Chapter IX: Miracles of Jesus (3)

The narrative common to all the three synoptical writers is that of a cure of blindness wrought by Jesus at Jericho, on his last journey to Jerusalem (Matt. xx. 29 parall.): but there are important differences both as to the object of the cure, Matthew having two blind men, the two other Evangelists only one; and also as to its locality, Luke making it take place on the entrance of Jesus into Jericho, Matthew and Mark on his departure out of Jericho. Moreover the touching of the eyes, by which, according to the first evangelist, Jesus effected the cure, is not mentioned by the two other narrators. Of these differences the latter may be explained by the observation, that though Mark and Luke are silent as to the touching, they do not therefore deny it: the first, relative to the number cured, presents a heavier difficulty. To remove this it has been said by those who give the prior authority to Matthew, that one of the two blind men was possibly more remarkable than the other, on which account he alone was retained in the first tradition; but Matthew, as an eye-witness, afterwards supplied the second blind man. On this supposition Luke and Mark do not contradict Matthew, for they nowhere deny that another besides their single blind man was healed; neither does Matthew contradict them, for where there are two, there is also one. [1265] But when the simple narrator speaks of one individual in whom something extraordinary has happened, and even, like Mark, mentions his name, it is plain that he tacitly contradicts the statement that it happened in two individuals—to contradict it expressly there was no occasion. Let us turn then to the other side and, taking the singular number of Mark and Luke as the original one, conjecture that the informant of Matthew (the latter being scarcely on this hypothesis an eye-witness) probably mistook the blind man’s guide for a second blind man. [1266] Hereby a decided contradiction is admitted, while to account for it an extremely improbable cause is superfluously invented. The third difference relates to the place; Matthew and Mark have ἐκπορευομένων ἀπὸ, as they departed from, Luke, ἐν τῷ ἐγγίζειν εἰς Ἱεριχὼ, as they came nigh to Jericho. If there be any whom the words themselves fail to convince that this difference is irreconcilable, let them read the forced attempts to render these passages consistent with each other, which have been made by commentators from Grotius down to Paulus.

Hence it was a better expedient which the older harmonists [1267] adopted, and which has been approved by some modern critics. [1268] In consideration of the last-named difference, they here distinguished two events, and held that Jesus cured a blind man first on his entrance into Jericho (according to Luke), and then again on his departure from that place (according to Matthew and Luke). Of the other divergency, relative to the number, these harmonists believed that they had disencumbered themselves by the supposition that Matthew connected in one event the two blind men, the one cured on entering and the other on leaving Jericho, and gave the latter position to the cure of both. But if so much weight is allowed to the statement of Matthew relative to the locality of the cure, as to make it, in conjunction with that of Mark, a reason for supposing two cures, one at each extremity of the town, I know not why equal credit should not be given to his numerical statement, and Storr appears to me to proceed more consistently when, allowing equal weight to both differences, he supposes that Jesus on his entrance into Jericho, cured one blind man (Luke) and subsequently on his departure two (Matthew). [1269] The claim of Matthew is thus fully vindicated, but on the other hand that of Mark is denied. For if the latter be associated with Matthew, as is here the case, for the sake of his locality, it is necessary to do violence to his numerical statement, which taken alone would rather require him to be associated with Luke; so that to avoid impeaching either of his statements, which on this system of interpretation is not admissible, his narrative must be equally detached from that of both the other Evangelists. Thus we should have three distinct cures of the blind at Jericho: 1st, the cure of one blind man on the entrance of Jesus, 2nd, that of another on his departure, and 3rd, the cure of two blind men, also during the departure; in all, of four blind men. Now to separate the second and third cases is indeed difficult. For it will not be maintained that Jesus can have gone out by two different gates at the same time, and it is nearly as difficult to imagine that having merely set out with the intention of leaving Jericho, he returned again into the town, and not until afterwards took his final departure. But, viewing the case more generally, it is scarcely an admissible supposition, that three incidents so entirely similar thus fell together in a group. The accumulation of cures of the blind is enough to surprise us; but the behaviour of the companions of Jesus is incomprehensible; for after having seen in the first instance, on entering Jericho, that they had acted in opposition to the designs of Jesus by rebuking the blind man for his importunity, since Jesus called the man to him, they nevertheless repeated this conduct on the second and even on the third occasion. Storr, it is true, is not disconcerted by this repetition in at least two incidents of this kind, for he maintains that no one knows whether those who had enjoined silence on going out of Jericho were not altogether different persons from those who had done the like on entering the town: indeed, supposing them to be the same, such a repetition of conduct which Jesus had implicitly disapproved, however unbecoming, was not therefore impossible, since even the disciples who had been present at the first miraculous feeding, yet asked, before the second, whence bread could be had for such a multitude?—but this is merely to argue the reality of one impossibility from that of another, as we shall presently see when we enter on the consideration of the two miraculous feedings. Further, not only the conduct of the followers of Jesus, but also almost every feature of the incident must have been repeated in the most extraordinary manner. In the one case as in the other, the blind men cry, Have mercy upon us, (or me,) thou son of David; then (after silence has been enjoined on them by the spectators) Jesus commands that they should be brought to him: he next asks what they will that he should do to them; they answer, that we may receive our sight; he complies with their wish, and they gratefully follow him. That all this was so exactly repeated thrice, or even twice, is an improbability amounting to an impossibility; and we must suppose, according to the hypothesis adopted by Sieffert in such cases, a legendary assimilation of different facts, or a traditionary variation of a single occurrence. If, in order to arrive at a decision, it be asked: what could more easily happen, when once the intervention of the legend is presupposed, than that one and the same history should be told first of one, then of several, first of the entrance, then of the departure? it will not be necessary to discuss the other possibility, since this is so incomparably more probable that there cannot be even a momentary hesitation in embracing it as real. But in thus reducing the number of the facts, we must not with Sieffert stop short at two, for in that case not only do the difficulties with respect to the repetition of the same incident remain, but we fall into a want of logical sequency in admitting one divergency (in the number) as unessential, for the sake of removing another (in the locality). If it be further asked, supposing only one incident to be here narrated, which of the several narratives is the original one? the statements as to the locality will not aid us in coming to a decision; for Jesus might just as well meet a blind man on entering as on leaving Jericho. The difference in the number is more likely to furnish us with a basis for a decision, and it will be in favour of Mark and Luke, who have each only one blind man; not, it is true, for the reason alleged by Schleiermacher, [1270] namely, that Mark, by his mention of the blind man’s name, evinces a more accurate acquaintance with the circumstances; for Mark, from his propensity to individualize out of his own imagination, ought least of all to be trusted with respect to names which are given by him alone. Our decision is founded on another circumstance.

