Augustinus, In Joannis Evangelium tractatus XIII-XIX

by the flesh. For abiding as God with the Father, He was made man among men, so that through Him Who was made man towards you, you might become such as can receive God. For man could not receive God: man could see man, he could not receive God. Why could he not receive God? Because he did not have the eye of the heart with which to receive. So there was something wounded within, and something sound without: he had the eyes of the body sound, he had the eyes of the heart wounded. He was made man for the eye of the body, so that, believing in Him Who could be seen bodily, you might be healed for seeing that very One Whom you could not see spiritually. Have I been with you so long a time, and you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father also. Why did they not see Him? See, they were seeing Him, and they were not seeing the Father: they were seeing the flesh, but the majesty lay hidden. What the disciples who loved saw, the Jews who crucified also saw. So He was wholly within, and within the flesh in such a way that He abode with the Father: for He did not desert the Father when He came to the flesh.

13. Carnal thinking does not grasp what I say: let it put off understanding, and begin from faith; let it hear what follows: He who believes in the Son has eternal life: but he who is unbelieving towards the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides upon him. He did not say, the wrath of God comes to him; but, the wrath of God abides upon him. All who are born mortal have the wrath of God with them. What wrath of God? That which the first Adam received. For if the first man sinned, and heard, You shall die the death (Gen. 2:17); he was made mortal, and we began to be born mortal; we were born with the wrath of God. Thence came the Son, not having sin, and He was clothed with flesh, clothed with mortality. If He shared with us the wrath of God, are we slow to share with Him the grace of God? So he who will not believe in the Son, the wrath of God abides upon him. What wrath of God? That of which the Apostle says, We too were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest (Eph. 2:3). So all are children of wrath, because they come from the curse of death. Believe in Christ, made mortal for you, so that you may receive Him immortal: for when you have received His immortality, you too will not be mortal. He was living, you were dying: He died, that you may live. He brought the grace of God, He took away the wrath of God. God conquered death, lest death should conquer man.

Tractate 15.

From that passage of the Gospel, So when Jesus knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus makes more disciples, etc., up to this, And we know that this is truly the Saviour of the world. Chapter 4, verses 1-42.

1. It is not unfamiliar to the ears of your Charity that the evangelist John, like an eagle, flies higher, and transcends the mist of the earth, and gazes upon the light of truth with steadier eyes. For many things from his Gospel have already been treated through our ministry, with the Lord's help: and in order there now follows this reading, which

was read today. Many of you, the Lord granting, will hear the things I am about to say in such a way that you recognize them rather than learn them. Yet attention ought not to be sluggish on that account, because it is not cognition but recognition. This is what has been read, and this is the reading we hold in our hands to be treated: that the Lord Jesus was speaking with the Samaritan woman at Jacob's well. For great mysteries were spoken there, and likenesses of great things, feeding the hungry soul and refreshing the languishing one.

2. For the Lord, "when He had heard" this, "that the Pharisees had learned that He was making more disciples than John, and baptizing more (although Jesus was not baptizing, but His disciples), left the land of Judaea and went away again into Galilee." There is no need to discuss this at greater length, lest by lingering over what is plain we suffer from shortness of time for searching out and opening what is obscure. Certainly, if the Lord had known that the Pharisees had come to know about Him that He was making more disciples and baptizing more in such a way that this would avail them for salvation by following Him, so that they too might be disciples and they too might wish to be baptized by Him, He would rather not have left the land of Judaea, but would have remained there for their sake. But because He knew their knowledge, He knew at the same time their envy too, since they had learned this not in order to follow but in order to persecute; He went away from there. He could indeed, even when present, not be seized by them if He did not wish it, not be killed if He did not wish it, since He could also not have been born if He had not wished it. But because in everything that He did as man He was offering an example to men who would believe in Him (for no servant of God sins if he withdraws to another place, seeing perhaps the fury of those who persecute him or seek his soul for evil; yet the servant of God would seem to himself to sin if he did so, unless the Lord had gone before him in doing it), that good Master did this in order to teach, not because He feared.

