XXX.

THE OPENING THE EYES OF TWO BLIND MEN NEAR JERICHO.

MATT. xx. 29-34; MARK X. 46–52; LUKE xviii, 35–43.

THIS is one of the events in the life of our Lord which has put the ingenuity of Scripture harmonists to the stretch. The apparent discrepancies which it is their task to reconcile are these. St. Matthew makes our Lord to have restored sight to two blind men, and this as he was going out of Jericho. St. Luke appears at first sight to contradict both these facts, for he makes the cure to have taken place at his coming nigh to the city, and the healed to have been but one; while St. Mark seems to stand between them, holding in part to one of his fellow Evangelists, in part to the other. He with St. Luke names but one whose eyes were opened, but consents with St. Matthew in placing the miracle, not at the entering into, but the going out from, Jericho, so that the narratives curiously cross and interlace one another. To escape all difficulties of this kind there is of course the ready expedient always at hand, that the sacred historians are recording different events, and that therefore there is nothing to reconcile, although oftentimes this is an escape from difficulties of one kind, which only really involves in far greater embarrassments of another. Thus, accepting this solution, we must believe that twice, or even thrice, in the immediate neighborhood of Jericho, our Lord was besought in almost the same words by blind beggars on the wayside for mercy;-that on every occasion there was a multitude accompanying him, who sought to silence the vociferations of the claimants, but did only cause them to cry the more;-that in each case Jesus stood still and demanded what they wanted;—that in each case they made the same reply in very nearly the same words;-and a great deal more. All this is so unna.

tural, so improbable, so unlike any thing of actual life, so unlike the infinite variety which the Gospel incidents present, that any solution seems preferable to this.

There are three apparently discordant accounts, none of them entirely agreeing with any other: but they can at once be reduced to two by that rule, which in all reconciliations of parallel histories must be held fast, namely, that the silence of one narrator is not to be assumed as the contradiction of the statement of another; thus St. Mark* and St. Luke, making especial mention of one blind man, do not contradict St. Matthew, who mentions two. There remains only the difficulty that by one Evangelist the healing is placed at the Lord's entering into the city, by the others at his going out. This is not, I think, sufficient to justify a duplication of the fact. Nor have I any doubt that Bengel, with his usual happy tact, has selected the right reconciliation of the difficulty; namely, that one cried to him as he drew near the city,S but that he did not cure him then, but on the morrow at his going out of the city cured him together with the other, to whom in the meanwhile he had joined himself,-the Evangelist relating by prolepsis, as is so common with all historians, the whole of the event where he first intro

* Augustine (De Cons. Evang., 1. 2, c. 65): Procul dubio itaque Bartimæus iste Timæ filius ex aliquâ magnâ felicitate dejectus, notissimæ et famosissimæ miseriæ fuit, quòd non solùm cæcus, verùm etiam mendicus sedebat. Hinc est ergo quod ipsum solùm voluit commemorare Marcus, cujus illuminatio tam claram famam huic miraculo comparavit, quàm erat illius nota calamitas. Cf. Quæst. Evang. 1. 2, c. 48.

+ Some, indeed, equally in old times and in modern, have seen themselves bound m to such a conclusion:-thus Augustine (De Cons. Evang., 1. 2, c. 65), who expresses himself strongly on the matter; Lightfoot (Harmony of the N. T., sect. 69); and, in our own time, Mr Greswell. On the other hand, Theophylact, Chrysostom, Maldonatus, Grotius, have with more or less confidence maintained that we have here but one and the same event.

Bengel: Marcus unum commemorat Bartimæum, insigniorem, (x. 46,) eundemque Lucas (xviii. 35) innuit, qui transponendæ historia occasionem exinde habuit, quod cæcorum alter, Jesu Hierichuntem intrante, in viâ notitiam divini hujus medici acquisivit. Salvator dum apud Zacchæum pranderet, vel pernoctaret potius, Bartimæo cæcorum alter, quem Matthæus adjungit, interim associatus est. I observe Maldonatus had already fallen upon the same.

§ The explanation of Grotius is, that iv r ¿yyílew of Luke does not necessarily mean, and does not here mean, When he was drawing near to, but, When he was in the neighborhood of,-and that this nearness to the city might equally have been, and in this case was, the nearness of one who had just departed from the city, and not that of one who was now advancing to the city. But, to set aside whether the words can mean this, the narrative, which follows, of Zaccheus, (introduced with a kaì çloɛ20ŵv,) is wholly against the supposition that St. Luke means to signify by those words that the Lord was now leaving Jericho.

duces it, rather than, by cutting it in two halves, preserve indeed a more painful accuracy, yet lose the total effect which the whole narrative related at a breath would possess.

