For more on Alcuin of York see here. Translated by Claude.
Jn 4:5–6
Jesus came to a city of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. For Jacob's well was there. Jesus, wearied from the journey, sat thus beside the well — that is, beside the well of the spring that was in the field that the holy Jacob had left to his son Joseph. This field, I believe, was left not so much to Joseph as to Christ, whose figure the holy patriarch Joseph bore — he whom the sun and moon and all the stars truly adore and bless. To this field the Lord came so that the Samaritans, who desired to claim for themselves the inheritance of the patriarch Israel, might recognize their true owner and be converted to Christ, who has become the lawful heir of the patriarch.
The evangelist says: Jesus, wearied from the journey, sat thus beside the well — or, as the manuscript has it, above the well.
The sacred mysteries in the words and deeds of our Lord Jesus Christ are not open to all, and some interpret them less carefully and less soberly, often bringing harm in place of salvation and error in place of the knowledge of truth. Among these mysteries is the one recorded in Scripture — that the Lord came to Jacob's well at the sixth hour of the day, weary from the journey, sat down, and asked a Samaritan woman for a drink, and the other things discussed and examined in that same passage of Scripture.
Regarding this matter, we must first hold fast to what must be maintained with the greatest vigilance in all the Scriptures: that the exposition of a divine mystery must accord with the faith. Therefore, our Lord came to the well at the sixth hour of the day. I see in the well a dark depth. I urge, therefore, that we understand by it the weak parts of this world — that is, its earthly regions — to which the Lord Jesus came at the sixth hour, that is, in the sixth age of the human race, as it were in the old age of the old man, of which we are commanded to put off, so that we may put on the new man, who is created according to God (Eph. 4:24).
For the sixth age is old age: the first is infancy, the second childhood, the third adolescence, the fourth youth, the fifth maturity. The life of the old man, which is lived according to the flesh under temporal condition, is therefore concluded in the sixth age, that is, in old age — because it was in the old age of the human race, as I said, that our Lord, our Creator and Restorer, came to us: so that, with the old man dying, he might establish in himself the new man, and, stripped of earthly clay, transfer him into the heavenly kingdoms.
So then, the well, as has been said, signifies by its dark depth the earthly toil and error of this world. And since the outer man is the old man and the inner man is the new, the Apostle said: Even though our outer man is being destroyed, yet the inner man is being renewed day by day. This is entirely right, since all visible things belong to the outer man, and Christian discipline renounces them. The Lord came to the well at the sixth hour — that is, at midday, from which point the visible sun begins to decline toward setting — so that we too, called by Christ to the love of invisible things, might be renewed inwardly and return to the inner light that never sets, according to apostolic discipline: not seeking the things that are seen, but the things that are not seen; for the things that are seen are temporal, but the things that are not seen are eternal.
That he came wearily to the well signifies the weakness of the flesh; that he sat down signifies humility — for he took on the frailty of the flesh for our sake, and appeared so humbly to human beings. Concerning this weakness of the flesh, the Prophet says: stricken, and knowing how to bear weakness; and of his humility the Apostle says: He humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death (Phil. 2:8).
Yet that he sat down can also be understood in another sense — not only as an expression of humility, but also as presenting the figure of a teacher. One may ask why he requested a drink from the Samaritan woman who had come to draw water, when he himself afterward declared that he could give the abundance of a spiritual fountain. But of course he thirsted for the faith of that woman — for she was a Samaritan. Samaria is accustomed to bear the image of idolatry: the Samaritans had separated themselves from the Jewish people and had brought disgrace upon their souls by worshipping the idols of mute animals, that is, golden calves. And our Lord Jesus came to bring the multitude that had served idols to the defense of the Christian and uncorrupt faith. For it is not the healthy who need a physician, he says, but the sick. Therefore he thirsts for the faith of those for whom he shed his blood.
Jn 4:7
Jesus said to her: Woman, give me a drink. And so that you might know what our Lord thirsted for, shortly afterward his disciples returned — they had gone into the city to buy food — and they said to him: Rabbi, eat. But he said to them: I have other food to eat that you do not know of. The disciples said to one another: Has someone brought him something to eat? Jesus said to them: My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work.
