Translate by Qwen who note: This is a theological commentary by the 17th-century Dominican scholar Noel Alexandre.The healing of the man born blind signifies the conversion of the Gentiles, who were born in the darkness of idolatry and ignorance. Christ, "passing by" Israel on account of their unbelief, turns to the nations. The clay made from spittle signifies the Incarnation: Eternal Wisdom united to our flesh. The washing in Siloam ("Sent") signifies baptism in the name of Christ, the One Sent by the Father. The blind man's obedience models the humility and docility required for illumination; the Pharisees' obstinacy warns against the peril of spiritual pride. True sight is faith; true blindness is the refusal to acknowledge one's need for the Light.
On John 9:1 – "He saw a man blind from birth"
The blindness of the body is an image of the spiritual blindness in which all the children of Adam are born—a blindness inflicted upon nature by sin. How lamentable is this blindness, which deprives us not of that light which we share with the beasts, but of the eternal light which is our life and our happiness! "And the life was the light of men" (John 1:4)—without which we sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.
Let us give thanks to our Savior, who, passing through this life—through the manger, through the Cross, through reproaches, sorrows, and death—mercifully looked upon us before we could see Him, and though we were children of darkness, by His grace and through faith made us children of light.
He saw the blind man; the blind man did not approach Him. By this circumstance is demonstrated the weakness of the human race, which cannot of itself approach Jesus unless prevented by His interior call of grace, whereby the desire for illumination is awakened within it: "That you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light" (1 Peter 2:9).
"Jesus, passing by, saw a man blind from birth." This blind man represents the human race. This blindness came upon us through sin in the first man, from whom we all draw our origin—not only of death, but also of iniquity. For if blindness is unbelief, and faith is sight, whom did Christ find faithful when He came? Even the Apostle, born among the people of the Prophets, says: "We too were once by nature children of wrath, even as others" (Eph. 2:3). If children of wrath, then children of vengeance, of punishment, of hell. How "by nature," unless because in the first man, vice took root as though it were nature? If it took root as nature, then according to the mind of Scripture, every blind man is born blind. For if he sees, he has no need of a guide or illuminator; therefore, he is blind from birth.
The whole world is blind; the first man, having been deceived, caused all to be born blind. Therefore Christ came as the Illuminator, because the devil had been the blinder.
"Jesus, passing by, saw a man blind from birth." That Jesus, while passing by, saw and illuminated the blind man was a sign that He would depart from the Jews and abandon that impious nation, and would turn His regard to the Gentiles, pouring upon them all the bounty of His mercy. The Gentiles also are likened to the man born blind, in that they were born in darkness and, from their earliest beginnings, lacked true knowledge of God, nor were they illuminated by God through His Spirit. The blind man, beheld by Christ in His passing, signifies that the eyes of the Gentiles were healed; it indicates that Christ did not properly come to the Gentiles, but to Israel alone. "I was not sent," He says, "except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel" (Matt. 15:24). Yet in His "passing," Christ showed mercy to the Gentiles on account of the rebellion and unbelief of Israel. And this is what Moses sang: "I will provoke them to jealousy by those who are not a people, and move them to anger by a foolish nation" (Deut. 32:21). For that foolish nation, which, neglecting the Creator, clings to creatures, and like irrational animals feeds on every iniquity and clings only to earthly and perishable things—because Israel provoked God to anger, that people wise and learned in the Law and the Prophets was, in turn, taken up by God in His wrath, and in their place were taken up the foolish, to whom Christ became through faith and wisdom "sanctification and redemption," according to Scripture, "light and illumination."
On John 9:2 – "His disciples asked Him: 'Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?'"
The disciples of Christ held the persuasion that illnesses and bodily infirmities, generally speaking, derive their origin from the sin of Adam. They believed that a heavy yoke rests upon the children of Adam from the day of their birth, subjecting them to various miseries and calamities. Those who suffer under this yoke should humble themselves under the just hand of God, who subjects sinners alone to punishments and miseries—either to punish their sins, or to purify and cleanse them from sin.
Therefore, that blind man was a sinner, although he did not suffer congenital blindness on account of his personal sin or that of his parents, but rather for the manifestation of the glory of God through a miracle, and for the glory of His Son Jesus Christ: "That the works of God might be displayed in him" (John 9:3).
On John 9:3 – "Jesus answered: 'Neither this man nor his parents sinned…'"
That blind man was born innocent, or at least had committed no crime for which blindness would have been inflicted upon him by God as punishment. But whoever is spiritually blind is blind as a punishment for sin. "Ignorance itself," says St. Augustine, "in those who were unwilling to understand, is without doubt their sin; but in those who were unable, it is the punishment of sin. Therefore in both cases there is no just excuse, but just condemnation."
