JESUS AND THE DISABLED PEOPLE IN THE MARCAN GOSPEL: THE PARALYTIC AND BLIND BARTIMAEUS.
Fr. Gabriele Giordano M. Scardocci
OP.
Introduction.
In this paper, we set
ourselves the goal of analyzing the minor characters present in the Gospel of
Mark, in particular those minor characters that today we would define as
disabled, namely the paralytic and the blind Bartimaeus.
The paper will follow this structure:
We will first outline a structure of the gospel itself according to its
main sections;
then on the basis of this structure, we will derive a first definition
of "minor character".
In the third paragraph, we will deal closely with two minor characters
specifically: the episode of the paralytic and his four friends; in the fourth
paragraph, instead, the healing of the blind Bartimaeus, son of Timaeus.
Observing these pericopes and their interweaving with the person of
Jesus, we will then try to outline a brief theological-biblical synthesis in
the fifth paragraph, underlining the eschatological characteristic and
abandonment in faith in God that even the most severely disabled, such as the
paralytic and Bartimaeus, can witness to with their own lives and daily
choices.
The Greek text of the gospel is taken from the twenty-eighth edition of
the Novum Testamentum Graece by the authors Nestle - Aland.
1.
Structure of Mark and demarcation of
Minor Characters
According to
the scholar Rafael Aguirre Monasterio, a common element in the synoptic gospels
is that they have a schematic development of the plot.
Therefore,
there is a standard in the plot that can be applied to all three gospels.
The primary narrative element is the presence of certain Characters (among whom
Aguirre Monasterio generally notes for now: Jesus, the disciples, the Pharisees
and the Jewish authorities, Pilate, and the people), a Development (again
Aguirre Monasterio: the popular echo he arouses, the misunderstanding, the
growing hostility, the decision to go to Jerusalem, the journey and the clash
in the city) and finally an Epilogue (the scholar concludes that the clash
develops into the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus).
We can
therefore schematically say, at least for now, that the synoptics have a triadic
movement:
|
Beginning
|
Development
|
Epilogue
|
|
Ministry of Jesus in Galilee
|
Popular echo, misunderstanding, growing hostility,
arrival in Jerusalem and clash.
|
The clash leads to: passion, death and resurrection.
|
From this triadic structure, we immediately gather that the center of
the gospel is the figure of Jesus and his ministry and his message. Precisely
starting from this public ministry in Galilee, one arrives at the epilogue
which also contains the apex of Jesus' action.
Going more deeply into the Marcan gospel, according to the studies of
Antonio Rodriguez Carmona, the text can in turn be sectioned according to the
reaction of Jesus' interlocutors, and other literary, chronological, and
content criteria.
Thus, we can divide it into three parts:
|
Beginning
|
Development
|
Epilogue
|
|
Introduction (1, 1-13)
|
Part one (1:14 – 8:30) gospel of Jesus as messiah proclaiming the kingdom of God
|
Part two (8:31 - 16:8) gospel of Jesus as son of God
who dies and rises
|
|
1:1: gospel of Jesus, messiah
and son of God.
|
1:14-3:6: action of Jesus and
response of the Pharisees.
|
8:31-10:52: crossing Galilee, Jesus announces his
death and resurrection.
|
|
1:2-13:
Beginning,
Introductory,
Triptych
|
3:7-6:6a: Action of Jesus and
response of the people.
|
11-13: activity of Jesus in
Jerusalem before the
passion.
|
|
|
6:6b-8:30: action of Jesus and response of the
disciples.
|
14:1-16:8: Passion, death and proclamation of the
resurrection in Jerusalem.
|
On the basis of these considerations, it is possible to derive a line of
research.
We therefore define minor
characters as those who enter into the Development but do not influence the
Epilogue.
This was also the idea outlined at the beginning of the seminar by
Father Luca De Santis.
2.
The disabled on Jesus’ Path.
As Monasterio Carmona wrote: "The miracles (exorcisms, healings, etc)
[...] have great importance in Mk, playing a privileged role in the revelation
of the kingdom, of which they manifest the different aspects and the salvific
dynamic ".
