And he that was healed knew not who it was: for Jesus had taken himself away, a multitude being in that place.
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Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
But he who was healed, &c. The man knew not the name of Jesus, nor whither He had gone, nor indeed who He was, for he had never seen Him before.
Departed. Euthymius gives the reason. "As soon as He had healed the Prayer of Manasseh , He withdrew because of the crowd, partly to avoid the praise of the just, and partly to take away occasion for the envy of the unjust." S. Chrysostom gives another reason: That the man"s testimony in the absence of Jesus might be less liable to suspicion. For if he who was healed had praised Christ to the Jews before His face, he might have seemed to have done it out of favour. But now that he praised Him in His absence, it is evident that he did so from the love of the truth.
Insatiable unto bloodshed is the mind of the Jews. For they search out who it was who had commanded this, with design to involve Him together with the miraculously healed (for he alone, it seems, was like to be vexing them in respect of the Sabbath, who had but now escaped impassable toils and snares, and had been drawn away from the very gates of death) but he could not tell his Physician, although they make diligent enquiries, Christ having well and economically concealed Himself, that He might escape the present heat of their anger. And not as though He could suffer anything of necessity, unless He willed to suffer, doth He practise flight: but making Himself an Example to us in this also.