Thus, spiritual ignorance and blindness is either sin itself or the punishment of sin—at the very least, of original sin. Hence baptism, by which original sin is blotted out, is called by the Fathers of the early centuries "the Sacrament of Illumination," and their sermons on baptism are entitled On the Holy Lights.
Yet that Sacrament, by which the sin derived from Adam is washed away, does not completely free us from the wounds and punishments that are its consequences in our fallen state. Just as charity, poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, does not extinguish concupiscence, so the light of faith that rises in our minds does not utterly dispel the darkness of ignorance. Therefore we must have recourse to the Lord, who is our light and our salvation: "The Lord is my light and my salvation; my God, who illuminates my darkness." The Lord illuminates—the illuminated are illuminated; the Lord saves—the saved are saved. If, therefore, He illuminates us, we are illuminated; and He saves us, we are saved. Apart from Him, we are darkness and weakness.
The immutable Truth is God. The soul that departs from Him is darkened; the soul that approaches Him is illuminated. Therefore, man is the author of his own blindness. Concupiscence, which gives birth to sin—by which we cling to the creature, forsaking the Creator—leaves us destitute of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit and delivers us to the devil. Thus Delilah, having shaved Samson's seven locks, delivered him to the Philistines, who gouged out his eyes, led him bound in chains to Gaza, shut him in prison, and made him grind at the mill, mocking him.
Those who sin mortally make a covenant with death and an agreement with hell: "We have made a covenant with death, and with hell we have made an agreement" (Isa. 28:15). But the devil makes a covenant with them on the same condition as the Prince of the Ammonites once proposed to the inhabitants of Jabesh: "On this condition," he said, "will I make a treaty with you: that I gouge out all your right eyes, and thus bring reproach upon all Israel" (1 Sam. 11:2).
The soul has two eyes: the first is the eye of faith, or the eye of Christian prudence—this is the right eye; the eye of carnal prudence is the left eye. The first contemplates the saving truths, the divine mysteries; the other gazes upon perishable and earthly things. The devil gouges out the right eye of sinners, but preserves the left, so that they may be sharp for vain things, dull for eternal things, as St. Ambrose says. The children of Hagar, "who seek the wisdom that is of the earth, the merchants of Teman, and the storytellers, and the seekers of understanding, yet have not known the way of wisdom" (Baruch 3:23), multiply their sins the more; their blindness increases, as God withdraws the light of His grace from them, who, by an unwearied law, scatters penal blindness upon sinful desires.
On John 9:4 – "I must work the works of Him who sent Me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work"
As long as we enjoy the use of light, as long as we live, let us do the works of God; let us apply ourselves to the work of our salvation; let us fulfill the duties of our state. Let us take heed lest the night overtake us—the night in which no one can work for salvation; the night that will be eternal for sinners, without hope of light or day, because the Sun of Justice will never rise for them, once they are cast into outer darkness.
Whoever dies in sin is enveloped in that night, because he did not perform the works of God, but the works of the devil. In that night, the Rich Man burned in Hades and begged for a drop of water from the finger of the poor man; he grieved, he was tormented, he confessed—yet no help came to him, though he then desired to do good. For he said to Abraham: "Father Abraham, send Lazarus to my brothers, that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torment" (Luke 16:27-28). O unhappy one! When you were alive, that was the time for working; now you are already in the night, in which no one can work.
Let us also fear that night which envelops sinners blinded in this present life, who do not perform the works of God, the works of light, but only the works of darkness.
On John 9:6-7 – "He spat on the ground and made clay with the saliva, and anointed the blind man's eyes with the clay. And He said to him, 'Go, wash in the pool of Siloam' (which means 'Sent'). So he went and washed, and came back seeing."
The clay made from earth and the saliva of Christ Jesus is a figure of the union of Eternal Wisdom with the earth of our flesh, and of the virtue dwelling in that holy flesh, for the dispelling of the darkness of our minds and the opening of the eyes of our inner man. The water of the fountain of Siloam is an image of the baptism of Christ, the One Sent by the Father, by which the blindness congenital to the children of Adam is healed in those who obey the faith.
"He made clay from His spittle and anointed his eyes." As though Light touched the clay, He infused illumination; as a priest, through the figure of baptism, He fulfilled the mysteries of the Spirit. He spat, that you might understand that the inner realities of Christ are light. And truly he sees who is cleansed within. "His saliva washes; His saliva cleanses." Whence He says: "You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you" (John 15:3).
