Commentaria in Leviticum
This is the fifth species, not formal but material, of leprosy: namely the leprosy of the beard and head, which is of the same form and nature as the leprosy of the other parts.
Hence its signs are the same as those of the others already mentioned: namely, leprosy which is lower than the rest of the skin, and changes the colour of the hairs, and spreads and creeps, is malignant; or also that which, when it seemed cleansed and cured, emerges again, returns and creeps on; but that which has the contrary of these is not malignant. This only is the difference, that in the other parts leprosy changes the hairs to white, but in the beard and head it changes them to yellow and thin; the cause of which is that in the leprosy of the head are wont to arise achores (commonly called ringworm), namely little ulcers, which flow and distil a certain juice like thin honey: which plainly indicates that the skin of the head is also imbued with such discharge. Rightly therefore the hairs growing from it are thin, I say, and yellow, as in the other parts, which are imbued with salt phlegm, they grow white. The cause of that discharge is the mixture of thin yellow bile with salt phlegm. Hence in those women who suffer ringworm, hairs like gold arise. So Valesius. Tropologically, the leprosies above spoken of have been vices of morals: but this is of the faith, and the leprosy of the head is heresy, which, like leprosy and like a cancer, creeps, as the scab of one sheep stains the whole flock; at once therefore it must be taken away and separated, as St. Jerome says on Galatians chapter 5: “The spark must be extinguished as soon as it appears, and the leaven removed from the neighbourhood of the mass, putrid flesh cut away, and the scabby animal driven from the folds of the sheep: lest the whole house, the mass, the body and the flocks burn, be corrupted, putrefy, perish. Arius in Alexandria was one spark, but because he was not at once suppressed, his flame laid waste the whole world.”
Gregory of Tours relates, in book I of the Miracles of St. Martin, chapter xi (and Baronius after him, in the year of Christ 560), that the king of Galicia, together with his subjects, being infected with the Arian heresy, was punished by God; for that region was struck with leprosy, and his son Charraric began to fall gravely ill, so that he trembled with only the breath of life remaining. Wherefore the father sent vows and gifts to St. Martin, and embraced his orthodox faith; whereupon his son was healed and the plague of leprosy ceased. “Nor has the disease of leprosy ever since,” says Gregory, “appeared upon anyone.”
Leprosy in the head, therefore, is error concerning the divinity of Christ; leprosy in the beard is blasphemy against the humanity of Christ and against his Apostles or Prophets. For by the beard perfect men are signified, who cleave to Christ their head as the beard does, and receive his influence most immediately; of whom it is said: “Like the precious ointment on the head, that ran down upon the beard, the beard of Aaron.” The yellow hair, lower than usual, is proud thinking and self-confidence, as black hair is humility and obedience; a place lower than the flesh is an erroneous article, which is far beneath the truth of the Church. If the skin and the place are level, the place is to be shaved, that is, the faculty of disputing is to be taken from him, lest with a mind still weak he presume to examine such great mysteries, the truth of the Church being now known, in which he ought to rest and to which he ought to submit his judgment. But the place of the spot is forbidden to be shaved, that the memory of his error may remain with the man. So Radulphus and Isychius.
Again: leprosy in the head is arrogance in the mind, for this is the origin of heresy. “The leprosy of pride,” says St. Bernard in his third sermon on the Resurrection of the Lord, “has seized us sevenfold: first, in the ownership of possessions; secondly, in the glory of garments; thirdly, in the pleasure of bodies; in the mouth also twofold, and likewise in the heart: in the mouth, fourthly, when we murmur in adversity, and fifthly, when we boast arrogantly in prosperity; in the heart, sixthly, one’s own will, and seventhly, one’s own counsel” and judgment, which is the father of heresy. Moreover this leprosy attacks most of all the lowly and abject when they are raised to dignities and high stations, as experience teaches. “I have found that the humblest of men, especially when they have risen to high place, are immoderate in pride and ambition. Hence in our fathers’ memory Gaius Marius, and in our own Diocletian, passed beyond the common measure, since a mind without power, as though restored from starvation, is insatiable,” says Aurelius Victor, De Caesaribus. Excellently St. Augustine, De Catechizandis Rudibus: “Great is the misery,” he says, “of proud man, but greater is the mercy of humble God.” And in book XIV of the City of God: “I dare to say,” he says, “that it is useful for the proud to fall into some open and manifest sin, whereby they may be displeased with themselves, who had already fallen by pleasing themselves. For Peter was displeased with himself when he wept, more wholesomely than he pleased himself when he presumed. Hence the Psalmist says: Fill their faces with shame, and they shall seek thy name, O Lord. Humility,” he says, “makes men like angels, and pride makes devils of angels; and, to show it plainly, pride is the beginning, end and cause of all sins, because not only is pride itself a sin, but no sin could, or can, or ever will be without pride.”