3. Perhaps this too may trouble someone: why it was said, Jesus was baptizing more than John; and after it was said, He was baptizing, there was added, Although Jesus was not baptizing, but His disciples. What then? Had something false been said, and was it corrected when there was added, Although Jesus was not baptizing, but His disciples? Or is each true, because Jesus both was baptizing and was not baptizing? For He was baptizing, because He Himself was cleansing; He was not baptizing, because He Himself was not dipping. The disciples were supplying the ministry of the body; He was supplying the aid of majesty. For when would He cease from baptizing, so long as He does not cease from cleansing? Of Him it was said by the same John, through the person of John the Baptist speaking, This is He Who baptizes (John 1:33). Therefore Jesus still baptizes; and as long as we are to be baptized, Jesus baptizes. Let a man approach the lower minister without anxiety; for he has a higher Master.

4. But perhaps someone says: Christ indeed baptizes in the spirit, not in the body. As if anyone were imbued even with the sacrament of corporal and visible Baptism by the gift of another than Him! Do you wish to know that He Himself baptizes, not only with the spirit but also with water? Hear the Apostle: "As Christ," he says, "loved the Church,

and gave Himself up for her, cleansing her by the washing of water in the word, that He might present to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle, or anything of this kind" (Eph. 5:25–27). Cleansing her. By what? By the washing of water in the word. What is the baptism of Christ? The washing of water in the word. Take away the water, there is no baptism; take away the word, there is no baptism.

5. Now therefore, these things having been set down beforehand, through which He came to the conversation with that woman, let us see the things that remain, full of mysteries and pregnant with sacraments. "Now He had to pass," it says, "through Samaria. So He came into a city of Samaria which is called Sichar, near the estate which Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Now Jacob's spring was there." It was a well; but every well is a spring, not every spring is a well. For where water flows out of the earth and is made available for the use of those who draw, it is called a spring; but if it is ready to hand and at the surface, it is called only a spring; whereas if it is deep and far down, it is called a well in such a way that it does not lose the name of spring.

6. Jesus therefore, wearied from the journey, was sitting thus upon the spring. It was about the sixth hour. Now the mysteries begin. For not in vain is Jesus wearied; not in vain is the Power of God wearied; not in vain is He wearied through Whom the weary are refreshed; not in vain is He wearied, by Whose leaving us we are wearied, by Whose presence we are strengthened. Yet Jesus is wearied; and He is wearied from the journey, and He sits, and He sits beside the well, and at the sixth hour He sits wearied. All these things hint at something, they wish to point to something; they make us attentive, they urge us to knock. May He Himself therefore open both to us and to you, He Who deigned so to urge us as to say, Knock, and it shall be opened to you (Matt. 7:7). For you Jesus was wearied from the journey. We find Jesus as Power, and we find Jesus weak; Jesus strong and weak: strong, because in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God: this was in the beginning with God. Do you wish to see how strong this Son of God is? All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made; and they were made without toil. What then is stronger than He, through Whom all things were made without toil? Do you wish to know Him weak? The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us (John 1:1, 3, 14). The strength of Christ created you, the weakness of Christ re-created you. The strength of Christ brought it about that what was not should be; the weakness of Christ brought it about that what was should not perish. He founded us by His strength, He sought us by His weakness.

7. He therefore, being weak, nourishes the weak, as a hen her chicks; for He made Himself like her: How often have I willed, He says to Jerusalem, to gather your children under My wings, as a hen her chicks, and you would not (Matt. 23:37)? Now you see, brothers, how a hen is made weak together with her chicks. No other bird is recognized as being a mother. We see sparrows of every kind building nests before our eyes; swallows, storks, doves we see daily building nests; and unless we see them in their nests, we do not recognize that they are parents. But the hen is so made weak in her chicks that, even if the chicks themselves are not following, though you do not see the young,

you still recognize the mother. So she becomes, with wings lowered, her feathers bristling, her voice hoarse, lowered and downcast in all her limbs, so that, as I said, even if you do not see the chicks, you still understand that she is a mother. Thus, then, Jesus was weak, wearied from the journey. His journey is the flesh taken on for us. For how does He have a journey Who is everywhere, Who is absent nowhere? Where does He go, or from where does He go, except that He would not come to us unless He took on the form of visible flesh? Since, therefore, He deigned to come to us in such a way that He appeared in the form of a servant, having taken on flesh, that very taking on of flesh is His journey. Therefore what else is "wearied from the journey" than wearied in the flesh? Jesus is weak in the flesh: but do not you be weak; in His weakness be you strong, because what is weak of God is stronger than men (1 Cor. 1:25).