It seems probable that Matthew was led to add a second blind man by his recollection of a previous cure of two blind men narrated by him alone (ix. 27 ff.). Here, likewise, when Jesus is in the act of departure,—from the place, namely, where he had raised the ruler’s daughter,—two blind men follow him (those at Jericho are sitting by the way side), and in a similar manner cry for mercy of the Son of David, who here also, as in the other instance, according to Matthew, immediately cures them by touching their eyes. With these similarities there are certainly no slight divergencies; nothing is here said of an injunction to the blind men to be silent, on the part of the companions of Jesus; and, while at Jericho Jesus immediately calls the blind men to him, in the earlier case, they come in the first instance to him when he is again in the house; further, while there he asks them, what they will have him to do to them? here he asks, if they believe him able to cure them? Lastly, the prohibition to tell what had happened, is peculiar to the earlier incident. The two narratives standing in this relation to each other, an assimilation of them might have taken place thus: Matthew transferred the two blind men and the touch of Jesus from the first anecdote to the second; the form of the appeal from the blind men, from the second to the first.

The two histories, as they are given, present but few data for a natural explanation. Nevertheless the rationalistic commentators have endeavoured to frame such an explanation. When Jesus in the earlier occurrence asked the blind men whether they had confidence in his power, he wished, say they, to ascertain whether their trust in him would remain firm during the operation, and whether they would punctually observe his further prescriptions; [1271] having then entered the house, in order to be free from interruption, he examined, for the first time, their disease, and when he found it curable (according to Venturini [1272] it was caused by the fine dust of that country), he assured the sufferers that the result should be according to the measure of their faith. Hereupon Paulus merely says briefly, that Jesus removed the obstruction to their vision; but he also must have imagined to himself something similar to what is described in detail by Venturini, who makes Jesus anoint the eyes of the blind men with a strong water prepared beforehand, and thus cleanse them from the irritating dust, so that in a short time their sight returned. But this natural explanation has not the slightest root in the text; for neither can the faith (πίστις) required from the patient imply anything else than, as in all similar cases, trust in the miraculous power of Jesus, nor can the word ἥψατο, he touched, signify a surgical operation, but merely that touch which appears in so many of the evangelical curative miracles, whether as a sign or a conductor of the healing power of Jesus; of further prescriptions for the completion of the cure there is absolutely nothing. It is not otherwise with the cure of the blind at Jericho, where, moreover, the two middle Evangelists do not even mention the touching of the eyes.

If then, according to the meaning of the narrators, the blind instantaneously receive their sight as a consequence of the simple word or touch of Jesus, there are the same difficulties to be encountered here as in the former case of the lepers. For a disease of the eyes, however slight, as it is only engendered gradually by the reiterated action of the disturbing cause, is still less likely to disappear on a word or a touch; it requires very complicated treatment, partly surgical, partly medical, and this must be pre-eminently the case with blindness, supposing it to be of a curable kind. How should we represent to ourselves the sudden restoration of vision to a blind eye by a word or a touch? as purely miraculous and magical? That would be to give up thinking on the subject. As magnetic? There is no precedent of magnetism having influence over a disease of this nature. Or, lastly, as psychical? But blindness is something so independent of the mental life, so entirely corporeal, that the idea of its removal at all, still less of its sudden removal by means of a mental operation, is not to be entertained. We must therefore acknowledge that an historical conception of these narratives is more than merely difficult to us; and we proceed to inquire whether we cannot show it to be probable that legends of this kind should arise unhistorically.