The lowly, when raised on high, become intolerable.
Verse 33. Let him be shaven—that it may appear more clearly after seven days whether the leprosy has spread.
Verse 39. A man or woman in whose skin whiteness shall appear.—A vitiligo is here described, that is, a simple spot of shining white colour in the skin, which is not leprosy. Hence in Hebrew it is called bohak, that is, a freckle or vitiligo breaking out in the skin.
Verses 40 and 41. The man whose hair falls from his head is bald and clean.
“Bald in front” here means one whose hair falls towards the forehead; “bald” one whose hair falls from the whole head, so that the top becomes quite hairless. So Isychius and Radulphus, and it is plain from verse 55. The Chaldee and the Septuagint also distinguish and name them so.
Verse 42. But if in the baldness, whether at the back or the front, a white or reddish colour be risen, and the priest see it, he shall condemn him undoubtedly of leprosy. For these white or red spots signify malignant humours, which corrupt the roots of the hair, and such there sometimes are in malignant alopecia, or ophiasis, that is, a flux of the hair from abundance of phlegm or melancholy. Hence this malignant alopecia is numbered among the species of leprosy. So Valesius.
This is the sixth species of leprosy, which is in the baldness.
Tropologically, hair signifies earthly substance. He is bald, therefore, who gives it all away to the poor; he is bald in front who keeps it, not for pleasure but for necessity: in these a white colour, that is, desire of glory, or a red, that is, cruelty in plunder, can arise; for this leprosy arises from the very virtues, as from vices. So Radulphus.
Verse 44. 44. Whosoever therefore shall be defiled with leprosy. Five things are here commanded the leper, that by these signs he may be known, and others may beware and not be infected by him: first, “he shall have his garments ungirded”; secondly, his head bare; thirdly, his mouth covered with a veil; fourthly, he shall cry that he is defiled and unclean; fifthly, he shall dwell alone outside the camp.
Note: some of these are commanded for the sake of the leper, some for others, some for both. For the leper, that he have rent garments and a bare, shaven head, that in this way the foul vapours of the body and head may escape. For others, that he have his mouth covered and cry that he is a leper: for there is nothing by which an unclean man can infect more than by the breath and exhalation that comes through the mouth. For both, that he dwell outside the camp, alone, lest he harm others, and in the open air, that he may be refreshed by it and gradually cured.
Verse 45. 45. He shall have his garments rent. Hence Abulensis thinks that the garments of the Jews were once sewn closed, so that they put them on by throwing them over the head, in the manner in which the high priest put on the hyacinth tunic, Exodus xxviii, 32; for a rent garment is assigned here to the leper because the healthy had sewn ones. But this reasoning does not conclude: for the healthy could have garments sewn at the sides yet open at the breast, and fastened with knots, hooks or laces; whereas lepers had to unstitch them in various places and at the sides.
A bare head. Hence Abulensis thinks that the Jews went about with covered head even in the temple, and so prayed (whence the high priest in the temple covered his head with the mitre), that by the covered head they might signify their fear and subjection to the law, and that they ought to submit and wrap their head in the law as in a cap. On the contrary, in the new law we uncover our heads as a sign of Christian liberty. Hence Paul, 1 Corinthians xi, 4: “Every man praying with his head covered disgraceth his head.” His mouth covered with a veil. The Chaldee renders it: his mouth shall be wrapped with a cloth like a mourner’s—not when he is alone, but when he approaches others whom he might infect with his breath, and then, not otherwise, he shall do what follows.
He shall cry that he is defiled. Abulensis thinks that he is not commanded to cry aloud, but to signify it by the four signs already given. But this is not properly to cry. Hence the Chaldee expressly renders it: he shall cry, Be not defiled, nor be ye unclean.