John 9:19Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

“Of whom you say that he was born blind,” as though they had maliciously invented this out of devotion to Christ. O lawless and utterly lawless men! What father would dare to lie in this way about his own son?

They say almost this: “the one whom you have passed off as blind.” And not only this, but “you have spread the rumor of it everywhere. How then does he now see?” What madness! They are saying, “This is your craft and device.”

Thus, by saying, “of whom you say,” and, “how then does he now see,” they try through both expressions to dispose the parents to deny him. Of the three proposed questions, whether he is their son, whether he was blind, and how he received sight, the parents answer only two and do not answer the third.

So they place them in the midst and interrogate them with fury and with still greater malice. They do not say, “Is this your son, who was once blind?” Rather, they say, “of whom you say,” as if to say: “whom you have made blind, and have spread this report everywhere, quite fictitiously and falsely.”

But, O impious Pharisees! What father would permit himself to lie in this way about his own child? They press them from two sides and compel them to deny their son. On one side they use the expression, “of whom you say.” On the other, they ask, “how then does he now see?”

Notice with what indignation they ask them: “Is this your son, of whom you say that he was born blind?” They seem to be trying to suggest that they will do something terrible to them, and to bring great fear upon them. By this they force them toward what they wanted to hear from them, namely, that he had not been born blind.

They had one impious aim: to destroy the people's understanding of Christ and to overthrow faith in those who had already begun to marvel at Him. Those who try to destroy some well-fortified city surround it on every side and besiege it by every means. At one moment they hasten to undermine the walls. At another they shatter the towers with blows from siege engines.

“He is indeed our son. Yet it would be right to compel us to speak for an infant, since he cannot speak for himself. He has long been speaking, and only recently has he been seeing. We know that he was blind from birth. We know that he has long been speaking, and we see that he has recently received sight. Ask him himself, in order to understand. Why do you accuse us?” Thus his parents answered, because they feared the Jews.

Outside the synagogue there could no longer be any evil. They cast out, but Christ received.

Notice their craftiness. They question sternly, wishing to frighten the parents, so that their denial might cast a shadow on the miracle itself: "of whom you say that he was born blind." That is, as though they were saying, "You are lying, deceitfully pretending, and wishing to give glory to Jesus Christ."

First they try to find out whether this is the very same blind man, and whether another has been passed off for him. But the man himself clearly testified to this and recounted the healing in order. He told how the clay had been anointed as a medicine for blindness, and how the pool, washing away the clay, bestowed sight.

The neighbors asked about this and were instructed. The Pharisees investigated and learned. The reading καὶ ἐπείθοντο, “and they were convinced,” can be accepted only in relation to the Pharisees' assurance about the identity of the blind man's person. In relation to the occurrence of the miracle it is unsuitable, for it does not correspond to the Gospel narrative.

The editor of the edition in Migne is ready to insert the negative οὐκ, “and they did not believe” (col. 260, n. 51). We find a more natural and easier correction in ἐπύθοντο, as a parallel to καὶ ἐμάνθανον.

They question with craftiness, intending to frighten the parents of the blind man, so that in this way they might deny the truth. "Of whom you say": that is, "Do you, his parents, say that he was born blind, when neither we nor anyone else believes this?" But the wretched men were deceived, for the more truth is investigated, the more it is revealed. They thought that by their inquiry they would find an occasion to hide the miracle. Yet the more they investigated, the more true and wondrous it appeared.

The great miracle of healing the man blind from birth caused all the stronger excitement in Jerusalem because the healed man was very well known in the city as a beggar blind from birth. Therefore, when this miracle was brought to the attention of the Pharisees, they began a most careful investigation of the event.

All their efforts in this case were directed toward casting doubt on the reality of the miracle. For this purpose they questioned now the man who had been blind, and now his parents, about what had occurred. But the parents of the healed man, from fear of being put out of the synagogue, refused, supposedly from ignorance, to give testimony as to how their son had received sight.

Finding no support for their opinion in the healed man, the malicious Jews raised the question: had he really been blind? Summoning his parents, they asked, "Is this your son, of whom you say that he was born blind? How then does he now see?"

The matter was taking a very unpleasant turn for them. At all costs they had to find some opening that would allow them to reject or remove the miracle. They sent for the parents of the man who had been blind.

“Is this your son, of whom you say that he was born blind? How then does he now see?” Perhaps they hoped by threats or bribery to force the parents to renounce their kinship, or to admit some deception here. Yet the parents also held to the simple truth. With the usual Jewish servility and cunning, they refused to draw any conclusions that might expose them to unpleasant consequences.

“We know,” they said, “that this is our son and that he was born blind. But how he now sees, we do not know. He is of age. Ask him. Let him speak for himself.”

And they asked them, and so forth. The Pharisees put three questions to them at once: whether this is their son, whether it is true that he was born blind, and how it happened that he has now become sighted.

It seems that the very rapidity of the questions, so to speak, gives reason to suppose that, needing to obtain from the blind man's parents an explanation of the matter, they wish to frighten them. Compare Theophylact and Chrysostom. They also want to make clear what kind of answer they desire from them.

Verses 18-23. The blind man's answer did not please the blind enemies of Jesus. They understood that what remained for them was to reject the event itself. They had to claim that the blind man had not been blind, and that there had been deception.

Four questions were put to the blind man's summoned parents. Was this truly their son, that is, was he not some impostor? If he was their son, had he truly been born blind? Who healed him? And finally, how did He heal him?

We see that the Pharisees resort to another device, in order to weaken among the people the effect produced by the miracle. They pretend to suspect deception. They suggest that the man presented to them, fully possessing sight, is not the one known to all as having been born blind.

For this they resort to the bureaucratic trick of gathering information. In itself it is unnecessary, yet it might accidentally yield material for constructing an accusation of fraud. Perhaps the Pharisees, or more precisely “the Jews,” meaning the Pharisees together with the Sadducees, secretly hoped that the frightened parents would fear being put out of the synagogue. Compare below, verse 22.