Cornelius a Lapide

John IV

Table of Contents

Synopsis of the Chapter

It narrates Christ's conversation with the Samaritan woman, in which Christ teaches her that God must be worshipped in spirit and truth, and that He Himself is the Messiah. Second, at verse 32, when the Apostles wonder at His conversation with the woman, Christ answers that His food is to do the will of the Father, concerning the harvest and the salvation of men. Whence, preaching to the Samaritans who flocked to Him, He converted many of them. Third, at verse 46, He heals the son of the royal official.

Vulgate Text: John 4:1-54

1. When therefore Jesus knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John, 2. (although Jesus Himself did not baptize, but His disciples,) 3. He left Judea, and went again into Galilee. 4. And He had to pass through Samaria. 5. He came therefore to a city of Samaria which is called Sichar: near the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. 6. Now Jacob's well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied from His journey, sat thus on the well. It was about the sixth hour. 7. There came a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus said to her: Give Me to drink. 8. (For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) 9. The Samaritan woman therefore said to Him: How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink of me, who am a Samaritan woman? For Jews do not associate with Samaritans. 10. Jesus answered and said to her: If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that says to you: Give Me to drink: you would perhaps have asked Him, and He would have given you living water. 11. The woman said to Him: Lord, You have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep: where then do You get living water? 12. Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, and his sons, and his cattle? 13. Jesus answered and said to her: Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him, will never thirst: 14. but the water that I shall give him, shall become in him a fountain of water springing up into eternal life. 15. The woman said to Him: Lord, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw. 16. Jesus said to her: Go, call your husband, and come here. 17. The woman answered and said: I have no husband. Jesus said to her: You have said well, "I have no husband": 18. for you have had five husbands, and he whom you now have is not your husband: this you have said truly. 19. The woman said to Him: Lord, I see that You are a prophet. 20. Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, and you say that Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship. 21. Jesus said to her: Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. 22. You worship what you do not know: we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23. But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. For the Father also seeks such to worship Him. 24. God is spirit: and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth. 25. The woman said to Him: I know that the Messiah is coming (who is called Christ): when He comes, He will tell us all things. 26. Jesus said to her: I am He, who speaks with you. 27. And immediately His disciples came; and they wondered that He was speaking with a woman. Yet no one said: What do You seek, or why do You speak with her? 28. The woman therefore left her water jar, and went into the city, and said to those men: 29. Come and see a man who told me all things that I have done: is not He the Christ? 30. They went therefore out of the city, and came to Him. 31. Meanwhile the disciples asked Him, saying: Rabbi, eat. 32. But He said to them: I have food to eat that you do not know. 33. The disciples therefore said to one another: Has anyone brought Him something to eat? 34. Jesus said to them: My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, to accomplish His work. 35. Do you not say, there are yet four months, and then the harvest comes? Behold, I say to you: lift up your eyes and see the fields, for they are already white for harvest. 36. And he who reaps receives wages, and gathers fruit for eternal life; so that both he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. 37. For in this the saying is true: one sows and another reaps. 38. I sent you to reap what you have not labored for: others have labored, and you have entered into their labors. 39. Now many of the Samaritans of that city believed in Him, because of the word of the woman bearing testimony: He told me all things that I have done. 40. When therefore the Samaritans came to Him, they asked Him to stay there. And He stayed there two days. 41. And many more believed in Him because of His word. 42. And they said to the woman: We no longer believe because of your word; for we have heard Him ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world. 43. Now after two days He departed from there and went into Galilee. 44. For Jesus Himself testified that a prophet has no honor in his own country. 45. When therefore He came into Galilee, the Galileans received Him, having seen all the things He did in Jerusalem at the feast, for they also had gone to the feast. 46. He came therefore again to Cana of Galilee, where He had made the water wine. And there was a certain royal official, whose son was sick at Capernaum. 47. When he heard that Jesus had come from Judea into Galilee, he went to Him and asked Him to come down and heal his son; for he was at the point of death. 48. Jesus therefore said to him: Unless you see signs and wonders, you do not believe. 49. The royal official said to Him: Lord, come down before my child dies. 50. Jesus said to him: Go, your son lives. The man believed the word that Jesus said to him, and went his way. 51. And as he was now going down, his servants met him and told him, saying that his son was alive. 52. He therefore inquired of them the hour when he began to get better. And they said to him: Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him. 53. The father therefore knew that it was at that hour in which Jesus said to him: Your son lives; and he himself believed, and his whole household. 54. This again was the second sign that Jesus did, when He had come from Judea into Galilee.

Verse 1: When Jesus Knew the Pharisees Had Heard

1. WHEN THEREFORE JESUS KNEW THAT THE PHARISEES HAD HEARD THAT JESUS WAS MAKING AND BAPTIZING MORE DISCIPLES THAN JOHN. — That is, He had previously made and baptized, says St. Augustine, book II of On the Harmony of the Gospels, chapter 18; for John was already in prison. For these things happened on the occasion of John's imprisonment. For Jesus, hearing that he had been imprisoned by Herod through the slander of the Pharisees, who envied John the glory of preaching and baptizing with such a great concourse and applause of the people, especially because he baptized and preached without their authority and permission, and because he had censured their vices and called them a brood of vipers — they accused him as an innovator who could easily stir up sedition among the people before Herod, who was likewise offended with John on account of his reproof, and at the urging of Herodias, imprisoned John. Jesus, hearing this and fearing the same envy and slander of the Pharisees, on account of the greater concourse of the people to Himself, lest they similarly have Him imprisoned and killed through Herod or Pilate before the time appointed by the Father, prudently withdrew from Judea into Galilee. See what was said at Matthew 4:12.

Verse 2: Although Jesus Himself Did Not Baptize

2. ALTHOUGH JESUS HIMSELF DID NOT BAPTIZE, BUT HIS DISCIPLES. — Both because Jesus was occupied with greater duties of preaching and healing the sick and the demon-possessed. Whence Paul also says: "Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the Gospel," 1 Corinthians 1:17; and also to show that the power of His baptism was greater than John's baptism. For John baptized by himself, and did not have the right to delegate that power to disciples; but when the disciples baptized, Jesus Himself was considered to be baptizing; for, as St. Augustine says: "The disciples provided the ministry of the body, He provided the assistance of His majesty," and while they washed the body, He Himself washed the soul from sins. See what was said at chapter 3:32.

Verse 3: He Left Judea and Went Again Into Galilee

3. HE LEFT JUDEA, AND WENT AGAIN INTO GALILEE. — Not out of fear, as if He feared death, but to allay the envy of the Pharisees, says Chrysostom. For the Pharisees were powerful; indeed the priests, Scribes, Senators, and Magistrates were almost all Pharisees. This is Christ's second withdrawal into Galilee; for the first was at chapter 1:43. See what was said at Matthew 4:12.

Verse 4: He Had to Pass Through Samaria

4. NOW HE HAD TO PASS THROUGH SAMARIA. — For this lies between Judea and Galilee. Cyril notes that Christ does not here contradict His own precept, by which He commanded and said to the Apostles, Matthew 10:5: "Do not enter the cities of the Samaritans," because there He forbids the Apostles from purposely going to the Samaritans, dwelling there, staying long, and continually preaching the Gospel to them, lest they turn the Jews, who were enemies of the Samaritans, away from themselves and from the faith of Christ: but here Jesus merely passed through Samaria incidentally, in order to go to Galilee.

SAMARIA. — Samaria was a region occupied by the tribe of Ephraim and the half-tribe of Manasseh: it was so named from the royal city of Samaria, which took its name from the name of the mountain on which it was built, which was called "Shemer," 3 Kings 16:24. See Adrichomius, Brocardus, Bredenbach, and others, in the Description of the Holy Land. Samaria was afterward called Sebaste, that is, Augusta, where the bodies of Elisha, John the Baptist, and other Prophets were buried.

Verse 5: Sychar, Near the Parcel That Jacob Gave to Joseph

5. HE CAME THEREFORE TO A CITY OF SAMARIA WHICH IS CALLED SICHAR (which was situated) NEAR THE PARCEL OF GROUND THAT JACOB GAVE TO HIS SON JOSEPH. — "Sichar," that is Shechem, where Dinah was violated by Shechem, the lord of the city, Genesis 33. This city, when Jeroboam made the schism from Rehoboam and usurped for himself the kingdom of the ten tribes, or of Israel, became the metropolis of the region of Samaria and the capital of the whole kingdom; afterward, however, this dignity was transferred by Omri to the city of Samaria; then, in the time of Alexander the Great, Shechem again became the capital of Samaria and was called Neapolis, according to Josephus, book 11 of the Antiquities, chapter 8. In the time of Christ, Shechem was corruptly called Sichar; today it is called Pelosa or Nablus.

This city is memorable in Scripture for many heroic deeds. Abraham, says Toletus, migrating from Mesopotamia to Canaan, first came to Shechem, and there built the first altar to the Lord, and received the promise of faith for that land, as is found in Genesis 12 and 13. Jacob also, returning from Mesopotamia with his wives and sons, pitched his tent at Shechem, and there bought a parcel of land from the sons of Hamor, Genesis 33. There Dinah was violated by the son of the king of Shechem, and a great slaughter was made by the sons of Jacob, Genesis 34. Shechem was established as a city of refuge for fugitives, Joshua 20. There the ten tribes, because of the foolishness of Rehoboam, departed from Judah, 3 Kings 12. The bones of Joseph were buried at Shechem, as is found in Joshua, the last chapter. St. Jerome, in his treatise On Hebrew Places, says that Shechem and Salem are the same; whence it follows that Melchizedek, the type of Christ, was also king of this city: indeed the city, already quite famous in itself, was made much more famous by this miracle of Christ.

NEAR THE PARCEL THAT JACOB (at his death) GAVE TO HIS SON JOSEPH. — Genesis 48:22. See what was said there. For this reason Joseph, dying in Egypt, ordered his bones to be transferred to Shechem, as to his own estate left to him by his father Jacob in his testament, Joshua, last chapter, verse 32.

Verse 6: Jacob's Well; Jesus Wearied, Sat on the Well

6. NOW JACOB'S WELL WAS THERE. — "Well," that is, a well dug by Jacob, as is clear from verse 12. For this is what the Hebrew word be'er signifies; indeed in Latin, says St. Augustine, "every well is a fountain, but not every fountain is a well. For where water flows from the earth and is provided for the use of those who draw it, it is called a fountain; but if it is close at hand and on the surface, it is called only a fountain; but if it is deep and in a low place, it is then called a well, yet it does not lose the name of fountain." For fons [fountain] is derived from fundere [to pour], says Festus, because it pours out waters, as a well pours them out. And Varro, book 4 of On the Latin Language, says: A fountain is that from which living water is poured out of the earth. And St. Isidore, book 13 of the Origins, chapter 21, says: A fountain is the head of rising water, as it were pouring forth waters. Therefore the well of Jacob is a well that Jacob, when he lived there, had dug for his own use and that of his household, Genesis 21:30 and chapter 26:45, for there was a scarcity of water there; or which Jacob had bought from the Shechemites, as Rupert suggests.

JESUS THEREFORE, BEING WEARIED FROM THE JOURNEY, — because He was not carried by chariot or horse, but traveled on foot, going about on foot to the neighboring towns and villages, even to the point of exhaustion: driving out a soft and wanton life, says St. Chrysostom, and teaching us a laborious and difficult one. The Apostles did the same following Christ's example, and recently in India Blessed Xavier and his followers did likewise. St. Augustine devoutly says in Tract 15: "It is not in vain that Jesus is wearied, not in vain that the Power of God is wearied; for He is not wearied in vain through whom the weary are refreshed; for He is not wearied in vain whose absence causes our weariness, whose presence strengthens us." And then: "For your sake Jesus was wearied by the journey, etc.; the strength of Christ created you: the strength of Christ made that which was not, to be; the weakness of Christ made that which was, not to perish. He founded us by His strength, He sought us by His weakness: therefore He Himself nourishes the weak, as a hen her chicks; for He made Himself like her."