8. Under this image of things Adam, who was the form of the one to come (Rom. 5:14), offered us a great token of the sacrament; or rather God offered it in him. For he also, while sleeping, was found worthy to receive a wife, and from his rib a wife was made for him (Gen. 2:21): because from Christ sleeping on the cross the Church was to come from His side, that is, from the side of the one sleeping; since also from the side of Him hanging on the cross, struck by the lance (John 19:34), the Sacraments of the Church flowed forth. But why did I wish to say this, brothers? Because the weakness of Christ makes us strong. A great image went before there. God could have taken flesh from the man from which to make the woman, and it seems as if that could have been more fitting. For the weaker sex was being made, and weakness ought rather to have been made from flesh than from bone: for bones are the firmer parts in the flesh. He did not take flesh from which to make the woman; but He took a bone, and with the bone taken out the woman was formed, and in the place of the bone flesh was filled in. He could have given back bone for bone; He could, to make the woman, have taken not a rib but flesh. What, then, did He signify? The woman was made in the rib as if strong: Adam was made in the flesh as if weak. It is Christ and the Church: His weakness is our strength.

9. Why, then, at the sixth hour? Because in the sixth age of the world. Reckon in the Gospel as one hour one age, from Adam up to Noah; the second from Noah up to Abraham; the third from Abraham up to David; the fourth from David up to the deportation to Babylon; the fifth from the deportation to Babylon up to the baptism of John: from then the sixth is being passed. Why do you wonder? Jesus came, and by humbling Himself He came to the well. He came wearied, because He bore weak flesh. At the sixth hour, because in the sixth age of the world. To the well, because to the depth of this our dwelling. Whence it is said in the Psalms, Out of the depths I have cried to Thee, Lord (Ps. 129:1). He sat down, as I said, because He was humbled.

10. And a woman came. The form of the Church, not yet justified, but now to be justified; for this is what the discourse is about. She came unknowing, she found Him, and He deals with her. Let us see what, let us see why: A woman came from Samaria to draw water. The Samaritans did not belong to the nation of the Jews: for they were foreigners, although they inhabited neighbouring

lands. It is a long matter to unravel the origin of the Samaritans, lest many things detain us and we fail to say what is necessary: it suffices, then, that we count the Samaritans among foreigners. And lest you think that I have said this more boldly than truly, hear the Lord Jesus Himself, what He said about that Samaritan, one of the ten lepers whom He had cleansed, who alone returned to give thanks: Were not ten cleansed? and where are the nine? there was no other to give glory to God except this foreigner (Luke 17:17–18). It belongs to the image of the matter that this woman, who bore the type of the Church, came from foreigners: for the Church was to come from the Gentiles, foreign to the race of the Jews. Let us, then, hear ourselves in her, and in her let us recognize ourselves, and in her let us give thanks to God for ourselves. For she was a figure, not the truth; because she too first set forth the figure, and then became the truth. For she believed in Him Who was holding forth a figure to us from her. She came, then, to draw water. She had simply come to draw water, as men or women are accustomed to do.

11. « Jesus says to her: Give Me to drink. For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. So that Samaritan woman says to Him: How is it that you, being a Jew, ask to drink from me, who am a Samaritan woman? For Jews do not associate with Samaritans. » You see that they are foreigners: the Jews did not use their vessels at all. And because the woman was carrying with her a vessel with which to draw water, she wondered at this, that a Jew was asking to drink from her, which the Jews were not accustomed to do. But He Who was asking to drink was thirsting for the faith of the woman herself.

