Purità e impurità nell’immaginario dei primi cristiani

Abstract

This paper concerns some aspects of pure and impure in the Early Christian Age. In particular we analyzed the animals that were considered pure and impure according to the Bible in order to understand if this difference was still in use in the early Christian community. The research let us know that early Christian people were not forbidden from eating some animals “impure” for the Jewish, but the difference became a difference between good (as sheep) and bad animals (as pigs) as symbol of good and bad qualities of the human soul. The frescoes in the catacombs in Rome give us many proves of this symbolism of the animals.