The Great Commentary of Cornelius a Lapide: S. John
Chapter 9
Ver. 1. — And as Jesus passed by, &c. Passing through the midst of His enemies and the crowd of the people. This signifies (though some deny it) that this cure took place immediately after Christ had withdrawn from the temple. As soon as He had escaped His enemies, He became visible again, and His disciples followed Him. “ He mitigated their anger by His withdrawal, and softened their hardness by working a miracle ” says S. Chrysostom.
He looked upon him tenderly and fixedly, as pitying him, and intending to restore his sight. And this intent look caused the disciples to inquire the cause of his blindness. “ He Himself” (says S. Chrysostom) “ saw that he was blind. The blind man did not come to Him, but He looked on him so stedfastly, that the disciples asked the question which follows.” Mystically, sinners and unbelievers are blind, and are thus unable to see and seek for Christ. So that Christ must needs look on them first and enlighten them with the eyes of His grace.
His blindness was congenital and incurable. If it had been accidental, surgeons could have cured it. But when a man is cured who is blind from his birth, “ it is not a matter of skill,” says S. Ambrose, “ but of power. The Lord gave him soundness, but not by the exercise of the medicinal art. The Lord healed those whom none could cure.” His name is said to have been Cedonius or Celedonius (see ver. 38).
Mystically, this man is a type of mankind, blinded by original sin, which Jesus, “passing along the road of our mortality” (says the Gloss), “looked upon, pitied and enlightened.” “For blindness befel the first man through sin, and as we spring from him, the human race is blind from its birth.” And Bede, “The way of Christ is His descent from heaven to earth. But He beheld the blind man, when He beheld mankind with pity.” Again: “This blind man denotes the Gentiles born and brought up in the darkness of unbelief and idolatry, to whom Christ passed over, when expelled from the hearts of the Jews, and enlightened them with the light of faith and His Gospel,” says Bede. And Christ wished to designate this in type by the enlightenment of this blind man. So S. Cyril, Rupert, and Bede.
Ver. 2 . — And His disciples , &c. This question sprang out of the opinion of the ignorant multitude, who think that diseases are the punishments of sin, and, as S. Ambrose says, “They ascribe weaknesses of body to the deserts of their sins.” But they are wrong in this ; for though it is often the case, yet not always. For Job, though innocent, was afflicted in order to try his patience, as Tobias also, and many others. S. Chrysostom and Theophylact say that this question was out of place and absurd.
Others think that the disciples were led to ask this question by what Christ said (v. 14), “Sin no more, lest a worse thing happen to thee.”
A man’s own fault, and not that of another, seems to be the cause of his own blindness, by way of punishment. Original sin is in truth the cause of all the evils and punishments which befal us in this life, and of the diseases of infants especially as S. Augustine teaches us ( Contr . Julian iii. 4). But this was not the special reason why this man, above all other infants, was born blind. Whence S. Augustine says, “ This man could not have been born without original sin ; nor yet have added nothing to it by his life. He therefore and his parents had sin, but the sin was not the cause of his being born blind.”
S. Cyril supposes that the disciples were imbued with the error of Pythagoras and Plato, who thought that souls existed before their bodies, and that for their sins they were thrust down into bodies, as Origen afterwards held. But Leontius considers that the disciples did not speak of the sin of the blind man which took place before his birth, but after it. As if God, foreseeing what would happen punished him beforehand with blindness. But whatever might be the opinion of the disciples (and it is hard to conjecture), it is certain they were wrong. For souls did not exist before their bodies, and God only punishes past and not future sins. God, it is true, punishes the sins of parents in the persons of their children. And children are frequently born weak, blind, and deformed, &c., or soon die, in consequence of the vices of their parent (see 2 Sam. xii. 14, &c.)
Ver. 3 .—Jesus answered , &c. Christ denies not that he and his parents had sinned both by original and actual sin. But He denies that he was condemned to blindness for these sins, beyond other people, who had committed the same and even greater sins. So S. Augustine. In vain therefore do the Pelagians misuse this passage to do away with original sin.
