One of the first places among the sufferers cured by Jesus is filled (also agreeably to the nature of the climate[100]) by the blind, of whose cure again we read not only in the general descriptions which are given by the Evangelists ([Matt. xv. 30 f.]; [Luke vii. 21]), and by Jesus himself ([Matt. xi. 5]), of his messianic works, but also in some detailed narratives of particular cases. We have indeed more of these cures than of the kind last noticed, doubtless because blindness, as a malady affecting the most delicate and complicated of organs, admitted a greater diversity of treatment. One of these cures of the blind is common to all the synoptical writers; the others (with the exception of the blind and dumb demoniac in Matthew, whom we need not here reconsider) are respectively peculiar to the first, second, and fourth Evangelists.
The narrative common to all the three synoptical writers is that of a cure of blindness wrought by Jesus at Jericho, on his last journey to Jerusalem ([Matt. xx. 29] parall.): but there are important differences both as to the object of the cure, Matthew having two blind men, the two other Evangelists only one; and also as to its locality, Luke making it take place on the entrance of Jesus into Jericho, Matthew and Mark on his departure out of Jericho. Moreover the touching of the eyes, by which, according to the first evangelist, Jesus effected the cure, is not mentioned by the two other narrators. Of these differences the latter may be explained by the observation, that though Mark and Luke are silent as to the touching, they do not therefore [[442]]deny it: the first, relative to the number cured, presents a heavier difficulty. To remove this it has been said by those who give the prior authority to Matthew, that one of the two blind men was possibly more remarkable than the other, on which account he alone was retained in the first tradition; but Matthew, as an eye-witness, afterwards supplied the second blind man. On this supposition Luke and Mark do not contradict Matthew, for they nowhere deny that another besides their single blind man was healed; neither does Matthew contradict them, for where there are two, there is also one.[101] But when the simple narrator speaks of one individual in whom something extraordinary has happened, and even, like Mark, mentions his name, it is plain that he tacitly contradicts the statement that it happened in two individuals—to contradict it expressly there was no occasion. Let us turn then to the other side and, taking the singular number of Mark and Luke as the original one, conjecture that the informant of Matthew (the latter being scarcely on this hypothesis an eye-witness) probably mistook the blind man’s guide for a second blind man.[102] Hereby a decided contradiction is admitted, while to account for it an extremely improbable cause is superfluously invented. The third difference relates to the place; Matthew and Mark have ἐκπορευομένων ἀπὸ, as they departed from, Luke, ἐν τῷ ἐγγίζειν εἰς Ἱεριχὼ, as they came nigh to Jericho. If there be any whom the words themselves fail to convince that this difference is irreconcilable, let them read the forced attempts to render these passages consistent with each other, which have been made by commentators from Grotius down to Paulus.
