brought[1] before the Pharisees, and they asked him how he had received his sight. Then the man told them how it had happened. Then they asked him again: “What sayest thou of Him that hath opened thy eyes?” The man replied: “He is a prophet.”[2]
But they, still unbelieving, and not satisfied with the man’s own testimony, called his parents, and asked them: “Is this your son who you say was born blind? How, then, doth he now see?” The parents replied: “We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind. But how he now seeth we know not. Ask himself; he is of age, let him speak for himself.” The parents said this, because they were afraid of the Jews, who had already agreed among themselves that if any man should confess Jesus to be the Christ he should be put of the synagogue.
Then the Pharisees called again the man who had been blind, and said to him: “Give glory to God. We know that this man is a sinner.” But he replied: “Whether He be a sinner or not, I know not. One thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see.” Then they inquired again: “What did He do to thee? How did He open thy eyes?” The man answered: “I have told you already, and you have not heard. Why would you hear it again? Will you also[3] become His disciples?”
Then they reviled him, saying: “Be thou His disciple, but we are the disciples of Moses. We know that God spoke to Moses. But as to this man we know not whence He is.”[4] The man
- ↑ Was brought. Apparently by the neighbours and relatives, who wished to bring the extraordinary occurrence to the notice of the spiritual authorities, and so led the cured man before the Sanhedrim, which at that time was almost entirely composed of Pharisees.
- ↑ “He is a prophet' '. As the cured man bore such open and unwavering testimony that He who had performed the miracle was a prophet, or one sent by God, the unbelieving Jew's had recourse to another line. They first denied the existence of a miracle, affirming that the whole thing was a deception, and that the man before them had never been blind at all, only bearing a close resemblance to the man born blind; and when that was no longer possible, they had recourse to a theological argument, saying: Sinners cannQt do miracles, and Jesus is a sinner [breaker of the Sabbath].
- ↑ Will you also? The blind man’s scornful retorts are as keen as his honesty and courage are admirable.
- ↑ Whence He is. The fact that the man born blind adhered thus to his simple, truthful account, from which nothing could make him swerve, put the Pharisees into a dilemma; and when he, not without scorn, asked them: “Will you also be His disciples ?” they vented their vexation in abuse of him , and thus betrayed their passionate hatred of our Lord. When, however, they pretended not to know whence Jesus was, the blind man gave them a scornful but very solid answer.