Is there here to be understood some other will of the Father who sent him, and some work to complete, except that he should convert us from the destructive error of the world to faith in himself? What his food is, then, such also is his drink. For this reason he thirsted for that woman — so that he might do the Father's will in her and complete his work. But she, understanding carnally, replied:
Jn 4:9
You, being a Jew, how do you ask me for a drink, since I am a Samaritan woman? For Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans. To her our Lord replied:
Jn 4:10
If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, "Give me a drink," you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water. By this he showed her that he had not asked for the kind of water she supposed, but because he thirsted for her faith, he desired in turn to give the Holy Spirit to the one who thirsted. For this rightly — Jesus had not yet been glorified. Therefore we understand by living water the gift of God, as he himself says: If you knew the gift of God — and as the same John testifies elsewhere, saying: Jesus stood and cried out: "If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture says, rivers of living water shall flow from his belly" (John 7:37–38). Consequently and rightly he says: Whoever believes in me, rivers of living water shall flow from his belly — because we first believe so that we may merit these gifts. These rivers of living water, which he desired to give to that woman, are the reward of the faith for which he first thirsted. The interpretation of this living water is added as follows: This he said, concerning the Spirit which those who believed in him were to receive; for the Spirit had not yet been given, because Jesus had not yet been glorified — that is, it is the Holy Spirit, which after his glorification he gave to the Church, as another Scripture says: Ascending on high, he led captivity captive and gave gifts to men (Eph. 4:8).
But still the woman understands carnally. For she replied:
Jn 4:11–12
Sir, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where do you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us this well, and drank from it himself, and his sons, and his cattle?
Now the Lord explains what he meant:
Jn 4:13–14
Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst again. The water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.
But the woman still embraces the prudence of the flesh. For how did she reply?
Jn 4:15–16
Sir, give me this water, so that I may not thirst and may not come here to draw. Jesus said to her: Go, call your husband and come here. Why he said this, knowing that she had no husband, is a question — for when the woman said, I have no husband:
Jn 4:18
Jesus said to her: You have spoken well, saying you have no husband. For you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. This is truly what you have said. But these things are not to be taken carnally, lest we seem to be like that same Samaritan woman — rather, if we have already tasted something of that gift of God, let us treat these things spiritually.
Some understand the five husbands to mean the five books administered through Moses. And what is said — the one you now have is not your husband — they understand to mean that the Lord spoke of himself, so that the sense would be: You first served the five books of Moses as if they were five husbands; but now this one you have — that is, whom you hear — is not your husband, because you have not yet believed in him. But since, not yet believing in Christ, she was still bound in union with those five husbands, that is, with the five books, it could raise the question of how it could be said you have had five husbands as though she no longer had them, since she was still living subject to them. Moreover, since the five books of Moses preach nothing other than Christ — as he himself says: If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote of me (John 5:46) — how can one understand a person departing from those five books in order to go to Christ, when one who believes in Christ embraces those five books not as to be abandoned but as to be understood spiritually, and does so far more blessedly?
There is therefore another interpretation: the five husbands are understood as the five senses of the body. One belongs to the eyes, by which we see the visible light and any colors and forms of bodies; another belongs to the ears, by which we perceive the movements of voices and all sounds; the third belongs to the nose, by which we delight in the varied sweetness of scents; the fourth is the sense of taste in the mouth, which perceives sweet and bitter things and examines all flavors; the fifth judges through touch over the whole body — hot and cold, soft and hard, smooth and rough, and whatever else we perceive by touching. By these five bodily senses the first age of man is imbued by the necessity of mortal nature — the nature in which, after the sin of the first man, we are born in such a way that, with the light of the mind not yet restored, we pass through our carnal life subject to bodily senses without any understanding of truth. Such of necessity are infants and young children, who are not yet capable of reason.
