Pdrge

Like Lat. purgare and Fr. purger, the verb to ' purge ' was formerly used in the oddest sense of to cleanse or purify. Hence Ps 5P ' Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean,' referring to the ceremony of dipping a bunch of hyssop (see HvssoP) in blood and sprinkling tlie leper or defiled person (Lv 14^ Nu 19") ; Mt 3'- ' He will throughly pur<;e (RV ' cleanse ') his floor'; Mk 7'" 'purging all meats' (RV ' making all meats clean,' i.e.

ceremonially, see Swete's note) ; Jn 15- ' Every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it' (RV 'cleanseth it') ; He 1' 'when he had by himself purged our sins' (RV 'made purification of sins ). Cf. the tr. of 1 Jn 3' in Udall, Erasmus' iVT, ' And every man that hath thys hope in him, purgeth himself, even as he also is pure ' ; Wyclif 's tr. of Ja 4* ' ye synners dense the hondis, and ye double in soule purge ye the hertis'; and the Act of Henry VIII.

(1543) pro- hibiting Tindale's Translation, ' The person or persons being detecte or complained on, shal be admitted to purge and trie his or theyr innocency by other witnesse.' J. HASTINGS.