By Water & Blood

Homily 8.9: Leprosy of the head or beard

The fifth kind of leprosy is when the contagion appears on the head, or in the beard of a man or a woman, so that the appearance of the contagion is lower than the skin of the body; and this is the leprosy of the head or of the beard. See, then, whether it can be that leprosy of the head is thought to be in one who does not have Christ as head but someone else, for example Epicurus, who preached pleasure as the highest good: does not the head and beard of such a man seem to you unclean? And he too who, when he ought to be a man and act as one perfect, is perhaps easily and like a boy conquered by sin, must also be said to have leprosy of the beard; because, when he ought to conquer the evil one and walk in the priestly honour which is signified by the beard, hindered by the vices of youth, he suffers leprosy of the beard. And it has often been said that a woman in the Scriptures signifies the soul which can not so much put forth the seed of the word as receive it; this soul is designated as having leprosy on the head if it has a husband, who is the head of the woman, that is, a teacher, who is polluted and unclean, following Marcion, or Valentinus, or someone of that kind.