E30 – Healing a paralytic

“Some men came, bringing to him a paralyzed man, carried by four of them. Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus by digging through it and then lowered the mat the man was lying on. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, “Son, your sins are forgiven.“ (Mark II, 3 – 5)

For the sake of the artistic order, Delhez did not allow the carriers to break through the roof as the biblical text tells us. The final breakthrough is that they enter the house in an unauthorized and illegal way, namely that they use a ladder to get to the roof and through there into the courtyard. Jesus seems to draw his speech from the head of the child standing confidently with him. The opposition of the Old Law is represented by the trinity of identical Levites. Here again we see the all-knowing figure, seen in other engravings in this series, leaning against a pillar. We also see four ropes incorporated into the image, representing the four theological virtues.

This work was made in Cocaraya (Bolivia) between the 9th of February and the 9th of May 1936.