Therefore He says to her, as it were: Hear something of what you have not told. “For you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband. This you have said truly” (Jn 4:18).
Again He compels us to seek a hidden meaning in those five husbands. Many have thought, and this does not seem absurd but even somewhat plausible, that the woman's five husbands are the five books of Moses.
The Samaritans use them and are under the same Law, for from there they also have circumcision.
But what follows prevents us from accepting this view: “And the one whom you now have is not your husband.” Therefore it seems easier to me to understand the soul's five former husbands as the five bodily senses.
For every person, when he is born and before he is capable of using mind and reason, is governed by nothing other than the bodily senses.
In an infant, the soul desires or avoids something on the basis of what he hears, sees, smells, tastes, or touches. He desires what is pleasant and avoids what is unpleasant to these five senses.
What is pleasant to the five senses brings pleasure, while what is unpleasant causes pain. The soul first lives according to these five senses, as though with five husbands, for they direct it.
Why, then, are they called husbands? Because they are lawful. Of course, they were created by God and given by God to the soul.
A soul that is governed by these five senses and lives under the authority of these five husbands is still weak. But when it reaches the age in which reason appears within it, something else comes to govern the soul.
If reason is supported by noble studies and instruction in wisdom, then the true lawful husband comes in place of those five husbands. He surpasses the former ones, directs better, directs toward eternity, cherishes for eternity, and prepares for eternity.
Indeed, the five senses govern us not for the attainment of eternity, but so that we may desire or avoid temporal things.
When understanding, nourished by wisdom, begins to rule the soul, it knows more than simply to avoid pits and walk on level ground, which even the eyes of a weak soul see.
It does not merely delight in harmonious sounds and avoid discordant ones. It does not merely admire pleasant scents and turn away from stench.
It does not merely taste sweetness and recoil from bitterness. It does not merely receive pleasure from gentle touch and become irritated by roughness.
All these things are necessary for a weak soul. What guidance, then, is added by that understanding?
It helps not only to distinguish black from white, but also to distinguish true from false, good from bad, useful from useless, and chastity from fornication, so as to love one and avoid the other.
It distinguishes love from hatred, so as to remain in one and not fall into the other.
This husband had not yet come in that woman to replace the five husbands. Where he does not replace them, error reigns.
For when the soul becomes capable of receiving what is rational, it is governed either by wise reason or by error. But error does not truly govern. It destroys.
So that woman, after those five senses, was still wandering in error, and error was troubling her. But that error was not a lawful husband, but a lover.
Therefore the Lord said to her, “You have rightly said, ‘I have no husband.’ For you have had five husbands: first the five senses governed you.
“Now you have reached the age when you should use understanding. But you have not yet attained wisdom and have fallen into error. Behold, after those five husbands, the one whom you now have is not your husband.”
And who was he, if he was not a husband? Was he not a lover? So then, call not your lover, but your husband, so that through understanding, and not through error, you may receive Me.
You think something false about Me. For the woman was still in error, thinking about water while the Lord was speaking about the Holy Spirit.
Why was she in error, if not because she had a lover, not a husband? Cast out, then, this lover who corrupts you, and go, call your husband.
Call him and come here, so that you may understand Me.
THEOSIS