We have already quoted the passage in which, according to the first and third gospels, Jesus in reply to the messengers of the Baptist who had to ask him whether he were the ἐρχόμενος (he that should come), appeals to his works. Now he here mentions in the very first place the cure of the blind, a significant proof that this particular miracle was expected from the Messiah, his words being taken from Isa. xxxv. 5, a prophecy interpreted messianically; and in a rabbinical passage above cited, among the wonders which Jehovah is to perform in the messianic times, this is enumerated, that he oculos cæcorum aperiet, id quod per Elisam fecit. [1273] Now Elisha did not cure a positive blindness, but merely on one occasion opened the eyes of his servant to a perception of the supersensual world, and on another, removed a blindness which had been inflicted on his enemies in consequence of his prayer (2 Kings vi. 17–20). That these deeds of Elisha were conceived, doubtless with reference to the passage of Isaiah, as a real opening of the eyes of the blind, is proved by the above rabbinical passage, and hence cures of the blind were expected from the Messiah. [1274] Now if the Christian community, proceeding as it did from the bosom of Judaism, held Jesus to be the messianic personage, it must manifest the tendency to ascribe to him every messianic predicate, and therefore the one in question.

The narrative of the cure of a blind man at Bethsaida, and that of the cure of a man that was deaf and had an impediment in his speech, which are both peculiar to Mark (viii. 22 ff., vii. 32 ff.), and which we shall therefore consider together, are the especial favourites of all rationalistic commentators. If, they exclaim, in the other evangelical narratives of cures, the accessory circumstances by which the facts might be explained were but preserved as they are here, we could prove historically that Jesus did not heal by his mere word, and profound investigators might discover the natural means by which his cures were effected! [1275] And in fact chiefly on the ground of these narratives, in connexion with particular features in other parts of the second gospel, Mark has of late been represented, even by theologians who do not greatly favour this method of interpretation, as the patron of the naturalistic system. [1276]

In the two cures before us, it is at once a good augury for the rationalistic commentators that Jesus takes both the patients apart from the multitude, for no other purpose, as they believe, than that of examining their condition medically, and ascertaining whether it were susceptible of relief. Such an examination is, according to these commentators, intimated by the Evangelist himself, when he describes Jesus as putting his fingers into the ears of the deaf man, by which means he discovered that the deafness was curable, arising probably from the hardening of secretions in the ear, and hereupon, also with the finger, he removed the hindrance to hearing. Not only are the words, he put his fingers into his ears, ἔβαλε τοὺς δακτύλους εἰς τὰ ὦτα, interpreted as denoting a surgical operation, but the words, he touched his tongue, ἥψατο τῆς γλώσσης, are supposed to imply that Jesus cut the ligament of the tongue in the degree necessary to restore the pliancy which the organ had lost. In like manner, in the case of the blind man, the words, when he had put his hands upon him, ἐπιθεὶς τὰς χεῖρας αὐτῷ, are explained as probably meaning that Jesus by pressing the eyes of the patient removed the crystalline lens which had become opaque. A further help to this mode of interpretation is found in the circumstance that both to the tongue of the man who had an impediment in his speech, and to the eyes of the blind man, Jesus applied spittle. Saliva has in itself, particularly in the opinion of ancient physicians, [1277] a salutary effect on the eyes; as, however, it in no case acts so rapidly as instantaneously to cure blindness and a defect in the organs of speech, it is conjectured, with respect to both instances, that Jesus used the saliva to moisten some medicament, probably a caustic powder; that the blind man only heard the spitting and saw nothing of the mixture of the medicaments, and that the deaf man, in accordance with the spirit of the age, gave little heed to the natural means, or that the legend did not preserve them. In the narrative of the deaf man the cure is simply stated, but that of the blind man is yet further distinguished, by its representing the restoration of his sight circumstantially, as gradual. After Jesus had touched the eyes of the patient as above mentioned, he asked him if he saw aught; not at all, observes Paulus, in the manner of a miracle-worker, who is sure of the result, but precisely in the manner of a physician, who after performing an operation endeavours to ascertain if the patient is benefited. The blind man answers that he sees, but first indistinctly, so that men seem to him like trees. Here apparently the rationalistic commentator may triumphantly ask the orthodox one: if divine power for the working of cures stood at the command of Jesus, why did he not at once cure the blind man perfectly? If the disease presented an obstacle which he was not able to overcome, is it not clear from thence that his power was a finite, ordinarily human power? Jesus once more puts his hands on the eyes of the blind man, in order to aid the effect of the first operation, and only then is the cure completed. [1278]

The complacency of the rationalistic commentators in these narratives of Mark, is liable to be disturbed by the frigid observation, that, here also, the circumstances which are requisite to render the natural explanation possible are not given by the Evangelists themselves, but are interpolated by the said commentators. For in both cures Mark furnishes the saliva only; the efficacious powder is infused by Paulus and Venturini: it is they alone who make the introduction of the fingers into the ears first a medical examination and then an operation; and it is they alone who, contrary to the signification of language, explain the words ἐπιτιθέναι τὰς χεῖρας ἐπὶ τοὺς ὀφθαλμοὺς, to lay the hands upon the eyes, as implying a surgical operation on those organs. Again, the circumstance that Jesus takes the blind man aside, is shown by the context (vii. 36, viii. 26) to have reference to the design of Jesus to keep the miraculous result a secret, not to the desire to be undisturbed in the application of natural means: so that all the supports of the rationalistic explanation sink beneath it, and the orthodox one may confront it anew. This regards the touch and the spittle either as a condescension towards the sufferers, who were thereby made more thoroughly sensible to whose power they owed their cure; or as a conducting medium for the spiritual power of Christ, a medium with which he might nevertheless have dispensed. [1279] That the cure was gradual, is on this system accounted for by the supposition, that Jesus intended by means of the partial cure to animate the faith of the blind man, and only when he was thus rendered worthy was he completely cured; [1280] or it is conjectured that, owing to the malady being deep-seated, a sudden cure would perhaps have been dangerous. [1281]

