Note 107 — Chapter IX · MIRACLES OF JESUS.

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 Venturini108 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.