A second
confirmation is given to us by Gerard Theissen and Annette Merz: "If the
lordship of God consists in the center of Jesus' preaching, healings and
exorcisms form the fulcrum of his activity. Certainly, Jesus did not only
perform miracles [...] But Jesus impressed and bewildered his contemporaries
above all with miracles."
The first,
as we will see shortly, to receive Jesus' miraculous action are precisely the
group of the infirm who even today medical science considers disabled and whom
Jesus meets during the Development and the Epilogue.
Scrolling
through the Gospel of Mark, we can therefore note four encounters between Jesus
and the disabled:
●
2:3: Jesus meets and heals a
paralytic.
●
7:32: encounter and healing of a
deaf-mute.
●
8:22: encounter and healing of a
blind man at Bethsaida.
●
10:46: encounter and healing of
Bartimaeus, a blind man, son of Timaeus.
John P. Meier, after showing the data set on miracles, concludes their
historical veracity: "This wide range of disparate currents of miracle
traditions in the first Christian generation, [...], shows that Mark alone
writing at the end of the first Christian generation - is enough to adequately
contest the idea that the miracle traditions were in every way a creation of
the early church after Jesus' death".
It is particular, therefore, that these episodes fall into that category
described by Theissen and Merz defined as therapies: " 1. Therapies are
healing miracles in which no clash [with demonic forces] occurs, but the
healing is operated thanks to the transfer of a miraculous energy from the
thaumaturge to the sick person. Typical features are: the idea of healing
power, the healing touch [often the laying on of hands], the healing tools that
produce the healing process; in the New Testament, only saliva is mentioned. In
therapies, the motif of faith recurs. In ancient miracle stories, there is always
talk only of the faith subsequent to the fact of the miracle, to the miracle
that has already occurred. Only in the case of Jesus does faith become a
thaumaturgic force that precedes the miracle itself".
In this sense, the importance of the miracle as an increase of a faith
preceding the miraculous action itself seems evident to us.
We now set ourselves the goal of analyzing two pericopes in which some
characters show a very firm faith.
3.
The faith of the paralytic and his friends
(Mk, 2:1 – 12).
The episode
is described within the narrative section of the Development: we find a first
encounter with a motor-disabled person, a paralytic.
The scene
takes place in Capernaum (2:1 - 12), where a large crowd gathers in a house to
listen to Jesus (v. 2).
Four men
decide to lower their paralytic friend from the roof of the house (v.4).
At this
point the text underlines in v.5:
5.
καὶ ἰδὼν ὁ Ἰησοῦς τὴν πίστιν αὐτῶν λέγει τῷ παραλυτικῷ· τέκνον, ἀφίενταί σου αἱ ἁμαρτίαι
Thanks to
the faith of the four men which precedes the miracle, Jesus acts on the
paralytic.
Indeed, Rudolf Pesch writes: "The act of the bearers is a mute prayer and a manifestation of trust." This
hypothesis is confirmed by Vincent Taylor's exegetical analysis of the word πίστιν
“ It denotes a confident trust in Jesus and in
his power to help."
At the same
time, however, according to Taylor "The most modern commentators rightly
include the faith of the paralytic himself (e.g. Klosterman, 26, Lagrange, 35,
Jesus a compris la disposition de son âme, Gould, 36; Bartlet, 123.)”; it is
interesting therefore that according to these interpreters the paralytic
himself is in some way prepared for his encounter with Jesus. In effect,
a proof of
his faith seems to us to come from the paralytic's own obedience following the
miracle, as he responds promptly to Jesus' command to get up and start walking
(vv. 11-12). Between the miracle and the healing of the paralytic, a conflict
arises with the Pharisees (vv 6 9) who are secretly convinced that Jesus is a
blasphemer, but Jesus knows their thoughts and orders the paralytic to walk to
give proof of messianicity and divinity (v.10).
Thus as
Raymond Brown also wrote " Jesus here appears strikingly as someone who
does not fit into the religious expectations of his contemporaries, an attitude
that provokes a plot by Pharisees and Herodians. "
We seem to
be able to conclude that the encounter with the paralytic and his friends has
an important role in Jesus' teaching, aimed at showing the importance of faith
and above all of its characteristic of being lived in obedience and in everyday
life.