And because these senses are natural — governing the first age — and have been given to us by God as their maker, they are rightly called husbands, that is, lawful spouses, since it is not by any self-originated error but by God's craft that nature has bestowed them. But when a person comes to an age capable of embracing rational life, and is then able to grasp the truth, he no longer uses those senses as rulers, but subjects them to servitude under the rational spirit — as a husband to whom those senses are made subject — and his body, with his soul, is no longer subject to the five husbands, that is, to the bodily senses, but possesses the Word as a lawful husband, and united and clinging to him, the spirit of the human being also cleaves to Christ — for Christ is the head of the man (1 Cor. 11:3) — and enjoys eternal life by embracing spiritual things without any fear of separation. For who shall separate us from the love of God? (Rom. 8:35).
But since that woman, who represented the multitude of the age subjected to vain superstitions, was bound — the first age, as I said, is governed by the five carnal senses — she had not received God in marriage, but the devil held her in his embrace. Therefore the Lord says to her that she is carnal, that is, that she thinks carnally: Go, call your husband and come here — that is: remove yourself from the carnal affection in which you are now held; in that state you cannot understand what I am saying. And call your husband — that is, be present with the spirit of understanding; for the spirit in the soul is like a husband of a sort to the man, who rules over the animate affection as over a wife. This is not the Holy Spirit, who is immutably given with the Father and the Son, but the spirit of man in man. For that Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God, of which he again says: The thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God. This spirit of man, when it is present — that is, when it is attentive and subjects itself to God with piety — the human being understands what is spoken spiritually; but when the devil's error dominates the soul as if with the intellect absent, it is an adulterer.
Call then your husband — that is, the spirit that is within you, by which a person can understand spiritual things if the light of truth illumines it. Let it be present while I speak to you, so that you may receive the spiritual water. And when she said, I have no husband, he replied: You have spoken well. For you had five husbands — that is, the five senses of the flesh governed you in your first age — and the one you now have is not your husband, because within you there is no spirit capable of knowing God, through whom you might have a lawful union, but rather the error of the devil dominates, corrupting you with adulterous contamination.
And perhaps — in order to indicate to those who understand that the five senses of the body are signified by the name of five husbands — after five carnal replies, this woman names Christ in her sixth reply. Her first reply is: You, being a Jew, how do you ask me for a drink? The second: Sir, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. The third: Sir, give me this water, so that I may not thirst and may not come here to draw. The fourth: I have no husband. The fifth: I see that you are a prophet; our fathers worshipped on this mountain — for this reply is carnal, since the carnal were given an earthly place where they might pray, but the Lord had said that the spiritual would worship in spirit and in truth. After he had spoken, the sixth reply of the woman confesses Christ to be the teacher of all these things. For she says: I know that the Messiah is coming, who is called Christ; when he comes, he will tell us all things. She still errs, however, because she does not see that the one whose coming she awaits has already come — yet nevertheless, by the mercy of the Lord, this error is now expelled as an adulterer. For Jesus said to her: I am he, the one speaking with you. Hearing this, she did not reply but immediately left her water jar and went into the city, hastening not merely to believe the good news and the coming of the Lord but even to proclaim it.
Nor should we pass over carelessly the fact that she left her water jar behind. For the water jar perhaps signifies love of this present age — that is, the desire by which people draw their pleasure from the dark depth (of which the well is an image), that is, from earthly life; and having tasted it, they burn with appetite for it again, just as whoever drinks of that water will thirst again. But it was fitting that she, believing in Christ, should renounce the world and show by leaving the jar that she had left behind worldly desire — not only believing in her heart unto righteousness, but also about to confess with her mouth unto salvation, and to proclaim what she had believed.
Jn 4:19
The woman said to him: Sir, I see that you are a prophet. The husband began to come, but had not yet fully come. She thought the Lord a prophet — and indeed he is a prophet, for he said of himself: No prophet is accepted in his own country (Luke 4:24). And likewise it was said of him to Moses: I will raise up a prophet from among their brethren like you (Deut. 18:18) — like you in the form of the flesh, not in the eminence of his majesty. We find therefore that the Lord Jesus is called a prophet.