HE SAT THUS UPON THE WELL. — In Greek epi te pege, that is, at the well, namely near the well; or properly "upon the well," because the fountain, that is, the springing water, was at the bottom of the well; but Jesus sat at the top of the well.

He sat thus, — that is, as chance afforded, as the convenience for sitting was there, meaning: First, He sat on the ground without a seat, as travelers are accustomed to sit near fountains and wells, for refreshment and drink. So St. Chrysostom, Theophylactus, Euthymius.

Second, more simply: "He sat thus," namely as one wearied from the journey; meaning He sat with the posture and position of a weary man, or as men who are exhausted and out of breath are accustomed to sit, with a bearing indicating fatigue and weariness. It is a mimesis, or imitation of the thing being narrated, in the word "thus." Similar is the usage in Horace when he says:

Do not touch the hare that has been placed thus.

And in Virgil:

Thus, thus laid out, depart from the body you have addressed.

So Cajetan, Franciscus Lucas, and others.

Third, and more forcefully, the word "thus" could be taken for "therefore," meaning: Because Jesus was wearied, thus, that is, therefore, He sat down to rest. In this sense, "thus" is often taken in common speech, just as the Hebrew ken, that is "thus," is used for al ken, that is "upon thus," which means "therefore." Similar is Psalm 60:9: "Thus (that is, therefore) I will sing a psalm to You." And Cicero, Tusculan Disputations IV: "Thus (that is, therefore) so many virtues failed at once." So Toletus and Maldonatus.

Fourth, "thus," that is, in the way that I am about to explain, namely with the circumstances that I shall now recount, meaning: He sat thus, that is, He sat while it was the sixth hour, and the Samaritan woman was coming to draw water, and the disciples had gone into the city to buy food, as John immediately narrates.

IT WAS ABOUT THE SIXTH HOUR. — He gives the reason why Jesus sat at the well, namely so that, being wearied, hot, hungry, and thirsty, He might rest and seek refreshment there, and eat and drink; for it was "the sixth hour," that is, noon, when the heat is intense and travelers are accustomed to refresh themselves with food and drink. Whence Nonnus translates it, "it was the hour that brings thirst."

Verse 7: Give Me to Drink

7. A WOMAN OF SAMARIA CAME TO DRAW WATER. — "A woman," named Photina, about whom more below at verse 29.

OF SAMARIA, — namely the region, not the city.

For she was coming from the city of Sychar, or Shechem, near the fountain or well, meaning: She was a Samaritan woman, because a Shechemite, who was speaking with Christ the Jew. For between the Jews and the Samaritans there were great dissensions and enmities, as I said at Ecclesiasticus 50:28.

From this it is clear that there were no wells or fountains in the city, at least not good or public ones, but that the citizens were accustomed to go outside the city to draw water from this well near the city, on account of the dryness of the soil and the scarcity of water. So Euthymius.

JESUS SAID TO HER: GIVE ME TO DRINK, — from your bucket or water jar. Jesus approached the woman first, to provide the occasion and beginning for a conversation. For He knew that the woman, being a Samaritan, would not do this, but would shun Jesus as a Jew, and would not deign to speak to or greet Him. Moreover, "He who sought to drink was thirsting for the woman's faith," says St. Augustine. Note here the wonderful courtesy and charity of Christ, by which He seeks conversation with a lowly harlot, in order to convert her, and through her the whole city.

Verse 8: His Disciples Had Gone Into the City to Buy Food

8. FOR HIS DISCIPLES HAD GONE INTO THE CITY (Shechem) TO BUY FOOD. — Note: the word "for" gives the reason why Jesus asked the woman for a drink; because, namely, His disciples, from whom He usually asked for food and drink, had already gone into the city to buy food: for Jesus wished to dine near the well, and to drink from the well and quench His thirst, as poor travelers are accustomed to do, especially in Syria, Arabia, and other hot and dry places that consequently suffer from a scarcity of water. This happened by the silent providence of Christ, so that, having sent all the disciples into the city, He alone might more freely deal with the immodest woman, considering her modesty, and expose her immodesty, and convert her to faith and chastity. Note also here that Christ did not then live by begging, but by the money that had been offered to Him by Magdalene and other women, which He possessed not as His own but as common property shared with the Apostles.

Verse 9: How Is It That You, Being a Jew, Ask a Drink of Me?

9. THE SAMARITAN WOMAN THEREFORE SAID TO HIM: HOW IS IT THAT YOU, BEING A JEW, ASK A DRINK OF ME, WHO AM A SAMARITAN WOMAN? FOR JEWS HAVE NO DEALINGS WITH SAMARITANS. — "Therefore" in Greek and Hebrew is often merely a marker beginning a speech, but here it is a marker of inference from Christ's preceding request, meaning: Jesus had asked the woman for water: the woman therefore, to Him making the request, responded: "How is it that You, being a Jew," etc. The woman recognized Jesus as a Jew from His clothing and speech, which Christ, to accommodate Himself to His homeland, fittingly and prudently kept similar to His fellow citizens. So St. Chrysostom, Theophylactus, and Euthymius.

FOR JEWS HAVE NO DEALINGS WITH SAMARITANS, — that is, they have no commerce, they do not use the same table, cup, or vessel. So St. Augustine: "Absolutely, he says, the Jews do not use their vessels," as being impure and abominable due to their schism. I gave the reason at Ecclesiasticus 50:28. These words can be taken either as the Evangelist's or as the Samaritan woman's; both are fitting, both probable. From this example learn how much we ought to avoid familiarity with heretics, their books and conversations. For their speech spreads like a cancer, says St. Paul.

Verse 10: If You Knew the Gift of God

10. JESUS ANSWERED AND SAID TO HER: IF YOU KNEW THE GIFT OF GOD, AND WHO IT IS THAT SAYS TO YOU: GIVE ME TO DRINK; YOU PERHAPS WOULD HAVE ASKED OF HIM, AND HE WOULD HAVE GIVEN YOU LIVING WATER. — "If you knew the gift of God," both the common gift that God has given to every person, meaning: If you recognized Me to be Christ the Savior of the world. So Ammonius and Toletus; whence, explaining further, He adds: "And who it is that says to you: Give Me to drink." And also the gift proper to you, which God now offers you through Me, so that through My conversation you might receive the occasion of salvation, believe in Me, and thus be justified and saved by Me. So Maldonatus, Franciscus Lucas, and others.

You perhaps would have asked of Him. — In Greek su an etesas auton, that is, you assuredly would have asked; for an is an expletive particle, confirming the statement. Our Vulgate, however, translated it as "perhaps," to signify the free will of the one asking. See what was said at Matthew 11:23.

And He would have given you living water. — Christ leads the Samaritan woman from bodily water to spiritual water through anagogy. Let every religious and apostolic man do the same. Note: Just as a still sea, a lake, or stagnant water is called dead because it does not move but always remains in the same place; so on the contrary, "living water" is what flows, and especially what springs up and leaps forth from fountains and springs, as if animated by a vital spirit. For in living things, motion and spirit are signs and effects of life.

Moreover, "living water" here is called the Gospel doctrine of Christ, says Ammonius, likewise the Holy Spirit and His grace, which Christ, while teaching, breathes and inspires into His own. So Cyril, Theophylactus, Euthymius, and generally others. It is called "water," first, because like water it purges the soul from sins, indeed confers a new cleanliness and adornment on the soul, which natural water does not do, according to the words: "You will wash me, and I shall be made whiter than snow," Psalm 50. Grace is a supernatural cleanliness, beauty, and adornment of the soul. Whence that passage of the Song of Songs 1: "Behold, you are beautiful, my friend, behold you are beautiful." Again, water washes, but it corrupts, weakens, destroys, and consumes. For we see that clothes, while being washed, are indeed cleaned, but worn out; for the qualities of water are corrosive: but the Holy Spirit does not act thus, but washes and strengthens souls, and greater powers are gained the more they are washed, which Paul, feeling this, said in Philippians 4: "I can do all things in Him who strengthens me."

Second, because the Holy Spirit and His grace cools the heat of concupiscence and composes and equalizes all the passions and movements of the soul, like water. Hence aqua [water] is said as if aequa [equal], says Varro, book 4 of On the Latin Language, and Isidore, book 13 of the Origins, chapters 7 and following: "Aqua, he says, is as if aequa, because its surface is level. Hence aequor [the sea] is so called, because it is poured out evenly;" although Festus says: "Aqua is so called, as if 'from which we are helped' [a qua juvamur];" or, as others say, "from which all things come" [a qua omnia], because from water the heavens, the air, and all other things were created, as I said at Genesis 1. See what I said about the properties of water at Ecclesiasticus 29, on the words: "The beginning of man's life is water and bread;" and Pliny, book 31, chapter 1, where in concluding he says: "All the powers of the earth are a benefit of the waters."

Third, because it quenches the thirst for spiritual things, about which more at verse 13.

Fourth, because just as water makes the earth, trees, herbs, flowers, and fruits fertile and rich; so grace makes the soul fruitful and fertile with good works and all virtues; but according to each person's condition, state, and rank. But grace does more than water; for it elevates the soul so that it produces not only natural fruits and works, as water does, but also supernatural ones of faith, hope, charity, etc., according to the words: "He who abides in Me, he bears much fruit," John 15. Again, water in a pear tree produces only pears, in a nut tree only nuts, in a rose only roses; but grace in the same soul produces the fruits of all virtues; in a soul, I say, which before, corrupted by sin, produced nothing but the fruits of vice.

Moreover, the Holy Spirit and His grace are called "living water," first, because the Holy Spirit in Himself most divinely lives a blessed and divine life, and communicates this His life to the faithful, penitent, and holy soul: indeed the Holy Spirit with the Father and the Son is uncreated and essential life itself, from which all the life of angels, humans, animals, and plants, both natural and supernatural, flows as from a fountain, indeed from an Ocean.

Second, because, as Theophylactus says, the grace of the Holy Spirit is the form by which one lives according to the spirit, and so grace is as it were the soul of the soul — the soul, I say, of virtue and holiness.

Third, because through grace the Holy Spirit Himself, who is life itself, dwells in us and gives us life.

Fourth, because He brings it about that the soul is always moved toward the good, continually arranging new steps in the heart by which it may ascend to better and higher things, according to Psalm 83:6: "He has arranged ascents in his heart." For, as St. Ambrose says, the grace of the Holy Spirit knows no slow efforts, but compels the soul, with the Blessed Virgin, to ascend the mountains of virtues.

Fifth, St. Augustine, in Tract 15, says: "Living water" is what flows in such a way that it remains connected to its source, namely the fountain and vein from which it springs; but dead water is what is separated and cut off from its fountain. Grace, therefore, is called "living water" because it is never separated from its fountain, namely the Holy Spirit, just as the Holy Spirit is inseparable from His origin, namely the Father and the Son, and is intimately united with Them in the numerically same divine essence. Therefore, although He pours Himself into the soul, yet He does not depart from the Father and the Son; rather, He brings with Him the Father and the Son to the soul, so that all of Them may dwell in it as in Their temple, according to John 14:23: "If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him, and make Our abode with him." So St. Cyril, book 2, chapter 22: He calls the grace of the Spirit living, he says, as if life-giving, and because it is also connected to its source, and makes us connected. For it always depends on the Holy Spirit, and through it the Spirit dwells in us and is united with us, and through it we are joined to Him, according to 1 Corinthians 6: "Your members are the temple of the Holy Spirit."