12. Then hear Who it is that asks to drink. 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 of Him, and He would have given you living water. He asks to drink, and He promises to give drink. He is in need as one about to receive, and He abounds as one about to satisfy. If you knew, He says, the gift of God. The gift of God is the Holy Spirit. But He still speaks to the woman covertly, and little by little enters into her heart. Perhaps He is already teaching. For what is sweeter and kinder than this exhortation? If you knew the gift of God, and knew Who it is that says to you, Give Me to drink, you would perhaps ask, and He would give you living water: thus far He holds her in suspense. Living water is commonly the name for that which comes out of a spring. For that which is collected from rain into pools or cisterns is not called living water. And if it has flowed from a spring, and has stood collected in some place, and has not let into itself that from which it was flowing, but, its course being interrupted, has been, as it were, separated from the channel of the spring, it is not called living water: but that water is called living which is taken up as it flows. Such water was in that spring. What, then, was He promising that He was asking for?

13. Yet the woman, held in suspense, says: Sir, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. See how she understood living water, namely the water that was in that spring. You wish to give me living water, and I carry something to draw with, and you do not carry it. The living water is here: how are you going to give it to me? Understanding something else, and thinking in a carnal way, she in a manner knocks, so that the Master may open what

is shut. She knocked out of ignorance, not out of eagerness; still to be pitied, not yet to be instructed.

14. The Lord says something more plainly about that living water. For the woman had said, Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, and his sons, and his cattle? (John 4:12). You cannot give me of this living water, since you have no vessel to draw with: perhaps you are promising another spring? Can you be better than our father, who dug this well, and himself made use of it with his own? Let the Lord, then, say what He called living water. "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 not thirst for ever; but the water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water leaping up into eternal life" (John 4:13–14). The Lord has spoken more openly, It will become in him a spring of water leaping up into eternal life. Whoever drinks of this water will not thirst for ever. What could be plainer than that He was promising not visible water but invisible? What could be plainer than that He was speaking not carnally but spiritually?

15. Yet that woman still savours of the flesh: she was delighted at not thirsting, and she thought this had been promised her by the Lord according to the flesh. This indeed will come to pass, but in the resurrection of the dead. She wanted it already. For God had once granted to His servant Elijah that for forty days he should neither hunger nor thirst (1 Kgs. 19:8). He Who could grant this for forty days, could He not grant it for ever? She sighed for it, however, not wishing to be in want, not wishing to toil. To come constantly to that spring, to be loaded with a burden by which her want might be supplied; and when what she had drawn was used up, she was compelled to come back again: and this toil was hers every day, because that want was replenished, not extinguished. Delighted, therefore, at such a gift, she asks Him to give her living water.

16. Nevertheless let us not pass over the fact that the Lord was promising something spiritual. What does it mean, Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again? It is true with regard to this water; and it is true with regard to what that water signified. For the water in the well is the pleasure of the world in its dark depth: from there men draw it with the water-pot of their desires. For they stoop forward and let down desire, so as to reach the pleasure drawn from the depth; and they enjoy the pleasure, desire having gone before and been sent down first. For whoever has not first sent down desire cannot reach pleasure. Take, then, the water-pot as desire, and the water from the depth as pleasure: when anyone has reached the pleasure of this world, be it food, be it drink, be it the bath, be it the show, be it sexual intercourse, will he not thirst again? Therefore, whoever drinks of this water, He says, will thirst again: but if he receives water from Me, he will not thirst for ever. We shall be filled, it says, with the good things of Thy house (Ps. 64:5). Of what water, then, is He going to give, if not of that of which it is said, With Thee is the spring of life? For how shall they thirst who will be inebriated with the abundance of Thy house (Ps. 35:10, 9)?

17. He was promising, then, a certain fattening and fullness of the Holy Spirit: and she did not yet understand; and not understanding, what did she answer? The woman says to Him:

Lord, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw. Need was driving her to toil, and weakness was refusing the toil. Would that she heard, Come to Me, all you who toil and are burdened, and I will refresh you (Matt. 11:28). For this is what Jesus was saying to her, that she might no longer toil; but she did not yet understand.

