Saint John - Chapter 4
 |
| The Samaritan woman at the well. J-J Tissot. |
Jesus saith to her: Go, call thy husband, and come hither.
Therefore Jesus saith unto her, Go call thy husband. Observe from S. Chrysostom and others that Christ bade the woman call her husband with this pretext, that it would not be proper to give this so great a gift of living water to a married woman without the knowledge of her husband. But Christ really intended to open out to her the hidden things of her life, and her secret fornication, that so He might draw her confession from her, and arouse her to repentance. At the same time He would show her that He was more than a mere man, that He was the Christ, from whom she might ask and expect remission of her sins and everlasting salvation.
For this was the living water which Christ set forth.
[17] Respondit mulier, et dixit : Non habeo virum. Dicit ei Jesus : Bene dixisti, quia non habeo virum;
The woman answered, and said: I have no husband. Jesus said to her: Thou hast said well, I have no husband:
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.
[18] quinque enim viros habuisti, et nunc, quem habes, non est tuus vir : hoc vere dixisti.
For thou hast had five husbands: and he whom thou now hast, is not thy husband. This thou hast said truly.
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 spoken of by Christ in this sense, that she was now living with a sixth adulterer. But the former sense is the more probable, because Christ makes an antithesis between the five former, which were lawful connections, and this sixth, which was unlawful.
Observe here the gentle and courteous method of Christ’s reproof. He does not say directly to the woman, “Thou art an adulteress, or a fornicatrix: do penance for thy fornications.” But He praises her for speaking the truth in saying, she had no husband. Then He adds, He whom thou now hast is not thy husband, tacitly implying that she was living in sin with him, and that He knew of this secret sin by the revelation of God, and therefore that He was a prophet, from whom she ought to ask pardon and grace.
S. Basil (Epist. 2, ad Amphiloch.) says that a third marriage is an abomination to the Church, but better than fornication. And in his first epistle to the same he says, “The thrice married are often excommunicated for three or four years, not longer: and such unions are called polygamy, or qualified fornication. Therefore the Lord said to the Samaritan woman, who had had five husbands, He whom thou now hast is not thy husband, surely because those who had gone beyond a second union were not worthy the name of husband, or wife.” But the Church is now of a different mind. For it is certain that fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, or more marriages, are licit, although they are indecent, and marks of incontinence. And this is what S. Basil appears to have meant.
[19] Dicit ei mulier : Domine, video quia propheta es tu.
The woman saith to him: Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet.
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 Rupertus, “she confessed, as to herself, what she was, and as to Him, what she was able to perceive He was.”
[20] Patres nostri in monte hoc adoraverunt, et vos dicitis, quia Jerosolymis est locus ubi adorare oportet.
Our fathers adored on this mountain, and you say, that at Jerusalem is the place where men must adore.
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 salvation. For she was more agitated by this question than by thirst for the living water which Christ promised her, which she did not understand.
Worshipped: observe that by worship here and elsewhere is signified the whole public ritual of worshipping God, especially by means of sacrifices, and the other ceremonies instituted by Moses at God’s mouth. This public worship could only be offered in the Tabernacle erected by Moses, and afterwards in the Temple built by Solomon. This is plain from God’s law in Deut. 14:24. For otherwise, by natural and Divine right, it ever has been, and is lawful to worship and call upon God privately always and in every place. Thus in Gen. 22:5, Abraham said to his servants, “After we have worshipped, i.e., sacrificed, we will come again to you.”
 |
| Mt Gerizim, Samaria. J-J Tissot. |
There was a famous and unending controversy between the Samaritans and the Jews concerning worshipping and sacrificing in this mountain. In the time of Alexander the Great, Manasses, the brother of Jaddi, the High Priest who met Alexander, and appeased him, when he was incensed against the Jews, married a foreign wife, the daughter of Sanballat, whom Darius, the last king of Persia, had set over Samaria. Manasses, being excluded by his brother from the performance of sacerdotal functions, fled to his father-in-law, Sanballat. Sanballat built a noble temple on Mount Garizim, and appointed Manasses to be its priest. Thither fled many Jewish refugees, especially those who, like Manasses, had married strange wives, contrary to the Law. As an excuse they made use of the argument that Sichem was celebrated for the worship and sacrifices of the Patriarchs, as of Jacob (Gen. 33:20; Josh. 24:1), of the Tribes (Deut. 27:12), where Moses by God’s command bids Joshua to build an altar on Mount Garizim, and there offer burnt-offerings, and engrave the Decalogue on stones, and promulge the Law of God to the Twelve Tribes, with blessings to those who kept it, the people answering “Amen.”
