Who were those who asked, What wilt thou say of Him? They were among the prudent. For they said, How can a sinner do such things? In order not to appear vain defenders, they cite as a testimony the one who received the beneficence, as having experienced His power, in order to stop the mouths of slanderers. See how prudently they ask. They did not say, you what you would say about Him, because He made the Sabbath, because He did not keep the Sabbath, but they remind you of the miracle, "because He opened your eyes," as if inciting the healed man to tell the truth about Christ. They remind him and urge him: because He has opened your eyes. He is said to have done you good. Therefore, you must preach about Him. The blind man now confessed what he could, namely, that He was not a sinner, but of God, that He was a prophet, although some say that He was not of God, because He did not keep the Sabbath.

Christ anointed with one finger, and He is considered to be the Sabbath breaker. They themselves untie animals with all their hands in order to give them water, and consider themselves pious. The hard-hearted and stubborn call upon his parents in order to put them in difficulty and thereby force them to reject the former blindness of their son. Since they could not stop their well-intentioned lips, they frightened their parents, in the hope of destroying the miracle. So they put them in the middle and interrogate them with fury and with even greater malice. They do not say, "Is this your son, who was once blind," but "of whom you speak," as if to say, "Whom you have made blind, and the rumor about it has spread everywhere," is completely fictitious and false. But, O wicked Pharisees! What father would allow himself to lie like that about his child? On both sides they oppress them and compel them to renounce their son, on the one hand, with the expression "of whom you speak," and on the other, with the question, "How does he see now?" They say: either what he sees now is false, or that he was blind. But it is true that he sees: therefore you have falsely divulged that he was formerly blind.

His parents answered and said to them, "We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; but how he sees now, we do not know, or who opened his eyes, we do not know; Ask yourself when you are of perfect age: let him speak of himself. Thus answered his parents, because they feared the Jews; for the Jews have already conspired that whoever acknowledges Him to be Christ shall be excommunicated from the synagogue. Wherefore his parents said, He is of perfect age; Ask yourself.

The Pharisees asked the parents of the blind man three questions: 1) Is this their son? 2) Was he born blind? and (3) how did he become sighted? To the first two questions they answer in the affirmative, that this is their son and he was blind, and they do not answer about the method of healing because of ignorance. This happened, without a doubt, in order that the truth might be recognized more firmly, so that it might be testified to by the one who received the beneficence, and therefore the most reliable witness, as his parents say: he himself is of perfect age, he is not a child or an underage, so that he does not understand how he was healed. His parents answered this because they were afraid of the Pharisees. They were unsteady and faint-hearted than their son. And he became a fearless witness to the truth; he began to see well with his mental eyes.

So they called a man who was blind a second time, and said to him, Give glory to God; we know that That Man is a sinner. He answered and said to them, "Whether he is a sinner, I do not know; One thing I know is that I was blind, and now I see. And they asked him again, What has he done to thee? How did He open your eyes? He answered them, "I have already told you, and you have not listened; What else do you want to hear? or do you also want to become His disciples? And they rebuked him, and said, Thou art His disciple, and we are Moses' disciples. We know that God spoke to Moses; But we do not know whence He comes.

Just as parents insisted on asking their son for them, so do the arrogant ones. They bring him, not to ask, but to impress upon him the accusation of the Healer. For the suggestion "give glory to God" means to confess that Jesus did nothing for you, and in not attributing anything good to Jesus is the glory of God! They say we know that He is a sinner. Why did you not rebuke Him when He called you to this, saying, "Which of you shall convict Me of sin" (John 8:46)?

The blind man says, "Whether He is a sinner, I do not know, and now I do not experience it, nor do I affirm it." But I know very clearly that He performed a miracle on me. Therefore, let this matter be considered by itself and give an idea of Him. Then, when they again asked him what He had done to you, accusing the Saviour of having anointed you on the Sabbath, this man understood that they were asking not for the sake of clarification, but for the sake of accusation, and he answered them reproachfully, "I do not want to speak to you any more, because many times I have told you, and you have not listened." Then, which could have especially wounded them, he adds: Do you also want to become His disciples? Obviously, he himself wants to be His disciple. Joking and laughing at them, he says it calmly; and this shows a soul that is brave and undaunted, and not afraid of their fury. To his offense they say: "You are His disciple, and we are the disciples of Moses." And here they are clearly lying. For if they had been disciples of Moses, they would have been Christ's, as He Himself says to them: "If ye had believed Moses, ye would have believed me also" (John 5:46). They did not say, "We have heard," but, "We know," that God spoke to Moses, although their ancestors had told them about it. That which we have received by ear, they say, we know for sure, but He Whose miracles we have seen with our own eyes and Whose Divine and heavenly teaching we have heard for ourselves, is called a deceiver (John 7:12). You see to what madness their malice has driven them.

The man who had received his sight answered and said to them, "This is not surprising, that you do not know where He comes from, but He has opened my eyes." But we know that God does not listen to sinners; but whoever honors God and does His will listens to him. From eternity it has not been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a man born blind. If He were not of God, He could not do anything.