18. At length, wishing that she should understand, Jesus says to her: Go, call your husband, and come here. What is, Call your husband? Was He wishing to give her that water through her husband? Or, because she did not understand, was He wishing to teach her through her husband? Perhaps as the Apostle says concerning women, But if they wish to learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home? But there it is said, let them ask their husbands at home, where Jesus is not present to teach; indeed it is said to women whom the Apostle was forbidding to speak in the Church (1 Cor. 14:35, 34). But when the Lord Himself was present, and He, present, was speaking to her, present? what need was there that He should speak to her through her husband? Was He speaking through her husband to Mary as she sat at His feet and received His word, when Martha, very much occupied about much serving, was even murmuring at her sister's happiness (Luke 10:39, 40)? Therefore, my brothers, let us hear and understand what the Lord says to the woman, Call your husband. For perhaps He says to our soul too, Call your husband. Let us inquire also about the husband of the soul. Why is not Jesus Himself already the true husband of the soul? Let understanding be present, since what we are about to say is scarcely grasped except by the attentive: let understanding therefore be present, that it may be grasped, and understanding itself will perhaps be the husband of the soul.

19. Jesus therefore, seeing that the woman did not understand, and wishing her to understand, says, Call your husband. For the reason you do not know what I am saying is that your understanding is not present: I speak according to the spirit, you hear according to the flesh. The things I speak pertain neither to the pleasure of the ears, nor to the eyes, nor to the smell, nor to the taste, nor to the touch; they are grasped by the mind alone, they are drawn up by the understanding alone: that understanding is not present in you; how do you grasp what I am saying? Call your husband, make your understanding present. For what is it to you to have a soul? It is no great thing, for even a beast has one. In what are you better? Because you have understanding, which a beast does not have. What then is, Call your husband? You do not grasp Me, you do not understand Me: I speak to you of the gift of God, but you are thinking of the flesh; you do not wish to thirst according to the flesh, I am addressing the spirit: your understanding is absent; Call your husband. Do not be like the horse and the mule, which have no understanding (Ps. 31:9). Therefore, my brothers, to have a soul and not to have understanding, that is, not to use it nor to live according to it, is a beastly life. For there is in us something beastly by which we live in the flesh, but it must be ruled by the understanding. For the understanding rules from above the motions of the soul, which moves itself according to the flesh and desires to flow away immoderately into carnal delights. Which ought to be called the husband? that which rules, or that which is ruled? Without doubt, when life is well ordered, the understanding rules the soul, belonging to the soul itself. For the understanding is not something other than the soul, but something of the soul: just as the eye is not something other than the flesh, but something of the flesh. But though the eye is something of the flesh,

yet it alone enjoys the light: the other fleshly members can be bathed in light, but they cannot perceive the light; the eye alone is both bathed in it and enjoys it. So in our soul there is something which is called the understanding. This very thing of the soul which is called understanding and mind is illuminated by a higher light. Now that higher light, by which the human mind is illuminated, is God; for He was the true light, which illuminates every man coming into this world (John 1:9). Such a light was Christ, such a light was speaking with the woman: and she was not present with her understanding, by which she might be illuminated by that light, and not only be bathed in it, but also enjoy it. Therefore the Lord, as if He were saying, "I wish to enlighten, and there is no one [to enlighten]", says, Call your husband: bring your understanding to bear, through which you may be taught, by which you may be governed. So consider the soul, apart from the understanding, as the woman, and the having of understanding as the husband. But this husband does not govern his wife well unless he is himself governed by one higher. For the head of the woman is the man, but the head of the man is Christ (1 Cor. 11:3). The Head of the man was speaking with the woman, and the man was not present. And it is as if the Lord were saying, "Bring your head, so that he may receive his Head": therefore, call your husband, and come here; that is, be present, be at hand: for you are as if absent, while you do not understand the voice of the Truth that is present; be present, but not alone; be present with your husband.