This temple stood upon Mount Garizim for 200 years, until it was destroyed by Hyrcanus, son of Simon, the brother of Judas Maccabeus (Jos., Ant., l. 3, c. 17). Josephus also relates that the Jews and Samaritans referred their controversy for settlement to Ptolemy Philometor, King of Egypt, who decided it in favour of the Jews, on the ground that the latter had built their temple at the instance of Moses. But the Samaritans were not contented with this decision, and still persisted in their schism.
[21] Dicit ei Jesus : Mulier, crede mihi, quia venit hora, quando neque in monte hoc, neque in Jerosolymis adorabitis Patrem.
Jesus saith to her: Woman, believe me, that the hour cometh, when you shall neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, adore the Father.
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 Law of Moses shall be abolished, and all its rites for worshipping God in the Temple at Jerusalem, as well as in this your rival temple on Garizim. For throughout the whole world Christian churches shall be built, in which God shall be worshipped in spirit and in truth. This is what Malachi predicted under the reign of Christ (1:10, 11). [The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass]
[11] Ab ortu enim solis usque ad occasum, magnum est nomen meum in gentibus, et in omni loco sacrificatur : et offertur nomini meo oblatio munda, quia magnum est nomen meum in gentibus, dicit Dominus exercituum.For from the rising of the sun even to the going down, my name is great among the Gentiles, and in every place there is sacrifice, and there is offered to my name a clean oblation: for my name is great among the Gentiles, saith the Lord of hosts.The Hebrew for the pure or clean oblation is mincha, sc., the Eucharist, or the oblation of the Body and Blood of Christ, which alone has succeeded to all the ancient sacrifices of animals.
[22] Vos adoratis quod nescitis : nos adoramus quod scimus, quia salus ex Judaeis est.
You adore that which you know not: we adore that which we know; for salvation is of the Jews.
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, O ye Samaritans, worship ye know not what, because ye worship God together with your Assyrian idols; and associating God as it were with idols, ye worship a false or fictitious God. Again the Samaritans had their own heresies and errors, which S. Epiphanius recapitulates. In the same manner the Turks and Jews worship a God whom they know not, because they deny Him to be in a Trinity of Persons. So also Calvin with his followers, in denying the omnipotence of God, and making Him cruel in condemning some men to hell without any demerit on their part, worship not a true, but a false God. For the true God is Almighty, and most kind.
2. and better. Ye worship, i.e., ye have a method of worship and sacrifice which ye do not know to have proceeded from God. For ye have framed it out of your own imagination, contrary to the will and law of God. But we Jews know what we worship, because we follow the way of worshipping God which was prescribed by Moses.
For salvation, &c. Both because I, Christ, who am the Author of salvation, am not born of the Samaritans, but of the Jews, as well as because the true knowledge and worship of God, which leads men to salvation, formerly emanated from the Jews to the Gentiles, and now in the New Law will emanate from Me, a Jew, to all nations.
[23] Sed venit hora, et nunc est, quando veri adoratores adorabunt Patrem in spiritu et veritate. Nam et Pater tales quaerit, qui adorent eum.
But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true adorers shall adore the Father in spirit and in truth. For the Father also seeketh such to adore him.
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 the Jews and Samaritans do, but in all places throughout the world in spirit and in truth.
In spirit and truth. Observe, the Samaritans ignorantly and falsely worshipped God. But the Jews worshipped the true God indeed, but chiefly by corporeal victims, and other bodily symbols, and in one stated place, Jerusalem: all which things were shadows and types of the spiritual worship which was to be inaugurated by Christ. To both these Christ opposes His faithful Christians, who instead of the body, worship God in spirit; and in truth instead of in falsity, shadows and ignorance. For God is an incorporeal Spirit, most true, and most pure. Spirit therefore here signifies the spiritual worship of faith, hope, and charity, devotion, contrition, and other virtues, by which God is most rightly worshipped by Christians, and not through shadows and figures, but in truth. In truth therefore is in the true, sincere, and worthy worship of God, in which God is well pleased, according to the words (Ps. 50:18), “In holocausts Thou shalt not be delighted: the sacrifice for God is a broken spirit” (Vulg.). Also (Ps. 49:23). “The sacrifice of praise shall honour Me” (Vulg.). And (Ps. 4:6), “Sacrifice the sacrifice of justice, and trust in the Lord.”