Sixth, water from a fountain channeled through pipes into valleys can, by the continuous pressure of the water flowing from the fountain and continuously succeeding itself, be raised to as great a height as the height of the fountain or spring, as experience proves. So heavenly grace, as a fountain of gifts and virtues, springing from heaven from the Holy Spirit, makes us leap up to the same height, that is, as high as the origin of the fountain, namely to heaven and to God, through good works and merits, according to verse 14: "The water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up to eternal life." And Song of Songs 4:15: "A fountain of gardens, a well of living waters, which flow with force from Lebanon." See what was said there.

Verse 11: You Have Nothing to Draw With, and the Well Is Deep

11. THE WOMAN SAID TO HIM: LORD, YOU HAVE NOTHING (no bucket or other vessel) WITH WHICH TO DRAW — in Greek You do not have antlema, that is, a drawing vessel or, as St. Augustine reads, a drawing instrument —, AND THE WELL IS DEEP (downward, that is, profound): WHERE THEN DO YOU GET LIVING WATER?

The Arabic version has: Lord, You have no bucket, and the well is deep: where then is the water of life for You? So also the Syriac. Behold, here she calls the fountain a "well," and a deep one, from which water is drawn for drinking. Whence St. Isidore, book 13 of the Origins, chapter 21, says: A well is a place dug out from which water is drawn, named from drinking [potatio]. Although Varro, book 4 of On the Latin Language, thinks that puteus [well] is said from putor [stench], as if hot and putrid, from the vapors and odors, often also from sulfur and alum, which not infrequently kill well-diggers, especially when the well is very deep. Rupert writes that this well was forty cubits deep. The sense therefore is, meaning: Here there is no other water than that of this well; but the well is deep, and You, O Jesus, have no bucket with which to draw water from it: where then do You have living water?

Verse 12: Are You Greater Than Our Father Jacob?

12. ARE YOU GREATER THAN OUR FATHER JACOB, WHO GAVE US THE WELL, AND DRANK FROM IT HIMSELF, AND HIS SONS, AND HIS CATTLE? — Note: The Samaritans were Assyrians, who were brought into Samaria as new colonists by Shalmaneser, when he had transferred the inhabitants from there, that is, the ten tribes of Israel, into Assyria, as is clear from 4 Kings 17. Yet they wanted to be considered Jews, not Assyrians, when the Jewish commonwealth was flourishing, according to Josephus, book 11 of the Antiquities, last chapter, both because they inhabited the part of Judea that had fallen to the tribe of Ephraim, namely Samaria; and because they were mixed with the Jews who had been left behind, or who had subsequently migrated there: so Cyril, Theophylactus, Euthymius; and also because they partly followed the religion of the Jews, for they worshipped the God of Israel together with the idols of the Assyrians, as is clear from 4 Kings 17. For this reason, then, the woman calls Jacob "our father," that is, the father of the Samaritans, as if the Samaritans were Jews and Israelites descended from Jacob. The sense is, meaning: Jacob did not have better water than this; for if he had had better water, he would certainly have drunk from it, both he himself and his sons and his cattle. If You therefore, O Jesus, can give or find better water here, You must be greater than Jacob our patriarch and father. So St. Chrysostom, Euthymius, and Theophylactus, whom hear: "That he himself (Jacob) drank from it is a commendation of the water's quality: but that his cattle also drank is an indication of the abundance of the water; for it was not only sweet, but also so abundant that it sufficed for the multitude of the patriarch Jacob's cattle." Little by little Jesus raised the mind of the woman, so that she might at last recognize that He Himself was the Messiah. For from what He had said: "If you knew who it is that says to you: Give me to drink, you perhaps would have asked of Him, and He would have given you living water;" the woman conjectured, or suspected, that Jesus was making Himself greater than Jacob.

Verse 13: Whoever Drinks of This Water Will Thirst Again

13. JESUS ANSWERED AND SAID TO HER: EVERYONE WHO DRINKS OF THIS WATER WILL THIRST AGAIN; BUT WHOEVER DRINKS OF THE WATER THAT I SHALL GIVE HIM WILL NEVER THIRST. — Jesus, to the woman extolling the water of her well, modestly shows that His living water is far better, because it removes all thirst, even future thirst. Whence He tacitly leaves her to infer that He is greater than Jacob: "He did not say He was greater," says Chrysostom, "for He would have seemed to be merely boasting while still unknown, but He indicates it covertly. For He did not simply say: 'I will give you water,' but first, setting aside Jacob's water, He praises His own, wishing to show the difference between the givers from the nature of the gifts, and how much He Himself excelled the Patriarch." Cyril adds: "He showed that these sensible and earthly waters differ infinitely from the intelligible ones," namely so that He might sharpen the woman's appetite and eagerness to know and taste this living water of Christ.

WHOEVER DRINKS OF THIS WATER WILL THIRST AGAIN. — Tropologically, St. Augustine says: "The water in the well is the pleasure of the world in dark depths, which men draw up with the water-pot of their desires; for these make a person always thirst, because desire is insatiable."

BUT WHOEVER DRINKS OF THE WATER THAT I SHALL GIVE HIM WILL NEVER THIRST. — That is to say: Whoever receives the living water, that is, the grace of the Holy Spirit from Me, will never again thirst for justice, for God's friendship, for virtue, for holiness, because he will already have these through grace; understand this to mean, unless he himself voluntarily and deliberately vomits up and squanders this grace of the water through mortal sin. For this is the antithesis of Christ, as if to say: Common water, such as yours from this well, O woman, once tasted, only relieves thirst for a short time, because it does not remain in the stomach, but is digested, corrupted, and vanishes from it, or is excreted through sweat or urine; but this living water of Mine, namely the grace of the Holy Spirit, as far as it is concerned on its part, is so efficacious that once tasted, it always suffices to drive away thirst; for it always remains in the soul, remains, I say, the same and unchanged. For habitual grace, by God's ordinary law, brings with it at appointed times prevenient helps, namely impulses of exciting grace, which are as sufficient for retaining the spiritual moisture and vigor of the soul, and for perseverance and salvation, as they are necessary, as the Council of Trent teaches, session 6, chapter 16.

You will object: How then does Sirach 24:29 have Wisdom say of herself, "Those who drink me will still thirst"? For this seems contrary to what Christ says here of His grace: "He will never thirst." I respond: "Those who drink me will still thirst," that is, they will still desire to be more fully filled with the wisdom of God which they already possess; that is, they will desire an increase of God's wisdom and grace. But here "to thirst" is to lack all water, or to desire the water of grace necessary for the spiritual life: that is, to desire the Holy Spirit and His justice and holiness, which you do not have, in order to relieve the spiritual thirst, dryness, and barrenness of the mind. For the Holy Spirit, dwelling in the mind through grace, so refreshes, waters, and satisfies the mind with His grace, that the mind thirsts for or desires nothing else, but lives happily, content and satisfied with Him. See what was said at Sirach 24:29. Thus St. Ignatius the Martyr, condemned to the lions, when he was entering the amphitheater, addressing the Roman spectators, said: "I have come here to die for my Jesus, whom I insatiably thirst for, so that I may be united with Him in heaven."

Note: The Holy Spirit through grace in this life incipiently, but in heaven perfectly fulfills every thirst and desire of the soul; likewise He extinguishes the thirst of pride and concupiscence; and finally in heaven He will completely remove all thirst and hunger, both of body and soul, every defect, every hardship through glory and the gift of impassibility, according to that verse: "I shall be satisfied when Your glory appears" (Psalm 16:15). And that: "Who fills your desire with good things" (Psalm 102:5). And that: "They shall not hunger, nor thirst anymore, and neither heat nor sun shall strike them" (Isaiah 49:10). Thus St. Augustine says: "We shall be satisfied with the good things of Your house. From what water, then, will He give, except from that of which it was said: 'With You is the fountain of life'? For how shall they thirst who shall be inebriated by the abundance of Your house?" (Psalm 35:9-10). And the Interlinear Gloss says: "He promises satiety of the spirit, which will occur in the resurrection, because with Him is the fountain of life, from which they shall be inebriated." The heavenly glory, therefore, fills all defects of soul and body, every desire, every thirst, "because beatitude is a state made perfect by the aggregation of all goods," says Boethius, according to that verse: "You shall give them drink from the torrent of Your pleasure" (Psalm 35:9).

Verse 14: A Fountain Springing Up to Eternal Life

14. BUT THE WATER THAT I SHALL GIVE HIM, SHALL BECOME IN HIM A FOUNTAIN OF WATER SPRINGING UP INTO ETERNAL LIFE. — The Egyptian and others customarily agreed with the Arabic; therefore grace propels man toward heaven, and does not rest until it raises him there, where there is no thirst, no defect, no misery; but all satiety, all abundance, all happiness; for this is what "eternal life" signifies: for this fountain of grace, which is in the soul, is derived from the first fountain, namely from the Holy Spirit who is in heaven, just as a fountain which is channeled to spring up in a marketplace or garden is derived from the first fountain which is on some mountain, where it first rises and bubbles up. Hence it is called "living water," because it springs up to the primary height of its source, or of its first origin, and shoots forth waters.

Second, "it will become in him a fountain," because, as Theophylactus says, the water of grace which Christ instills into the faithful soul always multiplies in it. For the saints receive the seeds and beginning of good through grace, but they themselves work and trade with it for its increase, so that it becomes abundant in them like a fountain, by which they water and inebriate not only themselves but also many others. Whence St. Chrysostom says: "He who has a fountain within himself is not affected by thirst." Furthermore, Origen says: "Each of the angels has within himself a fountain of water springing up into eternal life, from the Word Himself."

Third, just as the more a fountain flows downward, the more it flows back up into it; so the more one pours out his grace upon others, the more he receives and draws from God. Whence St. Basil, in his homily on Luke 12, "I will tear down my barns," says: "Just as wells that are continually drawn from flow with more abundant and purer water, but if left alone and undisturbed, easily become putrid: so also riches stored away are useless; transferred to the poor, they bear fruit." Clement of Alexandria teaches the same thing with the same simile, in Book III of the Pedagogue, chapter 7.

Finally, this is the paradox of Christ: whereas water leaps downward, here its fountain leaps upward, according to that saying: "The fountains of sacred rivers flow upward." Great and wondrous is this leap, great and immense the power of the Holy Spirit, which makes the earthly and leaden hearts of men leap from earth to heaven, indeed to the empyrean heaven; from grace to glory, from flesh to spirit, from death to eternal life, from beasts to angels, from time to eternity, from the devil to God. Therefore it is said to the faithful, "lift up your hearts," and this is a sure sign of the indwelling grace and Holy Spirit: if we dwell in mind in the heavens, if we speak of and work for heavenly things, and say with Paul: "Our conversation is in heaven" (Philippians 3). For this reason Christ leaped down from heaven to earth, so that He might make us leap up from earth to heaven, according to that verse: "Behold, He comes leaping upon the mountains, bounding over the hills" (Song of Songs 2:8). Thus did St. Mary of Oignies leap heavenward, who continually conversed with Christ, the Blessed Virgin, St. John the Evangelist, Angels, Apostles, Martyrs, and Virgins, and recognized each one by their appearance and voice, just as we recognize our neighbors. So says Cardinal Jacques de Vitry, in her Life, Book II, chapter 8 and following. He adds that she, having received the revelation of her predestination, so exulted and rejoiced in spirit that she continually sang: "I will go to the Holy of Holies. And what is the Holy of Holies?" This is found in Surius under June 23.

