John 9:1Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

And He performs no ordinary miracle, but one that had taken place now for the first time: "Since the world began it has not been heard that anyone opened the eyes of one born blind" (Jn 9:32).

Someone may perhaps have opened the eyes of a blind man, but no one had yet opened the eyes of one born blind.

That the Savior, after leaving the temple, went deliberately for this work is clear from this: He Himself saw the blind man, and the blind man did not approach Him.

He looked at him so intently that He also drew the disciples' attention.

For since we were condemned to death and to multiplication through passionate birth, a kind of thick cloud has been spread over our noetic eyes. Perhaps this is the garment of skins mentioned by Holy Scripture (Gen 3:21).

In particular, the Gentile people were blind. They too were blind from birth.

For example, the Greeks became blind because they deified what is begotten and corruptible, according to the saying: "Their foolish heart was darkened" (Rom 1:21).

So also the Persian wise men spent their life in discourses about birth and birthdays.

This blind man, then, that is, every man in general, or the Gentiles in particular, Jesus "saw."

Since the blind man could not see the Creator, He Himself, through the tender mercy of His compassion, visited us, the Dayspring from on high (Lk 1:78).

How did He see him? "As He passed by," that is, not while remaining in heaven and, according to the prophet's words, bending down from heaven and looking upon all the sons of men (Ps 13:2; 2:3), but by appearing on earth.

And in another sense, He saw the Gentiles "as He passed by," that is, He did not come chiefly to them.

For He came to the lost sheep of the house of Israel (Mt 15:24). Then, as though in passing, He also looked upon the Gentiles sitting in the darkness of complete ignorance.

One must also consider what may be meant by Christ's looking upon the blind man precisely while passing by.

In my judgment, one may think that Christ came not properly to the Gentiles, but only for Israel, as He Himself once said: "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel" (Mt 15:24).

Yet the sight of the Gentiles was restored as though during Christ's passing by, when He transferred His mercy to them because of Israel's unbelief.

This very thing was also sung through Moses in the words: "I will provoke them to jealousy by what is no people. By a foolish nation I will anger them" (Deut 32:21).

That was the foolish nation, which served the creature instead of the Creator. Like irrational beasts, it had fallen into every kind of ignorance and was attached only to the earth.

But since Israel, wise through the law and understanding through the prophets, angered God, Israel itself was therefore angered by God.

This happened when those who had formerly been foolish were received into the place that belonged to Israel. Through faith Christ became for them "wisdom and sanctification and redemption," as it is written (1 Cor 1:30), clearly also light and sight.

His disciples asked Him: "Rabbi!" You know that Rabbi means "Teacher." They called Him Teacher because they wished to learn. In any case, they addressed their question to the Lord as to a teacher.

"Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" Jesus answered: "Neither this man nor his parents sinned, that he was born blind" (Jn 9:2-3).

What does His saying mean? If there is not one man without sin, were the parents of this blind man without sin?

Was he himself born without ancestral sin, sine originali peccato, and did he add nothing to that sin in the course of life?

Or because his eyes were blind, did his lusts fall entirely asleep? How much evil has been done by the blind!

From what evil does an evil mind restrain itself, even if the eyes are blind? He could not see, but he could have thoughts.

Perhaps he desired what he could not carry out because of blindness, yet what in his heart could be condemned by the Searcher of hearts.

If his parents had sin, and he himself had sin, why did the Lord say, "Neither he nor his parents sinned"?

Surely because the answer concerned the matter about which He had been asked: that he was born blind.

For his parents had sin, but it was not because of that sin that he was born blind.

If, then, he was not born blind because of the sin of his parents, why was he born blind? Hear how the Teacher teaches.

He seeks a believer in order to make him understanding. He Himself names the reason why the man was born blind: "Neither he nor his parents sinned, but it was so that the works of God might be manifested in him" (Jn 9:3).

He turned the minds of the Hebrews away from the thought of a single hypostasis in the Godhead. He opened to them the door of grace out of the tradition under the Law. Little by little He led them from the Old Testament to the New, as formerly from the wilderness into a rich and fruitful land.

While He was teaching them in many ways that His own existence is pre-eternal and always united with the Father, He spoke loudly and clearly to the deaf: “Before Abraham was, I am,” Jn 8:58.

But they did not understand the meaning of this saying. They did not prove its inadmissibility by any rational objection. Instead of words they turned to stones, and long before the Cross they prepared their murderous hands for bloodshed.

He, however, resolved to treat the audacious and blasphemous people with every longsuffering. He turned aside their anger and tumult by withdrawing, not in any abject way, but divinely.

He who stood among them and was in their hands, ψηλαφώμενος, that is, being touched, suddenly became invisible. He who had disputed with those inflamed by anger was hidden from their eyes.

They stood in amazement, intending to commit murder and finding no means to satisfy their anger. They were like inexperienced hunters who have frightened off the prey too early.