But what does it signify that He made clay and anointed the blind man's eyes, unless that He who formed man from clay restored him to health by anointing him with clay? And that this flesh of our clay, through the Sacrament of baptism, receives the light of eternal life?
Come, you also, to Siloam—that is, to Him who was Sent by the Father. Let Christ wash you, that you may see. "Draw near to Him and be illuminated" (Ps. 34:5).
"He made clay from His spittle and anointed the blind man's eyes…" It could not have happened otherwise that the Gentiles, upon whom blindness had been imposed, should shake it off and contemplate the divine and holy light—that is, attain knowledge of the holy and consubstantial Trinity—unless they became partakers of His holy flesh and washed away the blackness of sin, putting off the power of darkness through holy baptism.
Moreover, while the Savior impressed upon the blind man a figure anticipating the time of fulfillment, He was meanwhile accomplishing that participation through the anointing of spittle. Indeed, in a type of baptism, He commands the blind man to be quickly washed in Siloam—which the Evangelist interprets as "Sent." We believe that that Fountain is none other than the Only-Begotten Son, sent and delegated from heaven by the Father for the destruction of perdition and the overthrow of diabolical tyranny. Those who acknowledge Him and swim in the waters of the holy Pool are washed with faith—not for the cleansing of the flesh, but as though removing the discharge and impurity of the eyes of the mind, that, being pure, we may purely behold the divine beauty.
Just as we believe that the body of Christ is life-giving, because it is the temple and dwelling-place of the living Word of God, possessing all His power and operation, so we say that it is also the treasury of illumination. For truly, according to its nature, it is the body of Light. And when He raised the dead son of the widow, He was not content merely to command and say, "Young man, I say to you, arise"—although He usually accomplishes things by His word alone—but He also touched the bier with His hand, teaching that even His body possesses life-giving power and efficacy. Thus He anointed the blind man's eyes with spittle, teaching that even by the slightest touch of His body, He can confer light; for His body is that of true Light.
"He made clay from His spittle and anointed the blind man's eyes…" The Gospel records that the blind were illuminated by Jesus in three ways: (1) by His word; (2) by His touch; (3) by the anointing of clay and washing in the pool of Siloam. So too, spiritually, Christ illuminates the blind in three ways:
By His Word, through the preaching of His Gospel: "Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path" (Ps. 119:105).
By afflictions and calamities inflicted, as though by the saving touch of His hand: "The hand of the Lord has touched me" (Job 19:21). For prosperity blinds us; adversity illuminates us, that we may return to God. "In the light of Your arrows they shall go" (Hab. 3:11). In prosperity, the dangers of hell are incurred and go unnoticed; "The dangers of hell found me," says St. Augustine; "but I did not find them, because I was rejoicing in the prosperity of the world, in which the dangers of hell deceive all the more."
By the anointing of clay, that is, by consideration of our own nothingness and sincere humility, as well as by the salutary tears of repentance. "By my swelling," says St. Augustine, "I was separated from You; my face, too inflated, closed my eyes. But merciful Jesus made clay from spittle and anointed my eyes."
"And He said to him, 'Go, wash in the pool of Siloam.' So he went and washed, and came back seeing." That man, born blind, simply and humbly obeyed Christ, who wished to illuminate him. But the spiritually blind are rebellious toward Christ, who wishes to heal their blindness: "They were rebellious to the light" (Job 24:13).
Consider the blind man's obedience. He did not say: "If it is clay or spittle that restores sight, what need have I of the waters of Siloam? If the waters of Siloam cure blindness, why the clay? Why did He anoint? Why command me to wash? Might not the clay blind me if I could see? Or does it have power to illuminate the blind?" How many blind men washed in the waters of Siloam, and none received sight! He did not doubt; he did not hesitate—as Naaman the Syrian did; he did not murmur against Jesus commanding him to wash his eyes in the Pool of Siloam, as Naaman murmured against Elisha commanding him to wash in the Jordan. "He went and washed, and came back seeing."
Let us also wash in the Pool of repentance, that we may receive interior sight. Dust and phlegm we are; sins and iniquities are these. Remove all these, and you shall see Wisdom, who is present—because God Himself is that Wisdom. Let us wipe away the filth of the soul; for an unclean soul cannot behold the light of true Wisdom. The filth of the soul is love of any things besides the soul itself and God; and the more one is purified from these filths, the more easily one beholds the truth. And as St. Augustine says elsewhere: "The Wisdom of God draws every rational soul by desire for itself—the more ardent, the more pure; and the more pure, the more it rises to spiritual things; and the more it rises to spiritual things, the more it dies to carnal things."
