisees, and in addition to hands, the feet and head should also be purified before eating. The fact was that Jesus opposed ablution of any kind before eating, because it was not justifiable by the Torah. The washing of feet was an exemplary act in hospitality (cf.

Genesis 18:4; 19:2; 24:32; 43:24; Judges 19:21; 1 Samuel 25:41 and 1 Timothy 5:10), not an act of ablution. Peter did not apparently realize this. His outburst, however, gives us the one clear reference in the New Testament to ablution of head, hands and feet. Jesus did not oppose ablution that was justifiable on the basis of the Torah. Specifically the entire body ablution, called baptism in the New Testament, is often mentioned.

Other forms of ablution are ignored since there was no argument about them. The text deals only with forms of ablution that went beyond the injunctions of the law. Ablution before the performing of acts of worship remains valid in the practice of Jesus. Since the practice of ablution is not described in the New Testament, even in the case of full-body ablution or baptism, we are constrained to rely on the text of the so­ called Old Testament for details of its execution.

Even there, the details are scarce. The description of ritual acts is notoriously deficient in religious texts, in the Qur'an even more than in the Bible, since they are practices that are transmitted more by the example of the prophets than verbal precept. Nevertheless a number of descriptions exist.