blind, the

140:3.18“Dis­cern the truth clearly; live the righ­teous life fear­lessly; and so shall you be my apos­tles and my Fa­ther’s am­bas­sadors. You have heard it said: ‘If the blind lead the blind, they both shall fall into the pit.’ If you would guide oth­ers into the king­dom, you must your­selves walk in the clear light of liv­ing truth. In all the busi­ness of the king­dom I ex­hort you to show just judg­ment and keen wis­dom. Pre­sent not that which is holy to dogs, nei­ther cast your pearls be­fore swine, lest they tram­ple your gems un­der foot and turn to rend you.

153:3.5Je­sus then di­rected his re­marks to all pres­ent. He said: “But hear­ken to me, all of you. It is not that which en­ters into the mouth that spir­i­tu­ally de­files the man, but rather that which pro­ceeds out of the mouth and from the heart.” But even the apos­tles failed fully to grasp the mean­ing of his words, for Si­mon Pe­ter also asked him: “Lest some of your hear­ers be un­nec­es­sar­ily of­fended, would you ex­plain to us the mean­ing of these words?” And then said Je­sus to Pe­ter: “Are you also hard of un­der­stand­ing? Know you not that ev­ery plant which my heav­enly Fa­ther has not planted shall be rooted up? Turn now your at­ten­tion to those who would know the truth. You can­not com­pel men to love the truth. Many of these teach­ers are blind guides. And you know that, if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the pit. But hear­ken while I tell you the truth con­cern­ing those things which morally de­file and spir­i­tu­ally con­tam­i­nate men. I de­clare it is not that which en­ters the body by the mouth or gains ac­cess to the mind through the eyes and ears, that de­files the man. Man is only de­filed by that evil which may orig­i­nate within the heart, and which finds ex­pres­sion in the words and deeds of such un­holy per­sons. Do you not know it is from the heart that there come forth evil thoughts, wicked projects of mur­der, theft, and adul­ter­ies, to­gether with jeal­ousy, pride, anger, re­venge, rail­ings, and false wit­ness? And it is just such things that de­file men, and not that they eat bread with cer­e­mo­ni­ally un­clean hands.”

175:1.15“Woe upon you, false teach­ers, blind guides! What can be ex­pected of a na­tion when the blind lead the blind? They both shall stum­ble into the pit of de­struc­tion.

171:5.1Late on the af­ter­noon of Thurs­day, March 30, Je­sus and his apos­tles, at the head of a band of about two hun­dred fol­low­ers, ap­proached the walls of Jeri­cho. As they came near the gate of the city, they en­coun­tered a throng of beg­gars, among them one Bar­timeus, an el­derly man who had been blind from his youth. This blind beg­gar had heard much about Je­sus and knew all about his heal­ing of the blind Josiah at Je­ru­sa­lem. He had not known of Je­sus’ last visit to Jeri­cho un­til he had gone on to Beth­any. Bar­timeus had re­solved that he would never again al­low Je­sus to visit Jeri­cho with­out ap­peal­ing to him for the restora­tion of his sight.

171:5.2News of Je­sus’ ap­proach had been her­alded through­out Jeri­cho, and hun­dreds of the in­hab­i­tants flocked forth to meet him. When this great crowd came back es­cort­ing the Mas­ter into the city, Bar­timeus, hear­ing the heavy tramp­ing of the mul­ti­tude, knew that some­thing un­usual was hap­pen­ing, and so he asked those stand­ing near him what was go­ing on. And one of the beg­gars replied, “Je­sus of Naz­a­reth is pass­ing by.” When Bar­timeus heard that Je­sus was near, he lifted up his voice and be­gan to cry aloud, “Je­sus, Je­sus, have mercy upon me!” And as he con­tin­ued to cry louder and louder, some of those near to Je­sus went over and re­buked him, re­quest­ing him to hold his peace; but it was of no avail; he cried only the more and the louder.

171:5.3When Je­sus heard the blind man cry­ing out, he stood still. And when he saw him, he said to his friends, “Bring the man to me.” And then they went over to Bar­timeus, say­ing: “Be of good cheer; come with us, for the Mas­ter calls for you.” When Bar­timeus heard these words, he threw aside his cloak, spring­ing for­ward to­ward the cen­ter of the road, while those near by guided him to Je­sus. Ad­dress­ing Bar­timeus, Je­sus said: “What do you want me to do for you?” Then an­swered the blind man, “I would have my sight re­stored.” And when Je­sus heard this re­quest and saw his faith, he said: “You shall re­ceive your sight; go your way; your faith has made you whole.” Im­me­di­ately he re­ceived his sight, and he re­mained near Je­sus, glo­ri­fy­ing God, un­til the Mas­ter started on the next day for Je­ru­sa­lem, and then he went be­fore the mul­ti­tude declar­ing to all how his sight had been re­stored in Jeri­cho.

