Community Rule. Early Christianity was characterized, among other things, by a heightened interest in certain aspects of moral purity over and against a reduced focus on ritual purity (e.g., Mark 7:1–23). The Rabbis, in contrast, exerted much more effort in discussing the rules of ritual purity (to which much of the Mishnah is devoted), while exhibiting relatively little interest in moral defilement (but see Sifra on Lev. 18:24–30). One purity dispute in particular is already reflected in the early