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This Part: 128 Pages
Page 22
8 Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool: but while I am coming, another steppeth down before me. Jesus saith unto him, Rise.
About the day of the holy Pentecost, Angels coming down from heaven used to trouble the water of the pool, then they would make the plash therefrom the herald of their presence. And the water would be sanctified by the holy spirits, and whoever was beforehand of the multitude of sick people in getting down, he would come up again disburdened of the suffering that troubled him,, yet to one alone, him who first seized it, was the might of healing meted out. But this too was a sign of the benefit of the law by the hands of Angels, which extended to the one race of the Jews alone, and healed none other save they. For from Dan so called even unto Beer-sheba, the commandments given by Moses were spoken, ministered by Angels in Mount Sinai in the days afterwards marked out as the holy Pentecost. For this reason, the water too of the pool used not to be troubled at any other time, signifying therethrough the descent of the holy Angels thereon. The paralytic then not having any one to thrust him into the water, with the disease that holds him, was bewailing the want of healers, saying, I have no man, to wit to let him down into the water. For he fully expected that Jesus would tell and advise him this.
9 Take up thy bed and walk. And immediately the man was made whole, and took up his bed and walked: and on the same day was the sabbath.
God-befitting the injunction, and possessing clearest evidence of power and authority above man. For He prays not for the loosing of his sickness for the patient, lest He too should seem to be as one of the holy Prophets, but as the Lord of Powers He commandeth with authority that it be so, telling him to go home rejoicing, to take his bed on his shoulders, to be a memento to the beholders of the might of Him That had healed him. Forthwith the sick man does as is bidden him, and by obedience and faith he gaineth to himself the thrice longed for grace. But since in the foregoing we introduced him as the image and type of the multitude of the Jews, who should be healed in the last times: come let us think of something again harmonizing with the thoughts hereto pertaining, analagous to those before examined.
On the Sabbath day doth Christ heal the man, when healed He immediately enjoins him to break through the custom of the law, inducing him to walk on the Sabbath and this laden with his bed, although God clearly cries aloud by one of the holy Prophets, Neither carry forth a burthen out of your house on the Sabbath day. And no one I suppose who is sober-minded would say that the man was rendered a despiser or unruly to the Divine commands, but that as in a type Christ was making known to the Jews, that they should be healed by obedience and faith in the last times of the world (for this I think the Sabbath signifies, being the last day of the week): but that having once received the healing through faith, and having been re-modelled unto newness of life, it was necessary that the oldness of the letter of the law should become of no effect, and that the typical worship as it were in shadows and the vain observance of Jewish custom should be rejected. Hence (I think) the blessed Paul too taking occasion of speech writes to them who after the faith were returning again to the Law, I say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing; and again, Ye are severed from Christ, whosoever of you are justified by the law, ye are fallen from grace.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/cyril-alexandria/john-commentary-2.asp?pg=22
