‘What the Lord did not form in the womb, he fashioned it in public’- St Irenaeus of Lyons

St Irenaeus of Lyons (~130-202 AD), a Greek bishop from St Polycarp’s hometown Symrna, offers an interesting angle to the miracle of healing of the man born blind (St John 9:1-41)- the miracle which we commemorated last Sunday (the sixth Sunday of the Great Lent). He opines that the Lord healed many people by His word because sin was the reason of the infirmities of these people. However, in this case the man was born blind and neither the man’s nor his parents’ sins being the cause of his blindness. 

Now as Jesus passed by, He saw a man who was blind from birth. And His disciples asked Him, saying, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him. (St John 9:1-3)

St Irenaeus says that as per the book of Genesis the Lord took clay from the earth and formed man; in a similar manner we are fashioned in the womb of the mother. Hence, what the Lord omitted to form in womb of the blind man’s mother (i.e. his eyes), He fashioned that publicly by smearing clay (made from His spit on the ground)!

St Irenaeus says:

“..And thus also He healed by a word all the others who were in a weakly condition because of sin; to whom also He said, Behold, you are made whole, sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon you: (St. John 5:14) pointing out by this, that, because of the sin of disobedience, infirmities have come upon men. 

To that man, however, who had been blind from his birth, He gave sight, not by means of a word, but by an outward action; doing this not without a purpose, or because it so happened, but that He might show forth the hand of God, that which at the beginning had moulded man. 

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, Neither has this man sinned, nor his parents, but that the works of God should be made manifest in him. (St. John 9:3).

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 (Genesis 2:7).Wherefore also the Lord spat on the ground and made clay, and smeared it upon the eyes, pointing out the original fashioning [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.”- St. Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book V, Chapter 15, Ante-Nicene Fathers-Vol. 1.

In Christ,

Rincy John