The Gospel of Barnabas

157.

The blind man answered: 'Whether he is a sinner I know not; but this I know, that whereas I was blind, he hath enlightened me.'

The Pharisees did not believe this: so they said to the high priest: 'Send for his father and mother, for they will tell us the truth.' They sent, therefore, for the father and mother of the blind man, and when they were come the high-priest questioned them saying: 'Is this man your son?'

They answered: 'He is verily our son.'

Then said the high-priest: 'He saith that he was born blind, and now he seeth; how hath this thing befallen?'

The father and mother of the man born blind replied 'Verily he was born blind, but how he may have received the light, we know not; he is of age, ask him and he will tell you the truth.'

Thereupon they were dismissed, and the high-priest said again to the man born blind: 'Give glory to God, and speak the truth.'

(Now the father and mother of the blind man were afraid to speak, because a decree had gone forth from the Roman senate that no man might contend for Jesus, the prophet of the Jews, under pain of death: this decree had the governor obtained—wherefore they said: 'He is of age, ask him.')

The high-priest, then said to the man born blind: 'Give glory to God and speak the truth, for we know this man, whom thou sayest to have healed thee, that he is a sinner.'

The man born blind answered: 'Whether he be a sinner, I know not; but this I know, that I saw not and he hath enlightened me. Of a surety, from the beginning of the world to this hour, there hath never yet been enlightened one who was born blind; and God would not hearken to sinners.'

Said the Pharisees: 'Now what did he when he enlightened thee?'

Then the man born blind marvelled at their unbelief, and said: 'I have told you, and wherefore ask ye me again? Would ye also become his disciples?'

The high-priest then reviled him saying: 'Thou wast altogether born in sin, and wouldst thou teach us? Begone, and become thou disciple of such a man! for we are disciples of Moses, and we know that God hath spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we know not whence he is.' And they cast him out of the synagogue and temple, forbidding him to make prayer with the clean among Israel.