Cleaner Christianity

Could early Christianity have become more in favour of personal hygene. I have an idea that the Jewish community tended to take more care of itself in this regard and Christianity did take some other bits from the Jewish tradition.

Might the population of Europe have risen more quickly had disease been less significant?

Would staying clean in the Middle ages actually be practical for the average toiler of the soil?
 
The whole thing depends on the cultural environment. Christianity's attitude to personal hygiene was formulated at a time when disregard for the body was a fashionable philosophical attitude. It's hard to see this not rubbing off.

That said, the dirtiness of Christendom gets vastly exaggerated. Most Europeans liked being clean, just like they liked having sex, and if the church could never stop them from having sex, I'm not convinced they could make a significant impact on cleanliness. You have to keep in mind that the bathing culture of the Roman world was not a universal phenomenon, it just gets portrayed that way. Your average Germanic tribesman was probably not a lot cleaner than your average Swabian peasant. Those with money and a liking for luxury did bathe regularly, those who couldn't afford it didn't, and only the especially pious deliberately stank.
 
Ritual washing was an important part of some Jewish sects of the time that Christianity was born. This contributed to the Christian practice of Baptism. John the Baptist may have come from one of the sects that emphasized ritual washing. It's not too hard to imagine Christianity putting more of an emphasis on washing.

KEVP
 
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