The Leper Cleansed

S. Mark i. 36–45

There were pains and penalties attaching to the leper such as were unknown in the case of other sufferers. Leprosy, for instance, entailed separation from society. “He shall dwell alone; without the camp shall his habitation be.” “He shall cry, Unclean, unclean,” to warn the passer-by of his approach. By a merciful concession he was allowed to enter a synagogue, but a vacant space was drawn around him, and it was enjoined that he should be the first to enter and the last to leave.

The same primal law of isolation seems to have been enforced in spirit wherever the disease has been perpetuated. In the East the Lepers’ Quarters revive the memory of the Mosaic restrictions, and they are found not only in Jerusalem, where we are so familiar with them, but in many of the smaller towns. And when during the Crusades the disease was imported into this country, lazar-houses 2 were built away from the frequented districts, and the inmates were only suffered to go abroad at certain seasons, and conditionally upon their giving timely notice of their presence.

Yet further, the Jewish leper was regarded as a living emblem of death. He has been called “a walking sepulchre.” He was commanded “to bare his head,” and “to cover his lip,” just as one did who had come into contact with a corpse. The special rites for his purification were precisely identical with those appointed for such as had been defiled by the touch of death.

And as in the previous case, England here also accepted, in spirit at least, the legislation of the Jews. During the Middle Ages any one who suffered from this plague was treated as civilly dead; his marriage tie was dissolved; he was clothed in a shroud, his funeral obsequies were performed, and even Masses were said for the repose of his soul.

Now there was one feature in which leprosy had no parallel: no medicine could arrest or even mitigate the disease. It was regarded as a direct punishment inflicted by God, and, as such, incurable, save through the intervention of Him Who had sent it. This conception of it was inherent in the Jewish mind. It explains the question of the king of Israel, when he exclaimed on the receipt of the letter asking him to cure Naaman of this disease, “Am I God, to kill and to make alive, that this man doth send unto me to recover a man of his leprosy?” It was the same conviction, too, that drew forth Naaman’s confession, when he realised his cure, “Now I know that there is no God in all the earth, but in Israel.” It is worthy of notice, for it lends a deep significance both to the action and the words of the leper who came to our Lord, kneeling down to Him, and saying, “If thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean.” We can hardly suppose that a full knowledge of the Godhead of Jesus was vouchsafed to that poor outcast; but that sign of homage, and such a confession of belief in His power to heal, evidence the presence of a faith far beyond that of his fellows, and it received a reward in an instantaneous response.

Now the method of healing adopted by our Lord is full of instruction. S. Mark says that He “was moved with compassion.” It is unnoticed elsewhere, but it fitly finds a place in the records of one who loves to notice every trait of the Humanity of the Saviour.

Then we read, He “put forth His hand, and touched him.” Save for the priests alone, to touch the unclean was to become a partaker of his uncleanness. Jesus therefore by this act claimed the prerogative of the priesthood at the same time that He foreshadowed the Redemption in which He “Himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses.”

The touch was followed by His word. “It is a sign of your faith,” He seems to say, “that you use the expression ‘If Thou wilt,’ not ‘If Thou canst;’ I do will; and My hand is ever obedient to My will; be thou cleansed therefore by this touch.” He spake, and it was done: for “immediately the leprosy departed from him.”

Two directions followed the cure, one of expediency, the other of obligation; and they were given with a sternness that marked their importance and the peril of neglecting them. Our translation fails 2 to express by “He straitly charged him” the force of the original; but one of the old versions rendered it more aptly, “He threatened him.” In the first instance he was to say nothing about this cure to any one. Jesus often gave similar injunctions to those whom He had healed, in order to avoid publicity; but, when considered in its immediate connection with the command to go and show himself to the priests, its explanation here is probably to be found in a tender regard for the man rather than in any thought of Himself. The priests were very jealous of their office, and any the least invasion of it would be resented. If any information of the cure should reach their ears before they had pronounced upon his cleanness, nothing was more likely than that they would refuse altogether to grant him the certificate of absolution. It was another proof of our Lord’s loving-kindness and consideration, thus to provide that he should enjoy with all possible speed the privileges of restoration.

And what was the object of the second command, “Go
thy way, shew thyself to the priest “?

Leprosy, it must be remembered, inasmuch as it was the direst physical disease, and the culmination of misery, has always been regarded as a fitting type of sin. And it may have been that He Who “came not to destroy, but to fulfil,” looked on to the Ordinance of the Christian Priesthood, in which there would be by His appointment functions similar in kind, only higher in degree. Just as the leper was bidden to go again and again to the Jewish priest before he received his discharge, so in like manner it is provided that the sinner under the New Dispensation may seek the help and guidance of the Ministry of Christ’s Church in ridding himself of the leprosy of sin.

And it is to be carefully noted how scrupulously the Church has preserved the analogy between the parts of God and the priest in the Mosaic Order with that of Christ and the Christian Priesthood in the present.

God, and God alone, was the source of the leper’s cure. He, and none but He, could take away the disease, but, in accordance with His ordaining, human agents were employed to seal the restoration. Even so in the cleansing from the defilement of sin, it is Christ’s appointment that the message of forgiveness should be conveyed to the penitent by human lips. And if men are qualified to receive it, He in Whose Name and by Whose authority the words are pronounced will ratify and seal the pardon, according to that commission which He gave to His first Ministry, under circumstances of unparalleled solemnity, when He breathed upon them to symbolise the delegation of His Own inherent power, and said, “Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them: and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained.” x

Note: e.g. Damascus, Nablus, Ramleh.

Note: The largest of these is said to have been at Burton-Lazars, near Melton- Mowbray. It is supposed that there were about a hundred in England. The disease seems to have died out in the country during the sixteenth century. There is an interesting treatise on Leprosy in the Speaker’s Comm. on Lev. xiii.

Note: Cf. pp. 4, s.

Note: eixfipLjxaodai implies a muttering, an emotion accompanied by noise. Lat. frenio. It is hardly translatable. Perhaps “sternly charged” is best.

Note: It is often said that the power given to the Apostles was merely to preach, which would result in forgiveness or hardening: but that power had been intrusted to them before. This was probably even more than the * ’ power of the keys,” or “the binding and loosing,” and for this reason was accompanied by the deeply significant act of breathing upon them. Absolution underlay the two former, but this was an authority for its direct exercise in and by itself. The three commissions imply teaching, legislating, and absolving.