Verse 15: Lord, Give Me This Water

15. THE WOMAN SAID TO HIM: LORD, GIVE ME THIS WATER, SO THAT I MAY NOT THIRST, NOR COME HERE TO DRAW. — "She was delighted," says St. Augustine, "at not thirsting, and thought this was promised to her by the Lord according to the flesh, etc. Need compelled her to the labor (of coming and drawing water from a well far from the city), and weakness made her shrink from the labor." The carnal and unlearned woman did not yet understand that Christ was speaking of the spiritual water of grace; therefore Christ strikes her with another dart, so that she might think higher things about Him. He says therefore:

Verse 16: Go, Call Your Husband, and Come Here

16. JESUS SAID TO HER: GO, CALL YOUR HUSBAND, AND COME HERE. — Note from Chrysostom, Theophylact, Euthymius, and others, that Christ used this pretext to command the woman to call her husband, because it would not be sufficiently proper to give so great a thing and so great a gift (namely the living water) to a married woman without her husband's knowledge: but in reality Christ wanted to reveal to her hidden things, and to lay open her secret fornication, so that He might thereby elicit her confession and stir her to repentance, and at the same time show her that He was greater than a mere man, and that He was a Prophet and the Christ, from whom she should ask and expect the remission of sins and eternal heavenly reward. For this is the living water proposed to her by Christ.

Verse 17: You Have Said Well, I Have No Husband

17. THE WOMAN ANSWERED AND SAID: I HAVE NO HUSBAND. JESUS SAID TO HER: YOU HAVE SAID WELL (that is, rightly, truly), THAT YOU HAVE NO HUSBAND. — From this it is clear that this woman was a widow and unmarried, and therefore was not an adulteress, but only a fornicator, or prostitute, unless her lover was married; for in that case, both would have been adulterers. So says St. Augustine. The word "that" (quia) is redundant in the Hebrew manner, as a pleonasm.

Verse 18: You Have Had Five Husbands

18. FOR YOU HAVE HAD FIVE HUSBANDS, AND THE ONE YOU NOW HAVE IS NOT YOUR HUSBAND: THIS YOU HAVE SAID TRULY. — Nonnus says: "For you have had five husbands in succession, one after another; and the one you now have is not a legitimate husband." "Five husbands," that is, legitimate ones, "you have had." So say St. Augustine, Bede, Euthymius, Rupert, and others generally, although St. Chrysostom, on Psalm 13, and Maldonatus think they were illegitimate and adulterous, and that therefore she is here censured by Christ on the grounds that she still had a sixth adulterer. The former interpretation is more genuine; for Christ draws an antithesis between the five former ones and the sixth, namely that those were legitimate, but this one is illegitimate.

Note here the modesty and grace of correction in Christ; for He does not openly say to the woman: "You are an adulteress or fornicator: therefore do penance for your fornications;" but praising her, because she spoke the truth, that she did not have a husband, He adds: "And the one you now have is not your husband," by which He tacitly insinuates that she is fornicating with him, and that He knows this, though it is hidden, from God's revelation, and therefore that He is a Prophet and the Messiah, from whom she ought to seek pardon and grace.

Note: St. Basil, Epistle 2 to Amphilochius, says that trigamy, or third marriages, are defilements of the Church, but better than fornication. And in Epistle 1 to the same: "Trigamists," he says, "are often separated for three or four years, but no more, and they call it polygamy, or chastised fornication. And therefore the Lord said to the Samaritan woman, who had already had five husbands: 'The one you now have is not your husband,' namely because those who have exceeded the measure of bigamy are not worthy to be called by the name of husband or wife." But the Church now thinks otherwise. For it is certain that fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, etc., marriages are licit, even if they are at times indecent and signs of incontinence; and this seems to have been what St. Basil intended.

Verse 19: Lord, I See That You Are a Prophet

19. THE WOMAN SAID TO HIM: LORD, I SEE THAT YOU ARE A PROPHET, — because You reveal my secrets, both good and bad, which You could not know except by God's revelation, especially since You are a Jew and a stranger: therefore I humbly accept Your correction, so modest as it is, and confess my fornication. "By one and the same confession," says Rupert, "she confessed both what she was, and what she could understand Him to be." And shortly after: "She confessed indeed less, and far less, than what He was, but by confessing as much as she had perceived, she made herself worthy for Jesus to entrust to her all that He was."

Verse 20: Our Fathers Worshipped on This Mountain

20. OUR FATHERS WORSHIPPED ON THIS MOUNTAIN; AND YOU SAY THAT JERUSALEM IS THE PLACE WHERE ONE OUGHT TO WORSHIP. — The woman, recognizing Jesus as a prophet, proposes to Him a question about religion, at that time supremely controverted between the Jews and Samaritans, so that she might know which side she ought to follow, in order to provide for her salvation; for this question tormented her more than the thirst for the living water promised by Christ, which she did not understand.

THEY WORSHIPPED. — Note: by "worship" here and elsewhere is signified every public rite of honoring God, especially through sacrifices and other ceremonies instituted by God and prescribed by Moses in Leviticus from the mouth of God; for this public rite could only be performed in the tabernacle erected by Moses, and later in the temple built by Solomon, as is clear from the law which God enacted, Deuteronomy 14:24. Otherwise, by the law of nature and divine law, it was always and still is permitted to worship and invoke God privately in any place. Therefore "they worshipped" here means the same as "they sacrificed" and publicly offered victims in sacrifice to God, because worship, or the external cult of latria, is sacrifice itself. Thus in Genesis 22:5, Abraham says to his servants: "After we have worshipped," that is, sacrificed, "we will return to you." And Acts 8:27: "The eunuch of Queen Candace had come to worship," that is, to offer sacrifice, "in Jerusalem." So says Suarez, in his treatise On Religion.

ON THIS MOUNTAIN — Garizim, which overlooks the city of Shechem. From it Jotham, the son of Gideon, cursed the Shechemites, Judges 9:7.

Note: That famous and perpetual question and contention between the Samaritans and the Jews about worship and sacrifice on this mountain was well-known throughout the ages. For in the time of Alexander the Great, Manasseh, the brother of Jaddus the high priest (who met Alexander and appeased him when he was hostile to the Jews), married a foreign woman, namely the daughter of Sanballat, whom Darius, the last king of Persia, had appointed governor of Samaria. Therefore Manasseh, excluded by his brother Jaddus and the other priests from the temple and its sacred rites, fled to his father-in-law Sanballat, who built a noble temple in Samaria, namely on Mount Garizim, and appointed Manasseh as its high priest. Whence many Jewish deserters flocked to it, especially those who, like Manasseh, had married foreign wives contrary to the law; and they used in their excuse the argument that Shechem, which this Mount Garizim overlooks, was famous for the worship and sacrifices of the Patriarchs, such as Jacob (Genesis 33:20), Joshua (Joshua, last chapter, verse 1), Moses and the 12 tribes (Deuteronomy 27:12), where by God's command Moses ordered Joshua to build an altar on Mount Garizim, on which to offer holocausts to God, to inscribe the Decalogue on stones, and before the ark and the twelve tribes to promulgate God's law, with the blessings which God promised to those who keep the law, the people responding: Amen.

Furthermore, this temple stood on Mount Garizim for 200 years, until Hyrcanus, the son of Simon the brother of Judas Maccabaeus, who was both high priest and prince, destroyed it, as Josephus testifies, Book XIII of the Antiquities, chapter 17; who also in chapter 16 relates that the Samaritans and Jews brought this dispute for settlement to Ptolemy Philometor, king of Egypt, who adjudicated it in favor of the Jews, inasmuch as they had built their temple according to the decree of Moses. But the Samaritans were not content with this decision, and persisted in their schism, their temple, and their contention with the Jews, until the destruction of their temple.

Verse 21: Neither on This Mountain Nor in Jerusalem

21. JESUS SAID TO HER: WOMAN, BELIEVE ME, THE HOUR IS COMING WHEN NEITHER ON THIS MOUNTAIN NOR IN JERUSALEM WILL YOU WORSHIP THE FATHER, — namely you, whoever wish to worship God the Father properly, according to God's prescription. "You will worship the Father," therefore means "the Father will be worshipped." The meaning is, as if to say: "The hour is coming," that is, the time of the evangelical law and doctrine to be instituted and promulgated by Me, through which, after My death which will occur shortly, the law of Moses and all its rites of worshipping God in the temple of Jerusalem, or even in this your Garizim temple, will be abolished, because throughout the whole world churches of Christians will be built, in which God will be worshipped in spirit and truth, as Christ explains in verse 23. This is what Malachi predicted would happen under Christ, 1:10-11: "I will not accept a gift from your hand," says the Lord. "For from the rising of the sun to its setting, My name is great among the Gentiles, and in every place there is sacrifice, and there is offered to My name a pure offering;" in Hebrew, mincha, that is, the Eucharist, namely the offering of the body and blood of Christ, which alone has succeeded all the ancient animal sacrifices. See what was said there.

Verse 22: You Worship What You Do Not Know; Salvation Is From the Jews

22. YOU WORSHIP WHAT (the Arabic says "whom") YOU DO NOT KNOW: WE WORSHIP WHAT WE KNOW, BECAUSE SALVATION IS FROM THE JEWS. — Here Christ responds directly to the woman's question, and adjudicates the dispute about worshipping God in favor of the Jews, condemning the Samaritans as schismatics. He says therefore: "You, O Samaritans, worship what you do not know," because you worship the God of the Jews together with your Assyrian idols, and consequently you worship God as a companion of idols, and therefore a false and fictitious one. Again, you worship a God different from the God of the Jews, one who is Lord only of your own land, and who is therefore false and invented by you. This is clear from 2 Kings 17:26. Again, the Samaritans had their own heresies and errors, which St. Epiphanius lists in his account of their heresy. Thus the Turks and Jews worship a God whom they do not know, because they deny that He is three in Persons. Likewise Calvin with his followers, denying God's omnipotence and making Him cruel by asserting that He consigns anyone to hell without their demerit, worships not the true but a false God; for the true God is omnipotent and most benign.

Second and more accurately, "you worship," that is, you have a rite of worshipping and sacrificing which "you do not know" to have proceeded from God; because you devised it for yourselves by your own ingenuity, against God's law and will. But "we Jews worship what we know," because we observe and follow the rite of worshipping and sacrificing prescribed by God through Moses in Leviticus.

BECAUSE SALVATION (the Syriac says "life") IS FROM THE JEWS, — both because I, Christ, the author of salvation sent by God, was born not from the Samaritans but from the Jews, as St. Chrysostom, Cyril, Theophylact, Euthymius, Ammonius, and others say; and because the true knowledge and worship of God, which leads men to salvation, formerly in the Old Law flowed from the Jews to the Gentiles, and now in the New Law will flow from Me, a Jew, to all nations. So say the same authors.

Verse 23: True Worshippers Will Worship the Father in Spirit and Truth

23. BUT THE HOUR IS COMING, AND NOW IS, WHEN THE TRUE WORSHIPPERS WILL WORSHIP THE FATHER IN SPIRIT AND TRUTH. FOR THE FATHER ALSO SEEKS SUCH ONES TO WORSHIP HIM. — That is to say: Now is the time of My evangelical law, in which the true worshippers, namely Christians, whether from the Jews, or from the Samaritans, or from other nations, converted to Me, will worship God not on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem alone, with carnal animal sacrifices, as the Jews and Samaritans do, but everywhere among the nations, in spirit and truth. Hear Euthymius: "Having placed the Jews above the Samaritans, He now in turn places the Christians above the Jews, so that the preference may be free of suspicion, and He may not appear to be favoring the Jews, since He Himself is a Jew."

