Commentaria in Leviticum
Whence comes this infection of the new stones? Surely not by contact with the old, which have already been removed all around; therefore from God and from divine vengeance; therefore this leprosy was not so much natural as a work and plague of God. I grant, however, that God, in inflicting this plague, could have used (as is his way) secondary causes, such as corrupt air, the touch of a leper and the like, as Valesius explained a little before; but in such a way that all these had no proper and adequate power of producing leprosy in garments and houses, unless God concurred and worked in a singular manner. I speak of leprosy proper and perfect; for if you understand by leprosy only some moth of garments or decay of wood and stones, we know that this can arise from natural causes alone; and this leprosy too is understood here, and was to be judged by the marks and signs here prescribed. Yet Scripture speaks here rather of the perfect leprosy sent by God, as I have said.
for example we say that trees and rocks are eaten away by canker.” Tropologically, a leprous garment, that is, a heretical book or writing, is to be burned and destroyed. So Radulphus. Secondly, more generally and more beautifully the same Radulphus says: Our garments are our works of justice; of which it is said in Psalm cxxxi, 9: “Let thy priests be clothed with justice,” by which the soul both procures a good reputation abroad and cherishes a holy conscience within before God; and it is twofold, linen, that is spiritual, such as meditation, prayer, reading; and woollen, that is bodily, such as the works of mercy. The warp of our garment (of which in the last verse and in verse 55, according to the Septuagint) is the intention, which stands firm when it is directed to God and heavenly things. The woof is the application to works, in which under this intention we toil at different times; for these, in the manner of the woof, seek different sides in turn, passing now to the right hand of contemplation, now to the left hand of action. The skin is the mortification of the flesh. In all these a white leprosy can arise, that is, vainglory; or a red, that is, malicious envy.
Finally, the leprosy of the flesh is lust and gluttony; the remedy of it is the meditation of death and hell, that a man may think of that saying of St. Augustine, in the tract De Honestate Mulieris, chapter xiii: “Quickly passes what delights, but that which torments is eternal and abides without end.” The leprosy of garments is splendour and luxury of dress; for in garments warmth is to be sought, not colour; necessity, not price; usefulness, not refinement: the remedy is to consider that the adornment of a man is good morals and modesty of dress. Hence Clement of Alexandria, book II of the Pedagogue, chapter x, paints these images of virtue and vice: he makes virtue stand simply, clothed in a white and pure garment, adorned with modesty alone. Wickedness, on the contrary, he paints clothed in a superfluous and variegated garment, exulting in a borrowed colour. I praise, says Clement, the Spartans, who allowed only harlots to wear flowery garments and golden ornament, taking away from honest women the zeal for adornment, since they conceded to harlots alone the right to adorn themselves. The leprosy of the house is the evil habits of children and servants: these must be restrained by the father of the family with discipline, and virtue must be brought into the house by good training; for, as St. Cyprian says, in his book De Habitu Virginum: “Discipline is the guardian of hope, the bond of faith, the guide of the way of salvation, the nurse and nourishment of a good disposition, the teacher of virtue; it makes us abide always in Christ and live continually to God.” On the contrary, “when discipline is repressed, wickedness rages unpunished,” says St. Augustine, sermon 15 On the Words of the Lord. [Concerning the leprosy of woollen cloths:]
In these something is corrupted by moisture, rot or intemperate air. As to that leprosy of woollen cloths, then, the opinion of Michaelis (Mosaisches Recht, vol. IV, § 211) pleases me, who thinks that wool is called leprous when it has been taken from sheep that have died of disease or are scabby. For it is established by use that wool of this kind is rough and useless, so that even cloths made of such material are gradually eaten away here and there, and those who are clothed in them add a danger to their health. Similarly I should suppose the leprosy of hides, which Moses mentions, to have been that same fault which clings to the spoils of other animals wasted by age or disease, and which is usually contracted by cattle hides especially from the murrain of the herd. For these are brittle, and often appear half-eaten, and are not a little harmful to health.
It shall be reputed a leprosy—if it remain after it has been shown to the priest.
