Homily 58 — John 9, verses 17 to 33

“They say to the blind man again, ‘What do you say about him, seeing that he opened your eyes?’ He said, ‘He is a prophet.’ So the Jews did not believe.” [a]

We must go through the Scriptures, not in a haphazard way or carelessly, but with all exactness, so that we do not get entangled. Even here someone might reasonably raise a question. When they had asserted, “This man is not from God, because he does not keep the Sabbath,” how is it that they now say to the man, “What do you say about him, seeing that he opened your eyes?” and not, “What do you say about him, seeing that he broke the Sabbath?” Why do they now put forward the ground of the defense, and not that of the accusation?

What, then, do we answer? That the men speaking here are not the ones who said, “This man is not from God,” but those who had separated themselves from them, the ones who also said, “A man who is a sinner cannot do such miracles.” They wanted to silence their opponents all the more, and at the same time not to seem to be partisans of Christ; so they bring forward the man who had received proof of his power, and question him.

Now notice the poor man’s wisdom: he speaks more wisely than all of them. First he says, “He is a prophet.” He did not shrink from the judgment of the perverse Jews who spoke against Christ and said, “How can this man be from God, when he does not keep the Sabbath?” He answered them, “He is a prophet.”

“And they did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight, until they had called his parents.”

See in how many ways they try to cloud the miracle over and do away with it. But this is the nature of truth: the very means by which people seem to attack it make it stronger, and it shines out through the very things that are meant to darken it. If these things had not taken place, the miracle might have been doubted by the many. But as it is, they go about everything as though they wanted to lay the truth bare. They could not have acted any differently if they had been doing it all on Christ’s behalf.

First they tried to bring him down by means of the way he healed, saying, “How did he open your eyes?” — that is, “Was it by some sorcery?” In another place too, when they had no charge to bring against him, they tried to slander the way he healed, saying, “He does not cast out demons except by Beelzebub” (Matthew 12, verse 24). And here again, when they have nothing to say, they fall back on the time of the healing, saying, “He breaks the Sabbath,” and again, “He is a sinner.”

Yet he asked you most plainly — you who wanted to kill him and were ready to seize on anything he did — “Which of you convicts me of sin?” (John 8, verse 46). And no one spoke up. No one said, “You blaspheme, because you make yourself out to be without sin.” If they had been able to say so, they would not have kept quiet. These were the men who wanted to stone him because they heard that he existed before Abraham, and who said that he was not from God. Murderers as they were, they boasted that they themselves were from God; yet they said that the one who did such wonders was not from God, because, after working a cure, he did not keep the Sabbath. If they had had so much as a shadow of a charge against him, they would never have let it pass.

And if they call him a sinner because he seemed to break the Sabbath, this charge too is shown to be unsound, since men of their own ranks condemn them for their great coldness and their smallness of soul.

So, caught on every side, they then turn to something else, still more shameless and brazen. What is it? They “did not believe,” the Scripture says, “that he had been blind and had received his sight.” Then how could they charge Christ with not keeping the Sabbath? Clearly, as men who did believe it. And why did you pay no attention to the great number of people, to the neighbors who knew him?

As I said, falsehood everywhere defeats itself by the very means with which it seems to harass the truth, and it makes the truth shine out more brightly. And that is what happened now. So that no one could say that his neighbors and those who had seen him were not speaking precisely but guessing from a resemblance, they bring forward his parents. Through them, against their own will, they succeeded in proving that what had happened was real, since the parents knew their own child best of all. When they could not frighten the man himself, but saw him proclaim his Benefactor with all boldness, they thought they could wound the miracle by means of his parents.

Notice the malice of their questioning. What does the Scripture say? They set the parents in the middle so as to throw them into distress, and they press the questioning with great severity and anger. Verse 19: “Is this your son” — they did not say, “who once was blind,” but — “of whom you say that he was born blind?”

As if the parents were acting deceitfully and plotting on Christ’s behalf! You accursed men, utterly accursed! What father would choose to invent such lies against his own child? They all but say, “The son you have made out to be blind — and not only that, but you have spread the story everywhere!”

“How then does he now see?”

What folly! It is as though one of them were saying, “The trick and the scheme are yours.” By these two things they try to lead the parents into a denial: by the words “of whom you say,” and by “How then does he now see?” [c]

Now three questions were asked: whether he was their son, whether he had been blind, and how he had received his sight. The parents acknowledged only two of them and did not add the third. This happened for the sake of the truth, so that no one but the man who had been healed, who was also worthy of belief, would acknowledge that point. And how could the parents have been favoring Christ, when out of fear of the Jews they did not even say part of what they knew? What do they say?