IN SPIRIT AND TRUTH. — So also the Syriac, Arabic, Egyptian, Ethiopic, and Persian versions. Note: The Samaritans falsely, indeed worshipped a false God whom they did not know, as I said at verse 22. The Jews, however, did worship the true God, but chiefly through bodily victims, says Euthymius, and other bodily signs, and in a fixed place, namely in the temple of Jerusalem, all of which were shadows and types of the spiritual worship and cult to be introduced by Christ. To both groups, therefore, Christ here opposes His own faithful and Christians, who instead of the body worship in spirit; instead of shadows, falsity, and ignorance, they worship in truth the God who is an incorporeal spirit, most true and most pure. "Spirit" here therefore signifies the spiritual worship of faith, hope, charity, religion, devotion, contrition, and the other virtues, by which God is worshipped by Christians not through shadows and figures, but "in truth," that is, most truly, most rightly, and most properly. "In truth," therefore, means in the true, right, sincere, and proper worship worthy of God, in which God delights and rejoices, according to Psalm 50:18: "You will not delight in holocausts: the sacrifice to God is a contrite spirit." And Psalm 49:23: "The sacrifice of praise shall honor Me." And Psalm 4:6: "Offer the sacrifice of justice, and hope in the Lord." And Psalm 49:13: "Shall I eat the flesh of bulls? etc., sacrifice to God the sacrifice of praise." Thus St. Cyril says: "The spiritual worshipper is pleasing, who is not overshadowed by Jewish forms and figures for piety, but shining with evangelical virtue, performs true worship through the right discipline of doctrine." And Theophylact: "Because many seem to worship in the soul, yet do not have right knowledge, like heretics, He therefore added: 'And in truth': for one must both worship God with the mind and hold a sound opinion about Him." Such was Paul, says Origen, who said: "God is my witness, whom I serve (with latria, for in Greek it is ho latreuo, that is, whom I worship with latria) in my spirit" (Romans 1:9). And the Gloss says: "Not in the temple, not on this mountain, but in" — it is necessary to worship.

This is the a priori reason, as if to say: God is the purest and truest spirit, therefore God must be worshipped. The Samaritan therefore worships God on a mountain, locally; the Jew in shadow, figuratively; the Christian in spirit and truth, truly and spiritually. For, as St. Chrysostom says: "The former things were a figure, now all is truth."

Secondly, Vatablus explains "in truth" as meaning in integrity, or in perfection; for true, that is, complete and perfect worshippers worship God in the spirit and perfection of faith, hope, charity, and the other virtues, as Christians do; whereas shadowy and imperfect worshippers worship God with bodily signs and sacrifices, as the Samaritans and Jews used to do.

Symbolically, St. Athanasius, in his epistle to Serapion, says: It is necessary to worship God, namely, the Father in truth, that is in the Son and in the Holy Spirit; that is, it is necessary to worship God, three and one, it is necessary to worship the Holy Trinity, and Its three Persons.

Others say: It is necessary to worship God in the Spirit, that is through the Spirit, or by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

Mystically, Theophylactus says: By spirit, action is suggested; by truth, contemplation: for all Christians serve God, either in the active or the contemplative life.

Heretics object: God must be worshipped by Christians in spirit and truth; therefore from baptism onward all bodily ceremonies and rites must be rejected. I reply: I deny the consequence, because these are not the shadows and figures of the old law, but the ornaments, stimulants, and effects of the spirit, and therefore pertain to the spirit; otherwise all the Sacraments, and the Eucharist itself, which consist in bodily symbols, would have to be abolished by the new law: which is absurd even among heretics. For without Sacraments and sacrifices the Church cannot stand, because without them it cannot be visible, and cannot be united and gathered together. Finally, these ceremonies are performed by Christians and flow from the interior spirit of faith, hope, charity, and devotion; therefore they pertain to the spirit, as effects to a cause, and as an external act to an internal one. It was different among the crude, unlearned, and carnal Jews, who placed all their devotion in external sacrifices and rites. So Cyril, Maldonatus, Jansenius, Toletus, and others here, and St. Ambrose, book III On the Holy Spirit, ch. XII, and Hilary, book II On the Trinity.

Finally, St. Cyril wrote seventeen books On Worship in Spirit and Truth, which Angelius published in Rome in the year of our Lord 1588. The pagans saw this same truth: whence Cato says: "If God is a spirit, as the poems tell us, He must be worshipped by you above all with a pure mind."

Verse 24: God Is Spirit

24. GOD IS SPIRIT; AND (that is, therefore) THOSE WHO WORSHIP HIM MUST WORSHIP IN SPIRIT AND TRUTH. — This is the a priori reason, as if to say: in the innermost temple of the heart and in the truth of knowledge, God is the purest and truest spirit, therefore He delights only in worship in spirit and truth. "If God were a body," says St. Augustine, "He would have to be worshipped on a mountain, because a mountain is corporeal; or in a temple, because a temple is corporeal." But now, because God is spirit, He must be honored and worshipped in a spiritual mind, with spiritual love and devotion. Hence it is clear, against the Anthropomorphites and the Audians, and against Tertullian in his book Against Praxeas, and likewise against Lactantius in his book On the Anger of God, that God has no body however tenuous, but is the purest spirit, and therefore must be worshipped with the purest spirit.

Therefore Tertullian's axiom is false: "What is incorporeal is nothing." But these two seem to have misused the word "body," and to have understood by it nothing other than a solid substance, even if it be uncompounded.

Hear St. Augustine explaining these words of Christ, in his book The Mirror, ch. I and following: "God is spirit, etc., a spirit incomprehensible, incorporeal, immutable, uncircumscribed, everywhere whole, never divided, etc., everywhere present, ineffably penetrating all things, containing all things, knowing all things, seeing all things in advance, all-powerful, governing the universe, wholly in heaven, wholly on earth, wholly everywhere." And after some intervening words: "Always acting, always at rest, gathering and not in need, bearing all things without burden, filling all things without enclosure, creating and protecting all things, nourishing and perfecting. Seeking, though nothing is lacking to You; loving, yet not burning; jealous, yet secure; You repent, yet do not grieve; You are angry, yet tranquil; You change Your works, but never Your counsel." And a little further on: "You who hold all things, fill all things, encompass all things, surpass all things, sustain all things: not sustaining from one part and surpassing from another; not filling from one part and encompassing from another; by sustaining You surpass, and by surpassing You sustain. You who teach the hearts of the faithful without the noise of words, who reach from end to end mightily, and order all things sweetly."

The philosophers saw the same thing through a shadow, whose definitions of God Minutius Felix reviews in his Octavius, namely:

What is God? Pythagoras answers: "God is a spirit pervading the whole nature of things, from which the life of all living beings is derived."

What is God? Anaxagoras answers: "God is the pattern and measure of an infinite mind."

What is God? Thales answers: "He is the mind that formed all things from water;" for he held water to be the beginning of all things.

What is God? Xenophanes answers: "God is the whole infinite combined with mind."

What is God? Democritus answers: "God is a nature and intelligence that produces images."

Speusippus says: "God is a natural force by which all things are governed."

Aristotle: "God is a mind that governs the world."

Heraclides: "God is the divine mind."

Zeno: "God is the one providence of the world."

Cleanthes: "God is the soul and reason of the world." Whence Virgil: "A spirit within nourishes, and a mind, poured through the limbs, moves the whole mass, and mingles with the great body."

Chrysippus: "God is divine power, rational nature, and the destiny of things."

Xenophon: "The form of the true God cannot be seen; and therefore it ought not to be sought."

Aristo: "God is He whose essence and majesty cannot be comprehended."

What is God? Plato answers in the Timaeus: "God is the parent of the world, the maker of the soul, the fabricator of heavenly and earthly things, whom it is difficult to find because of His excessive and incredible power; and once you have found Him, it is impossible to declare Him publicly."

What is God? Hear Arnobius, in book I Against the Pagans, invoking Him: "O greatest, O supreme creator of invisible things, O You who are Yourself unseen, and never comprehended by any natures: worthy, truly worthy (if indeed You may be called worthy by mortal lips) are You, to whom every breathing and intelligent nature should never cease to give thanks; before whom all of life should kneel and supplicate with continuous prayers. For You are the first cause, the place and space of things, the foundation of all things that exist, infinite, unbegotten, immortal, eternal, alone, whom no bodily form delineates, no circumscription determines, devoid of quality and quantity, without position, motion, or condition, about whom nothing can be said or expressed by the significance of mortal words; so that to understand You, one must be silent, and so that a faltering conjecture may investigate You even through a shadow, nothing whatsoever must be uttered."

Verse 25: I Know That the Messiah Is Coming

25. THE WOMAN SAYS TO HIM: I KNOW THAT THE MESSIAH IS COMING (WHO IS CALLED CHRIST); WHEN HE COMES, HE WILL ANNOUNCE ALL THINGS TO US. — "Is coming," in Greek erchetai, in the present tense, that is, He is arriving, He is near, the Messiah will soon be here, who will resolve all religious doubts for us and teach us where, when, and how God should be worshipped and honored. The woman knew this from common talk and report; for the scepter had already been transferred from Judah to Herod: whence from the prophecy of Jacob, Genesis XLIX, and from the 70 weeks of Daniel now fulfilled, everyone knew that the time of the Messiah's coming was at hand, and this was being spread by the common talk of all. Hence the Jews thought John the Baptist was the Messiah: but he himself declared that Jesus was the Messiah: therefore from the Baptist's assertion, the rumor was spreading that the Messiah had already come.

WHO IS CALLED CHRIST. — These words are not the woman's, since she was a Hebrew and spoke only in Hebrew, but are those of John the Evangelist interpreting the Hebrew name, as if to say: Messiah in Hebrew is the same as Christos in Greek, anointed in Latin.

Verse 26: I Am He, Who Speaks With You

26. JESUS SAYS TO HER: I AM HE, WHO SPEAKS WITH YOU. — As if to say: I am the Messiah, that is the Christ; therefore put your faith in Me, and believe in Me, and embrace My teaching and law, that you may be saved and blessed. Christ said this with both an external voice and, even more, with an internal one, illuminating the woman's mind and kindling her will to love and reverence for Him; whence the woman immediately believed, and stirred the whole city to believe.

Verse 27: They Marvelled That He Was Speaking With a Woman

27. AND IMMEDIATELY HIS DISCIPLES CAME; AND THEY MARVELLED THAT (because) HE WAS SPEAKING WITH A WOMAN. YET NO ONE SAID: WHAT DO YOU SEEK, OR WHY DO YOU SPEAK WITH HER? — Origen, St. Cyril, St. Chrysostom, Theophylactus, and Euthymius think the disciples marvelled at the humility of Christ, that He would deign to speak with a foreign and poor woman. But if so, the text would have added "that" or "such a woman," and would have said: "That He was speaking with such a woman"; therefore St. Cyprian, in his treatise On the Singularity of Clerics, and others more correctly reply that it was unusual for Christ to speak privately with a woman, and that He did this in order to give an example of chastity and propriety to all the faithful, but especially to clerics, priests, preachers, and Religious. For the Wise Man rightly says: "From a garment comes the moth, and from a woman the wickedness of man" (Sirach 42:13). And chapter 25:33: "From a woman was the beginning of sin, and through her we all die." See what was said there. Hence Elisha and all the Saints greatly fled the company of women, and therefore the common sentiment of all was that women bring little fruit but great danger — I mean to one's own chastity, or to theirs, since they often silently taste and feed upon the faces of men; or certainly danger to one's reputation. For from the company of women either flame proceeds, or smoke; and although they may sometimes appear and be spiritual, and engage in spiritual conversations, yet with natural concupiscence secretly urging and the devil inflaming, the spirit easily degenerates into the flesh and carnal things, and this gradually without the awareness of those conversing.

