The sudden infliction of leprosy as a divine judgment is recorded not only in the case of Miriam, but also in that of Gehazi (2 K 5”), which could not be due to infection, although it is calle¢ the leprosy of Naaman, as in all known instances the incubation period is much longer. There is also the example of Uzziah (2 Καὶ 15°, 2 Ch 26%), Of him it is said that he lived in a πίῃ ma beth hahophshith, LXX οἶκος ἁπφουσώθ (or ἁφφουσώθ, or ἁφφουσιών), ‘a several house’ or (RVm) ‘a lazar house.’ According to Jos. Ant. Ix. x. 4, this judg- ment was accompanied by an earthquake (see Zee 144-5), This sutton also states that, being a leper, Uzziah was buried in his own garden; but another account is given in Ch. Herodotus says that the Persians believed that a man was afflicted with lep- rosy for having committed some offence against the sun; that every stranger who had the disease was driven out of the country; and that they even destroyed white pigeons, thinking them to be leprous (i. 138). For other references to leprosy as a judgment see Hrachin 16; Baba Bathra 10. 4; Midrash Rabba on Ly 14, ete. Chrysostom saya, however, that in his day lepers were ποὺ excluded from the cities (Vidi Dominum, ete. iv.).
The heredity of leprosy was generally believed in by the Jews; it is referred to in the curse on Joab (28 3%), and in the punishment of Gehazi (2 Καὶ 5%), The Leprosy Commission in India could discover a history of heredity only in 5 per cent. ; and of the 108 cases in the Tarn Taran Asylum only 16 had a leprous parent or grandparent. No treatment is referred to in the Bible; the washing of Naaman was a trial of faith, not a remedy (in connexion with his speech about Abana and Pharpar see Strabo, viii. 3. § 19, concerning the river Alpheus). Jehoram, from his ejaculation in 2K οἵ, evidently thought leprosy beyond human skill to cure.
The date of the spread of the malady to Western Europe is unknown, but it was in Britain before the first Crusade, as the leper house at Canterbury was founded in 1096, the year of the starting of the Crusade. Between that date and the building of the last in 1472, one hundred and twelve such asylums were set apart for lepers in England. In early Christian times there were special rules for lepers. The Council of Ancyra (314) excluded them from the churches, and ordered them to remain out- side with demoniacs and those guilty of unnatural crimes, all of whom were called hiemantes (χειμαζό- μενοι) On this account (Martene, Col’. Ampliss. vii. p. 1365). It is supposed that the small skew window often seen in old churches, and commanding a view of the altar, was for the bat eg of allowing the hiemantes to see the mass, hence these squints are often called leper windows or hagioscopes. The
Third Council of Orleans forbade lepers to wander from one diocese to another ; and Gregory II., in his letter to Boniface in A.D. 715, directed the adminis- tration of the Eucharist to them by themselves.
The bishops were also ordered to supply them with food and raiment out of the Church funds
98 LEPROSY
There is no reference in the Bible to leprosy as a type of sin; the nearest approach to this is in Ps δι΄, where the reference is to the ceremonial cleansing of the leper. Among the Fathers, also, there are few who take note of a similitude so familiar in modern homiletics. Origen (Hom. vii. tn Nu) speaks of heretics outside the Church as having leprosy of mind ; and Chrysostom (Hom. iv. tn Ti 2) is one of the earliest writers who directly compares the defilement of sin to leprosy. The one part, indeed, of the Levitical law which is most often noticed, is the cleanness of the man who is all leprous, and this is used to illustrate the most diverse lessons by Tertullian (de Pudicitia, xx.), Theodoret (Quastiones tn Lv 13), and Origen (in Levit. viii. 231). In one of the epistles doubt- fully attributed to Jerome, he treats of the various kinds of leprosy (Ep. xxxiv.). Leprosy was most commonly regarded as a type of heresy rather than of other sin (Rupertus Tuitiensis, p. 271; Bede, in loco, ‘ Lepra doctrina falsa est’; see also Rabanus Maurus, Adlegoria, s.v. ‘Lepra’).
When a leper became cured of his plague, he did not resume his place in the community until he had been ceremonially cleansed. The priest went outside the city to look on him, and if he saw that he was healed (1) he commanded that two living clean birds be brought, with a rod of cedar wood (probably juniper, the wood of Juniperus oxycedrus supposed to be incapable of decaying) a cubit long (Neg. 14. 6), scarlet (wool), and hyssop (‘the humblest plant for a disease gener- ated by pride,’ Midrash Rabba, Koheleth 10. 4). One bird was to be killed, in an earthen vessel, over running water—that is, water from a run- ning stream is to be put into the earthen vessel to keep the blood liquid, and as a type of purifica- tion. The living bird and the cedar, to which the hyssop was to be tied with the scarlet woollen band, are to be dipped in the blood, and the leper is to be sprinkled therewith seven times. Some have supposed that, as ‘the blood is the life,’ this signifies the imparting of a new life to one who has, ceremonially, been dead. He is then declared clean, and therefore permitted to come into the city ; and the living bird is set free in the open country—a symbol οἱ the carrying away of the evil (see Frazer, Golden Bough, ii. 151). (2) The leper is then to wash his clothes, shave off all his hair, and bathe; but must stay outside his house for 7 days ; he then repeats the ablutions and shaving, and (3) on the 8th day makes his final offering at the temple. This consists (a) of a guilt-offering of a he-lamb, which with a log (about 3 gills) of olive oil was to be waved before the Lord, and the lamb was to be killed. The priest was then to take some of its blood, and to touch with it the right ear, the right thumb, and the right great toe of the cleansed man; the priest was then to pour the consecrated oil into ie palm of his left hand, and, dipping his right forefinger in it, he was to sprinkle some of it seven times before the Lord, and then to touch with it the places upon which the blood of the guilt-offering iad been ut, and the rest of the oil was to be poured on the leper’s head. This offering was a reparation to God for the loss of service during the time of his seclusion—the blood and oil typifying atonement and reconsecra- tion. (δ) A second he-lamb was to be offered as a sin-offering, as an atonement for sin on his re- admission into the congregation, and afterwards (c) a ewe-lamb was to be offered as a burnt-ofter- ing, and ;‘;ths of an ephah (about 74 quarts) of flour as a meal-offering. During these ceremonies the man stood in the Nicanor gate between the Court of the women and the Court of Israel, into which he was not free to enter until the purifica- tion was accomplished. A poor man was allowed