But by these attempts to interpret the evangelical narratives, especially in the last particular, the supernaturalistic theologians, who bring them forward, betake themselves to the same ground as the rationalists, for they are equally open to the charge of introducing into the narratives what is not in the remotest degree intimated by the text. For where, in the procedure of Jesus towards the blind man, is there a trace that his design in the first instance was to prove and to strengthen the faith of the patient? In that case, instead of the expression, He asked him if he saw aught, which relates only to his external condition, we must rather have read, as in Matt. ix. 28, Believe ye that I am able to do this? But what shall we say to the conjecture that a sudden cure might have been injurious! The curative act of a worker of miracles is (according to Olshausen’s own opinion) not to be regarded as the merely negative one of the removal of a disease, but also as the positive one of an impartation of new and fresh strength to the organ affected, whence the idea of danger from an instantaneous cure when wrought by miraculous agency, is not to be entertained. Thus no motive is to be discovered which could induce Jesus to put a restraint on the immediate action of his miraculous power, and it must therefore have been restricted, independently of his volition, by the force of the deep-seated malady. This, however, is entirely opposed to the idea of the gospels, which represent the miraculous power of Jesus as superior to death itself; it cannot therefore have been the meaning of our Evangelists. If we take into consideration the peculiar characteristics of Mark as an author, it will appear that his only aim is to give dramatic effect to the scene. Every sudden result is difficult to bring before the imagination: he who wishes to give to another a vivid idea of a rapid movement, first goes through it slowly, and a quick result is perfectly conceivable only when the narrator has shown the process in detail. Consequently a writer whose object it is to assist as far as may be the imagination of his reader, will wherever it is possible exhibit the propensity to render the immediate mediate, and when recording a sudden result, still to bring forward the successive steps that led to it. [1282] So here Mark, or his informant, supposed that he was contributing greatly to the dramatic effect, when he inserted between the blindness of the man and the entire restoration of his sight, the partial cure, or the seeing men as trees, and every reader will say, from his own feeling, that this object is fully achieved. But herein, as others also have remarked, [1283] Mark is so far from manifesting an inclination to the natural conception of such miracles, that he, on the contrary, not seldom labours to aggrandize the miracle, as we have partly seen in the case of the Gadarene, and shall yet have frequent reason to remark. In a similar manner may also be explained why Mark in these narratives which are peculiar to him (and elsewhere also, as in vi. 13, where he observes that the disciples anointed the sick with oil), mentions the application of external means and manifestations in miraculous cures. That these means, the saliva particularly, were not in the popular opinion of that age naturally efficacious causes of the cure, we may be convinced by the narrative concerning Vespasian quoted above, as also by passages of Jewish and Roman authors, according to which saliva was believed to have a magical potency, especially against diseases of the eye. [1284] Hence Olshausen perfectly reproduces the conception of that age when he explains the touch, saliva, and the like, to be conductors of the superior power resident in the worker of miracles. We cannot indeed make this opinion ours, unless with Olshausen we proceed upon the supposition of a parallelism between the miraculous power of Jesus and the agency of animal magnetism: a supposition which, for the explanation of the miracles of Jesus, especially of the one before us, is inadequate and therefore superfluous. Hence we put this means merely to the account of the Evangelist. To him also we may then doubtless refer the taking aside of the blind man, the exaggerated description of the astonishment of the people, (ὑπερπερισσῶς ἐξπλήσσοντο ἅπαντες, vii. 37,) and the strict prohibition to tell any man of the cure. This secrecy gave the affair a mysterious aspect, which, as we may gather from other passages, was pleasing to Mark. We have another trait belonging to the mysterious in the narratives of the cure of the deaf man, where Mark says, And looking up to heaven he sighed (vii. 34). What cause was there for sighing at that particular moment? Was it the misery of the human race, [1285] which must have been long known to Jesus from many melancholy examples? Or shall we evade the difficulty by explaining the expression as implying nothing further than silent prayer or audible speech? [1286] Whoever knows Mark will rather recognise the exaggerating narrator in the circumstance that he ascribes to Jesus a deep emotion, on an occasion which could not indeed have excited it, but which, being accompanied by it, had a more mysterious appearance. But above all, there appears to me to be an air of mystery in this, that Mark gives the authoritative word with which Jesus opened the ears of the deaf man in its original Syriac form, ἐφφαθὰ, as on the resuscitation of the daughter of Jairus, this Evangelist alone has the words ταλιθὰ κοῦμι (v. 41). It is indeed said that these expressions are anything rather than magical forms; [1287] but that Mark chooses to give these authoritative words in a language foreign to his readers, to whom he is obliged at the same time to explain them, nevertheless proves that he must have attributed to this original form a special significance, which, as it appears from the context, can only have been a magical one. This inclination to the mysterious we may now retrospectively find indicated in the application of those outward means which have no relation to the result; for the mysterious consists precisely in the presentation of infinite power through a finite medium, in the combination of the strongest effect with apparently inefficacious means.