20. And still she, that husband not yet having been called, does not understand, still savours of the flesh; for the husband is absent: I have no husband, she says. And the Lord follows on, and speaks mysteries. You may understand that this woman really had no husband at that time; but she was living with some man or other who was not her lawful husband, an adulterer rather than a husband. And the Lord to her: You have said well, I have no husband. Why then did You say, Call your husband? And hear that the Lord knew well that she had no husband: He says to her, etc. Lest perhaps the woman should think that the Lord had said, You have said well, I have no husband, because He had learned this from the woman, and not because He Himself had known it by His divinity, hear something which you have not said: For you have had five husbands, and he whom you have is not your husband; this you have said truly.

21. Again it compels us to search out something more subtly concerning these five husbands. For many have understood, not indeed absurdly, nor altogether improbably, the five husbands of this woman to be the five books of Moses. For the Samaritans used them, and were under the same Law: for from it they also had circumcision. But since what follows straitens us, And he whom you now have is not your husband, it seems to me that we can more easily take the five former husbands of the soul to be the five senses of the body. For when anyone is born, before he is able to use mind and reason, he is governed only by the senses of the flesh. The soul in a little child seeks or shuns what is heard, what is seen, what smells, what tastes, what is felt by touch. It seeks whatever soothes, it shuns whatever offends these five senses. For pleasure soothes these five senses, pain offends them. According to these five senses, as according to five husbands,

the soul lives first; because it is ruled by these. But why are they called husbands? Because they are lawful. For they were made by God, and given by God to the soul. Still weak is the soul that is ruled by these five senses and acts under these five husbands: but when it has come to the years of putting forth reason, if the best discipline and the teaching of wisdom have taken it up, no one succeeds those five husbands in ruling it except the true, lawful husband, better than they, one who rules better, and who rules for eternity, cultivates for eternity, instructs for eternity. For these five senses do not rule us for eternity, but towards these temporal things, either to be sought or to be fled. But when understanding imbued with wisdom has begun to rule the soul, it knows now not only to flee a pit and to walk on level ground, which the eyes show to the weak soul; nor only to hear melodious voices with pleasure and to repel discordant ones; or to be delighted by pleasant odours and to reject stenches; or to be captivated by sweetness and offended by bitterness; or to be soothed by soft things and hurt by rough ones. For all these things are necessary to the weak soul. What governance, then, is applied through that understanding? It is not going to distinguish white and black, but just and unjust, good and evil, useful and useless, chastity and unchastity, so that it may love the one and shun the other; charity and hatred, so that it may be in the one and not be in the other.

22. This husband had not succeeded those five husbands in this woman. For where he does not succeed, error holds sway. For when the soul has begun to be capable of reason, it is ruled either by a wise mind or by error: but error does not rule, it destroys. After those five senses, then, that woman was still wandering, and error was tossing her about. Now this error was not a lawful husband, but an adulterer: therefore the Lord says to her, You have said well, That I have no husband. For you have had five husbands: the five senses of the flesh first ruled you; you came to the age of using reason, and you did not attain to wisdom, but fell into error. Therefore after those five husbands, this one whom you have is not your husband. And what was he, if he was not a husband, but an adulterer? Call, then, not the adulterer, but your husband; so that you may grasp Me by understanding, and not, by error, think something false about Me. For the woman was still in error, as she was thinking of that water, when the Lord was already speaking of the Holy Spirit. Why was she in error, except because she had an adulterer, not a husband? Take away from here, then, this adulterer who corrupts you, and go, call your husband. Call, and come, so that you may understand Me.

23. The woman says to Him: Lord, I see that You are a prophet. The husband has begun to come; he has not yet fully come. She thought the Lord a prophet. He was indeed also a prophet: for He says of Himself, A prophet is not without honour except in his own country (Luke 4:24). Again it was said of Him to Moses, I will raise up for them a prophet from among their brethren, like you (Deut. 18:18). Like, that is, as to the form of the flesh, not as to the eminence of majesty. Therefore we find the Lord Jesus called a prophet. Accordingly this woman is now not much in error. I see, she says, that You are a prophet. She begins to call the husband, to shut out the adulterer: I see that You are a prophet. And she begins to ask about what usually troubles her. For there had been a dispute between the Samaritans and the Jews, because the Jews