As Theophylact says, “Because many seem to worship in soul, but have not right knowledge, such as heretics, therefore He added, and in truth. For it behoves us both to worship God with the mind, and also to have a sound faith with regard to Him. Such a worshipper was Paul, as Origen says, when he declares, ‘God is my witness, whom I serve’ (Greek, ᾧ λατρεύω, i.e., worship with latria) in my spirit (Rom. 1:9).” And the Gloss says, not in the Temple, not in the mountain, but in the innermost temple of the heart, and with a true knowledge must God be worshipped. The Samaritan therefore worshipped God in a mountain, or locally, the Jew in a shadow, or figuratively, the Christian in spirit and in truth, truly and spiritually. For, as S. Chrysostom says, “The former things were figures, now all is truth.”
Others explain thus, we must worship God in spirit, i.e., by the Spirit, or the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
“Mystically, by the spirit is intended,” says Theophylact, “action: by truth, contemplation.” For all Christians serve God either by an active, or a contemplative life.
Heretics object, since God should be worshipped by Christians in spirit and in truth, therefore all corporal rites and ceremonies ought to be rejected in baptism.
I answer by denying the consequence. For these are not shadows and figures of the Old Law, but ornaments, incentives, and effects of the Spirit, and therefore pertain to the Spirit. For without sacraments and sacrifices the Church cannot exist, because without them she would cease to be visible, and could not be united and gathered together. In form these ceremonies are practised by Christians, and flow from the inward spirit of faith, hope, and charity. Therefore they belong to the Spirit, as results depend upon a cause, and external upon interior actions. It was otherwise with the ignorant and carnal Jews, who placed all their worship in external sacrifices and rites. So SS. Cyril and Ambrose, (De Sp. Sc. l. 3. c. 12).
Even the heathen saw that God, to be worshipped acceptably, must be worshipped in spirit and in truth.
“If God be Mind, as ancient verses tell,
Who worship Him in spirit, worship well.”
[24] Spiritus est Deus : et eos qui adorant eum, in spiritu et veritate oportet adorare.
God is a spirit; and they that adore him, must adore him in spirit and in truth.
God is a Spirit, &c. This is the reason a priori: God is a most pure and true Spirit, therefore He is pleased only with worship in spirit and in truth. “If God were a body,” says S. Augustine, “it would be fitting to worship Him in a mountain, because a mountain is material. Hence it is plain against the Anthropomorphites, and against Tertullian and Lactantius, that God has not a body, even the least material conceivable, but that He is a most immaterial Spirit.” That axiom therefore of Tertullian is false, “that what is incorporeal is non-existent.” However, Tertullian and Lactantius seem to use the words body and corporeal in an improper sense, merely to denote an actual substance.
Listen to S. Augustine expounding these words of Christ (lib. De Spec. c. 1). “God is a Spirit incomprehensible, incorporeal, immutable, that cannot be bounded by space, everywhere whole, no where divided: everywhere present, ineffably penetrating all things, containing all things, knowing all things, beholding all things; Almighty, governing all things: wholly in heaven, wholly in earth, wholly everywhere. Always working, always resting, gathering, but needing not, carrying all things without being burdened, filling all things, but not included in them, creating and protecting, nourishing and perfecting all things. Thou seekest, but Thou never wantest anything. Loving, but not inflamed. Thou art jealous, but untroubled. Thou repentest without grieving. Thou art angry, and tranquil all the while. Thou changest Thy works, but Thy counsel knows no alteration. Thou holdest all things, fillest all things, embracest all things, art above all things, sustainest all things. Nor dost Thou in one part sustain, and in another super-exceed: nor in one part dost Thou fill, and in another include. In sustaining Thou super-exceedest, and in super-exceeding Thou sustainest. Thou teachest the hearts of the faithful without the service of words, ‘reaching from one end to another mightily, and sweetly disposing all things.’ ”
What is God? Listen to Arnobius invoking Him (lib. I, Cont. Gent.). “O greatest and highest Creator of things invisible: Thou art invisible, and art never comprehended by any other natures. Worthy, indeed worthy art Thou, if only Thou mayest be called worthy by mortal lips, after whom all intelligent nature aspires, and to whom it never ceases to give thanks: to whom every living thing ought continually to bend the knee, and supplicate with unceasing prayers. For Thou art the First Cause: the locality and space of things: the foundation of whatsoever is infinite, unborn, immortal, eternal, the Only One, whom no corporeal form outlines, no circumscription bounds, without quality or size, without situation, motion, or hold: concerning whom nothing can be said or expressed by mortal words: and that Thou mayest be understood, we must be silent; and that as in a shadow a fallible look may seek after Thee, nothing whatsoever must be muttered.”
[25] Dicit ei mulier : Scio quia Messias venit ( qui dicitur Christus) : cum ergo venerit ille, nobis annuntiabit omnia.
The woman saith to him: I know that the Messias cometh (who is called Christ). Therefore, when he is come, he will tell us all things.
