BARTIMEO (Βαρτιμᾶς). – A blind beggar, healed by Jesus in the territory of Jericho during his final journey to Jerusalem. Only Mc. (10:46) gives his name (a patronymic) in Aramaic and its interpretation (ὁ υἱὸς Τιμᾶς Βαρτιμᾶς): “son of Timaeus”; since, contrary to usual practice, the explanation comes first, M.-J. Lagrange thinks it is a very ancient gloss that entered the text.
The name is of uncertain etymology: Bar tim’aj (from tamja, “impure”), “impure son,” but perhaps tim’aj was a Semitized form of the Greek name Τιμᾶς (“honorable”) or had the meaning “blind” (as in Tarabo agamm and Syriac semd). Some ancients read Bar semd: “Barsemia, filius caecus, quod et ipsum corrupte quidam Bartimacum legunt” (Liber interpretationis hebraic. nom., ed. P. Lagarde, 2nd ed., Göttingen 1887, p. 99); codex D, along with various manuscripts of the Old Latin, has Βαρτιμᾶς.
When informed that Jesus was passing by, B. began to cry out: “Jesus, son of David” (a messianic title), “have mercy on me!”; the Messiah was indeed to open the eyes of the blind (Is. 35:5; cf. Mt. 11:5). Despite the threats of many, B. persisted in his appeal. Jesus ordered that he be brought to him. B. threw off his cloak and ran to Jesus (guided by others: Lc. 18:40), asking him for the gift of sight. “Moved with pity and touching his eyes” (Mt. 20:34), Jesus healed him as a reward for his living faith, and B. followed the Master: Mc. 10:46-52.
In the account of Mt. 20:29-34, Jesus heals two blind men. St. Augustine resolved the difficulty (De consensu Evangelist., II, 65 and 125; PL 34, 1111 and 1137 ff.): “Hinc est ergo quod ipsum solum voluit commemorare Marcus, cuius inluminatio tam claram famam huic miraculo comparavit.” Because of his faith and prayer, B. played a prominent part in the miraculous episode; perhaps he later held a position in the nascent Church, and Mark may have known B. “as a distinguished figure of that time” (Victor of Antioch, in Catenae graec. patrum of J. A. Cramer, I, Oxford 1844, p. 388).
More serious is the difficulty concerning the place of the miracle, whose solution has occupied exegetes. Whereas Mc. and Mt. seem to affirm that the miracle was performed at the exit (ἐκπορευομένου αὐτοῦ ἀπὸ Ἱεριχώ), Lc. 18:35-43 places it before Jesus’s entry into Jericho, a local circumstance that must be regarded as certain, given the precision with which Lc. expresses himself. But Mc. 10:46 ἐρχόνται εἰς Ἱεριχώ is to be understood no differently: “they set out toward Jericho”; then, the ingenious separation (I. A. Kleist) of ἐκπορευομένου
αὐτῷ δα ἀπὸ Ἱεριχώ, “outside Jericho” (referred to the principal clause: “B., a blind beggar, was sitting outside Jericho”), resolves everything. In Origen, “in the ‘Western’ manuscripts” (D, the best of the Old Latin manuscripts), the difficulty is resolved by ἐκείθεν rather than ἀπὸ Ἱεριχώ. Others reconcile the meaning of Mc. and Lc. by referring Mc.’s “setting out” to the old Jericho (today Tell es-Sultān), and Lc.’s “drawing near” to the new Jericho (today Ribā), nearly 3 km. south-southeast (L. Pirot, P. Ketter); others hold that one blind man was healed at the entrance to Jericho and the other at the exit (St. Augustine [PL 34, 1138], A. Calmet, R. Cornely, J. Knabenbauer, F. Prat), or that the blind man B. met Jesus at the entrance to Jericho but was healed at Jesus’s departure, the following day (Maldonado, C. a Lapide, L.-C. Fillion, G. Milligan, who cites J. Bengel, R. Stier, R. C. Trench, J. Wordsworth, and others).