“These words spake his parents, because they feared the Jews: for the Jews had agreed already, that if any man did confess that he was Christ, he should be put out of the synagogue.”
These words spake his parents, because they feared the Jews: for the Jews had agreed already, that if any man did confess that he was Christ, he should be put out of the synagogue — John provides the explanation: the parents fear 'the Jews' (the authorities). The institutional authorities have decreed that anyone confessing Jesus as the Messiah will be cast out of the synagogue (aposynagōgos, expelled from the community). This is an act of social death: excommunication. The parents' caution reflects the real threat: public alignment with Jesus means exile from the community, family, and religious life.
Church Fathers on John 9:22
The Pharisees being unable, by intimidation, to deter the blind man from publicly proclaiming his Benefactor, try to nullify the miracle through the parents. But the Jews did not believe concerning him, that he had been blind, and received his sight, until they had called the parents of him that had received his sight.
Either, say they, it is not true that he now sees, or it is untrue that he was blind before: but it is evident that he now sees; therefore it is not true that he was born blind.
As if to say, We might justly be compelled to speak for an infant, that could not speak for itself: but he, though blind from his birth, has been always able to speak.
Read all 8 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain
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