Translated by Claude.
Jn 4:5-6 He came therefore to a city of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there. This is indeed that field concerning which Jacob, blessing his son Joseph, said: "I give you one portion beyond your brothers, which I took from the hand of the Amorite with my sword and my bow" (Gen. 48:22). And there was Jacob's well. For if Jacob was that well, what good water he had! As it is written: "In the assemblies, bless God the Lord, from the fountains of Israel" (Ps. 68:26). This well seems to be the deep faith and teaching of the patriarchs. For this reason it is called not only a spring but also a well. A spring, on account of the living water; a well, on account of its depth. For the knowledge of the law and the prophets is very deep.
Jesus therefore, wearied from the journey, sat thus beside the well. It was about the sixth hour. Jesus grows weary, but according to the flesh. For unless he grew weary, unless he felt hunger and thirst, he would not be believed to be a man. Thus therefore — that is, being wearied — he sat beside the well. Those therefore who are weary and wish to rest, let them come to the well; let them come to the Scriptures of the prophets; there they will find Jesus; there they will hear him saying: "Come to me, all who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest" (Matt. 11:28). For this reason Jesus rests wearily beside the well — to show us where we should seek our rest.
It was about the sixth hour — because the sixth age of the world: for the first age is from Adam to Noah; the second to Abraham; the third to David; the fourth to the Babylonian exile; the fifth to Christ; the sixth to the end of the age.
Jn 4:7 A woman of Samaria came to draw water. This woman seems to me to represent that entire Israelite people, which comes daily to Jacob's well — to the fountains of Israel, to the Scriptures of the patriarchs — but because she has no husband, she cannot be satisfied by drinking. This will be explained in what follows.
Jesus said to her: Give me a drink. Jesus thirsts — the fountain of life thirsts, of which it is written: "For with you is the fountain of life" (Ps. 36:9). But if he is the fountain of life, how can he thirst? It is not water but our faith that Jesus thirsts for. Hence in what follows he says: My food is to do the will of my Father who is in heaven. The Father's will was to save the people and convert them to faith. This therefore was what Jesus thirsted for.
Jn 4:8 His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.
Jn 4:9 The Samaritan woman therefore said to him: How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria? — For Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans. For although the Samaritans were Israelites, yet having followed Jeroboam, who taught them to worship idols, they had become so alienated from the law that they were treated by the Jews almost as Gentiles.
Jn 4:10 Jesus answered and said to her: If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that says to you, "Give me a drink," you would perhaps have asked of him, and he would have given you living water. If you knew me, he says, and were illuminated by the Holy Spirit — for the gift of God is the Holy Spirit — you would perhaps have asked of me, as I now ask of you, and I would have given you living water: water that does not fail, water sufficient for eternity.
Jn 4:11-12 The woman said to him: Sir, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, and his sons, and his cattle? You promise me living water, she says. Now, living water does exist here — but you have no bucket, no vessel; I see you have no rope either. Moreover the well is deep, to whose bottom you cannot reach with your hands. Where then is your living water? Or if you promise another kind here — compared to which this water should be understood as not living but dead — why did not our father Jacob give it to us? Are you greater than he?
The woman said these things because she did not yet understand the words of Christ.
Jn 4:13-14 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; but the water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life. The Lord separates her from her own understanding in order to draw her toward a better understanding. This is that water of which he says elsewhere: "Whoever thirsts, let him come to me and drink, and from his belly rivers of living water will flow." What this signifies the evangelist immediately explained, saying: "This he said of the Spirit, which those who believed in him were to receive." (cf., Jn 7:37-39)
Jn 4:15 The woman said to him: Sir, give me this water, so that I may not thirst and need not come here to draw. Separated now a little from her former understanding, she does not mean the water of that well; she asks for another water, abundantly available, so that it will not be necessary to come and find it any more. But because this understanding too is still carnal, the Lord invites her to another understanding, saying:
Jn 4:16 Go, call your husband and come here. Call your husband, he says — bring forth your understanding, and come here; be present; do not keep wavering over various things. For the husband of the soul is the intellect, by which it is guided and governed.
Jn 4:17-18 The woman answered and said: I have no husband. Jesus said to her: You have said rightly, "I have no husband"; for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. This you have said truly. Although these things signify something else, one must nevertheless believe that this woman truly had five husbands, and had now consented to live in fornication with another — which certainly did not escape the Lord's knowledge.
Spiritually, however, the five husbands are the five books of Moses, by which that Israelite people — signified by this woman — was for a time governed and guided, as a wife by husbands. From these it had been separated for as long a time as it had forgotten its God and been disobedient to them. For it had often followed other lovers and fornicated with idols, fleeing these lawful husbands and consenting to error. This therefore is what is meant by: And the one you now have is not your husband. It is error, not a husband; a deceiver, not a lover.
Jn 4:19 The woman said to him: Sir, I see that you are a prophet. The woman would not have said this unless she had called out to her husband. Already therefore the error flees. Already the fornicator departs.
Jn 4:20 There follows: Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, and you say that Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship. I see, she says, that you are a prophet. Answer me then what I am asking, for I desire to learn. What is this that you Jews say — that Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship — when it is certain that our fathers worshipped on this mountain?