You will say: Must women then be neglected? I reply: By no means; but let them be taught in public preaching or catechism; if they are sick, or some other reason requires a priest to visit them, let it be done in a public and open place, as Christ did here, and with a witness, as St. Charles Borromeo always used to employ. So St. Cyprian in the passage already cited.

Yet no one said: What do You seek? — "Because they both feared and greatly revered their Master," says St. Chrysostom.

Verse 28: She Left Her Water Jar and Went Into the City

28. THE WOMAN THEREFORE LEFT HER WATER JAR (with which she had been about to draw water from the well), AND WENT INTO THE CITY (Sichar, or Shechem), AND SAYS TO THOSE MEN, — the inhabitants of Shechem. "Having heard, 'I am He who speaks with you,'" says St. Augustine, "and having received Christ the Lord into her heart, what would she do but now leave her water jar and run to evangelize?" For she knew that Jesus was a Prophet and a great man, from the fact that He had revealed her secrets to her: therefore she believed Him when He declared Himself to be the Messiah, knowing Him to be a man worthy of trust, who could neither be deceived nor deceive; therefore leaving her water jar at the well, she immediately ran into the city, fearing that if she delayed, Jesus would depart, and she stirred up her fellow citizens to come to know and honor Jesus as the Messiah. Whence St. Chrysostom says: "So greatly was she inflamed upon hearing Jesus, that leaving behind her water jar and the water for which she had come, she hastened to the city and drew the whole people to Christ. She had come for the sake of drawing water, and when she had found the true fountain, she despised the other, and by grace coming from above she performs an apostolic ministry."

For this is the spirit of Christ: to inspire in those He has converted the zeal to convert others, so that they may make others sharers in the great good that they themselves feel within. Beautifully and devoutly St. Ambrose says, in Sermon 30: "By a new kind of wonder, the woman who had come to the well of Samaria as a harlot returns chaste from the fountain of Christ; and she who had come to seek water carried back chastity. Immediately also, with the Lord revealing it, she recognizes and confesses her sins, proclaims Christ as Savior, and leaving the water vessel, she brings to the city not a water jar but grace. She seems to return empty of burden, but she returns full of holiness. Full, I say, she returns, because she had come as a sinner and returns as a preacher; and she who had lost the vessel of her water jar carried back the fullness of Christ: causing no detriment to her city; for if she did not bring water to her fellow citizens, she nevertheless brought in the fountain of salvation."

Verse 29: Come and See a Man Who Told Me All Things

29. COME, AND SEE THE MAN WHO TOLD ME ALL THINGS THAT I HAVE DONE: IS NOT HE THE CHRIST? — "By proposing the narrative of the miracle," says Cyril, "she prepared her hearers for faith": because, although, as St. Chrysostom says, "she had not received her whole life story from Christ, yet from the things He had said, she believed the rest as well." Theophylactus says: "Set on fire by divine flame, she has no regard for anything on earth, not for confusion, not for disgrace, or anything else; she does not fear to reveal her secrets."

Is not He the Christ? — "She speaks hesitatingly as if doubting," says Euthymius, "so that the verdict might be given by them"; for she herself did not hesitate, but firmly believed that Jesus was the Messiah. Whence St. Chrysostom says: "Observe the immense wisdom of the woman: she neither affirms that He is the Christ, nor keeps silent: she did not want to be the author of this opinion, but rather wanted them to be persuaded of this by their own hearing, which would be far more credible. For without doubt she understood that, if only they tasted that fountain, they would feel the same about Him as she did."

This Samaritan woman, therefore, through the conversation and grace of Christ, was changed from a sinner into a penitent and a saint, indeed a herald of Christ, after the manner of St. Mary Magdalene.

Moreover, her proper name was Photina, who is recorded as a Saint in the Roman Martyrology on March 20 in these words: "On the same day, of the Saints Photina the Samaritan, Joseph and Victor her sons, and also Sebastian the military officer, Anatolius, Photius, Photis, Parasceve, and Cyriaca her sisters, who all confessed Christ and achieved martyrdom." Where Baronius says: "The Greeks celebrate her (Photina) on this day in the Menologion, and report that she was the same Samaritan woman of whom John the Evangelist speaks in chapter IV. In the ancient Cassinese Martyrology the same account is given, and it is affirmed that she was the same woman." Therefore it is quite credible that Christ converted her through this conversation. For this was His intention: whence she also believed that He was the Messiah, that is the Savior, and implicitly asked for His grace as proposed by Christ, saying: "Lord, give me this water"; and Christ pierced her externally, saying: "The one you now have is not your husband"; and much more internally: whence she also confesses her fault and says: "Lord, as I see, You are a Prophet"; and it plainly seems that then, with Christ moving her mind, she elicited an act of penance and contrition, through which she was justified. Hence, inflamed with love of Christ, she called upon her fellow citizens to recognize the true Messiah, whom she herself had already recognized. Therefore the head of this Samaritan woman is reverently preserved in Rome in the basilica of St. Paul, where it was shown to me among the other relics of the Saints.

Moreover, Francisco Bivarius, in his Commentary on the Chronicle of L. Dexter, at the year of Christ 60, page 117, from the Acts of the Italicensian Martyrs, which Jeremiah, Patriarch of Constantinople, in the year of Christ 1580, translated from Greek into Latin, relates that this Samaritan woman preached the Gospel of Christ at Carthage in Africa, and therefore with her two sons, Victor and Joseph, and five sisters, Anatolia, Photi, Photis, Parasceve, and Cyriaca, and with Sebastian the military officer, who had been converted to Christ by Victor, suffered an illustrious martyrdom under Nero. For first they were thrust into a most foul dungeon, then sent into a burning furnace for three whole days, from which they were extracted unharmed, and were given poison once and again; also lead and resin melted into liquid were poured into the mouth of Photina and the ears of the others, but received without harm; they were repeatedly beaten with ox sinews, suspended headfirst by iron combs, their flesh torn, and burned with flaming torches applied to the Martyrs' sides; finally their eyes were torn out, and they were sent back into a dungeon swarming with venomous animals, so that they might at last miserably perish without food or medicine; but when the light and vision of Christ poured upon them there, they were restored to their former health, and the gift of their eyes was given back, and nourished by miraculous food for three months and as many days, they were brought again to a new contest, and once more savagely torn by whips; at last their skin was flayed, they were hacked to pieces, and with their heads cut off they received the most illustrious palm of martyrdom; except for Photina alone, who was thrown into an old cistern, and drawn out from it, and on her knees rendered her undefiled spirit to God on March 20, on which day her memory is celebrated with annual solemnity by both Latins and Greeks. So Bivarius from the acts translated and received from Jeremiah, on whose authority the credibility rests. For the Greek Menologion corroborates the martyrdom of the Samaritan woman and her sons on March 20, which reads as follows: "On the same day, the contest of St. Photina the Samaritan martyr, with whom Christ spoke, and of Joseph and Victor her sons, and also of Sebastian the military officer, Anatolius, Photius, Photis, Parasceve, and Cyriaca her sisters, who all confessing the faith of Christ attained the palm of martyrdom." It seems therefore that this Samaritan woman converted her sons, and likewise her brothers and sisters, to Christ, and together with them received the palm of martyrdom.

Verse 30: They Went Out of the City and Came to Him

30. THEY WENT OUT THEREFORE FROM THE CITY, AND CAME TO HIM, — and having perceived His wisdom and sanctity from His words and conduct, they believed in Him as the Messiah, as is clear from verse 42. "The hardness of the Jews," says Cyril, "is rebuked by the readiness of the Samaritans"; because the Samaritans from a single conversation with Christ were converted to Him; but the Jews, after the three-year preaching of Christ, and so many and such great miracles performed by Him, refused to believe in Him.

Verse 31: Rabbi, Eat

31. MEANWHILE THE DISCIPLES ASKED HIM, SAYING: RABBI, EAT. — "This," says St. Chrysostom, "they said not out of any impudence, but from love and devotion toward their Master, seeing Him wearied by the journey and the heat." At the same time they were looking out for themselves; for they themselves, hungry and tired, wanted to eat, but did not dare to do so unless Christ began first and blessed the table according to custom. Moreover Jesus "was accustomed," says Theophylactus, "to accept food offered by others — He who gives food to all flesh — so that those who brought it might gain merit, and so that no one would be ashamed of poverty, nor think it burdensome to be nourished by others; for it is proper and necessary for teachers to have others as providers of food, so that they themselves, caring for nothing else, may attend diligently to the ministry of the word."

Verse 32: I Have Food to Eat That You Do Not Know

32. BUT HE SAID TO THEM: I HAVE FOOD TO EAT THAT YOU DO NOT KNOW. — As if to say: I hunger for the conversion of the Samaritans, which I am already promoting through the woman: therefore that spiritual hunger, if it does not remove all hunger for bodily food, certainly diminishes and suppresses it: meanwhile you who are tired and hungry, eat as much as you wish. "More secretly," says Cyril, "He indicates that if the disciples knew that the conversion of the Samaritans was already underway, they would think more about that food than concern themselves about bodily food." And then: "For since they were to be teachers of the world to come, He teaches them by His own example that much greater care must be taken for the salvation of men than for one's own body."

Verse 33: Has Anyone Brought Him Something to Eat?

33. THE DISCIPLES THEREFORE SAID TO ONE ANOTHER: HAS SOMEONE BROUGHT HIM SOMETHING TO EAT? — The Apostles did not understand that Christ was speaking of spiritual food, namely of the conversion of the Samaritans: whence they ask who had brought Him bodily food, about which He says: "I have food to eat that you do not know." Wherefore St. Augustine says: "What wonder if that woman did not understand the water, when behold, the disciples do not understand the food."

Verse 34: My Food Is to Do the Will of Him Who Sent Me

34. JESUS SAYS TO THEM: MY FOOD IS TO DO THE WILL OF HIM WHO SENT ME, THAT I MAY ACCOMPLISH HIS WORK. — Note: Christ here calls the work of preaching and redeeming mankind, enjoined upon Him by the Father, His own, that is, His proper and most sweet food, because He was nourished and delighted by it as by the most exquisite food. So Euthymius: "The will of the Father, who had sent Him," he says, "and the work enjoined upon Christ by Him, is the salvation of men," according to that passage: "I have finished the work which You gave Me to do" (John 17:4). Theophylactus gives the reason: Because "He desired the salvation of men with as much longing as none of us desires sensible food." And Chrysostom: "He calls the salvation of men food in this place, in order to show how great a care and desire for our salvation holds Him."

Tropologically: from Christ let Christians learn, especially preachers and apostolic men, that their spiritual food ought to be obedience and zeal for souls: because first, each sustains the life of the soul; secondly, each invigorates and strengthens the powers of the mind like food; thirdly, because just as food makes children grow into a perfect man, so these two virtues make us grow into the mature age of spirit and virtue — which was not the case in Christ: for Christ could not by any act advance and grow in grace, holiness, and perfection; for He was full and perfect in these from the first instant of His conception and incarnation.

Verse 35: Lift Up Your Eyes; the Fields Are White for Harvest

35. DO YOU NOT SAY, THERE ARE YET FOUR MONTHS, AND THEN THE HARVEST COMES? BEHOLD I SAY TO YOU: LIFT UP YOUR EYES, AND SEE THE FIELDS, FOR THEY ARE ALREADY WHITE FOR THE HARVEST. — From the metaphor of food He passes to the allegory of the harvest, from which food and bread are made.