The reason why God inflicted blindness on this man was that the miraculous power of Christ should be made manifest in his case, and thus Christ be acknowledged as the true Messiah. So the Fathers quoted above. The Gloss gives the mystical meaning, that it was to signify what Christ would do in enlightening mankind in like manner by His grace, and the doctrine of the Gospel. And accordingly the man himself was enlightened not only in his body, but in his mind, as will be seen below. And therefore he suffered no wrong, but gained a benefit by his blindness (says S. Chrysostom), for in consequence of it he beheld with the eyes of his mind, Him who from nothing brought him into being, and received from Him enlightenment both in body and in mind.
Ver. 4 . — I must work , &c. S. Chrysostom, Theophylact, and others understand by the word “day” the present life, and by “ night ” the future life. But this is what is common to all men. But Christ speaks of this day as specially relating to Himself and His own work. And therefore S. Augustine, Cyril, and Bede put a better and closer meaning on the word day, as speaking of the life of Christ on earth, and night as referring to His absence, meaning, that just as men cannot work at night on account of the darkness, so after death shall I no longer work as I do now for the salvation and redemption of men. “ My day ” (viii. 56) means in
like manner My birth and My life amongst men. He says this, as preparing the way for the healing of the blind man. “ I am sent into the world to do good to men : this blind man presents himself and I will restore his sight.” Symbolically : Night , says the Interlinear Gloss, is the persecution of the Apostles, especially by antichrist. Tropologically : The time of life given to every one to gain eternal glory is his “day.” Night is his death (see Eccles. ix. 10). And S.
Augustine (in loc.) says, “Night is that of which it is said, ‘ Cast him into outer darkness.’ Then will be the night, when no man can work, but only receive for what he hath wrought. Work while thou art alive, lest thou be prevented by that night.” It was common among poets and philosophers to call life day, and death night, and many instances and authorities are given from Pagan writers to this purpose. But to take some Christian ones, Messodamus, a very holy man, was once asked by a friend to dine with him on the morrow. “ I have had no morrow,” he replied, “ for many years : every day have I looked for the coming of death.” And this is what S. Anthony ( apud S. Athanasius) and Barlaam advised every devout and “ religious ” man to do. S. Jerome wisely says, “One who is ever thinking that he will die, easily makes light of everything,” for he regards each day as his last.
“ Fixed is the day of death alike to all,
Brief life's short hours soon pass beyond recal.”
— Virg. Æn. x.
Ver. 5 . — As long as I am in the world, &c. And therefore I will give light to this blind man, to show that I am the Light of this world.
Ver. 6 . — And when He had thus said , &c. He used clay, which naturally closes up the eyes, to show that He healed the man supernaturally . The symbolical reason was (S. Chrysostom says) to signify that He was the self-same (God) who formed man out of clay, and that it was His work to form and fashion again (by restoring his sight) a man who was formed by Him, but deformed
. He showed thus that He was the Lord of all things, and of the Sabbath also, so as to work His cure on that day whatever outcry the Pharisees might make. So Cyril, Leontius, Theophylact. Accordingly the Interlinear Gloss says, “See, here is the eye-salve with which mankind is anointed, the thought, namely, of its own vileness, as being made of clay, so as to be cured of the pride which had blinded it. According to the saying, ‘ Remember, O man, that thou art dust, and into dust thou wilt return.’ ” Christ used His spittle, says Cyril, to show that even His Flesh had a supernatural power of healing, (1.) Because spittle is a symbol of recuperative power (several derivations of “saliva” are here suggested which are of no value, and several instances of cures by its use). (3.) He used it that no virtue should be ascribed to the pool of Siloam, but to the power of His own mouth from whence it came ; for by the bidding of His own mouth He drove away the blindness. (4.) That thus this miracle might be the more fully attested. (5.) To test the faith and obedience of the blind man (see S. Chrysostom). Why did He send him to Siloam, that all men might see him going with the clay on his eyes ? But there was no reason to fear that the cure would be attributed to Siloam, because many had washed there without being cured. But the faith of the blind man was shown by his not saying a word or having a thought against it, but he simply obeyed.