You, says the Jews, reject my Healer, because you do not know where He comes from. And I say that He is all the more worthy of wonder, because, not being one of the nobles and glorious among you, He can do such deeds as clearly testify that He possesses some higher power and does not need any human help. Then, since before some of them had said: "How can a sinful man work such miracles?" he also takes up this condemnation of them and reminds them of their own words. We all know, he says, that God does not listen to sinners, but listens to him who honors Him and does His will. Notice from this how he not only puts away sins from the Lord, but also presents Him as a great saint of God and doing everything according to His will, when he says: "If anyone honors God and does His will." Further, knowing that they want to obscure the miracle, he preaches with full understanding about the beneficence. If He had not been of God, He would not have performed such a miracle as no one has done since eternity. If, perhaps, the eyes of the blind were opened, but not spoiled from birth, but from some disease. But what has now been accomplished is an unheard-of deed. So, obviously, the one who performed such a miracle is more than a person.

Some fall into cold and subtle questioning. How is it said that God does not listen to sinners? He is a lover of mankind. What, they say, is meant here by the words: God does not listen to sinners? Such a question should not be answered. However, it must be said that these words – God does not listen to sinners – express the idea that God does not give sinners the power to work miracles. For the Spirit of God will not dwell in a body that is burdened with sins. Those who sincerely and from the heart ask for forgiveness of sins, God hears not as sinners, but as repentants. For at the same time as they ask forgiveness for themselves, they have already passed from the ranks of sinners to the ranks of penitents. Therefore it is rightly said that God does not listen to sinners. He does not allow sinners to work miracles. For even if they should ever ask for anything of the kind, how would He give what He asked for those whom He hates because they arrogate to themselves that which is quite unseemly to them? And if He listens to those who ask forgiveness, He listens not as sinners, but as penitents.

Note. Having said: "If anyone honors God," he added: "and does His will." For many worship God, but do not do the will of God. And there must be both at the same time: both worship of God and the fulfillment of the will of God, in other words, faith and works, or, as the Apostle Paul put it, faith and a good conscience (1 Tim. 1:5), in short; contemplation and activity. For faith is truly alive when it also has God-pleasing deeds, from which comes a good conscience, just as a vicious conscience comes from evil deeds. And again, works are alive when they have faith, and in separation from one another they are dead, as it is said: faith without works is dead (James 2:26), and works without faith. Consider, perhaps, the boldness that truth gives to a poor man, who is not at all remarkable, and he denounces the great and glorious among the Jews. So great is the power of truth, while falsehood is very timid and bold.

They answered and said to him, "Thou art all born in sins, and dost thou teach us?" And they threw him out. And when Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and found him, he said to him, Do you believe in the Son of God? He answered and said, "But who is he, Lord, that I should believe in Him?" Jesus said to him, "And you have seen him, and he has spoken to you." And he said, I believe, O Lord! And he worshipped Him.

As long as they hoped that this man would speak to please them, he was summoned and questioned, and more than once. But when they learn from the answers that he does not think alike with them, but is disposed to the truth, they humiliate him as born in sins. It is completely unreasonable to blaspheme him for blindness, and to think that he, as a very sinful man even before his birth, was condemned to be born blind, which is unfounded. Like sons of lies, they drive him, the confessor of the truth, out of the temple. But it served him well. They drove him out of the temple, and the Lord of the temple immediately found him. They dishonored him for his opinion in favor of Christ, and he was vouchsafed to know the Son of God. Jesus, it is said, found him, like the ascetic who receives a wrestler who is greatly exhausted and crowned. And what does he say? Do you believe in the Son of God? Why does he ask about this, when he argued so much with the Jews, spoke so much for Him? He does this not out of ignorance, but out of a desire to teach the blind man the knowledge of Himself. He had not seen Him at all before, and he had not seen Him after His healing, because the Jews, those worst dogs, dragged Him hither and thither. Now He asks him in order to point to Himself in response to his question about who the Son of God is. At the same time, He shows him that He highly values his faith, saying, as it were, "So many people have offended Me, but I do not impute it to them in the least." I care about one thing – faith. Lord, who is this Son of God? He asks lovingly. Jesus answers, "He is the one whom you have seen and who speaks to you." He did not say, "It is I who healed you, who said to you, Go, wash yourself; but at first he speaks secretly and obscurely: and thou hast seen him, and then more clearly: and he also speaks to thee. The Lord seems to have said with intention: "Thou hast seen Him," precisely to remind him of his healing and that he had received from Him the ability to see. And immediately he believes, and in deed he manifests a fervent and true faith, he worships and confirms the word by his deeds, that he glorifies Him as God, because the law commands that only God should be worshipped (Deuteronomy 6:13).

Note, perhaps, that this miracle took place in the spiritual sense as well. In general, every person was blind from birth, that is, from subjection to birth, with which corruption is associated, for since we are condemned to death and to multiplication through passionate birth, from then on, as it were, a thick cloud has spread over our mental eyes, and, perhaps, that leather garment of which the Holy Scriptures mention (Gen. 3:3). 21). In particular, the pagan people were blind. And he was blind from birth. For example, the Greeks, because they deified the begotten and the perishable, became blind, according to the saying: "Their foolish heart is darkened" (Romans 1:21). In the same way, the Persian sages (magicians) spent their lives talking about birth and birthdays. Jesus "saw" this blind man, that is, every person in general, or, in particular, pagans. As the blind man could not see the Creator, He, out of the grace of mercy, Himself visited us, the East from above (Luke 1:78). How did he see it? "Passing by," that is, not being in heaven, and, in the words of the prophet, bowing down from heaven and looking upon all the sons of men (Psalm 13:2; 2:3), but appearing on earth. And in a different sense: "passing by" he saw the pagans, that is, he did not come to them primarily. For He came to the lost sheep of the house of Israel (Matt. 15:24), and then, as if in passing, He looked at the Gentiles sitting in the darkness of complete ignorance.