Jn 4:21-24 Jesus said to her: Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. 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. The hour is coming, and now is, he says, when the true and spiritual worshippers will worship God not on a mountain or in a city, but in spirit and in truth. For although they must pray somewhere, God looks not to the mountain or to the city but rather to the heart. He does not attend to a higher mountain or a nobler city; but a contrite and humble heart God does not despise. Enter therefore into your chamber, and having shut the door, pray to your Father. Pray not with lips alone, but in spirit and in truth.
Only the Jews, only those who confess, only the observers of the law, worship what they know; the rest worship what they do not know. Why? Because salvation is from the Jews. From which Jews? Hear the Apostle: "For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh; but he is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is of the heart, in spirit, not in the letter" (Rom. 2:28–29). We therefore are those Jews; we Christians; we the members of Christ, on behalf of all of whom our Head now says: You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know.
There follows: For the Father also seeks such people to worship him — worshipping in spirit and in truth. But why? Because God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth. For if he were corporeal and localized, he would need to be sought on a mountain or in a city; but because he is spirit, he must be worshipped in spirit.
Jn 4:25 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. As if she were saying: You speak obscurely, and what you say I do not understand. Yet I know that the Messiah is coming, who is called Christ. When he comes, he will announce all things to us. He will reveal to us the obscure mysteries of your words and those of the other prophets.
Jn 4:26 Jesus said to her: I am he, the one speaking with you.
Jn 4:27 And immediately his disciples came and marveled that he was speaking with a woman. Why did they marvel? Perhaps because this was not his usual custom. Yet no one said, "What do you seek?" or "Why are you speaking with her?" — having no suspicion in him regarding her. At their arrival the woman fell silent — she would perhaps have spoken further had they not come.
Jn 4:28 She left therefore her water jar. She left behind her perverse understanding, with which she was accustomed to drink from the fountains of Israel carnally and not spiritually. And went into the city. She went to the Church of the Gentiles. She went to preach the Gospel to the whole world, to every creature.
Jn 4:29 And said to those people: Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done. Can this be the Christ?
Jn 4:30 They went out therefore from the city and came to him — signifying those who, having left behind their Gentile ways, are converted to him up to the present day.
Jn 4:31-33 Meanwhile the disciples entreated him, saying: Rabbi, eat. But he said to them: 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? See how the disciples do not understand what food the Lord was speaking of — just as the woman earlier did not understand the water about which the Lord spoke to her.
Jn 4:34 Jesus said to them: My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to perfect his work. This is the food by which I am delighted and refreshed — which, because you are still carnal, you do not yet fully understand.
Jn 4:35-36 Do you not say that there are still four months and then the harvest comes? Behold, I tell you: Lift up your eyes and see the regions, for they are already white for harvest. For Jesus, seeing the whole city streaming toward him and already ripe and ready to believe, speaks of it under the figure of a harvest, invites the disciples to listen, and commands them to lift up their eyes — so that, taking up the sickle of the Word of God, they may begin to reap, while the harvest is already white and seen to be ready for gathering. And lest the labor itself seem heavy and harsh, he promises them the reward of the work, saying: And he who reaps receives wages and gathers fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For the prophets were the sowers, who first sowed the seeds of faith and teaching in that people. The apostles, however, were the reapers, who gathered into the barn of the Church the people who were already nearly instructed and ready to believe. For these they will assuredly receive their fruit — eternal life — so that sowers and reapers may rejoice together and enjoy eternal blessedness together.
Jn 4:37-38 For in this is the saying true, that one sows and another reaps. I sent you to reap what you have not labored for; others have labored and you have entered into their labor. For unless the prophets had sown, and had foretold the coming of Christ and the other things written about him, the apostles would not have gathered so great a harvest of believers in that people. And in this too the word is true and indubitable — that one sows and another reaps — for in this the words of the Gospel are proven true and beyond doubt: because what the apostles affirm was done, the prophets predicted would be. What the former say has happened, the latter said would happen.
Jn 4:39-40 Many of the Samaritans believed in him because of the word of the woman bearing witness: "He told me all that I have ever done." When therefore the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to remain with them, and he remained there two days. Let us ask him therefore, that he may remain with us for two days as well — so that he may teach us to love and hold fast the two commandments of charity and the faith of the two Testaments. These suffice for our illumination; they suffice for the fullness of life, since charity never fails and charity has no end. Great therefore are these days that have no end.
Jn 4:41-42 There follows: And many more believed because of his word than because of the woman's word. The woman pressed on and preached, and aided the Word — through whom all things were made — by her own word, as best she could. And they said to her, now looking down on hearing her: It is no longer because of your word that we believe — we have no need of your preaching. For we ourselves have heard and know that this is truly the Savior of the world. For the Lord Jesus knew what manner of people they were when he called them a ripe harvest, saying: "See the regions, for they are already white for harvest." He would not have given them this testimony had he not foreseen them to be willing to hear and believe.
CONTINUE (archive).
CONTINUE (google)
Comments
Post a Comment