1-54 CHAPTER 4 _When therefore Jesus knew_, &c.... _than John_, that is, than John _had_ made and baptized, says S. Augustine (lib. 2 _, de cons. Evang., c._ 18), for John was now in prison. For these things had happened through the occasion of John's imprisonment. For Jesus, knowing of John's imp... [ Continue Reading ]
_Jacob's fountain_ (Vulg.) This _fountain_ was a well dug by Jacob, as appears from ver. 12. This is the meaning of the Hebrew _beer._ So S. Augustine says, giving the meaning of _fons_ in Latin, "Every well is a fountain, but not every fountain a well. Where water springs out of the earth, and affo... [ Continue Reading ]
_For His disciples_, &c. The word _for_ gives the reason why Jesus asked drink of the woman; because His disciples, from whom otherwise He would have sought food and drink, had gone into the city to buy food. For Jesus wished to drink beside the well, and to drink from it, just as poor travellers ar... [ Continue Reading ]
_The woman therefore saith_, &c. _Therefore_ in Greek and Hebrew often merely marks the beginning of a sentence. Here, however, it denotes an inference from the preceding question of Christ. Jesus had asked the woman for water; the woman _therefore_ replied to His question, _How is it_, &c. The wom... [ Continue Reading ]
_Jesus answered_, &c. _If thou knewest the gift of God_. This gift is (1.) _common_, what God has given to every man, "if thou knowest that I am Christ, the Saviour of the world." 2. _Especial to thyself_, what God now manifests to thee through Me, that through My conversation thou mayest have an op... [ Continue Reading ]
_Art Thou greater_, &c. Observe, the Samaritans were Assyrians whom Salmanasar had brought into Samaria instead of the original inhabitants, the ten tribes of Israel, whom he carried away into Assyria. These Assyrians, however, wished, when the Jewish state was in a flourishing condition, to be acco... [ Continue Reading ]
_Jesus answered,_ &c. Jesus modestly points out to this woman, who was extolling the water of her own well, that His _living water_ must be far better, because it would quench all, even future thirst. From this He tacitly left it to be gathered that He was superior to Jacob. As S. Chrysostom says, ... [ Continue Reading ]
_But the water_, &c.... _waters leaping up_ (Syriac). The allusion is to those fountains which flow with such an impetus, the water behind pressing on that which is before, that although they be brought down into the valleys, yet by means of pipes they ascend to the level of the original spring. Thu... [ Continue Reading ]
_The woman answered_, &c. From hence it is plain that this woman was thus a widow, and therefore not an adulteress, but a harlot, unless indeed her lover were married, in which case both were guilty of adultery.... [ Continue Reading ]
For thou hast had, &c. Nonnus says, For thou hast had five husbands, one after another; and he whom thou now hast is not thy lawful husband. So S. Austin, Bede, Euthymius, and others passim. But S. Chrysostom and Maldonatus think they were unlawful, adulterous connections, and that they are here spo... [ Continue Reading ]
_The woman_, &c. Because Thou revealest the hidden things of my life, whether good or bad, which Thou couldest not know except by the revelation of God, especially since thou art a Jew and a foreigner, I humbly accept Thy gentle reproof, and confess my sin. "By one and the same confession," says Rup... [ Continue Reading ]
_Our fathers_, &c. The woman, acknowledging Jesus to be a prophet, now proposes a question concerning religion, which was at that time a great source of controversy between the Jews and the Samaritans. This she did that she might know which side she ought to take, so that she might provide for her s... [ Continue Reading ]
_Jesus saith_, &c. _Ye_, _i.e._, whosoever rightly, according to God's ordinance, wish to worship God the Father. The meaning is, _the hour cometh_, the time of the Evangelical Law and doctrine, about to be instituted by Me, by which, immediately after My death, which is shortly to come to pass, the... [ Continue Reading ]
_Ye worship what (_ Arabic, _whom_) _ye know not_, &c. Here Christ gives a direct answer to the woman, and decides the Jews to be in the right in the controversy concerning the worship of God, condemning the Samaritans as schismatics. He says, _You, 0 ye Samaritans, worship ye know not what_, becaus... [ Continue Reading ]
_But the hour cometh,_ &c. Now is the time of the New Law of My Gospel, in which the true worshippers, namely, Christians, whether Jews, or Samaritans, or of other nations, being converted unto Me, shall worship God, not in this mountain, nor Jerusalem only, by the carnal sacrifices of beasts, as th... [ Continue Reading ]
_The woman saith_, &c. _Cometh, Greek_, _ε̉ζχεται_, present tense, _is come_, who will presently solve all things that are doubtful to us in religion, and will teach us where, when, and how God is to be worshipped. The woman knew this by common speech and report. For already the sceptre had been tra... [ Continue Reading ]
_Jesus saith_, &c. "I am the Messias, or the Christ. Have faith in Me: receive My doctrine and my law, that thou mayest be saved and blessed." Christ both spoke this with the outward voice, but still more with an inward voice, illuminating the woman's mind, and kindling her will, to love and reveren... [ Continue Reading ]
_And immediately_, &c. Origen, S. Cyril, and others, think it is meant that the disciples marvelled at the humility of Christ that He should condescend to talk, with a poor and foreign woman. But if so, the Evangelist would have written, _that He should talk with such a woman._ Wherefore S. Cyprian... [ Continue Reading ]
_She left_, &c. "Having heard Him say," saith S. Augustine, "' _I am He that talketh with thee_,' and having received the Lord Christ into her heart, what could she do but leave her pitcher, and run to preach the Gospel?" For she knew that Jesus must be a Prophet because He had revealed to her the s... [ Continue Reading ]