worshipped God in the temple built by Solomon; the Samaritans, placed far from there, did not worship in it. Therefore the Jews boasted that they were better, because they worshipped God in the temple. For the Jews do not associate with the Samaritans: because they said to them, How is it that you boast, and therefore declare yourselves better than us, because you have a temple which we do not have? Did our fathers, who pleased God, worship in that temple? Did they not worship on this mountain, where we are? We therefore do better, they say, to petition God on this mountain, where our fathers petitioned. Both sides disputed in ignorance, because they did not have the husband: the one party was puffed up against the other for the temple, the other for the mountain.

24. Yet what does the Lord now teach the woman, as one whose husband has begun to be present? The woman says to Him: Lord, I see that You are a prophet. Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, and you say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship. Jesus says to her: Woman, believe Me. For the Church will come, as is said in the Song of Songs, she will come and will pass through from the beginning of faith (Song 4:8, according to the Septuagint). She will come in order to pass through, and she cannot pass through except from the beginning of faith. Fittingly, now that her husband is present, she hears, Woman, believe Me. For now there is in you that which may believe, because your husband is present. You began to be present with understanding when you called Me a prophet. Woman, believe Me: for unless you believe, you will not understand (Isa. 7:9, according to the Septuagint). Therefore, Woman, believe Me, for the hour will come 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 will come. When? And it is now. What hour, then? When the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; not on this mountain, not in the temple, but in spirit and truth. For the Father too seeks such to worship Him. Why does the Father seek such to worship Him, not on a mountain, not in a temple, but in spirit and truth? God is spirit. If God were a body, He would have to be worshipped on a mountain, because a mountain is bodily; He would have to be worshipped in a temple, because a temple is bodily. God is spirit; and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.

25. We have heard, and it is plain; we had gone outside, we have been sent within. O if I could find, you were saying, some high and solitary mountain! for I believe that God is on high, He hears me more from on high. Because you are on a mountain, do you think yourself near to God, and that you are quickly heard, as one crying out from close by? He dwells in the heights, but He regards lowly things. The Lord is near. To whom? To the high, perhaps? To those who have crushed their heart (Ps. 33:19). It is a wonderful thing: He both dwells in the heights and draws near to the lowly: He regards lowly things, but lofty things He knows from afar (Ps. 137:6); He sees the proud from afar, He draws the less near to them the higher they seem to themselves. Were you seeking a mountain, then? Come down, that you may reach Him. But do you wish to ascend? Ascend: do not seek a mountain. Ascents, it says, in his heart (this the Psalm says), in the valley of weeping (Ps. 83:6–7). A valley has lowliness. Therefore do everything within. And if perhaps you seek some high place,

some holy place, within show yourself a temple for God. For the temple of God is holy, which you are (1 Cor. 3:17). Do you wish to pray in a temple? Pray within yourself. But first be a temple of God, because He in His temple will hear the one who prays.

26. The hour therefore is coming, and now is, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. We worship what we know, you worship what you do not know; since salvation is from the Jews. He granted much to the Jews: but do not understand by this those reprobate ones. Take that wall to which another is joined, so that, reconciled in the corner-stone, which is Christ, they may be coupled together. For one wall is from the Jews, one from the Gentiles: these walls are far from each other, but only until they are joined in the corner. Now the aliens were strangers, and foreigners to the covenants of God (Eph. 2:12–22). In accordance with this, then, it was said, We worship what we know. It was said indeed in the person of the Jews, but not of all the Jews, not of the reprobate Jews: but of such as the Apostles were, such as the Prophets were, such as were all those saints who sold all their goods and laid the prices of their things at the feet of the Apostles (Acts 4:34–35). For God has not cast away His people whom He foreknew (Rom. 11:2).