On John 9:10-11 – "So they said to him, 'How were your eyes opened?' He answered, 'The man called Jesus made clay…'"
Many doubt concerning Christ out of unbelief; or remain silent out of fear; or examine His works out of curiosity; or persecute Him out of malice. But the one blind man who was illuminated confesses and proclaims Him openly, before the crowd, before the priests, the scribes, the Pharisees, and the senators—out of faith and grateful affection.
The Pharisees, spiritually blind, love their darkness more than the light. They question the man born blind with malicious curiosity, asking how he received sight—and they close their eyes to the true Light present among them.
"So the Pharisees again asked him how he had received his sight…" The argument of their blindness is their perverse judgment concerning Christ Jesus, proceeding from envy, which judges works based on a prejudiced attitude against persons—whereas equity demands that judgment concerning persons be based on the holiness of their works.
"Some of the Pharisees said, 'This man is not from God, for He does not keep the Sabbath.' But others said, 'How can a sinner perform such signs?' And there was a division among them."
There is an evil concord and a good discord. Indeed, those who built the tower were in concord for evil; hence, though unwillingly, they were scattered and divided. And the companions of Korah were wickedly united; therefore they were rightly divided. And Judas with the Jews wickedly consented. Evil concord must be cut off; good discord must be preserved and fostered. Let us flee the wicked; let us follow the good. For if an incurable member threatens to corrupt the rest through fear, we cut it off—not because we neglect it, but that we may save the rest. How much more must this be done with those who are wickedly joined to us, if we can make them better and they do not harm us! All means should be tried; but if they are incorrigible and harmful to our salvation, they must be cut off from us. "Purge the evil person from among yourselves," says the Apostle (1 Cor. 5:13). "Remove from among you the one who has done this deed."
Dangerous is the company of the wicked. Pestilence and scabies do not infect and corrupt so quickly as the malice of depraved men. "Bad company corrupts good morals" (1 Cor. 15:33). Let no one enlist an evil friend for himself. If we disown lost children, fearing neither nature nor its laws nor any bond of kinship, how much more shall we flee acquaintances and those bound to us by habit, if they are wicked! For even if no harm should result from them, we cannot avoid evil suspicions. For strangers scrutinize our lives so closely, but [judge us] by our associates and habits.
On John 9:17 – "So they said to him again, 'What do you say about Him, since He opened your eyes?' He said, 'He is a Prophet.'"
He who was begun by Christ Jesus—ignoble and poor in the eyes of the world—surpasses in wisdom the leading Jews, the Pharisees, and the scribes; and in constancy in confessing the truth, he surpasses his own parents. They cry out that Jesus is not from God, that He is a sinner and a transgressor of the Law; but this man proclaims Him a Prophet, sent by God, teaching and working by the authority and in the name of God.
The parents of the man born blind, although they knew from their son's testimony that he had been healed and illuminated by Jesus, nevertheless did not wish to expose themselves to the danger of persecution for the sake of Jesus—not even for their son's sake. Therefore they conceal the miracle, evade the Pharisees' questioning, remain silent out of fear of disgrace, and refuse to take up the cause of confessing the truth: "How he now sees, we do not know; or who opened his eyes, we do not know. He is of age; ask him; he will speak for himself." The Evangelist adds: "His parents said these things because they feared the Jews; for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone should confess Him to be the Christ, he would be put out of the synagogue."
On John 9:27-28 – "Will you also become His disciples?"
Those whom God has illuminated by His grace and made children of light—who were once darkness, but now are light in the Lord—ought to reflect the light they have received upon their neighbors; to dispel the darkness of impiety on every occasion given; to speak magnificently and with zeal and constancy concerning religion and piety before unbelievers; to proclaim the benefits of God and the power and riches of His grace in themselves and in other sinners; to strive by all means that others may be led to the knowledge of their duties, to horror and hatred of sin, and to the love of God; that they may not examine the Word of God and the doctrine of the Church with censorious liberty, but hear it with a humble and docile mind, preserve it, and obey its commandments—without the observance of which one cannot attain eternal life.
"Will you also become His disciples?" Truly the disciple of Christ Jesus was the illuminated blind man, who was counted worthy, at the very beginning of his illumination, to suffer reproach for His name.
"They reviled him and said, 'You be His disciple; but we are disciples of Moses.'"