Do you not say, — that is, you are accustomed to say frequently, and are in fact saying it now. Whence it seems that the Apostles, passing through the fields and crops of the Shechemites, had been conversing among themselves about the coming harvest, as people are wont to do; from this Christ took occasion to speak of the spiritual harvest, that is, the conversion of the Samaritans; as if to say: The care of the bodily harvest concerns you; but much more the care of the spiritual harvest ought to touch you, that you may help Me in converting the Samaritans.

There are still four months, and the harvest comes. — Maldonatus thinks this is a proverb signifying that there is still sufficient time to think about some matter, e.g. about the bodily harvest: but that this cannot be said of the spiritual harvest; for since that is already ripe, it must be immediately reaped by Christ and the Apostles. For Maldonatus holds that these words were spoken by Christ at the end of March, near the approaching Passover, about which the next chapter, verse 1, speaks, when in Judea the harvest is near, not distant.

Better, St. Augustine and others take these words literally, as they sound: therefore these words seem to have been spoken by Christ in January, after eight months during which Christ had been preaching in Judea: for after four months, namely in May, the crops are ripe in Judea and the harvest takes place: whence at Pentecost, which fell in May, they offered God the loaves of firstfruits from the new harvest. See the Chronotaxis, no. 15. "You," says St. Augustine, "count four months until the harvest; I show you another harvest, white and ready." Whence Christ adds: "I say to you, lift up your eyes and see the fields, for they are already white for the harvest"; for at harvest time the crops, which were previously green, turn white and golden. He calls the "fields white for the harvest" the city of Shechem and the neighboring places of the Samaritans, who, aroused by the woman, were streaming in crowds to Christ, as if to say: You see these fields filled not with wheat but with a crowd of people flowing toward Me, who are ready to receive My teaching, to be admitted into the Church, and to be initiated into Christianity: therefore to this harvest, lest it perish, press on with Me, O Apostles, to reap it, and labor strenuously. The wheat harvest is distant, some four months away; but the harvest of souls is at hand and near: behold, it is already ready in these Samaritans; lift up your eyes and look upon the fields of the Shechemites, from which everyone streams in crowds to receive Me and My Gospel: these therefore, like spiritual crops, are already turning white and ripening; it is fitting, then, that they be immediately reaped by Me and you, and gathered into God's barn. "They could already see the crowd of Samaritans coming," says St. Chrysostom, "whose fervor and most eager will he calls white fields. For just as golden ears of grain indicate the harvest and already demand hands; so they were hastening to salvation, to be taught and to believe, and, persuaded by the Prophets, to bear fruit." And Theophylactus: "Lift up your eyes," he says, "whether spiritual or bodily, and behold the multitude of Samaritans, and their souls eager and ready for faith, which like white fields need harvesters, being prepared for salvation."

St. Cyril gives the reason, saying: "For the intellectual sowings and the spiritual ears of grain are those who, cultivated by the voice of the Prophets, come to faith in Christ: the crop turns white when the mind is now ripe, that is, ready to receive the faith of Christ and true religion; and the reaping sickle is the splendid preaching of the Apostles, which transfers to the threshing floor, that is, to the Church of God."

Verse 36: He Who Reaps Receives a Reward

36. AND HE WHO REAPS RECEIVES A REWARD, AND GATHERS FRUIT UNTO ETERNAL LIFE; SO THAT BOTH HE WHO SOWS AND HE WHO REAPS MAY REJOICE TOGETHER. — Christ invites the Apostles to labor with Him in gathering this harvest, with the hope of an eternal reward, as if to say: He who reaps wheat receives a reward, but a temporal and brief one; but he who reaps with Me this spiritual harvest of souls gathers it unto eternal life: for the reaper acquires this both for himself and for his harvest, that is, for the souls he has converted, as he leads them into heaven to eternal life, as if into a granary. "The fruit of this earthly harvest," says Chrysostom, "does not reach eternal life, but is consumed in this passing and perishable world: but that fruit accompanies us forever. So that (as if to say: whence it will come about, whence it will follow; for he notes that the fruit of this harvest will be common to both the sower and the reaper) both he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together." He calls Moses and the Prophets sowers, who with great labor delivered to the Jews the seeds of faith, that is, the first principles: namely that God is one, supremely to be loved and worshipped, that the Messiah the savior of the world would come, that salvation was to be expected from Him, etc. The reapers are Christ and the Apostles, who perfected these principles of the Prophets with the Gospel teaching, and through the faith and grace of Christ, sanctified the Jews and Samaritans and led them into eternal life. Therefore this conversion of the Samaritans produced joy not only for Christ and the Apostles, but also for Moses and the Prophets, because they saw that their seeds had not vanished but had been brought to fruit and harvest through Christ. Hear St. Chrysostom: "The Prophets were sowers, yet they did not reap; but the Apostles did. And yet the Prophets are not thereby deprived of the pleasure and fruit of their labors, but they rejoice with you." And St. Augustine: "If the Prophets were not sowers, whence had it reached that woman: 'I know that the Messiah is coming'? Already that woman was a ripe fruit." And further: "They had unequal labors in time, but they will equally enjoy the same joy, and will receive the same reward together, eternal life."

It often happens differently in the bodily harvest, where the reaper rejoices but the sower grieves, because the sower serves the reaper, or the reaper deprives the sower of his seed and harvest.

Verse 37: One Sows and Another Reaps

37. FOR IN THIS THE SAYING IS TRUE: ONE IS HE WHO SOWS, AND ANOTHER IS HE WHO REAPS. — "Saying," that is, a proverb commonly bandied about, "which is on the lips of many," says Chrysostom, as if to say: This proverb: "One is he who sows, and another is he who reaps," commonly said of the sower and reaper of wheat, is more truly applicable to the sowers and reapers of souls. For the sowers were the Prophets, but you, O Apostles, are the reapers, who, as follows, will bring to perfection by My teaching the seeds of faith sown by the Prophets, and will gather them, now ripe, into the granary of the Church. Whence, explaining, He adds:

Verse 38: I Have Sent You to Reap What You Did Not Labor For

38. I HAVE SENT YOU TO REAP THAT WHICH YOU DID NOT LABOR OVER (which you did not laboriously sow); OTHERS HAVE LABORED, AND YOU HAVE ENTERED INTO THEIR LABORS. — "I have sent," that is, I have determined and destined to send you: the act is signified as begun and intended, not completed and consummated. "Others have labored," as if to say: The Prophets and doctors of the law, and others like them, with great labor of teaching, imbued the unformed minds of the Jews with the first rudiments of knowledge of God, of virtue, and of piety, as if with seeds, and thus prepared them for the Evangelical harvest, that is, for the justice and sanctity of Christianity. But you, O Apostles, "have entered into their labors"; because you will easily convert to Me the minds of the Jews, already prepared, ready, and eager to receive Me. So Origen, St. Chrysostom, Theophylactus, Euthymius, and others.

Moreover Christ says this in order, by the example of the Prophets who laboriously sowed, to encourage the Apostles to evangelize, which was easier and involved less labor. "Lest, being sent out to preach," says Chrysostom, "they be troubled as if undertaking the greatest burden, thinking that the Prophets had labored more, since sowing is more laborious and required greater care in scattering seeds and educating the soul in the knowledge of God: for in reaping (which was the Apostles' task) the yield was abundant and the labor was lighter." At the same time: "He shows that it was the will of the Prophets to draw the human race to Christ." Again: "Unless the Jews had been prepared by the Prophets, they would not have listened to the Apostles," says the Gloss.

Verse 39: Many Samaritans Believed Because of the Woman's Word

39. NOW MANY OF THE SAMARITANS OF THAT CITY BELIEVED IN HIM, BECAUSE OF THE WORD OF THE WOMAN GIVING TESTIMONY: HE TOLD ME ALL THINGS THAT I HAVE DONE, — because, as Chrysostom says, "they saw that she was making her life known not for favor, nor to gratify someone else." She was therefore confessing before her fellow citizens that she had lived in fornication with a man who was not her husband, as Christ had said, so that by her own disgrace she might reveal the honor and glory of Christ as a true Prophet and Messiah.

Verse 40: They Asked Him to Stay There

40. WHEN THE SAMARITANS THEREFORE CAME TO HIM, THEY ASKED HIM TO STAY THERE. — "That entering the city He might preach saving doctrine to them," says Cyril, and that He might remain and dwell with them perpetually, say Chrysostom and Theophylactus.

And He stayed there (in the city of Shechem) two days, — not more, lest, if He remained longer among the Samaritans, the Jews would slander Him as not being the Messiah, since He had been promised to the Jews, not to the Samaritans. So Jansenius, Franciscus Lucas, and others.

Verse 41: Many More Believed Because of His Word

41. AND MANY MORE BELIEVED IN HIM BECAUSE OF HIS WORD — heavenly and divine, by which He set forth deep mysteries about God; likewise zealous and powerful: for He set all on fire with love of God by the hidden torches of His grace: therefore, seized with admiration and veneration for Him, they recognized Him to be such as He professed Himself to be, namely the Messiah, the Savior of the world.

Verse 42: This Is Truly the Savior of the World

42. AND THEY SAID TO THE WOMAN: WE NO LONGER BELIEVE BECAUSE OF YOUR WORD; FOR WE OURSELVES HAVE HEARD, AND WE KNOW THAT THIS IS TRULY THE SAVIOR OF THE WORLD, — namely the Messiah, as the Syriac adds, who was sent by God for the salvation not only of Israel, as the Jews claimed, but of all nations of the whole world; a world, I say, lost in sin, says Chrysostom, "because He came when the world was lost, to save it." Rightly therefore Christ marvels at so great and so sudden a faith of the Samaritans, when the Jews had been slow, reluctant, and resistant to believing in Christ.

Verse 43: He Departed and Went Into Galilee

43. NOW AFTER TWO DAYS HE DEPARTED FROM THERE, AND WENT INTO GALILEE, — as He had proposed at the beginning: into Galilee, I say, that is into the remaining cities and villages of Galilee, says Euthymius, "having left Nazareth," His homeland, as Matthew says, ch. IV, v. 13. See what was said above at verse 3.

Verse 44: A Prophet Has No Honor in His Own Country

44. FOR JESUS HIMSELF GAVE TESTIMONY THAT A PROPHET HAS NO HONOR IN HIS OWN COUNTRY. — The word "for" gives the reason why Jesus, leaving Nazareth His homeland, went into the rest of Galilee which did not belong to Him; because, namely, the Nazarenes despised Him as their fellow citizen and the son of a carpenter, Matt. 13:57. So Jansenius, Toletus, and others.

Somewhat differently, but less correctly, Maldonatus says, as if to say: Therefore Jesus, leaving Bethlehem and Judea His homeland, went into Galilee, as I said above, because a Prophet is not in honor in his homeland.

Verse 45: The Galileans Received Him

45. WHEN HE THEREFORE CAME INTO GALILEE, THE GALILEANS RECEIVED HIM, HAVING SEEN ALL THE THINGS HE HAD DONE AT JERUSALEM ON THE FEAST DAY: FOR THEY ALSO HAD GONE TO THE FEAST — of the Passover, according to the decree of the law. See ch. II, v. 13, "having seen all His miracles," especially that He alone had driven out all the buyers and sellers from the temple, and had performed many other signs, as John says, ch. II, v. 14 and 23, and ch. III, v. 2.

Note: The Jews, having seen so many miracles of Christ, did not believe His preaching, nor did they receive Him; but the Galileans, having seen so many signs, received Him kindly, yet did not believe in Him: but the Samaritans, having seen no miracles, received Him, and believed in Him as the Messiah, sent by God for the salvation of the whole world: thus often foreigners eagerly accept what locals despise and reject.

