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.

How does it cure blindness? Spitting on the ground and making a shaving. For whoever believes that the Word descended into the holy Virgin as a drop dripping on the ground, will anoint his mental eyes with the clay of spittle and earth, that is, the one Christ, consisting of the Divinity, whose sign (symbol) is the drop and the spittle, and Humanity, the sign of which is the earth, from which the body of the Lord is. Will healing stop at faith? No; one must go also to Siloam, the source of baptism, and be baptized into the One who was sent, that is, Christ. For all of us who have been spiritually baptized have been baptized into Christ. And whoever is baptized will be subjected to temptations after this. Perhaps for the sake of Christ who healed him they will bring him before kings and rulers (Luke 21:12). Therefore, it is necessary to be firm and unyielding in confession; not to renounce out of fear, but, if necessary, to become both excommunicated and expelled from the synagogue, according to what is said: "Ye shall be hated by all men for My name's sake, and ye shall be cast out of the synagogues" (Matt. 24:9; Jn. 16:2). If people who are hostile to the truth both drive out the confessor of it, and remove him from what is holy and precious to them, that is, from riches and glory, then Jesus will find him, and when he is dishonored by his enemies, then he will be especially honored by Christ with knowledge and the most thorough faith. For then he will worship Christ most of all as a visible Man and as the true Son of God. For there is no other Son of God and another Son of Mary, as Nestorius impiously blasphemed, but one and the same Son of God and Man. Vide. When he who was once blind asked, "Who is the Son of God, that I should believe in Him?" then the Lord answered, "He is He Whom you have seen, and Who speaks to you." Who spoke but He who was born of Mary? And He is also the Son of God, but not another and different. That is why St. Mary is truly the Mother of God. For She gave birth to the Son of God, made flesh, indivisible, and One in two natures, Who is Christ the Lord.

And Jesus said, I have come into this world for judgment, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind. And when some of the Pharisees who were with him heard this, they said to him, "Are we also blind? Jesus said to them, "If you were blind, you would not have sin on you; but as you say that you see, the sin remains upon you.

The Lord saw that the Pharisees derived more harm than good for themselves from the miracle, and through this they became worthy of greater condemnation, and therefore He says: "As it seems and as it turns out in deed, I have come to judgment, that is, for a greater punishment, so that those who do not see may see, and those who see, such as the Pharisees, may become blind with the eyes of the soul. For he who does not see from birth sees both in soul and body, but those who consider themselves to see have become blind in mind. Here He speaks of vigilance and blindness of two kinds. The Pharisees, who always grasped at sensual things, thought that He was speaking of sensual blindness, and said, "Are we also blind? They were ashamed of this bodily blindness alone. And the Lord wanted to show them that it is better to be blind in the body than unbelievers, and He said, "If you were blind, you would have no sin." For if you were by necessity, by nature, blind, you could be forgiven for the unbelief with which you are infected. But now you say that you see, and yet, having witnessed the miracle of the blind man, you still remain in unbelief, and therefore are not worthy of forgiveness. For your sin remains indelible, and you will be punished all the more because you do not come to faith in obvious miracles. These words: "If you were blind, you would have no sin," can be understood in this way. You ask about bodily blindness, of which alone you are ashamed. And I say of your spiritual blindness, that if you were blind, that is, ignorant of the Scriptures, you would not have such a grievous sin upon you, for you would sin out of ignorance. And now you say that you see, and pretend to be prudent and experienced in the law, therefore you condemn yourselves and have a greater sin upon you, because you sin consciously.

Chapter Ten

Verily, verily, I say to you, whoever does not enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs over the Inde, is a thief and a robber; but he who enters by the door is a shepherd to the sheep; To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep obey his voice, and he calls his sheep by name and brings them out; and when he brings forth his sheep, he goes before them; but the sheep follow him, because they know his voice; but they do not follow a stranger, but flee from him, because they do not know the voice of another.

The Lord, saying that you are truly blind in soul through the disease of unbelief, rebuked the Pharisees for their unbelief. In order that they may not be able to say that we abhor Thee, not because of our blindness, but in order to avoid deception, He conducts a long discourse on this. Which one? He sets forth the signs of both the true shepherd and the wolf-destroyer, and thus shows of Himself that He is good, referring to works as a witness.

First He sets forth the distinguishing characteristics of the destroyer. He, he says, does not enter by the door, that is, by the Scriptures, for he is not testified by the Scriptures or the prophets. The Scriptures are truly the door; for through them we draw near to God. They do not allow wolves to enter, for they excommunicate heretics, making us safe, and imparting to us the knowledge of whatever we desire. Thus, a thief is one who does not enter the sheepfold through the Scriptures to take care of the sheep, but ascends the Indus, that is, makes a different and unusual path for himself, as, for example, Theudas and Judas. Before the coming of Christ, they deceived the people, destroyed them, and perished themselves (Acts 5:36, 37). Such will be the vile Antichrist. For they have no testimony from the Scriptures. He also alludes to the scribes, who did not fulfill a single word of the commandments of the law, but taught the commandments of men and traditions. He said decently: climbing over. It goes to a thief who jumps over the fence and does everything with danger. These are the signs of a robber.