Hence it was a better expedient which the older harmonists[103] adopted, and which has been approved by some modern critics.[104] In consideration of the last-named difference, they here distinguished two events, and held that Jesus cured a blind man first on his entrance into Jericho (according to Luke), and then again on his departure from that place (according to Matthew and Luke). Of the other divergency, relative to the number, these harmonists believed that they had disencumbered themselves by the supposition that Matthew connected in one event the two blind men, the one cured on entering and the other on leaving Jericho, and gave the latter position to the cure of both. But if so much weight is allowed to the statement of Matthew relative to the locality of the cure, as to make it, in conjunction with that of Mark, a reason for supposing two cures, one at each extremity of the town, I know not why equal credit should not be given to his numerical statement, and Storr appears to me to proceed more consistently when, allowing equal weight to both differences, he supposes that Jesus on his entrance into Jericho, cured one blind man (Luke) and subsequently on his departure two (Matthew).[105] The claim of Matthew is thus fully vindicated, but on the other hand that of Mark is denied. For if the latter be associated with Matthew, as is here the case, for the sake of his locality, it is necessary to do violence to his numerical statement, which taken alone would rather require him to be associated with Luke; so that to avoid impeaching either of his statements, which on this system of interpretation is not admissible, his narrative must be equally detached from that of both the other Evangelists. Thus we should have three distinct cures of the blind at Jericho: 1st, the cure of one blind man on the entrance of Jesus, 2nd, that of another on his departure, and 3rd, the cure of two blind men, also during the departure; in all, of four blind men. Now to [[443]]separate the second and third cases is indeed difficult. For it will not be maintained that Jesus can have gone out by two different gates at the same time, and it is nearly as difficult to imagine that having merely set out with the intention of leaving Jericho, he returned again into the town, and not until afterwards took his final departure. But, viewing the case more generally, it is scarcely an admissible supposition, that three incidents so entirely similar thus fell together in a group. The accumulation of cures of the blind is enough to surprise us; but the behaviour of the companions of Jesus is incomprehensible; for after having seen in the first instance, on entering Jericho, that they had acted in opposition to the designs of Jesus by rebuking the blind man for his importunity, since Jesus called the man to him, they nevertheless repeated this conduct on the second and even on the third occasion. Storr, it is true, is not disconcerted by this repetition in at least two incidents of this kind, for he maintains that no one knows whether those who had enjoined silence on going out of Jericho were not altogether different persons from those who had done the like on entering the town: indeed, supposing them to be the same, such a repetition of conduct which Jesus had implicitly disapproved, however unbecoming, was not therefore impossible, since even the disciples who had been present at the first miraculous feeding, yet asked, before the second, whence bread could be had for such a multitude?—but this is merely to argue the reality of one impossibility from that of another, as we shall presently see when we enter on the consideration of the two miraculous feedings. Further, not only the conduct of the followers of Jesus, but also almost every feature of the incident must have been repeated in the most extraordinary manner. In the one case as in the other, the blind men cry, Have mercy upon us, (or me,) thou son of David; then (after silence has been enjoined on them by the spectators) Jesus commands that they should be brought to him: he next asks what they will that he should do to them; they answer, that we may receive our sight; he complies with their wish, and they gratefully follow him. That all this was so exactly repeated thrice, or even twice, is an improbability amounting to an impossibility; and we must suppose, according to the hypothesis adopted by Sieffert in such cases, a legendary assimilation of different facts, or a traditionary variation of a single occurrence. If, in order to arrive at a decision, it be asked: what could more easily happen, when once the intervention of the legend is presupposed, than that one and the same history should be told first of one, then of several, first of the entrance, then of the departure? it will not be necessary to discuss the other possibility, since this is so incomparably more probable that there cannot be even a momentary hesitation in embracing it as real. But in thus reducing the number of the facts, we must not with Sieffert stop short at two, for in that case not only do the difficulties with respect to the repetition of the same incident remain, but we fall into a want of logical sequency in admitting one divergency (in the number) as unessential, for the sake of removing another (in the locality). If it be further asked, supposing only one incident to be here narrated, which of the several narratives is the original one? the statements as to the locality will not aid us in coming to a decision; for Jesus might just as well meet a blind man on entering as on leaving Jericho. The difference in the number is more likely to furnish us with a basis for a decision, and it will be in favour of Mark and Luke, who have each only one blind man; not, it is true, for the reason alleged by Schleiermacher,[106] namely, that Mark, by his mention of the blind man’s name, evinces a more accurate acquaintance with the circumstances; for Mark, from his propensity to individualize out of his own imagination, ought least of all to [[444]]be trusted with respect to names which are given by him alone. Our decision is founded on another circumstance.