Verses 20 and 21: “We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind. But by what means he now sees we do not know, or who opened his eyes we do not know. He is of age; he will speak for himself.”

By making him out to be a trustworthy witness, they excused themselves. “He is not a child, and not incapable. He is able to testify for himself.”

Verse 22: “They spoke these words because they feared the Jews.” Notice how the evangelist again sets out their opinion and their thoughts. I say this because of what the Jews had said earlier: “He makes himself equal to God” (John 5, verse 18). If that too had been only the opinion of the Jews, and not Christ’s own judgment, the evangelist would have added that “it was an opinion of the Jews.”

So when the parents referred them to the man who had been healed, they called him a second time. They did not say openly and shamelessly, “Deny that Christ healed you.” Instead they wanted to bring this about under a pretense of piety.

Verse 24: “Give glory to God,” they say.

To have said to the parents, “Deny that he is your son, and that he was born blind,” would have seemed utterly ridiculous. And to say this to the man himself would have been plain shamelessness. So they do not say it, but manage the matter another way, saying, “Give God the glory” — that is, “Confess that this man has done nothing.”

“We know that this man is a sinner.”

Then why did you not convict him when he said, “Which of you convicts me of sin?” (John 8, verse 46). How do you know that he is a sinner? After they had said, “Give God the glory,” and the man had made no reply, Christ met him and praised him. He did not rebuke him or say, “Why did you not give glory to God?” What did he say? “Do you believe in the Son of God?” (verse 35) — so that you may learn that this is what it means “to give glory to God.” If he had not been equal in honor to the Father, this would not have been giving glory. But since whoever honors the Son honors the Father as well, the blind man is rightly not rebuked.

Now as long as they expected the parents to contradict and deny the miracle, the Pharisees said nothing to the man himself. But when they saw that this got them nowhere, they come back to him again, saying, “This man is a sinner.”

Verse 25: “He answered and said, ‘Whether he is a sinner or not, I do not know. One thing I know: that though I was blind, now I see.’”

Surely the blind man was not frightened? Far from it! Then how is it that the man who said, “He is a prophet” (verse 17), now says, “Whether he is a sinner, I do not know”? He said it not because that was his state of mind, or because he had persuaded himself of it. He wanted to clear Christ of their charges by the evidence of the fact, not by his own declaration, and to make his defense believable by letting the evidence of the good deed decide the matter against them.

For after many words, when the blind man said, “If this man were not righteous, he could not do such miracles” (verse 33), they were so enraged that they replied, “You were born entirely in sin, and are you teaching us?” What would they not have said if he had spoken like that from the beginning? What would they not have done?

“Whether he is a sinner or not, I do not know.” It is as though he said, “I say nothing in this man’s favor. For now I make no declaration. But this I know for certain, and I would affirm it: if he were a sinner, he could not have done such things.” In this way he kept himself free from suspicion and his testimony uncorrupted, since he was not speaking out of partiality but bearing witness to the fact.

So when they could neither overturn nor remove what had been done, they go back to their former plan and make petty inquiries about the manner of the cure. They are like men circling a quarry that lies right in front of them and cannot be wounded, rushing around now this way, now that. They go back to the man’s earlier statements, to trip them up now by constant questioning, and they say, Verse 26: “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?”

What was his reply? Having beaten them and thrown them down, he no longer speaks to them submissively. As long as the matter needed investigation and argument, he spoke guardedly while he supplied the proof. But once he had won, and won a splendid victory, he takes courage and tramples on them. What does he say?

Verse 27: “I told you once, and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again?”

Do you see a beggar speaking boldly to scribes and Pharisees? So strong is truth, so weak is falsehood! Truth, even when it takes hold of ordinary people, makes them appear glorious; falsehood, even when it is with the strong, shows them to be weak. What he says amounts to this: “You pay no attention to my words. So I will no longer keep talking and answering you, when you question me to no purpose, and do not want to hear in order to learn, but in order to mock my words.”

“Do you also want to become his disciples?”

Now he has ranked himself among the band of disciples, for “Do you also…?” is the language of a man declaring himself to be a disciple. Then he mocked them and needled them thoroughly. He knew this struck them hard, and he said it because he wanted to reproach them with the utmost severity. It was the act of a courageous soul, soaring high and scorning their madness. He was pointing out the greatness of this dignity, in which he had full confidence, and showing that, though they were insulting him, a man worthy of admiration, he did not take the insult to himself, but seized as an honor what they offered as a reproach. [g]

Verse 28: “You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses.”

