At the Feast of Dedication

164:4.1By midafter­noon the heal­ing of Josiah had raised such a dis­cus­sion around the tem­ple that the lead­ers of the San­hedrin de­cided to con­vene the coun­cil in its usual tem­ple meet­ing place. And they did this in vi­o­la­tion of a stand­ing rule which for­bade the meet­ing of the San­hedrin on the Sab­bath day. Je­sus knew that Sab­bath break­ing would be one of the chief charges to be brought against him when the fi­nal test came, and he de­sired to be brought be­fore the San­hedrin for ad­ju­di­ca­tion of the charge of hav­ing healed a blind man on the Sab­bath day, when the very ses­sion of the high Jew­ish court sit­ting in judg­ment on him for this act of mercy would be de­lib­er­at­ing on these mat­ters on the Sab­bath day and in di­rect vi­o­la­tion of their own self-im­posed laws.

164:4.2But they did not call Je­sus be­fore them; they feared to. In­stead, they sent forth­with for Josiah. Af­ter some pre­lim­i­nary ques­tion­ing, the spokesman for the San­hedrin (about fifty mem­bers be­ing pres­ent) di­rected Josiah to tell them what had hap­pened to him. Since his heal­ing that morn­ing Josiah had learned from Thomas, Na­than­iel, and oth­ers that the Phar­isees were an­gry about his heal­ing on the Sab­bath, and that they were likely to make trou­ble for all con­cerned; but Josiah did not yet per­ceive that Je­sus was he who was called the De­liv­erer. So, when the Phar­isees ques­tioned him, he said: “This man came along, put clay upon my eyes, told me to go wash in Siloam, and I do now see.”

164:4.3One of the older Phar­isees, af­ter mak­ing a lengthy speech, said: “This man can­not be from God be­cause you can see that he does not ob­serve the Sab­bath. He vi­o­lates the law, first, in mak­ing the clay, then, in send­ing this beg­gar to wash in Siloam on the Sab­bath day. Such a man can­not be a teacher sent from God.”

164:4.4Then one of the younger men who se­cretly be­lieved in Je­sus, said: “If this man is not sent by God, how can he do these things? We know that one who is a com­mon sin­ner can­not per­form such mir­a­cles. We all know this beg­gar and that he was born blind; now he sees. Will you still say that this prophet does all these won­ders by the power of the prince of dev­ils?” And for ev­ery Phar­isee who dared to ac­cuse and de­nounce Je­sus one would arise to ask en­tan­gling and em­bar­rass­ing ques­tions, so that a se­ri­ous di­vi­sion arose among them. The pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer saw whither they were drift­ing, and in or­der to al­lay the dis­cus­sion, he pre­pared fur­ther to ques­tion the man him­self. Turn­ing to Josiah, he said: “What do you have to say about this man, this Je­sus, whom you claim opened your eyes?” And Josiah an­swered, “I think he is a prophet.”

164:4.5The lead­ers were greatly trou­bled and, know­ing not what else to do, de­cided to send for Josiah’s par­ents to learn whether he had ac­tu­ally been born blind. They were loath to be­lieve that the beg­gar had been healed.

164:4.6It was well known about Je­ru­sa­lem, not only that Je­sus was de­nied en­trance into all syn­a­gogues, but that all who be­lieved in his teach­ing were like­wise cast out of the syn­a­gogue, ex­com­mu­ni­cated from the con­gre­ga­tion of Is­rael; and this meant de­nial of all rights and priv­i­leges of ev­ery sort through­out all Jewry ex­cept the right to buy the nec­es­saries of life.

164:4.7When, there­fore, Josiah’s par­ents, poor and fear-bur­dened souls, ap­peared be­fore the au­gust San­hedrin, they were afraid to speak freely. Said the spokesman of the court: “Is this your son? and do we un­der­stand aright that he was born blind? If this is true, how is it that he can now see?” And then Josiah’s fa­ther, sec­onded by his mother, an­swered: “We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind, but how it is that he has come to see, or who it was that opened his eyes, we know not. Ask him; he is of age; let him speak for him­self.”

164:4.8They now called Josiah up be­fore them a sec­ond time. They were not get­ting along well with their scheme of hold­ing a for­mal trial, and some were be­gin­ning to feel strange about do­ing this on the Sab­bath; ac­cord­ingly, when they re­called Josiah, they at­tempted to en­snare him by a dif­fer­ent mode of at­tack. The of­fi­cer of the court spoke to the for­mer blind man, say­ing: “Why do you not give God the glory for this? why do you not tell us the whole truth about what hap­pened? We all know that this man is a sin­ner. Why do you refuse to dis­cern the truth? You know that both you and this man stand con­victed of Sab­bath break­ing. Will you not atone for your sin by ac­knowl­edg­ing God as your healer, if you still claim that your eyes have this day been opened?”

164:4.9But Josiah was nei­ther dumb nor lack­ing in hu­mor; so he replied to the of­fi­cer of the court: “Whether this man is a sin­ner, I know not; but one thing I do know—that, whereas I was blind, now I see.” And since they could not en­trap Josiah, they sought fur­ther to ques­tion him, ask­ing: “Just how did he open your eyes? what did he ac­tu­ally do to you? what did he say to you? did he ask you to be­lieve in him?”

164:4.10Josiah replied, some­what im­pa­tiently: “I have told you ex­actly how it all hap­pened, and if you did not be­lieve my tes­ti­mony, why would you hear it again? Would you by any chance also be­come his dis­ci­ples?” When Josiah had thus spo­ken, the San­hedrin broke up in con­fu­sion, al­most vi­o­lence, for the lead­ers rushed upon Josiah, an­grily ex­claim­ing: “You may talk about be­ing this man’s dis­ci­ple, but we are dis­ci­ples of Moses, and we are the teach­ers of the laws of God. We know that God spoke through Moses, but as for this man Je­sus, we know not whence he is.”

164:4.11Then Josiah, stand­ing upon a stool, shouted abroad to all who could hear, say­ing: “Hear­ken, you who claim to be the teach­ers of all Is­rael, while I de­clare to you that herein is a great mar­vel since you con­fess that you know not whence this man is, and yet you know of a cer­tainty, from the tes­ti­mony which you have heard, that he opened my eyes. We all know that God does not per­form such works for the un­godly; that God would do such a thing only at the re­quest of a true wor­shiper—for one who is holy and right­eous. You know that not since the be­gin­ning of the world have you ever heard of the open­ing of the eyes of one who was born blind. Look, then, all of you, upon me and re­al­ize what has been done this day in Je­ru­sa­lem! I tell you, if this man were not from God, he could not do this.” And as the San­hedrists de­parted in anger and con­fu­sion, they shouted to him: “You were al­to­gether born in sin, and do you now pre­sume to teach us? Maybe you were not re­ally born blind, and even if your eyes were opened on the Sab­bath day, this was done by the power of the prince of dev­ils.” And they went at once to the syn­a­gogue to cast out Josiah.

164:4.12Josiah en­tered this trial with mea­ger ideas about Je­sus and the na­ture of his heal­ing. Most of the dar­ing tes­ti­mony which he so clev­erly and coura­geously bore be­fore this su­preme tri­bu­nal of all Is­rael de­vel­oped in his mind as the trial pro­ceeded along such un­fair and un­just lines.