It seems probable that Matthew was led to add a second blind man by his recollection of a previous cure of two blind men narrated by him alone ([ix. 27 ff.]). Here, likewise, when Jesus is in the act of departure,—from the place, namely, where he had raised the ruler’s daughter,—two blind men follow him (those at Jericho are sitting by the way side), and in a similar manner cry for mercy of the Son of David, who here also, as in the other instance, according to Matthew, immediately cures them by touching their eyes. With these similarities there are certainly no slight divergencies; nothing is here said of an injunction to the blind men to be silent, on the part of the companions of Jesus; and, while at Jericho Jesus immediately calls the blind men to him, in the earlier case, they come in the first instance to him when he is again in the house; further, while there he asks them, what they will have him to do to them? here he asks, if they believe him able to cure them? Lastly, the prohibition to tell what had happened, is peculiar to the earlier incident. The two narratives standing in this relation to each other, an assimilation of them might have taken place thus: Matthew transferred the two blind men and the touch of Jesus from the first anecdote to the second; the form of the appeal from the blind men, from the second to the first.
The two histories, as they are given, present but few data for a natural explanation. Nevertheless the rationalistic commentators have endeavoured to frame such an explanation. When Jesus in the earlier occurrence asked the blind men whether they had confidence in his power, he wished, say they, to ascertain whether their trust in him would remain firm during the operation, and whether they would punctually observe his further prescriptions;[107] having then entered the house, in order to be free from interruption, he examined, for the first time, their disease, and when he found it curable (according to Venturini[108] it was caused by the fine dust of that country), he assured the sufferers that the result should be according to the measure of their faith. Hereupon Paulus merely says briefly, that Jesus removed the obstruction to their vision; but he also must have imagined to himself something similar to what is described in detail by Venturini, who makes Jesus anoint the eyes of the blind men with a strong water prepared beforehand, and thus cleanse them from the irritating dust, so that in a short time their sight returned. But this natural explanation has not the slightest root in the text; for neither can the faith (πίστις) required from the patient imply anything else than, as in all similar cases, trust in the miraculous power of Jesus, nor can the word ἥψατο, he touched, signify a surgical operation, but merely that touch which appears in so many of the evangelical curative miracles, whether as a sign or a conductor of the healing power of Jesus; of further prescriptions for the completion of the cure there is absolutely nothing. It is not otherwise with the cure of the blind at Jericho, where, moreover, the two middle Evangelists do not even mention the touching of the eyes.
If then, according to the meaning of the narrators, the blind instantaneously receive their sight as a consequence of the simple word or touch of Jesus, there are the same difficulties to be encountered here as in the former case of the lepers. For a disease of the eyes, however slight, as it is only engendered gradually by the reiterated action of the disturbing cause, is still [[445]]less likely to disappear on a word or a touch; it requires very complicated treatment, partly surgical, partly medical, and this must be pre-eminently the case with blindness, supposing it to be of a curable kind. How should we represent to ourselves the sudden restoration of vision to a blind eye by a word or a touch? as purely miraculous and magical? That would be to give up thinking on the subject. As magnetic? There is no precedent of magnetism having influence over a disease of this nature. Or, lastly, as psychical? But blindness is something so independent of the mental life, so entirely corporeal, that the idea of its removal at all, still less of its sudden removal by means of a mental operation, is not to be entertained. We must therefore acknowledge that an historical conception of these narratives is more than merely difficult to us; and we proceed to inquire whether we cannot show it to be probable that legends of this kind should arise unhistorically.
We have already quoted the passage in which, according to the first and third gospels, Jesus in reply to the messengers of the Baptist who had to ask him whether he were the ἐρχόμενος (he that should come), appeals to his works. Now he here mentions in the very first place the cure of the blind, a significant proof that this particular miracle was expected from the Messiah, his words being taken from [Isa. xxxv. 5], a prophecy interpreted messianically; and in a rabbinical passage above cited, among the wonders which Jehovah is to perform in the messianic times, this is enumerated, that he oculos cæcorum aperiet, id quod per Elisam fecit.[109] Now Elisha did not cure a positive blindness, but merely on one occasion opened the eyes of his servant to a perception of the supersensual world, and on another, removed a blindness which had been inflicted on his enemies in consequence of his prayer ([2 Kings vi. 17–20]). That these deeds of Elisha were conceived, doubtless with reference to the passage of Isaiah, as a real opening of the eyes of the blind, is proved by the above rabbinical passage, and hence cures of the blind were expected from the Messiah.[110] Now if the Christian community, proceeding as it did from the bosom of Judaism, held Jesus to be the messianic personage, it must manifest the tendency to ascribe to him every messianic predicate, and therefore the one in question.