If we have been unable to receive as historical the simple narrative given by all the synoptical writers of the cure of the blind man at Jericho, we are still less prepared to award this character to the mysterious description, given by Mark alone, of the cure of a blind man at Bethsaida, and we must regard it as a product of the legend, with more or less addition from the evangelical narrator. The same judgment must be pronounced on his narrative of the cure of the deaf man who had an impediment in his speech κωφὸς μογιλάλος; for, together with the negative reasons already adduced against its historical credibility, there are not wanting positive causes for its mythical origin, since the prophecy relating to the messianic times, τότε ὦτα κωφῶν ἀκούσονται—τρανὴ δὲ ἔσται γλῶσσα μογιλάλων, the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped, the tongue of the dumb shall sing (Isa. xxxv. 5, 6), was in existence, and according to Matt. xi. 5, was interpreted literally.

If the narratives of Mark which we have just considered, seem at the first glance to be favourable to the natural explanation, the narrative of John, chap. ix., must, one would think, be unfavourable and destructive to it; for here the question is not concerning a blind man, whose malady having originated accidentally, might be easier to remove, but concerning a man born blind. Nevertheless, as the expositors of this class are sharp-sighted, and do not soon lose courage, they are able even here to discover much in their favour. In the first place, they find that the condition of the patient is but vaguely described, however definite the expression, blind from his birth, τυφλὸν ἐκ γενετῆς may seem to sound. The statement of time which this expression includes, Paulus, it is true, refrains from overthrowing (though his forbearance is unwilling and in fact incomplete): hence he has the more urgent necessity for attempting to shake the statement as to quality. Τυφλὸς is not to signify total blindness, and as Jesus tells the man to go to the pool of Siloam, not to get himself led thither, he must have still had some glimmering of eye-sight, by means of which he could himself find the way thither. Still more help do the rationalistic commentators find for themselves in the mode of cure adopted by Jesus. He says beforehand (v. 4) he must work the works of him that sent him while it is day, ἕως ἡμέρα ἐστὶν, for in the night no man can work; a sufficient proof that he had not the idea of curing the blind man by a mere word, which he might just as well have uttered in the night—that, on the contrary, he intended to undertake a medical or surgical operation, for which certainly daylight was required. Further, the clay, πηλὸς, which Jesus made with his spittle, and with which he anointed the eyes of the blind man, is still more favourable to the natural explanation than the expression πτύσας having spit, in a former case, and hence it is a fertile source of questions and conjectures. Whence did John know that Jesus took nothing more than spittle and dust to make his eye-salve? Was he himself present, or did he understand it merely from the narrative of the cured blind man? The latter could not: with his then weak glimmering of sight, correctly see what Jesus took: perhaps Jesus while he mixed a salve out of other ingredients accidentally spat upon the ground, and the patient fell into the error of supposing that the spittle made part of the salve. Still more: while or before Jesus put something on the eyes, did he not also remove something by extraction or friction, or otherwise effect a change in the state of these organs? This would be an essential fact which might easily be mistaken by the blind man and the spectators for a merely accessory circumstance. Lastly, the washing in the pool of Siloam which was prescribed to the patient was perhaps continued many days—was a protracted cure by means of the bath—and the words ἦλθε βλέπων he came seeing, do not necessarily imply that he came thus after his first bath, but that at a convenient time after the completion of his cure, he came again seeing. [1288]

But, to begin at the beginning, the meaning here given to ἡμέρα and νὺξ is too shallow even for Venturini, [1289] and especially clashes with the context (v. 5), which throughout demands an interpretation of the words with reference to the speedy departure of Jesus. [1290] As to the conjecture that the clay was made of medicinal ingredients of some kind or other, it is the more groundless, since it cannot be said here, as in the former case, that only so much is stated as the patient could learn by his hearing or by a slight glimmering of light, for, on this occasion, Jesus undertook the cure, not in private, but in the presence of his disciples. Concerning the further supposition of previous surgical operations, by which the anointing and washing, alone mentioned in the text, are reduced to mere accessories, nothing more is to be said, than that by this example we may see how completely the spirit of natural explanation despises all restraints, not scrupling to pervert the clearest words of the text in support of its arbitrary combinations. Further, when, from the circumstance that Jesus ordered the blind man to go to the pool of Siloam, it is inferred that he must have had a share of light, we may remark, in opposition to this, that Jesus merely told the patient whither he should go (ὑπάγεν); how he was to go, whether alone or with a guide, he left to his own discretion. Lastly, when the closely connected words he went his way, therefore, and washed and came seeing, ἀπῆλθεν οὖν καὶ ἐνίψατο καὶ ἦλθε βλέπων (v. 7; comp. v. 11) are stretched out into a process of cure lasting several weeks, it is just as if the words veni, vidi, vici, were translated thus: After my arrival I reconnoitred for several days, fought battles at suitable intervals, and finally remained conqueror.