164:3.1The next morn­ing the three went over to Martha’s home at Beth­any for break­fast and then went im­me­di­ately into Je­ru­sa­lem. This Sab­bath morn­ing, as Je­sus and his two apos­tles drew near the tem­ple, they en­coun­tered a well-known beg­gar, a man who had been born blind, sit­ting at his usual place. Al­though these men­di­cants did not so­licit or re­ceive alms on the Sab­bath day, they were per­mit­ted thus to sit in their usual places. Je­sus paused and looked upon the beg­gar. As he gazed upon this man who had been born blind, the idea came into his mind as to how he would once more bring his mis­sion on earth to the no­tice of the San­hedrin and the other Jew­ish lead­ers and re­li­gious teach­ers.

164:3.2As the Mas­ter stood there be­fore the blind man, en­grossed in deep thought, Na­than­iel, pon­der­ing the pos­si­ble cause of this man’s blind­ness, asked: “Mas­ter, who did sin, this man or his par­ents, that he should be born blind?”

164:3.3The rab­bis taught that all such cases of blind­ness from birth were caused by sin. Not only were chil­dren con­ceived and born in sin, but a child could be born blind as a pun­ish­ment for some spe­cific sin com­mit­ted by its fa­ther. They even taught that a child it­self might sin be­fore it was born into the world. They also taught that such de­fects could be caused by some sin or other in­dul­gence of the mother while car­ry­ing the child.

164:3.4There was, through­out all these re­gions, a lin­ger­ing be­lief in rein­car­na­tion. The older Jew­ish teach­ers, to­gether with Plato, Philo, and many of the Es­senes, tol­er­ated the the­ory that men may reap in one in­car­na­tion what they have sown in a pre­vi­ous ex­is­tence; thus in one life they were be­lieved to be ex­pi­at­ing the sins com­mit­ted in pre­ced­ing lives. The Mas­ter found it dif­fi­cult to make men be­lieve that their souls had not had pre­vi­ous ex­is­tences.

164:3.5How­ever, in­con­sis­tent as it seems, while such blind­ness was sup­posed to be the re­sult of sin, the Jews held that it was mer­i­to­ri­ous in a high de­gree to give alms to these blind beg­gars. It was the cus­tom of these blind men con­stantly to chant to the passers-by, “O ten­der­hearted, gain merit by as­sist­ing the blind.”

164:3.6Je­sus en­tered into the dis­cus­sion of this case with Na­than­iel and Thomas, not only be­cause he had al­ready de­cided to use this blind man as the means of that day bring­ing his mis­sion once more promi­nently to the no­tice of the Jew­ish lead­ers, but also be­cause he al­ways en­cour­aged his apos­tles to seek for the true causes of all phe­nom­ena, nat­u­ral or spir­i­tual. He had of­ten warned them to avoid the com­mon ten­dency to as­sign spir­i­tual causes to com­mon­place phys­i­cal events.

164:3.7Je­sus de­cided to use this beg­gar in his plans for that day’s work, but be­fore do­ing any­thing for the blind man, Josiah by name, he pro­ceeded to an­swer Na­than­iel’s ques­tion. Said the Mas­ter: “Nei­ther did this man sin nor his par­ents that the works of God might be man­i­fest in him. This blind­ness has come upon him in the nat­u­ral course of events, but we must now do the works of Him who sent me, while it is still day, for the night will cer­tainly come when it will be im­pos­si­ble to do the work we are about to per­form. When I am in the world, I am the light of the world, but in only a lit­tle while I will not be with you.”

164:3.8When Je­sus had spo­ken, he said to Na­than­iel and Thomas: “Let us cre­ate the sight of this blind man on this Sab­bath day that the scribes and Phar­isees may have the full oc­ca­sion which they seek for ac­cus­ing the Son of Man.” Then, stoop­ing over, he spat on the ground and mixed the clay with the spit­tle, and speak­ing of all this so that the blind man could hear, he went up to Josiah and put the clay over his sight­less eyes, say­ing: “Go, my son, wash away this clay in the pool of Siloam, and im­me­di­ately you shall re­ceive your sight.” And when Josiah had so washed in the pool of Siloam, he re­turned to his friends and fam­ily, see­ing.

164:3.9Hav­ing al­ways been a beg­gar, he knew noth­ing else; so, when the first ex­cite­ment of the cre­ation of his sight had passed, he re­turned to his usual place of alms-seek­ing. His friends, neigh­bors, and all who had known him afore­time, when they ob­served that he could see, all said, “Is this not Josiah the blind beg­gar?” Some said it was he, while oth­ers said, “No, it is one like him, but this man can see.” But when they asked the man him­self, he an­swered, “I am he.”

164:3.10When they be­gan to in­quire of him how he was able to see, he an­swered them: “A man called Je­sus came by this way, and when talk­ing about me with his friends, he made clay with spit­tle, anointed my eyes, and di­rected that I should go and wash in the pool of Siloam. I did what this man told me, and im­me­di­ately I re­ceived my sight. And that is only a few hours ago. I do not yet know the mean­ing of much that I see.” And when the peo­ple who be­gan to gather about him asked where they could find the strange man who had healed him, Josiah could an­swer only that he did not know.

