August 3, 2007
Siloam
“As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’ ‘Neither this man nor his parents sinned,’ said Jesus, ‘but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life. As long as it is day, we must do the work of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.’ Having said this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes. ‘Go,’ he told him, ‘wash in the Pool of Siloam’ (this word means Sent). So the man went and washed, and came home seeing” John 9:1-6
A few months back I had been reflecting on the above passage in John and considering why it was that Jesus healed the blind man with clay and washing in water. Surely Christ could have simply spoken or touched the man with his hands or any number of methods simpler and less mysterious. But, it seems Christ was conveying some message through the use of these materials.
After meditating on this for a little while, what I took to be the meaning of Christ’s actions I was hoping to find supported in the Fathers. Oddly enough, awhile back, the same week the above passage from John 9 appeared in the lectionary, I ran into the below passage from St. Irenaeus when nearing the end of his masterful work “Against the Heresies” (or, the title I am quite fond of which St. Irenaeus uses to refer to his work: “The Refutation and Overthrowal of Knowledge Falsely So-Called”). I was pleased to see that what I had seen in John’s gospel was also seen by this great Father. Of course, having found a good treatment of the passage there is little need for me to offer my own exegesis; I will simply post his the superior commentary below.
Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book 5, Chap. XV:
“And therefore, when His disciples asked Him for what cause the man had been born blind, whether for his own or his parents’ fault, He replied, ‘Neiter hath this man sinned, nor his parents, but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.’ Now the work of God is the fashioning of man. For, as the Scripture says, He made [man] by a kind of process: ‘And the Lord took clay from the earth,and formed man.’ Wherefore also the Lord spat on the ground and made clay, and smeared it upon the eyes, pointing out the original fashioining [of man], how it was effected, and manifesting the hand of God to those who can understand by what [hand] man was formed out of the dust. For that which the artificer, the Word, had omitted to form in the womb, [viz., the blind man's eyes], He then supplied in public, that the works of God might be manifested in him, in order that we might not be seeking out another hand by which man was fashioned, nor another Father; knowing that this hand of God which formed us at the beginning, and which does form us in the womb, has in the last times sought us out who were lost, winning back His own, and taking up the lost sheep upon His shoulders, and with joy restoring it to the fold of life . . . . For the Lord who formed the visual powers is He who made the whole man, carrying out the will of the Father. And inasmuch as man, with respect to that formation which was after Adam, having fallen into transgreession, needed the laver of regeration (that is, baptism), [the Lord] said to him [upon whom He had conferred sight], after He had smeared his eyes with the clay, ‘Go to Siloam, and wash;’ thus restoring to him both [his perfect] confirmation, and that regeneration which takes place by means of the laver. And for this reason when washed he came seeing, that he might both know Him who had fashioned him, and that man might learn [to know] Him who has conferred upon him life.”
