His parents answered them and said: We know that this is our son and that he was born blind:
απεκριθησαν δε αυτοις οι γονεις αυτου και ειπον οιδαμεν οτι ουτος εστιν ο υιος ημων και οτι τυφλος εγεννηθη
13 Church Fathers comment on this verse
Thus they removed themselves from the matter, presenting him as worthy of belief. Having guessed from the threats the malice that had inspired them, they answered. They solemnly declared this so that there could be no doubt that he had been blind.
The Pharisees put three questions to the parents of the blind man: first, whether this was their son; second, whether he had been born blind; and third, how he became sighted. To the first two questions they answer affirmatively, that this is their son and that he had been blind.
They acknowledge as true and beyond all doubt what they could in no way have been mistaken about. For they know, they say, their own son. They do not deny that he was truly born from them, but clearly affirm that he was born with the defect of blindness.
Yet they avoid recounting the miracle. They leave the very nature of the matter to speak loudly about it, and affirm that it is most fitting for their son himself to tell how he received healing.
Fear of danger often prompts one to avoid duty. Therefore, trembling before the cruelty of the Pharisees, they did not follow the noble commandment “to contend for the truth even unto death” (Sir 4:32).
Rather, another condition was natural to them. The poor man is fearful in everything, and because of his poverty avoids opposing anyone. He often resorts to involuntary silence and forced endurance. Already sufficiently crushed by the weight of poverty, he fears falling into any other misfortunes.
The blind man's parents, we must think, were in such a state, although their speech fully corresponded to the facts and in no way departed from the truth. Indeed, everyone will agree that to know the one born from them belonged, without any doubt, to them, and not to the one born.
But to know the physician belonged not to the parents, but to the one who had experienced in himself the grace of the miracle. Thus they clearly acknowledge what they know, being summoned to this also by duty. As for what their son could more reliably tell, since he had more exact knowledge of it, they urge the Pharisees to ask him.
And not without divine prompting, it seems to me, they added to their words, “he is of age.” By this too a certain accusation is made against the impiety of the Pharisees. For if the one who received sight has the power of thought by time and age, then when he says that there was a miracle and how it happened to him, he does not speak with a childish mind. He speaks with one already fully mature and able to confirm whatever he wishes.
Thus from this also one must necessarily perceive the most shameless unbelief of the Pharisees. They do not believe the neighbors. Nor do they believe the blind man himself, who bears witness not with a tender childish mind, nor from a childish inclination to deceive, but as one having an age capable of understanding the nature of things.
“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.
Then the Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received sight until they summoned the parents of this man who had received sight (Jn 9:18). That is, they summoned the parents of the one who had been blind and had begun to see. And they asked them, “Is this your son, of whom you say that he was born blind? How then does he now see?” His parents answered them: “We know that this is our son and that he was born blind. But how he now sees, we do not know. Or who opened his eyes, we do not know. He is of age. Ask him. Let him speak for himself” (Jn 9:19-21).
“He is, of course, our son. Yet we truly would have had to answer for him as for an infant, if he could not answer for himself. In due time he began to speak, and now he has begun to see. We know that he was blind from birth. We know that in due time he began to speak, and behold, now he has begun to see. Ask him himself, so that you may know. Why are you trying to trap us?” Thus his parents answered because they feared the Jews. For the Jews had already agreed that anyone who confessed Him as Christ should be put out of the synagogue (Jn 9:22).
Yet to be outside the synagogue was no longer an evil. They cast out, but Christ received. Therefore his parents said, “He is of age. Ask him” (Jn 9:23).
Since three questions were put to them, whether he was their son, whether he had been born blind, and how he now saw, they answered the first two affirmatively.
Be convinced, then, Pharisees, also by the parents, that this man was born with blindness. And turn again to the blind man, a second and a third time, receiving from him assurance concerning your evil undertakings and plots.
If you do not succeed in the first attempt, pass to the second. If you do not succeed in the second, pass to the third. From the third pass to the next. Make the turns of a crafty fox. Yet everywhere the nets of truth surround you. There is no way out of the miracle.
Nevertheless, do not abandon your devices. Weave a spider's web as you contrive snares, though they are varied, weak, and useless.
The parents of the blind man confess that this is their son and that he was born blind. But as to how and by whom he was healed, they said, "We do not know. Our son, who was formerly blind, is of sufficient age. Ask him about this." But did they truly not know how and by whom their son was healed? Undoubtedly they knew, yet they said, "We do not know," because they feared the Jews.
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.
The healed man himself, however, did not cease for a moment firmly and courageously to bear witness to the truth. The Pharisees tried to incline him to their side in their judgment about Jesus. Yet in the end he was not afraid to expose the malicious blindness of the Pharisees, who said that they did not know “where He is from.”
“Why, this is a marvel,” the firm confessor of Christ observed, “that you do not know where He is from, and yet He opened my eyes, which is undoubtedly the work of God.” The judges could not endure such a bold and sharp reproof. They drove the man who had been blind out of the assembly.
