John 9: The man born blind

[Cal Oren]

Does the Tradition of the Church supply us with the name of the man born blind, who was healed by our Lord in John 9? Do we have any other information about his life, or what became of him?

[M.C. Steenberg]

Dear Cal,

Regarding the man born blind in John 9, I will have to do a little research to see whether the Church's liturgical tradition records any details on his person and/or life.

In the meantime, a graduate student at Loyola Marymount University (a Roman Catholic [Jesuit] institution in the USA) has put together some 'character studies' on persons in the Gospel of John which present a nice assortment of biblical information on the characters. Of particular interest to you may be:

Character Study of the Man Born Blind (http://clawww.lmu.edu/faculty/fjust/John/Characters-Blind.html)

I have not spent considerable time on this website, and thus cannot speak to the overall quality of its contents; but this particular page does provide an interesting compendium of Scriptural witness to the individual in question.

INXC, Matthew

[Vlad Benea]

I was waiting for someone to post a message to this thread.

My spiritual father, Father Seraphim, said a sermon once about this blind man.

He said that our Lord Jesus Christ revealed Himself as the Son of God only to two persons: the Samarian woman and the man born blind. He said that the reason He did this was because He knew in advance that these two persons will be later on confessors and martyrs. Now whereas I do know that the Samarian woman, St. Photini, ended up as a martyr (with her sons) in Carthage, about the man born blind I know nothing except what Fr. Seraphim said, that he ended up as a martyr, confessing our Lord Jesus Christ to be the Son of God. Where he got that information though I do not know, cause I never thought of asking him (that's why I was waiting for a message on this thread). I don't know if this will be of any help Cal, but I hope it will.

In Christ,
Vlad

[Cal Oren]

Thank you both, Matthew & Vlad, for your comments. If and when you learn more, I would appreciate hearing back. Vlad, apparently Fr. Seraphim had some further information about this man.

As a former Presbyterian, I am particularly impressed by the teaching of Jesus through this miracle about the importance of our cooperation in our salvation. Surely it would have been just as easy for Jesus to completely heal the man with one word, yet he required him to do a very difficult thing, wandering through the city, blind, mud on his face, trying to find a specific pool to wash himself.