After that he put his hands again upon his eyes, and made him look up: and he was restored, and saw every man clearly.
All Commentaries on Mark 8:25 Go To Mark 8
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
After that again He laid His hands upon his eyes, and he began to see, and was restored, so that he saw all things clearly. Christ wished not suddenly, but by degrees, perfectly to illuminate this blind man: 1That He might exhibit miracles of every description2That this miracle might be more esteemed3And principally, That He might accommodate Himself to the imperfect faith of the blind man and those who brought him, their faith increasing as the miracle proceeded; and that He might the more kindle in them faith, hope, and desire that it might be brought to a perfect work. "In the first place, He cured this blind man imperfectly," says Euthymius, "inasmuch as he believed imperfectly, that he who as yet had but a little vision might by means of the little light believe more perfectly, and be healed more completely; for He was the wise Physician." And by and by he says, "Increase of faith deserved increase of healing."
Tropologically: Christ wished to teach us that the unbeliever and the sinner are gradually illuminated by God, and that they ought correspondingly to make gradual increase in the knowledge and worship of God. "He did it," says Bede, "that He might show the greatness of human blindness, which is wont to arrive step by step, and by certain grades, as it were, of progression, at the light of the Divine knowledge." For as the Scholiast says, "There are degrees of knowledge; neither can any one arrive in a single hour, or, indeed, without considerable time, at perfect knowledge." We have experience of this in children and scholars, who must be taught and instructed step by step. For if the teacher, being impatient of delay and trouble, should wish to teach them everything at once, he would crush their memory and intellect, so that they would take in nothing. It is like wine when it is poured into a vessel with a narrow neck; if you try to pour it all in at once, you pour in scarcely anything, but nearly the whole is spilled. Worthy of note is the Italian proverb, "Gently, gently, if you would go far;" or the saying of the philosopher, "Progression is by degrees."
Symbolically: The Scholiast in S. Jerome says, "Christ laid His hands upon his eyes, that he might see all things clearly, that Isaiah , that by visible works he might understand things invisible, and which eye hath not seen; and that after the film of sin he might clearly behold the state of his soul with the eye of a clean heart. For blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God."
