If I wash myself with snow water, and make my hands ever so clean;
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George Leo Haydock
AD 1849
Snow. Nitre brings off the dirt better. Chaldean, "soap. "Hebrew bor, is supposed by many to be the Borith of Jeremias ii. 22. Snow-water was also used through delicacy in summer. (Petronius; Sat.)
56. For ‘snow water’ is the weeping of humility; which same, in that it excels all other virtues in the eyes of the strict Judge, is as it were white by the colour of preeminent merit. For there are some to whom there is lamenting but not humility, in that when they are afflicted they weep, yet in those very tears, they either set themselves in disdain against the life of their neighbours, or they are lifted up against the dispensation of their Maker. Such have water, but not ‘snow water,’ and they can never be clean, because they are not washed in the tears of humility. But he had washed himself clean from sin with snow water, who said with confidence, A broken and a humbled heart, O God, Thou shalt not despise. [Ps. 51, 17] For they that afflict themselves with tears but turn rebels by murmuring, ‘break’ their heart indeed, but disdain to be ‘humbled.’ Though ‘snow water’ may also be understood in another sense. For water of the spring and stream issues out of the earth, but sn...