Thus here also the natural explanation will not serve us, and we have still before us the narrative of a man born blind, miraculously cured by Jesus. That the doubts already expressed as to the reality of the cures of the blind, apply with increased force to the case of a man born blind, is self-evident. And they are aided in this instance by certain special critical reasons. Not one of three first Evangelists mentions this cure. Now, if in the formation of the apostolic tradition, and in the selection which it made from among the miracles of Jesus, any kind of reason was exercised, it must have taken the shape of the two following rules: first, to choose the greater miracles before those apparently less important; and secondly, those with which edifying discourses were connected, before those which were not thus distinguished. In the first respect, it is plain that the cure of a man blind from his birth, as the incomparably more difficult miracle, was by all means to be chosen rather than that of a man in whom blindness had supervened, and it is not to be conceived why, if Jesus really gave sight to a man born blind, nothing of this should have entered into the evangelical tradition, and from thence into the synoptical gospels. It is true that with this consideration of the magnitude of the miracles, a regard to the edifying nature of the discourses connected with them might not seldom come into collision, so that a less striking, but from the conversations which it caused, a more instructive miracle, might be preferred to one more striking, but presenting less of the latter kind of interest. But the cure of the blind man in John is accompanied by very remarkable conversations, first, of Jesus with the disciples, then, of the cured man with the magistrates, and lastly of Jesus with the cured man, such as there is no trace of in the synoptical cures of the blind; conversations in which, if not the entire course of the dialogue, at least some aphoristic pearls (as v. 4, 5, 39), were admirably suited to the purpose of three first Evangelists. These writers, therefore, could not have failed to introduce the cure of the man born blind into their histories, instead of their less remarkable and less edifying cures of the blind, if the former had made a part of the evangelical tradition whence they drew. It might possibly have remained unknown to the general Christian tradition, if it had taken place at a time and under circumstances which did not favour its promulgation—if it had been effected in a remote corner of the country, without further witnesses. But Jesus performed this miracle in Jerusalem, in the circle of his disciples; it made a great sensation in the city, and was highly offensive to the magistracy, hence the affair must have been known if it had really occurred; and as we do not find it in the common evangelical tradition, the suspicion arises that it perhaps never did occur.

But it will be said, the writer who attests it is the Apostle John. This, however, is too improbable, not only on account of the incredible nature of the contents of the narrative, which could thus hardly have proceeded from an eyewitness, but also from another reason. The narrator interprets the name of the pool, Siloam, by the Greek ἀπεσταλμένος (v. 7); a false explanation, for one who is sent is called שָׁלוּחַ, whereas שִּׁלחַ according to the most probable interpretation signifies a waterfall. [1291] The Evangelist, however, chose the above interpretation, because he sought for some significant relation between the name of the pool, and the sending thither of the blind man, and thus seems to have imagined that the pool had by a special providence received the name of Sent, because at a future time the Messiah, as a manifestation of his glory, was to send thither a blind man. [1292] Now, we grant that an apostle might give a grammatically incorrect explanation, in so far as he is not held to be inspired, and that even a native of Palestine might mistake the etymology of Hebrew words, as the Old Testament itself shows; nevertheless, such a play upon words looks more like the laboured attempt of a writer remote from the event, than of an eye-witness. The eye-witness would have had enough of important matters in the miracle which he had beheld, and the conversation to which he had listened; only a remote narrator could fall into the triviality of trying to extort a significant meaning from the smallest accessory circumstance. Tholuck and Lücke are highly revolted by this allegory, which, as the latter expresses himself, approaches to absolute folly, hence they are unwilling to admit that it proceeded from John, and regard it as a gloss. As, however, all critical authorities, except one of minor importance, present this particular, such a position is sheer arbitrariness, and the only choice left us is either with Olshausen, to edify ourselves by this interpretation as an apostolic one, [1293] or, with the author of the Probabilia, to number it among the indications that the fourth gospel had not an apostolic origin. [1294]

The reasons which might prevent the author of the fourth gospel, or the tradition whence he drew, from resting contented with the cures of the blind narrated by the synoptical writers, and thus induce the one or the other to frame the history before us, are already pointed out by the foregoing remarks. The observation has been already made by others, that the fourth Evangelist has fewer miracles than the synoptical writers, but that this deficiency in number is compensated by a superiority in magnitude. [1295] Thus while the other Evangelists have simple paralytics cured by Jesus, the fourth gospel has one who had been lame thirty-eight years; while, in the former, Jesus resuscitates persons who had just expired, in the latter, he calls back to life one who had lain in the grave four days, in whom therefore it might be presumed that decomposition had begun; and so here, instead of a cure of simple blindness, we have that of a man born blind,—a heightening of the miracle altogether suited to the apologetic and dogmatic tendency of this gospel. In what way the author, or the particular tradition which he followed, might be led to depict the various details of the narrative, is easily seen. The act of spitting, πτύειν, was common in magical cures of the eyes; clay, πηλὸς, was a ready substitute for an eye-salve, and elsewhere occurs in magical proceedings; [1296] the command to wash in the pool of Siloam may have been an imitation of Elisha’s order, that the leper Naaman should bathe seven times in the river Jordan. The conversations connected with the cure partly proceed from the tendency of the Gospel of John already remarked by Storr, namely, to attest and to render as authentic as possible both the cure of the man, and the fact of his having been born blind, whence the repeated examination of the cured man, and even of his parents; partly they turn upon the symbolical meaning of the expressions, blind and seeing, day and night,—a meaning which it is true is not foreign to the synoptical writers, but which specifically belongs to the circle of images in favour with John.