Observing a
faith that
abandons itself trustingly, God himself can make that faith grow through
prodigious and miraculous actions, including precisely the remission of sins
that scandalized the Pharisees. It is in faith, therefore, that one lives the
hope of the coming of the Kingdom of God, in which one can be definitively
healed from physical and moral weaknesses.
4.
The Faith of Bartimaeus, the blind
son of Timaeus (Mk 10:46-52).
This second pericope is placed within the Epilogue and in particular
before the beginning of Jesus' activities in Jerusalem. In this second healing
miracle, we are in Jericho. The narration is vivid and full of details that allow for its clear understanding.
Proceeding on the road from Jericho, Jesus meets a blind man, son of
Timaeus, named Bartimaeus (v.46).
In this case, unlike the paralytic, we are aware of the disabled man's
name and even which family he comes from.
In the Marcan gospel, only here and in the verses concerning Jairus, do
we find the reference to a proper name
Bartimaeus, having heard that Jesus is passing by, begins to call him by
the title Son of David (vv. 47-48).
"It's here used by an individual and not by the crowd at large; it
expressed a view which Bartimaeus had formed, perhaps under the influence of
Isaia 51". Despite
some resistance, the man shouts louder to attract Jesus' attention (vv 47-48).
According to Pesch "the repetition of the cry for help contains a motif of
faith" and in the
end, Jesus gives the order to call him (v.49). Rushing to reach Jesus, the
blind man also loses his cloak: it is a scene full of drama and
decisive for Bartimaeus' life. In fact, after the request to be healed of his
blindness, Jesus grants it and recognizes in Bartimaeus' faith the beginning of
his salvation. Let us then follow vv. 51 52 in the original Greek:
51 καὶ ἀποκριθεὶς αὐτῷ ὁ Ἰησοῦς εἶπεν· τί σοι θέλεις ποιήσω; ὁ δὲ τυφλὸς εἶπεν αὐτῷ· ταββουνι, ἵνα ἀναβλέψω.
52 καὶ ὁ Ἰησοῦς εἶπεν αὐτῷ· Ὕπαγε, ή πίστις σου σέσωκέν σε.
καὶ εὐθὺς ἀνέβλεψεν, καὶ ἠκολούθει αὐτῷ ἐν τῇ ὁδῷ.
Once again, Jesus observes that there is a faith that precedes the
healing event. We believe
that in Bartimaeus there is a profound faith: calling him by the title Son of
David " in its meaning of 'helper of the poor' does not express, likewise,
any specifically Christian nuance, but rather the genuinely Jewish and popular
expectation of the Son of David." A faith steeped in Jewishness, that of Bartimaeus, but which at the
same time seems to present a model of faithful abandonment that every believer
should live in daily life.
Immediately after his healing from blindness, Bartimaeus also will set
out to follow Jesus, with a strengthened faith.
This passage has been interpreted not as the simple passage from total
darkness to the vision of human realities, but as a passage to vision as full
adherence to the Christological faith.
It seems interesting to us that Meier connects this purification of
Bartimaeus' sight to the purification of Peter's inner sight after the death
and resurrection: "As the healing of the blind man at Bethsaida prefigures
the partial healing of Peter's inner sight at Caesarea Philippi, at the same
way, the healings of Bartimeus, immediately before the passion narrative in the
broad sense begins, prefigures the full healing of Peter's blindness after
Jesus' death and resurrection. Together with the other disciples, he will
finally see that Jesus is the Messiah [...] only then will he see and
understand Jesus as son of God.”
Conclusions: The disabled, witnesses
of the “just” and “not yet” in the relationship wit God Jesus
After this detailed analysis of the links between Jesus and the
disabled, we will try to draw a set of general hermeneutical conclusions.
a)
In the episodes of the paralytic and
Bartimaeus, a first teaching given through the experience of disability can be
observed.
