The miracles of Jesus - Classical Christian Literature by Athleo.net

126 THE CLEANSING OF THE LEPER
which the Lord was passing. But as lepers were
strictly forbidden to enter any camp or town, the
words must be interpreted generally as pointing to
some spot immediately outside the walls. It is
remarkable that even there, the leper should have
ventured to draw near to the Saviour, surrounded
as He would be by a great multitude. And an
explanation has been sought in the fact on which
St Luke again lays stress, that the man was " full
of leprosy." His disease, that is, had reached such
dimensions that he came under the strange provision
of the law: " If the leprosy break out abroad in the
skin, and the leprosy cover all the skin of him that
hath the plague, from his head even to his feet . . . then
the priest . . . shall pronounce him clean that hath the
plague" (Leviticus xiii. 12, 13). But this exemption,
though possible, is hardly likely in the case before
us. And the leper's defiance of all the obstacles
that human callousness had placed in his pathway
was probably due simply to the eager faith which
marks all his conduct, and which could not rest
until it found itself in the immediate presence of
the great Healer. And this faith is the more
remarkable when we remember that as yet there
had been no instance of the cleansing of a leper
in the course of the Juda^an or Galilean ministry,
and that in view of the light in which his disease
was generally regarded by his fellow-countrymen,
the poor sufferer might well have thought himself
to be outside the ranges of the Saviour's healing
power. But no !
on
whatever his trust was founded,
there could be no doubt as to its reality and persistence.
The leper did not wait to be called, or