Verse 46: He Came Again to Cana of Galilee; the Royal Official

46. HE CAME THEREFORE AGAIN TO CANA OF GALILEE, WHERE HE HAD MADE THE WATER WINE ("that He might confirm by His presence the faith that had increased from the miracle previously performed," says Euthymius). And there was a certain royal official, whose son was sick at Capernaum. — "Royal official," that is, some nobleman, a powerful man or prince. The Translator seems to have read in the Greek basiliskos, that is, a petty king, or little king; now they read basilikos, that is, royal — namely a counselor of King Herod Antipas, or a public minister, prefect or courtier, and intimate friend. The Syriac has "a royal servant;" Chrysostom says "that he was of royal lineage, or held some other dignity of authority;" Nonnus says "a royal man commanding an army." Origen says: He was, perhaps, from the household of Tiberius Caesar, exercising some office on his behalf in Judea. St. Jerome, on Isaiah chapter 65, interprets it as royal, or palatine.

CAPERNAUM — in the city that was called Capernaum, which name our Translator uses as though it were a foreign and indeclinable word. The Syriac refers it to the royal official; others more precisely to the son; for the son of the royal official was lying sick at Capernaum. But it is likely that he was lying sick there because his father, namely the royal official, lived there, and from there, hearing that Jesus, who healed so many sick people, had come from Judea to Cana of Galilee, he went there to ask Jesus for his son's health, as is clear from the following verse. This royal official seems to have been a Jew (not a Gentile, as St. Jerome and Origen suppose), both because he was of little faith, and because he is rebuked as such by Christ, since Gentiles were generally more inclined to believe in Christ, and were therefore praised by Him, as is evident in the case of the Centurion and the Canaanite woman. So say Maldonatus, Jansenius, and others.

Some think this royal official is the centurion mentioned in Matthew chapter 8; so Irenaeus, Book II, chapter 39. But these were two different men. For the centurion, when Christ wished to come to him, asked Him to stay away; but this royal official begs Christ to come to his sick son. The centurion came to Jesus as He was descending from the mountain into Capernaum; this man came to Jesus when He arrived at Cana. The centurion's servant suffered from paralysis, the royal official's son from fever. Christ healed the former while descending and nearly present; He healed the latter while absent. One was a servant, the other a son. So say St. Chrysostom, Theophylact, Euthymius, and others.

Verse 47: He Begged Him to Come Down and Heal His Son

47. WHEN HE HAD HEARD THAT JESUS WAS COMING FROM JUDEA INTO GALILEE, HE WENT TO HIM AND BEGGED HIM TO COME DOWN AND HEAL HIS SON; FOR HE WAS AT THE POINT OF DEATH. — That is, the royal official, having heard the fame of Christ, that He healed all manner of sick people, set out from the city of Capernaum to Cana of Galilee where Jesus was staying, asking Him to travel with him from Cana to Capernaum to heal his son. This was a journey of 14 leagues or hours, and therefore long and difficult. Wherefore he believed less in Jesus, says St. Gregory, Homily 28, because he thought Him unable to grant healing unless bodily present.

Verse 48: Unless You See Signs and Wonders, You Do Not Believe

48. JESUS THEREFORE SAID TO HIM: UNLESS YOU SEE SIGNS AND WONDERS, YOU WILL NOT BELIEVE. — Signs and wonders mean nearly the same thing; properly, however, signs are those things that are done in natural matters and through nature, but slowly — through a miracle accomplishing the same thing. Such is the healing of the sick. But wonders are those things that surpass all the power of nature, such as raising the dead. Hence St. Augustine says: A wonder (prodigium) is so called because it speaks forth (porro dicat) and portends something future; that is, a prodigium is something that foretells the future, says Festus.

Christ rebukes the royal official's small faith, so that it may grow, and He may sharpen and increase it, as if to say: You have heard of certain signs and wonders of Mine, yet you still do not believe Me to be the Messiah unless I perform many more, and you yourself see them and behold them with your own eyes. "He urges," says Chrysostom, "that we should attend not to His signs but to His teaching." And after some intervening remarks: "He shows that signs are performed chiefly for the sake of the soul; and no less in this place does He cure the father, who was sick in mind, than the son," — indeed He first cures the unbelief, or imperfection of faith, in the father, and then the fever in the son; for the father's imperfect faith, as he pleaded for his son, was an obstacle. "For although he believed," says Chrysostom, "he did not believe firmly or completely." And Theophylact says: "He came with faith, but a cold and imperfect faith, which one could scarcely rightly call faith." Hence the Gloss says: By the stubbornness of the royal official is signified the stubbornness of the Jews, who do not believe even when they see miracles; on the other hand, the Samaritan woman signifies the faith of the Gentiles, who believed by the word alone.

Verse 49: Lord, Come Down Before My Child Dies

49. THE ROYAL OFFICIAL SAID TO HIM: LORD, COME DOWN BEFORE MY SON DIES. — In Greek paidion mou, that is, my little boy, meaning my most beloved child and my only delight. "The royal official," says Chrysostom, "stricken with grief for his son, did not pay much attention to Jesus' words at that time, but was occupied only with concern for his son, etc. Hear how much he is still dragged along the ground. 'Come down,' he says, 'before my son dies,' as if He could not raise the dead, and did not know how his boy was doing."

Verse 50: Go, Your Son Lives

50. JESUS SAID TO HIM: GO (return to Capernaum; there is no need for Me to go with you, for I will heal him from a distance, and in fact I am healing him now by saying): YOUR SON LIVES, — that is, he is well, freed from sickness and death. "This one and the same utterance," says Rupert, "is both a true prophecy about present things and a command of life." For this speech of Christ was not merely declarative but also effective: for He was actually accomplishing and bringing about what He declared, namely the life and health of the sick man — just as in the consecration of the Eucharist, the words "This is My body" so declare that the body of Christ is present in it, that they simultaneously bring it into being and make it present there.

Furthermore, Christ went to the centurion's servant (Matthew 8), but here He did not wish to go to the royal official's son. First, because in the centurion there was confirmed faith, says St. Chrysostom, but in the royal official it was imperfect. Second, because, as St. Gregory says in Homily 28, "the Lord, who is asked to come because He is not absent from wherever He is invited, shows this: He restores health by command alone, He who created all things by His will."

The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him, and went his way. — "With the same words," says Cyril, "the Savior healed two: for He both led the soul of the royal official to faith, and snatched the young man from bodily illness;" and the father, by believing Christ and healing the sickness of his own soul through faith, as it were merited that his son be healed in body.

Verse 51: His Servants Met Him and Told Him His Son Was Alive

51. AND AS HE WAS NOW GOING DOWN, HIS SERVANTS MET HIM AND BROUGHT WORD, SAYING THAT HIS SON LIVED — that is, was well and unharmed, and as it were raised from imminent death to life. "The servants came to meet him," says Cyril, "announcing the swiftness and power of Christ's words, the Lord so arranging things that the royal official's faith might be confirmed by the outcome of events."

Verse 52: Yesterday at the Seventh Hour the Fever Left Him

52. HE THEREFORE INQUIRED OF THEM THE HOUR IN WHICH HE HAD BEGUN TO RECOVER. AND THEY SAID TO HIM: YESTERDAY AT THE SEVENTH HOUR THE FEVER LEFT HIM. — "He endeavors to ascertain the hour," says Cyril, "to see whether it corresponds to the time when the grace was granted him by the Savior."

Yesterday at the seventh hour, — that is, from sunrise, which is the first hour after midday. Therefore at that hour, when the son was healed, the servants immediately set out on their journey to announce to the father the recovery of his son, which he had so greatly desired. But they were unable to reach him that same day; therefore, traveling for the rest of the day and through the following night, they arrived at him the next morning. For Capernaum was 14 hours or leagues distant from Cana of Galilee, as I have said.

Verse 53: He Believed, and His Whole Household

53. THE FATHER THEREFORE KNEW THAT IT WAS AT THE SAME HOUR IN WHICH JESUS HAD SAID TO HIM: YOUR SON LIVES; AND HE HIMSELF BELIEVED, AND HIS WHOLE HOUSEHOLD. — For from that same hour he concluded that his son had been healed not by any power of nature, but by the supernatural command, power, word, and will of Christ. For he had left him dying and at the point of death, and now he heard from the servants that he had suddenly been restored to his former health at the very hour when Christ had said: "Your son lives." Whence, from so evident a miracle, he believed that Christ was almighty God, who held power over life and death, and that He was the Messiah and Savior of the world. "Hence it is given to understand," says Bede in the Catena, "that there are degrees in faith, just as in other virtues, which have a beginning, an increase, and a perfection. The faith of this man, therefore, had its beginning when he sought the health of his son; its increase, when he believed the word of the Lord saying: 'Your son lives;' then it attained perfection when the servants brought their report."

Furthermore, since this royal official lived at Capernaum, as did the centurion mentioned in Matthew 8, there is no doubt that one was acquainted with the other, and that the centurion, from this prior miracle (for the healing of his servant by Christ came afterward), conceived such great faith in Christ that he said: "Lord, I am not worthy that You should enter under my roof; but only say the word, and my servant shall be healed" (Matthew 8:8).

Tropologically: the king, or royal official, is the mind of every person; the sick son is the will, weak toward the good; the servants are the senses and bodily members; hot fever is desire and love of earthly things; cold fever is fear of the same, as I showed through nine analogies on each side at Matthew 8:14. Christ heals these things: therefore He must be approached and invoked, so that He may restore the kingdom to the mind in its entirety and make it from a petty king into a true king. See Salmerón, volume 6, treatise 9, at the end, where among other things he says: The royal official is the mind, or the intellect, not only because it is related to God, the King of all kings, as Paul said quoting a certain poet: "For we are indeed His offspring;" but also because in this world, since it has dominion over all creatures that are ordered toward it, it is God's viceroy — in comparison with whom it is a petty king and not a king — and it holds the kingdom of soul and body, and indeed governs the senses and members with despotic authority, but the appetite of the concupiscible and irascible soul with political authority. It also has royal insignia: namely the crown of prudence, the scepter of justice, the purple of fortitude, and the golden clasp of temperance, concerning which the poet, describing a queen, said: "A golden clasp fastened her purple garment."

Hear Theophylact: "Every person is a royal official, not only because he is related to the King of all things according to his soul, but because he has taken authority over all things. His son is the mind, feverish with wicked pleasures and desires. The descent of Christ is the condescension of mercy. But He says: 'Go,' that is, show continuous progress toward the good, and then your son will live; otherwise he will die, if you cease to walk."

Finally, he was healed at the seventh hour: first, because, as Origen says, the number seven is a symbol of the sabbath and of rest, in which there is health; second, because the same number is a figure of the sevenfold Holy Spirit, in whom is all salvation; third, because, as Alcuin says, through the sevenfold Spirit there is the remission of sins. For the number seven, divided into three and four, signifies the Holy Trinity ruling over the four parts of the world.

Verse 54: This Was the Second Sign Jesus Did

54. THIS AGAIN (the Arabic has "also") WAS THE SECOND SIGN THAT JESUS PERFORMED, WHEN HE HAD COME FROM JUDEA INTO GALILEE. — Join "again" with "had come," as if to say: This was the second miracle that Christ performed in Cana of Galilee, when He had come again, that is, a second time, from Judea into Galilee. For the first was the changing of water into wine, chapter 2, verse 1 and following, which Christ did when He first came from Judea into Galilee. So He came twice from Judea into Galilee, and He distinguished each arrival with a new miracle. "He said 'second,'" says Euthymius, "not because after the first He had performed no other miracle in all of Palestine (for in Judea He had already performed many), but that after the first, this second one was done in Cana." John says this to indicate that the abundance of miracles performed by Christ in Galilee thereafter, which Matthew narrates in chapter 4, verse 23 and following, occurred after this second miracle recounted here by John.