Josiah (blind beggar)

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.

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.”

• parents were poor, fear-burdened souls

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?”

• neither dumb nor lacking in humor

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.”

• cast out of synagogue

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.

• cast out of synagogue

164:5.4Je­sus and the two apos­tles did not go in search of Josiah at his home un­til they heard he had been cast out of the syn­a­gogue. When they came to his house, Thomas called him out in the yard, and Je­sus, speak­ing to him, said: “Josiah, do you be­lieve in the Son of God?” And Josiah an­swered, “Tell me who he is that I may be­lieve in him.” And Je­sus said: “You have both seen and heard him, and it is he who now speaks to you.” And Josiah said, “Lord, I be­lieve,” and falling down, he wor­shiped.

164:5.5When Josiah learned that he had been cast out of the syn­a­gogue, he was at first greatly down­cast, but he was much en­cour­aged when Je­sus di­rected that he should im­me­di­ately pre­pare to go with them to the camp at Pella. This sim­ple-minded man of Je­ru­sa­lem had in­deed been cast out of a Jew­ish syn­a­gogue, but be­hold the Cre­ator of a uni­verse lead­ing him forth to be­come as­so­ci­ated with the spir­i­tual no­bil­ity of that day and gen­er­a­tion.

• became lifelong preacher of gospel

164:5.6And now Je­sus left Je­ru­sa­lem, not again to re­turn un­til near the time when he pre­pared to leave this world. With the two apos­tles and Josiah the Mas­ter went back to Pella. And Josiah proved to be one of the re­cip­i­ents of the Mas­ter’s mirac­u­lous min­istry who turned out fruit­fully, for he be­came a life­long preacher of the gospel of the king­dom.