§ 96.

CURES OF PARALYTICS. DID JESUS REGARD DISEASES AS PUNISHMENTS?

An important feature in the history of the cure of the man born blind has been passed over, because it can only be properly estimated in connexion with a corresponding one in the synoptical narratives of the cure of a paralytic (Matt. ix. 1 ff.; Mark ii. 1 ff.; Luke v. 17 ff.), which we have in the next place to consider. Here Jesus first declares to the sick man: ἀφέωνταί σοί αἱ ἁμαρτίαι σου, thy sins are forgiven thee, and then as a proof that he had authority to forgive sins, he cures him. It is impossible not to perceive in this a reference to the Jewish opinion, that any evil befalling an individual, and especially disease, was a punishment of his sins; an opinion which, presented in its main elements in the Old Testament (Lev. xxvi. 14 ff.; Deut. xxviii. 15 ff.; 2 Chron. xxi. 15, 18 f.) was expressed in the most definite manner by the later Jews. [1297] Had we possessed that synoptical narrative only, we must have believed that Jesus shared the opinion of his cotemporary fellow-countrymen on this subject, since he proves his authority to forgive sins (as the cause of disease) by an example of his power to cure disease (the consequence of sin). But, it is said, there are other passages where Jesus directly contradicts this Jewish opinion; whence it follows, that what he then says to the paralytic was a mere accommodation to the ideas of the sick man, intended to promote his cure. [1298]

The principal passage commonly adduced in support of this position, is the introduction to the history of the man born blind, which was last considered (John ix. 1–3). Here the disciples, seeing on the road the man whom they knew to have been blind from his birth, put to Jesus the question, whether his blindness was the consequence of his own sins, or of those of his parents? The case was a peculiarly difficult one on the Jewish theory of retribution. With respect to diseases which attach themselves to a man in his course through life, an observer who has once taken a certain bias, may easily discover or assume some peculiar delinquencies on the part of this man as their cause. With respect to inborn diseases, on the contrary, though the old Hebraic opinion (Exod. xx. 5; Deut. v. 9; 2 Sam. iii. 29), it is true, presented the explanation that by these the sins of the fathers were visited on their posterity: yet as, for human regulations, the Mosaic law itself ordained that each should suffer for his own sins alone (Deut. xxiv. 16; 2 Kings xiv. 6); and as also, in relation to the penal justice of the Divine Being, the prophets predicted a similar dispensation (Jer. xxxi. 30; Ezek. xviii. 19 f.); rabbinical acumen resorted to the expedient of supposing, that men so afflicted might probably have sinned in their mother’s womb, [1299] and this was doubtless the notion which the disciples had in view in their question, v. 2. Jesus says, in answer, that neither for his own sin nor for that of his parents, did this man come into the world blind; but in order that by the cure which he, as the Messiah, would effect in him, he might be an instrument in manifesting the miraculous power of God. This is generally understood as if Jesus repudiated the whole opinion, that disease and other evils were essentially punishments of sin. But the words of Jesus are expressly limited to the case before him; he simply says, that this particular misfortune had its foundation, not in the guilt of the individual, but in higher providential designs. The supposition that his expressions had a more general sense, and included a repudiation of the entire Jewish opinion, could only be warranted by other more decided declarations from him to that effect. As, on the contrary, according to the above observations, a narrative is found in the synoptical gospels which, simply interpreted, implies the concurrence of Jesus in the prevalent opinion, the question arises: which is easier, to regard the expression of Jesus in the synoptical narratives as an accommodation, or that in John as having relation solely to the case immediately before him?—a question which will be decided in favour of the latter alternative by every one who, on the one hand, knows the difficulties attending the hypothesis of accommodation as applied to the expressions of Jesus in the gospels, and on the other, is clear-sighted enough to perceive, that in the passage in question in the fourth gospel, there is not the slightest intimation that the declaration of Jesus had a more general meaning.

