Homilies on the Gospel of St. John and the Epistle to the Hebrews

NPNF (V1-14)St. Chrysostom“And as Jesus passed by, He saw a man which was blind from his birth. And His disciples askedHim, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?”199[1.] “ And as Jesus passed by, He saw a man which was blind from his birth.” Being full oflove for man, and caring for our salvation, and desiring to stop the mouths of the foolish, He omittethnothing of His own part, though there be none to give heed. And the Prophet knowing this saith,“That Thou mightest be justified when Thou speakest, and be clear when Thou art judged.” ( Ps.li. 4 .) Wherefore here, when they would not receive His sublime sayings, but said that He had adevil, and attempted to kill Him, He went forth from the Temple, and healed the blind, mitigatingtheir rage by His absence, and by working the miracle softening their hardness and cruelty, andestablishing His assertions. And He worketh a miracle which was no common one, but one whichtook place then for the first time. “Since the world began,” saith he who was healed, “was it notheard that any man opened the eyes of one that was born blind.” ( Ver. 32 .) Some have, perhaps,opened the eyes of the blind, but of one born blind never. And that on going out of the Temple, Heproceeded intentionally to the work, is clear from this; it was He who saw the blind man, not theblind man who came to Him; and so earnestly did He look upon him, that even His disciplesperceived it. From this, at least, they came to question Him; for when they saw Him earnestlyregarding the man, they asked Him, saying, “Who did sin, this man, or his parents?” A mistakenquestion, for how could he sin before he was born? and how, if his parents had sinned, would hehave been punished? Whence then came they to put this question? Before, when He healed theparalytic, He said, “Behold, thou art made whole, sin no more.” ( c. v. 14 .) They therefore, havingunderstood that he was palsied on account of sin, said, “Well, that other was palsied because of hissins; but concerning this man, what wouldest Thou say? hath he sinned? It is not possible to sayso, for he is blind from his birth. Have his parents sinned? Neither can one say this, for the childsuffers not punishment for the father.” As therefore when we see a child evil entreated, we exclaim,“What can one say of this? what has the child done?” not as asking a question, but as being perplexed,so the disciples spake here, not so much asking for information, as being in perplexity. What thensaith Christ?Ver. 3 . “Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents.”This He saith not as acquitting them of sins, for He saith not simply, “Neither hath this mansinned, nor his parents,” but addeth, “that he should have been born blind 1505 —but that the Son ofGod should be glorified in him.” “For both this man hath sinned and his parents, but his blindnessproceedeth not from that.” And this He said, not signifying that though this man indeed was not insuch case, yet that others had been made blind from such a cause, the sins of their parents, since itcannot be that when one sinneth another should be punished. For if we allow this, we must alsoallow that he sinned before his birth. As therefore when He declared, “neither hath this man sinned,”He said not that it is possible to sin from one’s very birth, and be punished for it; so when He said,“nor his parents,” He said not that one may be punished for his parents’ sake. This supposition Here moveth by the mouth of Ezekiel; “As I live saith the Lord, this proverb shall not be, that is used,The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.” ( Ezek. xviii. 3, 2 .)And Moses saith, “The father shall not die for the child, neither shall the child die for the father.”1505not in N.T.302