So the woman is no longer in error. She says: I see that you are a prophet. She begins to drive out the adulterous husband when she says you are a prophet, and begins to raise the question that had used to trouble her. For there had been a dispute between the Samaritans and the Jews: the Jews worshipped God in a temple that had been built, while the Samaritans, far removed, did not worship there; and the Jews boasted over this, saying to them: How do you exult and rejoice and claim yourselves better than us, because you have a temple which we do not have? Did the fathers who pleased God worship in a temple? Did they not worship on this mountain where we are? Better, then, do we pray to God on this mountain, where our fathers prayed. Both sides contended with each other in ignorance — she who had no husband, inflamed by the mountain; they inflamed against each other over the temple. Yet the Lord now teaches the woman, as though her husband had begun to be present with her.
The woman said to him: Sir, I see that you are a prophet.
Jn 4:20–21
Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, and you say that Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship. Jesus said to her: Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. For the Church will come, as it is in the Song of Songs: My beloved speaks to me: Rise up, make haste, my friend, my bride, my dove, my spotless one, and come — for behold, winter is past, the rain is over and gone, the flowers appear on the earth, the time of pruning has come, the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land (Cant. 2:10–12). Rightly, with the husband present, she hears: Woman, believe me — now the one within you believes, for your husband is present. You began to be present in understanding when you called me a prophet. Woman, believe me — for unless you believe, you will not understand. Therefore: Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father.
Jn 4:22–25
You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming — and now is — when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. Not on this mountain, not in this temple, but in spirit and in truth.
Jn 4:24
God is spirit. If God were corporeal, he would need to be worshipped on a mountain, since a mountain is corporeal; he would need to be worshipped in a temple, since a temple is corporeal. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit. We worship what we know; you worship what you do not know, for salvation is from the Jews. Much was given to the Jews — but do not take these words of the reprobate Jews. Take the wall to which the other is joined, so that both, made peaceable, might be united in the cornerstone, which is Christ. For one wall is from the Jews, another from the Gentiles — these two walls stood far apart from each other until they are joined in Christ the corner. The Gentiles, as aliens and strangers, were foreigners to the covenant of God. So then, what is said — we worship what we know — was said from the perspective of the Jews, but not of all Jews, not of the reprobate Jews, but of such as were the apostles, such as were the prophets, such as were all those holy ones who sold all their possessions and laid the proceeds at the feet of the apostles (Acts 4:34). For God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew.
The woman heard this and added to her response. She had already called him a prophet; she saw even greater things being said by the one with whom she was speaking, who was already more than a prophet. And what did she reply? See:
The woman said to him: I know that the Messiah is coming, who is called Christ; when he comes, he will tell us everything. This means: Right now the Jews and we dispute about the temple and the mountain; when he comes, he will despise the mountain and overturn the temple. He will teach us everything, so that we may know how to worship in spirit and in truth. She knew who could teach her, but did not yet recognize him teaching her. Already, therefore, she was worthy to have the Messiah revealed to her. For Messiah means anointed; and anointed in Greek is Christ, in Hebrew Messiah.
Therefore the woman says to him:
Jn 4:25
I know that the Messiah is coming, who is called Christ; when he comes, he will tell us all things.
Jn 4:26
Jesus said to her: I am he, the one speaking with you. She called for her husband; her husband has come. Christ has become the head of the man; and Christ is the head of the woman. Now the woman is ordered in faith and is well governed, going to live rightly — or rather, to lead others rightly. After hearing I am he who speaks with you, what more was there for her to say, when Christ the Lord chose to reveal himself to the woman to whom he had said believe me?
Jn 4:27
And immediately his disciples came, and they marveled that he was speaking with a woman. This is because he was seeking the lost — he had come to seek what was lost — and they marveled at that. For they marveled at a good thing; they did not suspect an evil one.
Jn 4:28
Yet no one said: "What do you seek?" or "Why are you speaking with her?" Therefore the woman left her water jar and went into the city. Having heard I am he who speaks with you and having received Christ the Lord into her heart, what else could she do but leave the jar behind and run to proclaim the gospel? She cast away desire and hastened to announce the truth. Let those who wish to preach the gospel learn from her: let them put down their water jar at the well. Recall what I said earlier about the water jar. The jar was a vessel from which water was drawn; it is called hydria by the Greek name, since water in Greek is hydor — as if it were called an aquarium. And so, eager to be satisfied with that living water, she ran to the city having cast off the burden of the jar — which was no longer useful but a burden — and she said to those people:
Jn 4:29
Come, see a man who told me everything I have done. Can this be the Christ? She cast down the jar and went and announced it — gently, step by step, lest they be provoked to anger and indignation and persecution. For she said: Come, see a man who told me everything I have done — could he be the Christ?