It is true that according to correct principles of interpretation, one Evangelist ought not to be explained immediately by another, and in the present case it is very possible that while the synoptical writers ascribe to Jesus the common opinion of his age, the more highly cultivated author of the fourth gospel may make him reject it: but that he also confined the rejection of the current opinion on the part of Jesus to that single case, is proved by the manner in which he represents Jesus as speaking on another occasion. When, namely, Jesus says to the man who had been lame thirty-eight years (John v.) and had just been cured, μηκέτι ἁμάρτανε, ἵνα μὴ χεῖρόν τί σοι γένηται (v. 14), Sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee; this is equivalent to his saying to the paralytic whom he was about to cure, ἀφέωνταί σοι αἱ ἁμαρτίαι σου, thy sins are forgiven thee: in the one case disease is removed, in the other threatened, as a punishment of sin. But here again the expositors, to whom it is not agreeable that Jesus should hold an opinion which they reject, find a means of evading the direct sense of the words. Jesus, say they, perceived that the particular disease of this man was a natural consequence of certain excesses, and warned him from a repetition of these as calculated to bring on a more dangerous relapse. [1300] But an insight into the natural connexion between certain excesses and certain diseases as their consequence, is far more removed from the mode of thinking of the age in which Jesus lived, than the notion of a positive connexion between sin in general and disease as its punishment; hence, if we are nevertheless to ascribe the former sense to the words of Jesus, it must be very distinctly conveyed in the text. But the fact is that in the whole narrative there is no intimation of any particular excess on the part of the man; the words μηκέτι ἁμάρτανε relate only to sin in general, and to supply a conversation of Jesus with the sick man, in which he is supposed to have acquainted the former with the connexion between his sufferings and a particular sin, [1301] is the most arbitrary fiction. What exposition! for the sake of evading a result which is dogmatically unwelcome, to extend the one passage (John ix.) to a generality of meaning not really belonging to it, to elude the other (Matt. ix.) by the hypothesis of accommodation, and forcibly to affix to a third (John v.) a modern idea; whereas if the first passage be only permitted to say no more than it actually says, the direct meaning of the other two may remain unviolated!

But another passage, and that a synoptical one, is adduced in vindication of the superiority of Jesus to the popular opinion in question. This passage is Luke xiii. 1 ff., where Jesus is told of the Galileans whom Pilate had caused to be slain while they were in the act of sacrificing, and of others who were killed by the falling of a tower. From what follows, we must suppose the informants to have intimated their opinion that these calamities were to be regarded as a divine visitation for the peculiar wickedness of the parties so signally destroyed. Jesus replied that they must not suppose those men to have been especially sinful; they themselves were in no degree better, and unless they repented would meet with a similar destruction. Truly it is not clear how in these expressions of Jesus a repudiation of the popular notion can be found. If Jesus wished to give his voice in opposition to this, he must either have said: you are equally great sinners, though you may not perish bodily in the same manner; or: do you believe that those men perished on account of their sins? No! the contrary may be seen in you, who, notwithstanding your wickedness, are not thus smitten with death. On the contrary, the expressions of Jesus as given by Luke can only have the following sense: that those men have already met with such calamities is no evidence of their peculiar wickedness, any more than the fact that you have been hitherto spared the like, is an evidence of your greater worth, on the contrary, earlier or later, similar judgments falling on you will attest your equal guilt:—whereby the supposed law of the connexion between the sin and misfortune of every individual is confirmed, not overthrown. This vulgar Hebrew opinion concerning sickness and evil, is indeed in contradiction with that esoteric view, partly Essene, partly Ebionite, which we have found in the introduction to the Sermon on the Mount, the parable of the rich man, and elsewhere, and according to which the righteous in this generation are the suffering, the poor and the sick; but both opinions are clearly to be seen in the discourses of Jesus by an unprejudiced exegesis, and the contradiction, which we find between them authorizes us neither to put a forced construction on the one class of expressions, nor to deny them to have really come from Jesus, since we cannot calculate how he may have solved for himself the opposition between two ideas of the world, presented to him by different sides of the Jewish culture of that age.

As regards the above-mentioned cure, the synoptical writers make Jesus in his reply to the messengers of the Baptist, appeal to the fact that the lame walked (Matt. xi. 5), and at another time the people wonder when, among other miracles, they see the maimed to be whole and the lame to walk (Matt. xv. 31). In the place of the lame, χωλοὶ, paralytics, παραλυτικοὶ are elsewhere brought forward (Matt. iv. 24), and especially in the detailed histories of cures relating to this kind of sufferers (as Matt. ix. 1 ff. parall., viii. 5, parall.), παραλυτικοὶ, and not χωλοὶ, are named. The sick man at the pool of Bethesda (John v. 5) belongs probably to the χωλοῖς spoken of in v. 3; there also ξηροὶ, withered, are mentioned, and in Matt. xii. 9 ff. parall. we find the cure of a man who had a withered hand. As however the three last named cures will return to us under different heads, all that remains here for our examination is the cure of the paralytic Matt. ix. 1 ff. parall.

As the definitions which the ancient physicians give of paralysis, though they all show it to have been a species of lameness, yet leave it undecided whether the lameness was total or partial; [1302] and as, besides, no strict adherence to medical technicalities is to be expected from the Evangelists, we must gather what they understand by paralytics from their own descriptions of such patients. In the present passage, we read of the paralytic that he was borne on a bed κλίνη, and that to enable him to arise and carry his bed was an unprecedented wonder παράδοξον, whence we must conclude that he was lame, at least in the feet. While here there is no mention of pains, or of an acute character of disease, in another narrative (Matt. viii. 6) these are evidently presupposed when the centurion says that his servant is sick of the palsy, grievously tormented, βέβληται—παραλυτικὸς, δεινως βασανιζόμενος; so that under paralytics in the gospels we have at one time to understand a lameness without pain, at another a painful, gouty disease of the limbs. [1303]