John 4:18Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Our nature was on this mountain, that is, in the lofty mind. But because it offended God, it was led away into captivity.

The devil, having taken us captive, led the holy seed, that is, every divine thought, into Babylon, that is, into the confusion of this world.

In place of holy thoughts he settled coarse thoughts. The lions devoured the good thoughts reigning in us until they persuaded them to accept the sayings of God.

But they did not accept them wholly. For once malice had settled on our mountain, that is, in the mind, it accepted the books of Moses, yet did not become wholly good, and was still under a curse.

Therefore Jesus completed the journey. That is, He passed through the many paths of the divine economy and the many ways directed toward our salvation.

He improved our life now by threats, now by the blows of calamities, now by acts of beneficence, and now by promises of blessings. Striving to correct us by such means, He grew weary.

But He also found another divine economy on which, as sufficient, He sat and rested. What was this? The font of baptism, by which He benefited our nature as though it were a Samaritan woman.

This font of baptism can rightly be called Jacob's well, that is, the well of the supplanter, because in this well everyone tramples upon the devil.

In it the Lord also crushed the head of the dragon, whom He gave as food to the Ethiopian peoples (Ps 74:14).

For no one else delights in and feeds upon this dragon except people darkened and blackened in soul, who have no share in the divine light.

Five husbands entered into union with this nature of ours, namely the different laws given to it by God: the law in Paradise, the law under Noah, the law under Abraham, the law under Moses, and the law through the prophets.

For Noah received a certain commandment after the flood (Gen 9:1-17), and Abraham received the commandment concerning circumcision (Gen 17:1-14).

Having been joined to these five laws, our nature later received the sixth law of the New Testament, which it did not have as a husband and to which it had not yet been united.

Another may understand the sixth law, which our nature did not have as a husband, as the law of idolatry. For this law was not given to it by God as a husband.

Rather, our nature mingled with it as an adulteress. Therefore the prophet also says, “They committed fornication with wood” (Jer 2:20).

Again he says, “She committed fornication behind every tree” (Ezek 16), plainly speaking of their honoring carved images and trees.

For our nature reached such madness that it offered sacrifices even to beautiful trees, to cypresses, planes, and the like, because of their beauty.

Therefore, when man loved this sixth adulterer and fell into idolatry, the Lord came and freed us from him. For this reason He says, “the one whom you now have.”

For by the time of Christ's coming, even the Jewish sages had indeed turned toward paganism. This is shown by the heresy of the Pharisees, who believed in fate and astrology.

The Samaritan woman is also every soul that has irrationally subjected itself to the five senses, and then has accepted false teachings as a sixth adulterer.

Jesus benefits such a soul either by baptism or by the fountain of tears. Tears too may be called Jacob's well, that is, the well of our mind, which tramples down malice.

The reason itself drinks this water, as do its children, the thoughts, and its cattle, the irrational parts of the soul, anger and desire.

For tears serve as refreshment for the mind, for the thoughts, and for the other powers of the soul.

We, however, have received the custom of excommunicating those in a third marriage for five years, not from a rule, but by following our predecessors.

Yet the entrance to the church should not be entirely closed to them. Rather, they should be counted worthy to hear the Scriptures for two or three years.

After this they should be admitted to standing, but kept back from communion in the holy things. Thus, when they show some fruit of repentance, they are restored to the place of communion.

Likewise, the woman with the flow of blood is nature, or the soul, pouring out in passionate attachment to matter the power given to it for the birth of righteous deeds and words.

The Syrophoenician woman is this same nature, or the soul of an individual person, which has, as a daughter, a thought painfully torn by love for matter in the despair of an epileptic seizure.

Likewise, Jairus's daughter is nature, or the soul, dependent on the law, yet wholly dead because of failure to fulfill its commandments and inactivity in carrying out the divine ordinances.

The bent woman is nature, or the soul, which through the deceptions of the devil bends the whole power of spiritual action toward matter.

The Samaritan woman, like these women just mentioned, represents the nature or soul of each person. Lacking the prophetic charism, it dwells, as with husbands, with all the laws given to nature.

Of these, five are already dead. The sixth, though living, was not the husband of nature or of the soul, since it does not beget from her the righteousness that is the pledge of full salvation.

The first law possessed by nature was the law given in paradise. The second was the law after paradise. The third was the law given to Noah at the flood.

The fourth was the law of circumcision given to Abraham. The fifth was the law of the sacrifice of Isaac. Having received these, nature rejected them all, and they perished in barrenness with respect to works of virtue.

Having the sixth law, given through Moses, nature was as though it did not have it. This was either because it did not perform the righteous works prescribed by it, or because it was about to pass, as to a husband, to another law.

This other law is the Gospel. Unlike the preceding law, it was not given to human nature through this age. Rather, according to the divine economy, it was given for a better and more mysterious formation.

For this reason, I think, the Lord says to the Samaritan woman, "And the one whom you now have is not your husband."

For He saw that human nature was to pass over to the Gospel. Therefore He also spoke with her about the sixth hour.

At that hour the soul is especially illumined on every side by the rays of knowledge, because of the Word's coming to it. In those rays the shadow of the law disappears.

The Lord spoke with her as she stood with the Word by Jacob's well, that is, by the spring of contemplations relating to Holy Scripture. Let this be said for now concerning this.

These are the law given to Adam in paradise, and again given to him outside paradise; the law given to Noah at the time of the flood; the law given to Abraham concerning circumcision; and again the law given to him concerning the sacrifice of Isaac.

All these passed away and, as it were, died. Then she had the Mosaic law. This law was not her husband, either because she did not wholly love and keep it, or because it was given to the human nature of the Jews only until the Savior's coming.

From that time it was not her husband, since another was joined to her, namely the evangelical law.

Jacob's well is Holy Scripture. The water is the knowledge of it. Its depth is the depth of its thoughts. The vessel for drawing is the study of the divine word through writings.

The Lord did not have this vessel, because He Himself is the Word and Wisdom. He also communicated knowledge to His disciples not through writings, but as a spiritual gift.

Just as the woman with many husbands rejected a husband, so the Church rejected and left many gods as husbands, and after washing was betrothed to the one Master.

The woman had five husbands and did not have the sixth. So too the Church, having formerly left five impious husbands, receives the sixth to herself after washing as joy and forgiveness.

The Church, taken as a spouse from the nations, left the same number and hastens here to the cleansing well. She renounces the former things, as the Samaritan woman once did.

The woman did not conceal from Him who knows all things what had happened before. She said, "I do not have," but did not say, "I never had."

By this I mean: "Even if I had husbands before, I do not want those who were. Having been cleansed from the filth of my evil choices, I follow You without turning back, for You have caught me, that I may receive joy and forgiveness."

That is, a lawful husband, whose image in this case is Christ, the Bridegroom of the Church.

After the last of them she lived secretly, not according to the law. This, of course, she hid from everyone; cf. Chrysostom and Theophylact. Now she unexpectedly heard it from an unfamiliar Jew.

Therefore what especially struck the woman was that the Lord pointed to her relations after the fifth husband, which no one knew. Many could have known that she had successively been married to five husbands.

Yet one cannot fail to notice that in the Lord's expression, "You have had five husbands," reproach and censure are heard.

It may be supposed that the woman belonged successively to five husbands not because all of them died one after another, but also through her own fault, because of which they gave her a bill of divorce (Deut 24:1-2).

Her way of life after the fifth husband points to this. This is why she was so struck by the Lord's words that she considered Him a prophet who knows hearts.

Afterward she told her fellow citizens that He had told her all that she had done (Jn 4:28-29). From His words she concluded that He knew her whole life.