We conclude, then, that _lepra_ was a term used in a generic sense because of a real uncertainty of diagnosis, or because there was some advantage to be got from being called _leprosus_, or because it was flung about at random. But there is still another reason for the inexact use of the terms _lepra_ and _leprosus_ in the medieval period, namely, the dominant influence of religious tradition. The heritage or accretion of religious sentiment not only perverted the correct use of the name, but led to regulations and proscriptions which were out of place even for the real disease. The Biblical Associations of Leprosy. Among the synonyms for _leprosi_ we find the terms “pauperes Christi, videlicet Lazares,” the name of “Christ’s poor” being given to lepers by Aelred in the twelfth century and by Matthew Paris in the thirteenth. The association of ideas with Lazarus is a good sample of the want of discrimination in all that pertains to medieval leprosy. The Lazarus of St Luke’s Gospel, who was laid at the rich man’s gate full of sores, is a representative person, existing only in parable. On the other hand, the Lazarus of St John’s Gospel, Lazarus of Bethany, the brother of Martha and Mary, the man of many friends, is both a historical personage and a saint in the calendar. But there is nothing to show that he was a leper. He had a remarkable experience of restoration to the light of day, and it was probably on account of an episode in his life that made so much talk that he received posthumously the name of Lazarus, or “helped of God[160].” The name of the man in the parable is also generic, just as generic as that of his contrast Dives is; but specifically there was nothing in common between the one Lazarus and the other. Yet St Lazarus specially named as the brother of Martha and Mary (as in the charter of the leper-house at Sherburn) became the patron of lepers. The ascription to Lazarus of Bethany of the malady of Lazarus in the parable has done much for the prestige of the latter’s disease; in the medieval world it brought all persons full of sores within a nimbus of sanctity, as being in a special sense “pauperes Christi,” the successors at once of him whom Jesus loved and of “Lazarus ulcerosus.” Doubtless the lepers deserved all the charity that they got; but we shall not easily understand the interest exceptionally taken in them, amidst abounding suffering and wretchedness in other forms, unless we keep in mind that they somehow came to be regarded as Christ’s poor.