But that cannot be. You are neither Moses’ disciples nor this man’s. If you were Moses’, you would become this man’s as well. That is why Christ had said to them earlier, since they kept falling back on this kind of talk, “If you had believed Moses, you would have believed me, for he wrote about me” (John 5, verse 46).

Verse 29: “We know that God spoke to Moses.”

On whose word? On whose report? One of them says, “Our forefathers’.” Then is not he more to be believed than your forefathers — he who proves by miracles that he came from God and that he speaks of things from above? They did not say, “We have heard that God spoke to Moses,” but, “We know.” Jews, do you affirm what you have only by hearing as though you knew it, and count what you have by sight as less certain than what you have by hearing? Yet the one you did not see but heard; the other you did not hear but saw. What, then, does the blind man say?

Verse 30: “Why, this is a marvelous thing, that you do not know where he comes from, and yet he does such miracles.”

“That a man who is not one of the distinguished or noble or famous among you can do such things! So it is clear in every way that he is God, and needs no human help.”

Verse 31: “We know that God does not listen to sinners.”

They had been the first to say, “How can a man who is a sinner do such miracles?” (verse 16). So now he brings forward even their own judgment, reminding them of their own words. “This opinion is shared by me and by you. Stand by it now.” And notice his wisdom, please. He turns the miracle over in every direction, because they could not do away with it, and from it he draws his conclusions. Do you see that at first he said, “Whether he is a sinner or not, I do not know” — not because he doubted (far from it!), but knowing that he was not a sinner? At any rate, now that he had his opportunity, see how he defended him: “We know that God does not listen to sinners.”

“But if anyone is a worshiper of God and does his will.”

Here he not only clears him of sin, but declares that he is very pleasing to God and does all his will. Since they called themselves worshipers of God, he added, “and does his will.” “For it is not enough to know God; people must also do his will.” Then he magnifies what had been done, saying, Verse 32: “Since the world began it has never been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a man who was born blind.”

“If you now acknowledge that God does not listen to sinners, and this man has worked a miracle, and such a miracle as no one ever worked, it is clear that he has surpassed all in virtue, and that his power is greater than any that belongs to a human being.” What, then, do they say?

Verse 34: “You were born entirely in sins, and are you teaching us?” As long as they expected him to deny Christ, they thought him trustworthy, and they called on him once and then a second time. If you did not think him trustworthy, why did you call him and question him a second time? But when he spoke the truth, unashamed, then — just when they ought most to have admired him — they condemned him.

But what does “You were born entirely in sins” mean? Here they mercilessly throw his very blindness in his face, as though they had said, “You have been in sins from your earliest years.” They were hinting that this was why he had been born blind, which was contrary to reason. On this point at least, Christ comforted him by saying, “For judgment I have come into the world, so that those who do not see may see, and those who see may be made blind” (John 9, verse 39).

“You were born entirely in sins, and are you teaching us?” Why, what had the man said? Did he put forward some private opinion of his own? Did he not put forward a judgment everyone shared, when he said, “We know that God does not listen to sinners”? Did he not bring out your own words?

“And they cast him out.”

Have you seen the herald of the truth, how his poverty was no hindrance to his true wisdom? Do you see what insults, what sufferings he endured from the beginning, and how he bore witness by word and by deed?

Now these things are written down so that we too may imitate them. For the blind man, the beggar, who had not even seen Christ, at once showed such boldness, even before Christ had encouraged him. He stood up against a whole people — murderous, possessed, raving — who wanted to use his own voice to condemn Christ. He neither gave way nor backed down, but stopped their mouths with the greatest boldness, and chose to be thrown out rather than betray the truth. If he did this, how much more ought we to do it! We have lived so long in the faith. We have seen ten thousand wonders worked by faith. We have received greater benefits than he did: the eyes within us have recovered their sight, we have seen the mysteries beyond words, and we have been called to such honor. How much more, I say, ought we to show every kind of boldness in speaking to those who try to bring accusations, and who say anything against the Christians! We ought to stop their mouths, and not sit back without making an effort.

And we will be able to do this if we are bold, and pay attention to the Scriptures, and do not listen to them carelessly. If someone comes in here regularly, even if he does not read at home, and pays attention to what is said here, even one year is enough to make him well at home in them. For we do not read one set of Scriptures today and another tomorrow, but always and continually the same ones. Yet such is the wretched state of the many that after so much reading they do not even know the names of the books. And they are not ashamed, and they do not tremble, to come so carelessly into a place where they can hear God’s word.