The narrative of the cure of a blind man at Bethsaida, and that of the cure of a man that was deaf and had an impediment in his speech, which are both peculiar to Mark ([viii. 22 ff.], [vii. 32 ff.]), and which we shall therefore consider together, are the especial favourites of all rationalistic commentators. If, they exclaim, in the other evangelical narratives of cures, the accessory circumstances by which the facts might be explained were but preserved as they are here, we could prove historically that Jesus did not heal by his mere word, and profound investigators might discover the natural means by which [[446]]his cures were effected![111] And in fact chiefly on the ground of these narratives, in connexion with particular features in other parts of the second gospel, Mark has of late been represented, even by theologians who do not greatly favour this method of interpretation, as the patron of the naturalistic system.[112]
In the two cures before us, it is at once a good augury for the rationalistic commentators that Jesus takes both the patients apart from the multitude, for no other purpose, as they believe, than that of examining their condition medically, and ascertaining whether it were susceptible of relief. Such an examination is, according to these commentators, intimated by the Evangelist himself, when he describes Jesus as putting his fingers into the ears of the deaf man, by which means he discovered that the deafness was curable, arising probably from the hardening of secretions in the ear, and hereupon, also with the finger, he removed the hindrance to hearing. Not only are the words, he put his fingers into his ears, ἔβαλε τοὺς δακτύλους εἰς τὰ ὦτα, interpreted as denoting a surgical operation, but the words, he touched his tongue, ἥψατο τῆς γλώσσης, are supposed to imply that Jesus cut the ligament of the tongue in the degree necessary to restore the pliancy which the organ had lost. In like manner, in the case of the blind man, the words, when he had put his hands upon him, ἐπιθεὶς τὰς χεῖρας αὐτῷ, are explained as probably meaning that Jesus by pressing the eyes of the patient removed the crystalline lens which had become opaque. A further help to this mode of interpretation is found in the circumstance that both to the tongue of the man who had an impediment in his speech, and to the eyes of the blind man, Jesus applied spittle. Saliva has in itself, particularly in the opinion of ancient physicians,[113] a salutary effect on the eyes; as, however, it in no case acts so rapidly as instantaneously to cure blindness and a defect in the organs of speech, it is conjectured, with respect to both instances, that Jesus used the saliva to moisten some medicament, probably a caustic powder; that the blind man only heard the spitting and saw nothing of the mixture of the medicaments, and that the deaf man, in accordance with the spirit of the age, gave little heed to the natural means, or that the legend did not preserve them. In the narrative of the deaf man the cure is simply stated, but that of the blind man is yet further distinguished, by its representing the restoration of his sight circumstantially, as gradual. After Jesus had touched the eyes of the patient as above mentioned, he asked him if he saw aught; not at all, observes Paulus, in the manner of a miracle-worker, who is sure of the result, but precisely in the manner of a physician, who after performing an operation endeavours to ascertain if the patient is benefited. The blind man answers that he sees, but first indistinctly, so that men seem to him like trees. Here apparently the rationalistic commentator may triumphantly ask the orthodox one: if divine power for the working of cures stood at the command of Jesus, why did he not at once cure the blind man perfectly? If the disease presented an obstacle which he was not able to overcome, is it not clear from thence that his power was a finite, ordinarily human power? Jesus once more puts his hands on the eyes of the blind man, in order to aid the effect of the first operation, and only then is the cure completed.[114] [[447]]