If a doe hides in some thicket and slips away unnoticed, they wander vainly through the ravine, carrying nets as a useless burden and dragging collars with them in vain.

I, though in other respects a poor servant, nevertheless do not forget that I am a slave, and that the duty lies upon me to rise up for the Master against His offenders. Therefore I cry out to the Hebrews, as though they were present here today and possessed by fury.

Criminals, do you throw stones at your Benefactor? For who gave you drink from the rock? Do you throw them at Him who gave you the laws of life on tablets of stone?

Do you throw them at the chosen and precious Stone, of whom Isaiah prophesied to you, Is 28:16? Do you throw them at the spiritual Stone, cut from the steep rock without human hand, as the divine Daniel taught you, Dan 2:44?

Do you throw stones at the Cornerstone, 1 Pet 1:6, who joins the two walls of the Old and New Testaments? For even if you do not believe, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham, Mt 3:9.

That is, He is able to gather for Christ a peculiar people, Tit 2:14, περιούσιον, cf. Ex 19:5, from the Gentiles and uncircumcised. Abraham received the promise concerning them when God said to him, “In thee shall all tribes be blessed,” Gen 12:3.

By His ineffable knowledge, γνώσει, and, according to another reading, προγνώσει, God saw the future. He assigned to the author of faith, as children, all who would afterward believe.

Already then He beheld the revolt of the Hebrews. He saw the stones and counted the falsely named sons as deprived of the inheritance.

When He proclaimed the truth to them by word and did not persuade them to piety, He was in their midst and hid Himself from their sight. Present among them, He was not accessible to their vision.

By such a miracle He sought to draw them to the acknowledgment that He is Christ and God, older than Abraham, cf. Jn 8:58.

Listen, then, He says, O truly blind and senseless ones. Who is this, both present with you and unseen? Is it not perhaps He who also spoke with Moses, though He was not seen?

καὶ μὴ φαινόμενος means “and not appearing.” Another reading has καὶ φαινόμενος, “and appearing.” One Latin translator combines the two: καὶ μὴ βλεπόμενος καὶ φαινόμενος, “not seen, though appearing,” or present. Cf. Ex 3:4.

For then fire and the bush were visible, both voiceless, and yet a voice was heard. The word gave instruction, and the future was foretold faithfully. Those who have understanding must recognize the person by the kinship of the works.

Since the Hebrews proved so irrational and senseless, our Lord and Savior, like a caring and wise physician, turns to another method of treatment if the disease does not yield to the first attempt.

He wishes to heal the spiritually blind by means of the blind man whom He met on the way. This man suffered blindness not through some accidental injury, but came into the light from his mother’s womb with this innate defect.

When He saw the man, He stopped and was ready for a healing surpassing human reason and art. For medical science investigates those diseases which occur later in time through certain circumstances, after nature has completed the birth of the living creature and brought it into the light.

But it does not claim the treatment of some defect innate to the body as its own work. Nor, indeed, does it claim all diseases that later occur. Witnesses to this are those among men who are maimed, to whom no physician has restored the missing members.

For all of us, when we are born, have ancestral sin. Nevertheless, we are not born bodily blind.

This blind man, brothers, was prepared as an ointment for the human race. He was bodily blind so that, by contemplating the miracle itself, we might be healed of blindness in the heart.

See also Athanasius of Alexandria, On the Incarnation 18.

The Evangelist kept silence about how the blind man had been made blind, because this one statement, "blind from birth," already constitutes the greatness of the miracle.

When the Lord's disciples saw this blind man, they then put a question to Him.

Such calm was hardly possible immediately after leaving the temple, where the Jews wanted to stone their Teacher (Jn 8:59).

Moreover, on this occasion the Lord was again surrounded by Pharisees (Jn 9:40), His bitterest enemies.

This also can hardly be conveniently supposed immediately after His departure from the temple, where they had wanted to stone Him, and where, of course, the Pharisees played the leading role.

Still, there is no need to investigate exactly when and where this happened. The correct interpretation of the narrative does not depend at all on uncertainty about the time and place of the action.

Different suppositions may be held about this. It is enough to observe that the text does not require the assumption that the healing happened immediately after the Lord left the temple.

Nor does it give the right to suppose that a significant time passed between these events.

If the event described in the preceding chapter took place in the temple in the morning (Jn 8:2), the healing could have occurred toward evening on the same day, or on the next or third day.

In any case, it occurred between the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles (Jn 7:37) and the Feast of the Dedication of the Temple (Jn 10:22).

"Blind from birth." The disciples probably knew beforehand that this blind man had not become blind over time, but had been born blind (Jn 9:2).

Or perhaps the blind man himself, while asking alms (Jn 9:8), mentioned that he was blind from birth in order to support his plea and arouse greater attention and compassion from those giving alms.

This blind man probably sat somewhere near the temple, perhaps at the temple gates, where the sick sat asking alms from those passing into the temple for prayer (cf. Acts 3:2).