# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1902_S44
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

44 Proceedings of the nineteenth convention

[or] fatten them. (Spencer, 'De Legib. Hebr. Rit.' I, c. 5, p. 115.) If, then, the owners of this herd were Jews, the punishment of their irresponsible avarice would have been all the more fitting. But even heathen could rightly be chastised by the loss of such animals, with which they defiled the religion of the Jews. So much is certain, the Gergesenes revealed their earthly-minded heart very clearly. They cared more for their swine than for the presence of Christ, who had after all done them a very great kindness by the expulsion of the devils from the possessed men, who had made the whole region unsafe and brought it into ill repute. Did not such ingratitude deserve a penalty? And did not Jesus proceed still very mildly, in that he punished them only by the loss of that on which they had set their heart? Although the damage they suffered cannot have been so immeasurably great, since the 2000 swine, which belonged to the whole city, must have had many owners."

The Blind Men at Jericho.
(Matt. 20:29-34. Mark 10:46-52. Luke 18:35-43.)

In Matt. 20:29-34 we are told: "And as they departed from Jericho, a great multitude followed him. And, behold, two blind men sitting by the way side, when they heard that Jesus passed by, cried out, saying, Have mercy on us, O Lord, thou son of David. And the multitude rebuked them, because they should hold their peace: but they cried the more, saying, Have mercy on us, O Lord, thou son of David. And Jesus stood still, and called them, and said, What will ye that I shall do unto you? They say unto him, Lord, that our eyes may be opened. So Jesus had compassion on them, and touched their eyes: and immediately their eyes received sight, and they followed him."

How does this agree with Mark's saying: "And as he went out of Jericho with his disciples and a great number of people, blind Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus, sat by the highway side begging"? And how does it agree with the fact that Luke also reports only one blind man who was healed, but writes besides that this happened when Jesus was come nigh unto Jericho? Is there not a contradiction here, first in the number of the blind men, then in the statement of the place where the healings happened? And is it not highly suspicious, as the critics are accustomed to say, that the circumstances should have been so entirely alike?

It all agrees quite well. Two healings of the blind took place, but not on one day; the one, of which Luke reports, occurred when Jesus, on his last journey to Jerusalem, came near Jericho; the healing, however, of which Matthew tells took place later, probably on the following day, when Jesus left Jericho again, where in the meantime he had stayed at the house of Zacchaeus and let salvation befall him.