The cry with which these blind men sought to attract the pity of Christ was on their part a recognition of his dignity as the Messiah; for this name, "Son of David," was the popular designation of the Messiah. There was therefore upon their part a double confession of faith, first that he could heal them, and secondly, not merely as a prophet from God, but as the Prophet, as the one who should come, according to the words of Isaiah, to give sight to the blind. In the case of the man blind from his birth, (John ix.) we have the same confessions, but following, and not preceding the cure, and with intervals between; so that first he acknowledges him as a prophet, (ver. 17,) and only later as the Messiah. (ver. 38.)

And here the explanation has been sometimes found of the rebukes which they met from the multitude, who would fain have had them to hold their peace. These, it has been said, desired to hinder their crying, because they grudged to hear given unto Jesus this title of honor, which they were not themselves prepared to accord him.* This passage will then be very much a parallel to Luke xix. 39; only that there the Pharisees would have Christ himself to rebuke those that were glorifying him and giving him honor, while here the multitude take the rebuking into their own hands. Yet I hardly think the explanation good. It was quite in the spirit of the envious malignant Pharisees to be vexed with those Messianic salutations, "Blessed be the King, that cometh in the name of the Lord;" but these well-meaning multitudes, rude and for the most part spiritually undeveloped, as no doubt they were, were yet exempt from those spiritual malignities. We never trace aught of this kind in them, but rather in the main a sympathy with the Lord; it was not they who said that his miracles were wrought in the power of Beelzebub; but they glorified God because of them. And here, too, I cannot doubt but that it was out of an intention of honoring Christ that they sought to silence what appeared to them these ill-timed and unmannerly clamors. It may be that he was teaching as he went, and they would not have him interrupted.

But their endeavors to suppress the crying of these blind men profited nothing on the contrary," they cried the more, saying, Have mercy on us, thou Son of David." Many admirable homiletic applications of this portion of the history have been made. Here, it has been often

Hilary (Comm. in Matth., in loc.): Denique eos turba objurgat, quia acerbè a cæcis audiunt quod negabant, Dominum esse David Filium.

said, is the history of many a soul: when a man is first in earnest about his salvation, and begins to cry that his eyes may be opened, that he may walk in his light who is the Light of men, when he begins to despise the world and to be careless about riches, he will find infinite hinderances, and these not from professed enemies of the Gospel of Christ, but from such as seem, like this multitude, to be with Jesus and on his side. Even they will try to stop his mouth, and to hinder an earnest crying to him.* And then, with a stroke from the life, Augustine makes further application in the same direction of the words which follow in St. Mark, who, speaking as but of one that cried, says, “And Jesus stood still, and commanded him to be called. And they called the blind man, saying unto him, Be of good comfort, rise; he calleth thee!” For, he observes, this too repeats itself often in the spiritual history of men's lives. If a man will only despise these obstacles from a world which calls itself Christian, and overcome them; if despite of all he will go on, until Christ is evidently and plainly with him, then they who began by reprehending, will finish by applauding; they who at first said, He is mad, will end with saying, "He is a saint."

....