_Come and see_, &c. Saith Cyril, "Giving an account of the miracle, she prepared her hearers to believe:" because although, as S. Chrysostom says, she had not heard the whole history of her life from Christ, from what she did hear she believed (He knew) the rest. _Is not this the Christ?_ "She speak... [ Continue Reading ]
_They went out_, &c. And from what they saw of the wisdom and holiness of His words and manners, they believed in Him as the Messiah, as is plain from verse 42. "The hardness of the Jews," says Cyril, "is reproved by the readiness to believe of the Samaritans." For the Samaritans were converted by o... [ Continue Reading ]
_In the meanwhile_, &c. "This," says S. Chrysostom, "they did out of love and zeal for their Master, seeing Him wearied with the heat and the journey." At the same time they were thinking about themselves. Hungry and tired as they were, they wished to eat, but did not venture to do so until Christ s... [ Continue Reading ]
_But He said_, &c. "I am hungering for the conversion of the Samaritans, which I am procuring through the woman. So that spiritual hunger diminishes and keeps down, if it does not take away, all hunger for bodily food: meanwhile you who are tired and famished, eat as much as you please." "More obscu... [ Continue Reading ]
_Jesus saith_, &c. Christ here tells the work of preaching, and man's redemption, His, that is, His own special and sweetest food, because by it, as by the greatest dainties, He was fed and delighted. So Euthymius says, "The will of the Father, who had sent Him, and His work enjoined upon Christ, is... [ Continue Reading ]
_Say not ye_, &c. From the metaphor of food He passes to the allegorical harvest, from which are food and bread. _Say not ye?_ That is, ye are wont often to say. From this it would appear that the Apostles, as they passed through the corn fields of the Sichemites, talked among themselves about the... [ Continue Reading ]
_And he that reapeth_, &c. Christ invites the Apostles to labour with Him in gathering in this harvest, by the hope of an eternal reward. As though He said, "He that reaps wheat receives wages, but only brief and temporal: but he that reaps with Me this spiritual harvest of souls gathers it unto lif... [ Continue Reading ]
_For in this_, &c. A _word, i.e._, a _proverb_, which is "current in the mouths of many," says S. Chrysostom. This proverb, _one soweth_, &c., which is spoken of the natural harvest, is still more true with regard to the spiritual sowers and reapers. "The sowers were the Prophets, the reapers are yo... [ Continue Reading ]
. _have sent_, &c. I _have sent_, _i.e._, I have desired and determined to send. An inchoate and destined, not a completed, action is signified. The Prophets, and teachers of the Law, and such as they, with great toil taught the uninstructed minds of the Jews the rudiments of the knowledge of God, a... [ Continue Reading ]
_Of that city many believed_, &c They were moved because she confessed before her fellow-citizens that she had lived in fornication with a man not her husband, as Christ had told her, that by means of her own shame she might make known the honour and glory of Christ, the true Prophet and Messiah.... [ Continue Reading ]
_He abode there two days_ : not longer, lest, if He abode longer among Samaritans, the Jews should calumniate Him, as not being the Messiah, who was promised to the Jews, rather than to the Samaritans.... [ Continue Reading ]
_And said to the woman_, &c. _Saviour of the world_, understand _Messiah_, as the Syriac Version adds, who was sent by God for the salvation not of Israel only, as the Jews pretended, but of all the nations of the whole world. Of the world I say, lost by sin. Deservedly does S. Chrysostom in this pl... [ Continue Reading ]
_After two days_, &c. That is, He went into other cities and villages of Galilee, leaving out Nazareth, His own city, as S. Matthew says (Mat 4:13).... [ Continue Reading ]
_For Jesus,_ &c. The word _for_ expresses the reason why Jesus left Nazareth, His own city, and went into the other parts of Galilee, because the Nazarenes despised Him as their fellow-citizen, and the son of an artizan.... [ Continue Reading ]
_When therefore He was come_, &c. _All the miracles_, especially that He alone had cast out all the buyers and sellers from the Temple, as well as the many other signs that He had shown. Observe: The Jews, after the many miracles of Christ which they saw, did not believe in His preaching, nor even... [ Continue Reading ]
VER. 45. _When therefore He was come_, &c. _All the miracles_, especially that He alone had cast out all the buyers and sellers from the Temple, as well as the many other signs that He had shown. Observe: The Jews, after the many miracles of Christ which they saw, did not believe in His preaching,... [ Continue Reading ]
_A certain nobleman_. The Latin translator seems to have had in his Greek copies _βασιλισκος_, i.e., regulus, a little king. The present reading is _βασιλικος_, _i.e._, royal, understand _counsellor_, or _public minister_, of Herod Antipas; a prefect, or intimate friend of his. The Syriac has, a roy... [ Continue Reading ]
_When he had heard_, &c. The nobleman having heard the fame of Christ, that He healed all sick persons whatsoever, proceeded from Capharnaum to Cana, to ask Jesus, who was staying there, to come back with him to Capharnaum, to heal his son. This was a journey of fourteen hours, or leagues, and there... [ Continue Reading ]
_This is again_, &c. The word _again_ must be joined with _when He was come._ Meaning, this was the second miracle which Christ wrought in Cana of Galilee, when again that is, a second time He was come thither out of Judea. For the first miracle was the conversion of water into wine, which Christ di... [ Continue Reading ]