164:3.11This is one of the strangest of all the Mas­ter’s mir­a­cles. This man did not ask for heal­ing. He did not know that the Je­sus who had di­rected him to wash at Siloam, and who had prom­ised him vi­sion, was the prophet of Gal­i­lee who had preached in Je­ru­sa­lem dur­ing the feast of taber­na­cles. This man had lit­tle faith that he would re­ceive his sight, but the peo­ple of that day had great faith in the ef­fi­cacy of the spit­tle of a great or holy man; and from Je­sus’ con­ver­sa­tion with Na­than­iel and Thomas, Josiah had con­cluded that his would-be bene­fac­tor was a great man, a learned teacher or a holy prophet; ac­cord­ingly he did as Je­sus di­rected him.

164:3.12Je­sus made use of the clay and the spit­tle and di­rected him to wash in the sym­bolic pool of Siloam for three rea­sons:

164:3.131. This was not a mir­a­cle re­sponse to the in­di­vid­ual’s faith. This was a won­der which Je­sus chose to per­form for a pur­pose of his own, but which he so ar­ranged that this man might de­rive last­ing ben­e­fit there­from.

164:3.142. As the blind man had not asked for heal­ing, and since the faith he had was slight, these ma­te­rial acts were sug­gested for the pur­pose of en­cour­ag­ing him. He did be­lieve in the su­per­sti­tion of the ef­fi­cacy of spit­tle, and he knew the pool of Siloam was a semisa­cred place. But he would hardly have gone there had it not been nec­es­sary to wash away the clay of his anoint­ing. There was just enough cer­e­mony about the trans­ac­tion to in­duce him to act.

164:3.153. But Je­sus had a third rea­son for re­sort­ing to these ma­te­rial means in con­nec­tion with this unique trans­ac­tion: This was a mir­a­cle wrought purely in obe­di­ence to his own choos­ing, and thereby he de­sired to teach his fol­low­ers of that day and all sub­se­quent ages to re­frain from de­spis­ing or ne­glect­ing ma­te­rial means in the heal­ing of the sick. He wanted to teach them that they must cease to re­gard mir­a­cles as the only method of cur­ing hu­man dis­eases.

164:3.16Je­sus gave this man his sight by mirac­u­lous work­ing, on this Sab­bath morn­ing and in Je­ru­sa­lem near the tem­ple, for the prime pur­pose of mak­ing this act an open chal­lenge to the San­hedrin and all the Jew­ish teach­ers and re­li­gious lead­ers. This was his way of pro­claim­ing an open break with the Phar­isees. He was al­ways pos­i­tive in ev­ery­thing he did. And it was for the pur­pose of bring­ing these mat­ters be­fore the San­hedrin that Je­sus brought his two apos­tles to this man early in the af­ter­noon of this Sab­bath day and de­lib­er­ately pro­voked those dis­cus­sions which com­pelled the Phar­isees to take no­tice of the mir­a­cle.

167:1.5Then went Je­sus over to where the sick man sat and, tak­ing him by the hand, said: “Arise and go your way. You have not asked to be healed, but I know the de­sire of your heart and the faith of your soul.” Be­fore the man left the room, Je­sus re­turned to his seat and, ad­dress­ing those at the ta­ble, said: “Such works my Fa­ther does, not to tempt you into the king­dom, but to re­veal him­self to those who are al­ready in the king­dom. You can per­ceive that it would be like the Fa­ther to do just such things be­cause which one of you, hav­ing a fa­vorite an­i­mal that fell in the well on the Sab­bath day, would not go right out and draw him up?” And since no one would an­swer him, and inas­much as his host ev­i­dently ap­proved of what was go­ing on, Je­sus stood up and spoke to all pres­ent: “My breth­ren, when you are bid­den to a mar­riage feast, sit not down in the chief seat, lest, per­chance, a more hon­ored man than you has been in­vited, and the host will have to come to you and re­quest that you give your place to this other and hon­ored guest. In this event, with shame you will be re­quired to take a lower place at the ta­ble. When you are bid­den to a feast, it would be the part of wis­dom, on ar­riv­ing at the fes­tive ta­ble, to seek for the low­est place and take your seat therein, so that, when the host looks over the guests, he may say to you: ‘My friend, why sit in the seat of the least? come up higher’; and thus will such a one have glory in the pres­ence of his fel­low guests. For­get not, ev­ery one who ex­alts him­self shall be hum­bled, while he who truly hum­bles him­self shall be ex­alted. There­fore, when you en­ter­tain at din­ner or give a sup­per, in­vite not al­ways your friends, your breth­ren, your kins­men, or your rich neigh­bors that they in re­turn may bid you to their feasts, and thus will you be rec­om­pensed. When you give a ban­quet, some­times bid the poor, the maimed, and the blind. In this way you shall be blessed in your heart, for you well know that the lame and the halt can­not re­pay you for your lov­ing min­istry.”