Yet if a lyre player or a dancer or an actor summons the city, they all run eagerly, and are grateful to him for the invitation, and spend half of a whole day paying attention to him alone. But when God speaks to us through prophets and apostles, we yawn, we scratch ourselves, we get drowsy. In summer the heat seems too much, and we take ourselves off to the marketplace; in winter the rain and the mud are a hindrance, and we sit at home. Yet at the horse races, where there is no roof overhead to keep off the wet, most of them stand like madmen while heavy rain is falling and the wind is dashing the water into their faces. They care nothing for cold or wet or mud or the length of the road, and nothing either keeps them at home or stops them from going there. But here, where there is a roof over their heads and it is wonderfully warm, they hang back instead of flocking together — and that when the gain is the gain of their own souls. Tell me, how can this be tolerated?

So it happens that we are more skilled than anyone in those matters, while in the things that are necessary we are more ignorant than children. If someone calls you a charioteer or a dancer, you say you have been insulted, and you use every means to wipe out the affront. But if he draws you off to watch the performance, you do not shy away; and the art whose name you shun, you chase after in nearly every case. But where you ought to have both the practice and the name — both to be a Christian and to be called one — you do not even know what sort of practice it is. What could be worse than this folly?

I have long wanted to keep saying these things to you, but I am afraid of earning your dislike in vain and to no purpose. For I see that it is not only the young who are mad, but the old as well. I am especially ashamed of them when I see a man made venerable by his white hair disgracing that white hair and bringing a child along with him. What is worse than this mockery? What is more shameful than this conduct? The child is taught by his father to behave indecently.

Do my words sting? That is what I want: that you should feel the pain the words cause, so that you may be set free from the disgrace the actions bring. For there are some far more indifferent even than these, who are not even ashamed at what I have described — no, who even put together long arguments in defense of what they do. If you ask them who Amos or Obadiah was, or how many prophets or apostles there are, they cannot even open their mouths. But for horses and charioteers they put together excuses more cleverly than sophists or rhetoricians. And after all this they say, “What is the harm? What is the loss?” [i]

This is what makes me groan: that you do not even know the practice is a loss, and have no sense of its evils. God has given you a set span of life for serving him. While you spend it in vain, at random, on nothing useful, do you still ask, “What is the loss?” If you spend a little money to no purpose, you call it a loss. When you spend whole days of yours on the devil’s parades, do you think you are doing nothing wrong? You ought to spend your whole life in petitions and prayers. Instead you waste your life and your means heedlessly, and to your own hurt, on shouting and uproar, shameful words and brawling, pleasure out of all season, and doings full of trickery — and after all this you ask, “What is the loss?” You do not know that you should be lavish with anything rather than with time. If you spend gold, you can get it back; but if you lose time, you will hardly recover it. Little is dealt out to us in this present life. If we do not use it as we ought, what will we say when we depart to that other world?

Tell me: if you had told one of your sons to learn some trade, and then he kept staying at home, or even spent his time somewhere else, would the teacher not reject him? Would he not say to you, “You made an agreement with me and set a time. If your son will not spend this time with me, but in other places, how am I to present him to you as a trained pupil?” We must put it the same way. For God will also say to us, “I gave you time to learn this art of godliness. Why have you wasted that time foolishly and uselessly? Why did you neither come regularly to the teacher nor pay attention to his words?”

To show you that godliness is an art, listen to what the prophet says: “Come, children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord” (Psalm 34, verse 11). And again: “Blessed is the man whom you instruct, O Lord, and whom you teach out of your law” (Psalm 94, verse 12). So when you have spent this time in vain, what excuse will you have? Someone says, “And why did he deal out only a little time to us?” What senselessness and ingratitude! The very thing for which you most owed him thanks — that he has cut short your labors and shortened your toils, and made the rest that follows long and everlasting — is that what you find fault with and complain about?

But I do not know how our talk has come around to this point and grown so long, so we must cut it short now. This too is part of our wretchedness: here, if the sermon is long, we all grow careless, while there they begin at noon and go home by the light of torches and lamps. Still, so that we are not always scolding, we now plead with you and beg you: grant this favor to us and to yourselves. Let us get free of everything else and fasten ourselves to these things. Then we will have joy and gladness from you, and honor on your account, and a recompense for these labors. And you will reap the whole reward, because, after being so madly fastened to the stage before, you tore yourselves away from that sickness through the fear of God and through our urging, broke your chains, and hurried to God. Nor will you receive your reward only there; here too you will enjoy pure pleasure. That is what virtue is like: besides giving us crowns in heaven, it makes life pleasant for us even here. So let us be persuaded by what has been said, so that we may obtain the blessings both here and hereafter, through the grace and love for humankind of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom and with whom be glory to the Father, together with the Holy Spirit, now and always, and forever and ever. Amen.