The woman saith, &c. Cometh, Greek, ἔξχεται, 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 transferred from Judah to Herod, and Daniel’s seventy weeks were fulfilled, so that all men knew that the time for the Advent of Messiah was close at hand. The Jews thought that John the Baptist was Messiah: but he himself attested that Jesus was Messiah. Wherefore through this assertion of the Baptist the report was widely diffused that Messiah had come.
Who is called Christ. These are not the words of the woman, who spake only in the Hebrew or Syrian language, but of the Evangelist interpreting the Hebrew word Messiah, by Christ, the Anointed One.
[26] Dicit ei Jesus : Ego sum, qui loquor te.
Jesus saith to her: I am he, who am speaking with thee.
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 reverence Him. Whereon the woman believed straightway, and moved her whole city to believe in Him.
[27] Et continuo venerunt discipuli ejus, et mirabantur quia cum muliere loquebatur. Nemo tamen dixit : Quid quaeris? aut, Quid loqueris cum ea?
And immediately his disciples came; and they wondered that he talked with the woman. Yet no man said: What seekest thou? or, why talkest thou with her?
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 (Tract. de Sing. Clericorum) and others better explain thus;—that Christ was not accustomed to talk with women alone, and with this end in view, that He might give an example of chastity and prudence to all the faithful, but especially to clerics, priests, preachers, and religious. For rightly says the wise man, “A moth proceedeth from a garment, and so doth the iniquity of man from the woman” (Ecclus. 42:13) Hence Eliseus and all the saints most carefully avoided converse with women. It was their common opinion that women can be approached with but little profit, and with great peril, either to the woman or the man—peril of chastity, or at the least, of reputation.
You will say—Are then women to be neglected? I answer, By no means: but let them be taught in public preaching, or catechising. If they are sick, or there be any other reason why the priest should come to them, let it be in an open place, acting as Christ here did: and let a witness be present, as S. Charles Borromeo took care should always be in his own case.
[28] Reliquit ergo hydriam suam mulier, et abiit in civitatem, et dicit illis hominibus :
The woman therefore left her waterpot, and went her way into the city, and saith to the men there:
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 secrets of her heart. When therefore He declared that He was Messias, she believed in Him, knowing that He was a man worthy of credit, who could neither deceive, nor be deceived. Wherefore she ran into the city without delay, fearing lest Jesus might go away if she tarried. As S. Chrysostom says, “She had come to draw water, but as soon as she found the true Fountain she despised the other; and by the grace which came down upon her from above, she discharges the office of an Apostle.”
For this is the Spirit of Christ, to infuse into those whom He converts zeal for converting others, that they may make others partakers of that great benefit which they feel in themselves. Elegantly and piously does S. Ambrose write of this (Serm. 30): “By a new kind of marvel, the woman, who came to the well of Samaria a harlot, went away chaste from the fountain of Christ. And she who came to fetch water carried back modesty. For as soon as the Lord showed her her sins, she knew and confessed them: she announced Christ to be the Saviour. And leaving her water-pot at the well, she does not carry a pitcher back to the city, but she brings grace. She seems to return without a load, but she goes back full of sanctity. She returned full. I say, because she came a sinner, she returns a preacher. And she who had left her water-pot carried back the fulness of Christ. She brought back no harm to her city, for though, it is true, she carried no water to it, she brought them the whole well of salvation.”
[29] Venite, et videte hominem qui dixit mihi omnia quaecumque feci : numquid ipse est Christus?Come, and see a man who has told me all things whatsoever I have done. Is not he the Christ?
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 speaks as though hesitating, that they might give their opinion,” said Euthymius. For she herself had no doubt, but firmly believed Jesus to be the Messiah. As S. Chrysostom says, “Observe the immense wisdom of this woman: she neither affirms nor denies that He is the Christ. She did not wish that she should be the author of their believing in Him. She wished them to be persuaded by hearing Him for themselves, which persuasion would be far more likely to happen in that way. For without doubt she understood that if they once tasted of that Fountain, they would have the same opinion about it that she had.” This Samaritan woman then, by the conversation and grace of Christ, from a sinner became a penitent and a saint, yea a preacher of Christ like Mary Magdalen.
 |
| St Photinus. Nadahnuti ikonopisac [Public domain] |
[30] Exierunt ergo de civitate et veniebant ad eum.
They went therefore out of the city, and came unto him.
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 one conversation of Christ, but the Jews after three years of His preaching, and after all the many miracles which He had wrought, would not believe.
Totus tuus ego sum
Et omnia mea tua sunt;
Tecum semper tutus sum:
Ad Jesum per Mariam
Ad Jesum per Mariam
No comments:
Post a Comment