Verse 51. Not returned to its former face. “Former”—that is, which the garment had before it was infected with leprosy; for the mark remaining in it shows that it is leprosy, since otherwise it would in some way have changed its colour. Hence follows:
Because the leprosy is spread in the surface of the garment, or throughout. Lyranus thinks that our version is corrupt here; for instead of in the surface, or throughout, the Hebrew has in baldness or in forehead-baldness. But I say it is a Hebrew metaphor. For the Hebrews attribute to a house what belongs to a man, as hands, feet, head, baldness; as, therefore, they call it baldness when the whole surface of the head is hairless, and forehead-baldness when only the front part about the forehead is bald, as is plain from verse 41: so also in garments forehead-baldness signifies its outer surface, for this is to us as it were the front; baldness signifies its inner surface, which is to us as it were the back. Hence the Septuagint renders in the warp or woof, as the Hebrew, Latin and Chaldee also have, in the last verse, in the summing up of the leprosy of garments; hence also Vatablus renders, in the front part or the back part of the garment; and the Chaldee, in its age or its newness: for the front part of a garment, because it is worn and handled, becomes older; the inner, because it is neither touched nor worn, remains as it were new.
56. But if the place of the leprosy be somewhat dark (if the leprosy in the house seem to be darkened), he shall tear it off. So tropologically it is expedient for a man to be deprived of the office on account of which the leprosy of pride is darkened. Hence St. Benedict in his Rule commands that if a monk is puffed up by some art or office, he be taken from it and given to another, says Radulphus.
57. But if it appear any more, etc., it is a leprosy flying and wandering (like that in man, of which above, verse 12), and it shall be burnt with fire. From the mystical sense of this place Tertullian, in his book De Pudicitia, chapter xvi, tries to prove that adulterers who have relapsed are not to be received to penance; for he says that what is said here is mystically, that a garment, if leprosy appear in it again, is to be burnt, because it is a sign of persevering leprosy, that is, of perseverance in the sin of adultery. But from this it can only be gathered that an adulterer is not to be received while leprosy, that is, adultery, appears in him. For if this be taken away by repentance, there will then be no leprosy in him to be burnt, but the purity of penance is to be embraced by the Church.
59. How it ought to be cleansed or defiled, verse 59—that is, how it ought to be reckoned and judged clean or defiled; for so these two words are taken throughout the chapter.
Symbolically, the leprosy described in this chapter was a type of the flesh of Christ, torn and disfigured by scourges and stripes. For Christ took upon himself our leprosy, that is, sin, to be expiated in himself, whence on the cross he was made as it were a leper. For so Isaias says, chapter liii, verse 4: “And we have thought him as it were a leper.” This in eight ways:
First, because as a leper, spotted with leprosy over his whole body, strikes horror into those who look on him, so Christ, livid in his whole body with scourges and wounds, moved to horror and compassion together those who beheld him, so that Pilate, presenting him to the Jews, rightly said: “Behold the man.”
Secondly, the leper had his garments rent: so the soldiers tore the garments, and even the flesh, of Christ.
Thirdly, the leper had his head bare: so Christ was bare of head, but crowned with a crown of thorns.
Fourthly, the leper had his mouth covered with a veil; of Christ Isaias says: “As it were hidden was his face”; and again: “As a lamb before his shearer he shall be dumb, and he shall not open his mouth.”
Fifthly, the leper had to cry that he was a leper and unclean; what does Christ, all bloody, cry, but: “O all ye that pass by the way, attend and see if there be any sorrow like to my sorrow”?
Sixthly, the flesh of the leper was most vile and most abject; Christ says: “I am a worm, and no man; the reproach of men, and the outcast of the people.” Christ was like holy Job who, sitting on the dunghill, was not recognised by his friends, because “there was no sightliness in him,” and he was despised, and the most abject of men.
Seventhly, the proud were wont to be punished with leprosy; and Christ bore the likeness of leprosy, as it were, of our pride, and healed it by this abjection of his: for with his stripes the wound of our pride was healed.
Eighthly, lepers were driven from the city, no one deemed them worthy of approach, converse or speech, all shunned them and fled from them as from a plague: so Christ, as a leper, was cast out beyond the gate and crucified, Hebrews xiii, 12, and Psalm xxxvii, 12: “My friends and my neighbours have drawn near, and stood against me” (the Hebrew is, over against my plague; St. Jerome renders, they stood as against my leprosy), “and they that were near me stood afar off.”