Still, if such had been the real views of Rabbinism one might have expected that Divine compassion would have been extended to those, who bore such heavy burden of their sins. Instead of this, their burdens were needlessly increased. True, as wrapped in mourner's garb the leper passed by, his cry Unclean!' was to incite others to pray for him - but also to avoid him. [2347] No one was even to salute him; his bed was to be low, inclining towards the ground. [2348] If he even put his head into a place, it became unclean. No less a distance than four cubits (six feet) must be kept from a leper; or, if the wind came from that direction, a hundred were scarcely sufficient. Rabbi Meir would not eat an egg purchased in a street where there was a leper. Another Rabbi boasted, that he always threw stones at them to keep them far off, while others hid themselves or ran away. [2349] [2350] To such extent did Rabbinism carry its inhuman logic in considering the leper as a mourner, that it even forbade him to wash his face. [2351]
We can now in some measure appreciate the contrast between Jesus and His contemporaries in His bearing towards the leper. Or, conversely, we can judge by the healing of this leper of the impression which the Saviour had made upon the people. He would have fled from a Rabbi; he came in lowliest attitude of entreaty to Jesus. Criticism need not so anxiously seek for an explanation of his approach. There was no Old Testament precedent for it: not in the case of Moses, nor even in that of Elisha, and there was no Jewish expectancy of it. But to have heard Him teach, to have seen or known Him as healing all manner of disease, must have carried to the heart the conviction of His absolute power. And so one can understand this lowly reverence of approach, this cry which has so often since been wrung from those who have despaired of all other help: If Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean.' It is not a prayer, but the ground-tone of all prayer - faith in His Power, and absolute committal to Him of our helpless, hopeless need. And Jesus, touched with compassion, willed it. It almost seems, as if it were in the very exuberance of power that Jesus, acting in so direct contravention of Jewish usage, touched the leper. It was fitting that Elisha should disappoint Naaman's expectancy, that the prophet would heal his leprosy by the touch of his hand. It was even more fitting that Jesus should surprise the Jewish leper by touching, ere by His Word He cleansed him. And so, experience ever finds that in Christ the real is far beyond the ideal. We can understand, how. from his standpoint, Strauss should have found it impossible to understand the healing of leprosy by the touch and Word of Jesus. Its explanation lies in the fact, that He was the God-Man. And yet, as our inner tending after God and the voice of conscience indicate that man is capable of adoption into God's family, so the marked power which in disease mind has over body points to a higher capability in Man Perfect, the Ideal Man, the God-Man, of vanquishing disease by His Will.
It is not quite so easy at first sight to understand, why Christ should with such intense earnestness, almost vehemence, [2352] have sent the healed man away - as the term bears, cast him out.' [2353] Certainly not (as Volkmar - fantastically in error on this, as on so many other points - imagines) because He disapproved of his worship. Rather do we once more gather, how the God-Man shrank from the fame connected with miracles - specially with such an one - which as we have seen, were rather of inward and outward necessity than of choice in His Mission. Not so - followed by a curious crowd, or thronged by eager multitudes of sight-seers, or aspirants for temporal benefits - was the Kingdom of Heaven to be preached and advanced. It would have been the way of a Jewish Messiah, and have led up to His royal proclamation by the populace. But as we study the character of the Christ, no contrast seems more glaring - let us add, more painful - than that of such a scene. And so we read that, when, notwithstanding the Saviour's charge to the healed leper to keep silence, it was nevertheless - nay, as might perhaps have been expected - all the more made known by him - as, indeed, in some measure it could scarcely have remained entirely unknown, He could no more, as before, enter the cities, but remained without in desert places, whither they came to Him from every quarter. And in that withdrawal He spoke, and healed, and prayed.'