In fact, it can first of all be said that
therapies or healings have an initial purpose, that is, "they serve to
show that the final dynamic of the kingdom leads to the destruction of sickness
and pain. [...] the healing of the paralytic shows that the dynamic of the
kingdom tends towards the salvation of the whole person." In the
Jewish perspective, sickness was considered a consequence of personal sins or
at best "when it strikes the righteous, like Job and Tobit, it can be a
providential test intended to demonstrate their fidelity" (Tob12:13)"
Instead, in
Jesus' perspective, even the most serious disability has an intrinsic
eschatological nature: "the peculiarity of the miracles of the historical
Jesus consists in the fact that the healings and exorcisms performed in the
today are attributed an eschatological significance: in them the new world
begins. [...] The present thus becomes, in a small way, a time of salvation,
against an apocalyptic pessimism that sees in the present only a serious
crisis" At the same
time, by eliminating disabilities, it is shown how "miracles are intended
first and foremost to bring concrete, material, healing help [...] they affirm
the right of the person that this human misery be eliminated." 24 In this
sense, then, the disabled help to understand the not yet of the eschatological
time.
b) In the detail of the paralytic and Bartimaeus, we find a second
teaching: we have repeatedly stressed the presence of faith even before the
performance of the miracle.
The faith explicitly stated by Bartimaeus, it has also been noted, is a
well-established Jewish faith that does not waver before the digressions of
those present who try to hinder their personal encounter with Jesus. In the
case of Bartimaeus, the anonymous bystanders who silence him; whereas regarding
the paralytic, we find an enormous crowd that physically blocks the passage of
his stretcher. This seems to suggest unequivocally that the disabled person is
already capable of cultivating a strong faith and therefore a very lively
relationship with God.
In these two studied pericopes, indeed, it seems evident that the two
disabled characters have a much stronger faith even than the able-bodied.
They are therefore true models of abandonment to God for all believers
and live the serene presence of God already now.
In this sense, then, the disabled help to understand the already of the
eschatological time.
Within the episode of the paralytic, finally, one last point can be
made: the action that the four men perform in lowering the stretcher shows
itself as an episode of help for the disabled.
Therefore, the disabled can be true moments of encounter with God,
deepening and awareness of one's own faith.
Against a totally negative mentality of his time, and if we will,
against a negative mentality of the time in which we live, Jesus opposes a new
perspective on disability: thanks to a careful biblical reading, it is possible
to grasp the presence of Jesus the God-Man even in the lives of disabled
people.
That is, even in those who experience the most radical physical evil.
At the bottom of even the most radical physical evil, it is possible to
find the presence of Jesus who took that same suffering upon himself and
defeated it on the cross, thus giving it a new and profound meaning.
It is a message still addressed to us today. It seems to us to be well
expressed by the consideration of Theissen and Merz regarding the accounts of
healing and therapy:" Our hope is that where these episodes are told,
people will not distance themselves from the hopelessly sick".
Fr Gabriele Scardocci OP, Florence,
Santa Maria Novella.
disabilitateologia@gmail.com
gab.scard84@gmail.com
BIBLIOGRAPHY
NESTLE - ALAND Novum testamentu graece, 28th edition.
R. E. BROWN, Introduccion al Nuevo
Testamento, vol I, Editorial Trotta, 2002.
R. A. MONASTERIO, A. R. CARMONA,
Vangeli Sinottici e Atti degli Apostoli, Paideia Editrice, Brescia 1995.
J. P. MEIER, Un Ebreo Marginale
ripensare il Gesù storico vol 2: Mentore, Messaggio e Miracoli, Queriniana
Editrice, Brescia, 2002.
R. PESCH, Il vangelo di Marco, Parte
Prima, Paideia Editrice, Brescia, 1980.
R. PESCH, Il vangelo di Marco, Parte
Seconda, Paideia Editrice, Brescia, 1982
V. TAYLOR, The gospel according to Mark, Macmillan & Co Ltd, St
martin's press, New York, 1959.
G. THEISSEN, A. MERZ, Il Gesù
Storico - Un manuale, Queriniana Editrice, Brescia, 1999.
Dizionario di Teologia Biblica, a
cura di XAVIER LÉON-DUFOUR, Marietti, Casale Monferrato, 1971.