On John 9:31 – "We know that God does not hear sinners; but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does His will, He hears him."
God does not hear the prayers of the impious and of sinners who persevere in the affection of mortal sin and do not even begin repentance. "The impious and his impiety are hateful to the Lord" (Wis. 14:9); therefore his vows and prayers cannot please God, nor are they heard by Him. "When you multiply your prayer, I will not hear, for your hands are full of blood" (Isa. 1:15).
But God hears the prayers of sinners who truly and sincerely repent, and who have put away the affection for sin out of love for God. Of these it is written: "A broken and contrite heart, O God, You will not despise" (Ps. 51:17). Thus God heard the Publican, who cast his eyes to the ground, struck his breast, and said, "God, be merciful to me, a sinner" (Luke 18:13). That confession merited justification, just as this blind man merited illumination. God commanded light to shine out of darkness in his mind and heart.
Above the elders and teachers of Israel, that blind man understood; he taught and confuted the proud wise men, now himself hearing the interior Teacher, Wisdom. "Since the world began it has been unheard of that anyone opened the eyes of one born blind. If this Man were not from God, He could do nothing" (John 9:32-33). Not the letter, but the Spirit; not reading, but the anointing taught him this.
On John 9:34 – "They answered and said to him, 'You were born in sins, and are you teaching us?' And they cast him out."
Arrogantly and contemptuously, shepherds sometimes treat even innocent sheep. "You were born entirely in sins!" They impatiently endure that the duties of the pastoral office be brought before their eyes—even with the greatest humility and modesty—by their subjects. "And are you teaching us?" They do not love unity; they expel the undeserving from the flock, nor do they much seek to recall deserters, or to invite and draw in strangers. "That there may be one fold and one shepherd" (John 10:16).
"And they cast him out." Because they had questioned him so often, and ungratefully cast out their teacher—they cast him out, but the Lord received him. Indeed, because he was expelled, he became a Christian; and not only a Christian, but a Confessor of Christ. Excluded from communion with the Jewish synagogue, he is received into the Church by Christ Jesus. Let this be a consolation to Christians who are struck by unjust censures: What does that tablet [of excommunication] intend, if not that human ignorance should not erase him from the Book of Life, nor an iniquitous conscience? Let him remain in unity and charity; let him avoid scandal; let him keep patience; let him cling to Christ, the Head of the Church, from whom, according to the spirit, the innocent is not separated; and God will reward his patience.
On John 9:35-38 – "Jesus heard that they had cast him out; and when He found him, He said, 'Do you believe in the Son of God?'"
Mercy runs to meet the wretched; He finds the one seeking Him; He finds in time the one whom He chose from eternity; He finds by outward meeting the one whom He had already prevented and found interiorly. He asks concerning faith, that He may prepare him for believing by the pious desire which He awakens.
"Who is He, Lord, that I may believe in Him?" He opens the heart to believe, and infuses the light of faith within, while He speaks and manifests Himself outwardly—in words that are, so to speak, sacramental, which effect what they signify. "He spoke, and light was made." He commanded light, and created it.
"And Jesus said to him, 'You have both seen Him, and it is He who is talking with you.' And he said, 'Lord, I believe.'" Then he is perfectly freed from original blindness, when he professes to believe in the Only-Begotten Son of God, Jesus Christ, our Lord. For no one is freed from the condemnation that came through Adam except through faith in Jesus Christ—faith, I say, formed by charity, sustained by humility, and prostrate in religion and adoration before God and Jesus Christ, His Son.
"And falling down, he worshiped Him."
On John 9:39 – "For judgment I have come into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may become blind."
That those who see not—that is, the humble who acknowledge their blindness—may see, not by any merits of their own, but by the free gift of God's mercy; and that those who see—that is, who are wise in their own eyes—may become blind, by the hidden but always just judgment of God.
"And some of the Pharisees who were with Him heard these things, and said to Him, 'Are we also blind?' Jesus said to them, 'If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you say, "We see." Therefore your sin remains.'"
Because, saying "We see," you do not seek the Physician, you remain in your blindness. Therefore He called this distinction "judgment," when He said, "For judgment I have come into this world," by which He distinguishes the cause of those who believe and confess from that of the proud who think they see, and are therefore more grievously blinded. As though He had said to the confessing sinner who seeks the Physician: "Judge me, O God, and distinguish my cause from an ungodly nation" (Ps. 43:1)—that is, distinguish between those who say "We see" (and their sin remains) and those who, acknowledging their blindness, seek the Light.
CONTINUE
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