27. That woman heard this, and added something. Long since she had called Him a prophet; she saw that He with whom she was speaking said such things as would now be more than belongs to a prophet; and see what she answered: The woman says to Him, I know that the Messiah will come, who is called Christ: when therefore He has come, He will show us all things. What is this? Now, she says, the Jews contend about the temple, and we contend about the mountain: when He comes, He will both spurn the mountain and overturn the temple; He will teach us all things, so that we may know how to worship in spirit and truth. She knew who could teach her, but she did not yet recognize Him who was already teaching her. Now therefore she was worthy that He should be manifested to her. Now Messiah means anointed; anointed in Greek is Christus; in Hebrew it is Messias: whence also in Punic, anoint is said Messe. For these languages are related and neighbouring, Hebrew, Punic and Syriac.

28. So the woman says to Him, I know that the Messiah will come, who is called Christ: when therefore He has come, He will announce all things to us. Jesus says to her: I am He who speak with you. She has called her husband: her husband has become the head of the woman, Christ has become the head of the man (1 Cor. 11:3). Now the woman is set in order in faith, and is ruled so as to live well. After she had heard this, I am He who speak with you, what further could she say, when Christ the Lord had willed to manifest Himself to the woman, to whom He had said, Believe Me?

29. And at once His disciples came, and they marvelled that He was speaking with a woman. That He who had come to seek what had perished was seeking the lost woman, this is what they marvelled at. For they marvelled at a good thing; they did not suspect an evil one. Yet no one said: What do you seek, or why do you speak with her?

30. The woman therefore left her water-jar. Having heard, I am He who speak with you, and having received Christ the Lord into her heart, what should she do but now leave her water-jar and run to preach the gospel? She cast away desire, and

hastened to announce the truth. Let those who wish to evangelize learn: let them throw down their water-jar at the well. Remember what I said above about the water-jar: it was a vessel from which water was drawn, and it is called by a Greek name, hydria, because in Greek water is called hydor; as if one were to say "water-vessel". So she threw down the water-jar, which was now no longer of use but a burden: for she eagerly desired to be filled with that water. In order to proclaim Christ, having cast off the burden, she ran to the city and says to those men: Come and see a man who told me all things whatsoever I have done. Step by step, lest they should be angered, as it were, and become indignant, and persecute her. Come and see a man who told me all things whatsoever I have done: can He be the Christ? They went out of the city and were coming to Him.

31. And meanwhile the disciples were asking Him, saying: Rabbi, eat. For they had gone to buy food and had come back. But He said: I have food to eat which you do not know. So the disciples were saying to one another: Has anyone brought Him something to eat? What wonder if that woman did not understand the water? See, the disciples do not yet understand the food. But He heard their thoughts, and now instructs them as a master; not in a roundabout way, as with her whose husband He was still asking after, but now openly: My food, He says, is to do the will of Him who sent Me. So the drink too was this very thing in that woman, that He might do the will of Him who had sent Him. That is why He said, I thirst, give Me to drink; namely, that He might work faith in her, and drink her faith, and transfer her into His body: for His body is the Church. This, then, He says, is My food, to do the will of Him who sent Me.

32. Do you not say that there are still four months, and the harvest comes? He was burning for the work, and was arranging to send labourers. You count four months until the harvest; I show you another harvest, white and ready. See, I say to you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are already white for harvest. So He is about to send reapers. For in this is the saying true, that one is he who reaps, another he who sows: so that he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. I have sent you to reap what you have not laboured for: others have laboured, and you have entered into their labour. What then? Did He send reapers, not sowers? Where did He send reapers? Where others had already laboured. For where labour had already been done, sowing had surely been done; and what had been sown had already become ripe, and was calling for the sickle and the threshing. Where, then, were the reapers to be sent? Where the Prophets had already preached; for they were the sowers. For if they were not the sowers, from where had it come to that woman to say, I know that the Messiah is coming? That woman was already ripe fruit, and the harvests were white, and were looking for the sickle. I have sent you, then: where? To reap what you have not sown: others have sown, and you have entered into their labours. Who laboured? Abraham himself, Isaac, and Jacob. Read their labours: in all their labours there is prophecy of Christ; and therefore they were sowers. Moses and the other Patriarchs and all the Prophets, how much did they endure in that cold when they were sowing? Therefore already in Judaea