Jn 4:30–35
They went out of the city and came to him. And the disciples entreated him saying: Rabbi, eat. For they had gone to buy food and had returned. But he said: I have food to eat that you do not know of. The disciples therefore said to one another: Has someone brought him something to eat? What wonder that that woman did not understand water? Behold, even the disciples do not yet understand food! He heard their question and now instructs them as a teacher — not by going around the subject as he did with the woman, whose husband he was still seeking — but now openly Jesus says to them:
Jn 4:34
My food is to do the will of him who sent me. Therefore that same drink was also in the case of that woman — to do the will of him who sent him. For this reason he said: I thirst; give me a drink — so that he might work in her, drink her faith, and transfer her into his body; for his body is the Church.
Jn 4:35
Therefore he says: This is my food — to do the will of him who sent me. Do you not say that there are still four months and then the harvest comes? He was burning for the work and was preparing to send out workers. You count four months to the harvest; I show you another harvest, white and ready. Behold, I tell you: lift up your eyes and look at the fields — they are already white for harvest. Therefore he was about to send out — or rather: In this is the saying true that one sows and another reaps, so that both sower and reaper may rejoice together.
Jn 4:38
I sent you to reap what you did not labor for. Others have labored and you have entered into their labor. What then? He sent reapers, not sowers — reapers where others had already labored. For where labor had already been done, there had certainly been sowing; and what had been sown had now ripened and was calling for sickle and threshing. Where, then, were the reapers to be sent? Where the prophets had already preached — for they were the sowers. For if they themselves were not sowers but reapers, how had the woman arrived at the point where she said: I know that the Messiah is coming? That woman was already a ripe fruit; the harvests were already white and calling for the sickle. I sent you to reap what you did not sow; others have sown and you have entered into their labors. Those who labored: Abraham himself, Isaac, and Jacob. Read of their labors — in all their labors is the prophecy of Christ, and therefore they are sowers. And Moses and the other patriarchs and all the prophets — how much did they endure in that cold when they were sowing?
So the harvest was already ready in Judea. Rightly was there as it were a ripe field of grain when so many thousands of people were bringing the prices of their goods and laying them at the feet of the apostles, and following Christ the Lord with shoulders freed from secular burdens (Acts 4:35). Truly a ripe harvest! What came of it? From that harvest a few grains were cast out and they sowed the whole world; and another harvest springs up that will be reaped at the end of the age. Of this harvest it is said: Those who sow in tears will reap in joy (Ps. 126:5). To that harvest, therefore, not apostles but angels are sent. The reapers, he says, are the angels (Matt. 13:39). That harvest grows up among the tares and waits in faith to be purged. But the first harvest was already ripe, to which the disciples were first sent, where the prophets had labored.
Yet, brothers, see what has been said: both sower and reaper shall rejoice together. They labored at different times, but they will rejoice equally; they will receive their reward together — eternal life.
Jn 4:39–42
Not because of your word do we believe — for we ourselves have heard. From that city many believed in him on account of his word — not on account of the woman's testimony. Because she had said: He told me all that I ever did. When the Samaritans had come to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days; and many more believed because of his words, and they said to the woman: It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we ourselves have heard and know that this is truly the Savior of the world.
And this is worth noting for a moment as the reading concludes. The woman first announced; through the woman's testimony the Samaritans believed and asked him to stay with them; he stayed for two days; more believed; and when they believed, they said to the woman: No longer is it because of your word that we believe, but we ourselves have heard and known that this is truly the Savior of the world. First by report, then by his presence. This is how it goes today with those who are outside and are not yet Christians: Christ is announced through Christian friends, as through that woman — that is, through the Church announcing — and they come to Christ. They believe through that report; he stays with them two days — that is, he gives them the two commandments of love; and many more believe in him more firmly, because he is truly the Savior of the world.
CONTINUE
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