* Augustine (Serm. 349, c. 5): Reprehensuri sunt nos, quasi dilectores nostri, homines sæculares, amantes terram, sapientes pulverem, nihil de cœlo ducentes, auras liberas corde, nare carpentes: reprehensuri sunt nos procul dubio, atque dicturi, si viderint nos ista humana, ista terrena contemnere; Quid pateris? quid insanis? Turba illa est contradicens, ne cæcus clamet. Et aliquanti Christiani sunt, qui prohibent vivere Christianè, quia et illa turba cum Christo ambulabat, et vociferantem hominem ad Christum ac lucem desiderantem, ab ipsius Christi beneficio prohibebat. Sunt tales Christiani, sed vincamus illos, vivamus bene, et ipsa vita sit vox nostra ad Christum And again, Serm. 88, c. 13, 14: Incipiat mundum contemnere, inopi sua distribuere, pro nihilo habere quæ homines amant, contemnat injurias, .... si quis ei abstulerit eua, non repetat; si quid alieni abstulerit, reddat quadruplum. Cum ista facere cœperit, omnes sui cognati, affines, amici commoventur. Quid insanis? Nimius es; numquid alii non sunt Christiani? Ista stultitia est, ista dementia est. Et cætera talia turba clamat, ne cæci clament ... Bonos Christianos, verè studiosos, volentes facere præcepta Dei, Christiani mali et tepidi prohibent. Turba ipsa quæ cum Domino est prohibet clamantes, id est, prohibet bene operantes, ne perseverando sanentur. Gregory the Great gives it another turn, saying (Hom. 2 in Evang.): Sæpe namque dum converti ad Dominum post perpetrata vitia volumus, dum contra hæc eadem exorare vitia quæ perpetravimus, conamur, occurrunt cordi phantasmata peccatorum quæ fecimus, mentis nostræ aciem reverberant, confundunt animum, et vocem nostræ deprecationis premunt. Quæ præibant ergo, increpabant eum, ut taceret.... In se, ut suspicor, recognoscit unusquisque quod dicimus: quia dum ab hoc mundo animum ad Deum mutamus, dum ad orationis opus convertimur, ipsa quæ prius delectabiliter gessimus, importuna postea atque gravia in oratione nostrâ toleramus. Vix eorum cogitatio manu sancti desiderii ab oculis cordis abigitur; vix eorum phantasmata per pœnitentiæ lamenta superantur † Augustine (Serm. 88, c. 17): Cum quisque Christianus cœperit bene vivere, fervere bonis operibus, mundumque contemnere, in ipsâ novitate operum suorum patitur

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At this cry of theirs "Jesus stood still," arrested, as ever, by the cry of need, "and called them;" or, in the words of St. Mark, (x. 49,) who throughout tells but of the one, "commanded him to be called. And he, casting away his garment," to the end that he might obey with the greater expedition, and that he might be hindered by nothing," rose and came to Jesus ;"—in this ridding himself of all which would have been in his way, used often as an example for every soul which Jesus has called, that it should in like manner lay aside every weight and whatever would hinder it from coming speedily to him. (Matt. xiii. 44, 46; Phil. iii. 7.) The Lord's question, "What wilt thou that I should do unto thee?" is, in part, an expression of his readiness to aid, a comment in act upon his own words, spoken but a little while before, "The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister;" (Matt. xx. 28,) in part uttered for the calling out into yet livelier exercise the faith and expectation of the petitioner. (Matt. ix. 28.) The man, whose cry has been hitherto a vague general cry for mercy, now singles out the blessing which he craves, declares the channel in which he desires that this mercy may run,* and makes answer, "Lord, that I might receive my sight." Only St. Matthew mentions the touching of the eyes which were to be restored to vision, and only St. Luke the word of power, the "Receive thy sight," by which the cure was effected. The man, who had hitherto been tied to one place, now used aright his restored eyesight; for he used it to follow Jesus in the way, and this with the free outbreaks of a thankful heart, himself "glorifying God," and being the occasion that others glorified his name as well. (Acts iii. 8-10.)

reprehensores et contradictores frigidos Christianos. Si autem perseveraverit, et eos superaverit perdurando, et non defecerit à bonis operibus; iidem ipsi jam obsequentur, qui antè prohibebant. Tamdiu enim corripiunt et perturbaut et vetant, quamdiu sibi cedi posse præsumunt. Si autem victi fuerint perseverantiâ proficientium, convertunt se et dicere incipiunt, Magnus homo, sanctus homo, felix cui Deus concessit. Honorant, gratulantur, benedicunt, laudant; quomodo illa turba quæ cum Domino erant. Ipsa prohibebat ne cæci clamarent; sed postquam illi ita clamaverunt, ut mererentur audiri, et impetrare misericordiam Domini, ipsa turba rursum dicit, Vocat vos Jesus. Jam et hortatores fiunt, qui paulo ante corripiebant ut tacerent.

Gregory the Great, (Hom. 2 in Evang.,) commenting on this request of theirs, bids us to make request for the same, and in like manner to concentrate our petitions on the greatest thing of all: Non falsas divitias, non terrena dona, non fugitivos honores à Domino, sed lucem quæramus; nec lucem quæ loco clauditur, quæ tempore finitur, quæ noctium interruptione variatur, quæ à nobis communiter cum pecoribus cernitur: sed lucem quæramus, quam videre cum solis Angelis possimus, quam nec initium inchoat, nec finis angustat.