Fearing expulsion from the synagogue and the Pharisees' vengeance, the healed man's parents gave an evasive answer. They confirmed that this was their son, born blind, but professed ignorance about why he now saw. They answered that they had not been present at the healing and therefore did not know who had opened his eyes. "Ask him. He is of full age and can answer for himself."
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.”
His parents answered, and so forth. The Pharisees' calculation, however, did not succeed. The parents of the healed blind man, probably understanding the cunning of the Pharisees themselves, answered so craftily that the Pharisees gained nothing favorable to themselves or useful for their purposes from their answer.
To the first two questions, whether this was their son and whether it was true that he had been born blind, they answered directly and decisively: yes, it is true. But to the third question, the most important and the one that could be dangerous for them, namely how he had become sighted, they answered with ignorance.
Yet the healed man, who told others about his healing, certainly told his own parents about it in detail. True, perhaps they themselves were not eyewitnesses of the miracle of their son's healing. They could say, “we do not know,” in the sense that they themselves had not seen it.
In any case, besides cunning, their answer shows intimidation and faintheartedness. Compare Chrysostom. This is clear from the very strain of the answer. They were asked how their son now sees. They answer this question by professing ignorance, and then explain it: “or who opened his eyes, we do not know.”
Obviously they did not wish to state their favorable opinion about the wonderworker. Yet in any case they undoubtedly knew of Him from their healed son himself.
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?
The Sanhedrin, it seems, wished to be no less skeptical than the academic Renan. It subjected the event to the most rigorous logical judgment. The parents answered the first two questions affirmatively. This meant much for the triumph of truth. The parents say that the healed man truly had been blind from birth. Thus the enemies of Jesus, trying to darken the truth, only assisted its glory.
The parents left the last two questions of the Sanhedrin for their son to answer. Why? “They feared the Jews. For the Jews had already agreed that if anyone should confess Him as Christ, he would be put out of the synagogue.” There were three kinds of excommunication.
By one, piddi, the disgraced person was forbidden to have dealings with anyone, whether his own people or strangers, for thirty days. He could not approach anyone nearer than four cubits. The second degree of excommunication, Cherem, was solemn expulsion from the synagogue. It was accompanied by an order not to speak a word to anyone, nor to eat or drink with others.
The third degree, Chammata, completely excluded the disgraced person from ecclesiastical and civil society (Buxtorf, Lexic. Talm., cols. 827, 1304, 2463; Udringae Synod. 739). In any case, there was something to fear.
The parents of the man born blind do not renounce their son, as the Jews apparently hoped. Without hesitation they acknowledge him as their own. Yet they do not enter into any explanations about the miracle, lest they be expelled from the synagogue and cut off from the society whose center was the synagogue.
The Evangelist directly indicates the agreement reached among the Jews: to excommunicate from the “assembly,” that is, from the synagogue and every public gathering, with all dealings with the excommunicated person ceasing, anyone who “confessed Him as Christ.” Bishop Michael, p. 336, Gospel of John. This means anyone who declared, even in the form of a question, “Is not Jesus the Christ?”
The agreement of which the Evangelist speaks undoubtedly arose between the two mutually hostile parties of the scribes, that is, the learned men of the Jewish world, namely between the Pharisees and the Sadducees. We have already spoken of them more than once. Here we add only that, despite the sharp antagonism of opinion between these two parties in religious and philosophical questions, both parties supported ritual observance among the people with all their strength, though for different reasons.
They used it as a means of ruling the people despotically. They also apparently always acted in concert when it was necessary to establish and uphold the principle of the authority of the learned over “the accursed people,” as they called them. Compare Jn 7:49.
The age of which the parents of the man born blind speak was probably determined by those years of life at whose arrival marriage was permitted and even required. According to the Talmud, this was twenty years. In tractate Kiddushin, fol. 29, col. 2, it is said: “Beginning from twenty years, a man who remains unmarried remains in an unlawful state.”
Elsewhere it says: “A Jew who has no wife is not a man, for it is said in Gen 5:2: God created male and female... and called their name man.” These extracts are taken from Hershon's Genesis with a Talmudical Comment, London, 1883, pp. 123-124, nos. 27 and 39.
Nowhere in the Bible have we found any restriction on the right of young persons under thirty years of age to testify before a court. This latter opinion seems to be based on Numbers chapter 4, where it is established that Levites from thirty to fifty years old were taken for the service of the Lord in the Tabernacle. But we note that younger and older men were left at home for their household work.
Therefore we cannot say that the man born blind was at least thirty years old when he was brought before the assembly. Thus Bishop Michael, p. 335. Chrysostom explains that, when the parents speak of their son's age, they mean only to say: he is not a child, not a minor, and can testify about himself. Homily 58 on John, part 2, p. 138. Theophylact says the same on this passage of John.
Greek text, 18 words with lemma, transliteration and Strong’s number. Tap to expand.
THEOSIS