one which the Pharisees felt to be unanswerable. Silenced before the whole council they turn on the speaker with auger and abuse. " Thou art a miserable, wicked creature, entirely- born in sin, and dost thou pretend to know better than us, and to teach us?" They then proceeded at once to excommunicate him. The expression, " they cast him out," must surely mean much more than merely turning him out of the room or place where they were assembled. To my mind it means nothing less than a formal expulsion from the commonwealth of Israel, and the consequent degradation of the man. It must be ad- mitted that Maldonatus and some others tlynk it only means that " they turned him out of the room " where they were. But this does not agree with the context, and almost all commenta- tors think "excommunication" is meant.
It is held by many that the expression, " born in sin," was used with special reference to the healed man's old infirmity of blindness. " Thy very blindness shows thee to have been a very wicked man. It is God's stamp on thy wickedness. Body and soul are both polluted by sin." There may be a latent ref- erence to the vulgar error referred to at verse 2, that blindness was an evidence of God's special displeasure.
The expression, " Dost thou teach us?" is precisely one of those which wicked people in possession of place, rank, dignity, and income, are fond of using about Reformers of the Church and independent thinkers. — " How can such an ignorant person as you pretend to know better than us, and teach us? We are high in office, and must know better than you."
Let us note that this resort to personal abuse and violent lan- guage is often a sure mark of a failing cause in religion. Ina- bility to reply to argument is often the true cause of ill-temper ry and personalities. Truth can afford to be patient; error can- not.
Let us note that persecution and excommunication are com- mon weapons with the enemies of spiritual religion. When men cannot answer arguments, they often try to silence and in- timidate those who use them.
The dread of excommunication with a Jew was second only to the dread of death.
Calvin remarks : " It is certain that those who are not subject to Christ are deprived of the lawful power of excommunicating. Nor ought we to dread being excluded from their assemblies, since Christ, our Life and Salvation, was banished from them."
Musculus observes that this excommunication could not have been without the vote of the majority of the council. Truth is too often with minorities.
Pellican remarks that " to be shut out from the communion of the wicked is no dishonour or loss."