John 4:40Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

There is nothing worse than envy and hatred. There is nothing more disastrous than vainglory. These usually destroy countless blessings. The Jews, who had greater knowledge than the Samaritans and had been trained by the prophets, here proved inferior to the Samaritans.

The Samaritans believed on the testimony of one woman. Without seeing any miracle, they came to ask Christ to remain with them. But the Jews, though they had seen miracles, not only did not keep Him with them, but even drove Him away.

They did everything to remove Him completely from their land. Although His coming was properly for them, they persecuted Him, while the Samaritans asked Him to remain with them.

Therefore, proving their faith by deeds, they asked Him to remain with them altogether. For “to stay” means precisely to settle completely. But He does not consent to this. He spends only two days with them, and through His teaching an even greater number of them believed. Although the Evangelist does not recount in detail the wondrous sayings of His teaching, he lets us understand the power of His divine teaching from the outcome. For the Evangelists omit many great deeds, since they write not from ambition, but for the truth.

He sets forth in simple words what happened. Again He presents, as it were, another proof that Israel was rightly to be torn away from hope, while the foreigners were to pass over to it.

For the Jews insult Jesus, who works miracles in many forms and shines with God-befitting glory, by harsh and intolerable suspicions. They are shown to rage shamelessly to such a degree that they make the Author of all their welfare an exile and try to remove Him from their city.

But the Samaritans, persuaded by the words of one woman, decide that they must hasten to Him. When they came, they earnestly begged Him to enter their city and impart to them the saving teaching.

Christ willingly agrees to both, knowing that the grace would not be fruitless, for "many believed because of His word."

From this also let the lover of God and the reverent man learn that Christ withdraws from those who insult Him. He dwells with those who gladden Him by their obedience and good faith.

This must be mentioned very briefly, for the reading has come to an end. First the woman brought news of Him, and many Samaritans believed the woman's testimony. They asked Him to stay with them, and He remained there for two days.

Many believed, and when they had believed, they said to the woman: "We no longer believe because of your words, for we ourselves have heard and know that He is truly the Savior of the world." First they believed on the basis of report, and then through His presence.

So it happens today with those who are outside the Church and are not yet Christians. Christ is revealed to them through their Christian friends, as through that woman. That is, through the Church that proclaims, they come to Christ and acquire faith through report.

Yet they reasoned prudently and said: if He were the Christ, He would show His power not only in this one matter, but also in many others.

The Samaritans, having gone out from Samaria, came to the city of Sychar. Approaching Jesus Christ, they asked Him to remain with them. Jesus, the Lover of mankind, remained there with them for two days. From this it is clear how great were the faith and zeal of the Samaritans, and also the extreme love of mankind of the Lord Jesus. They ask earnestly. He condescends in His love for mankind to fulfill their request.

During this conversation of Jesus with the disciples, the Samaritans approached Him. Many of them believed in Jesus Christ because of the woman's word, but an even greater number believed because of His word. This happened when they invited Him into their city and heard His teaching.

Jesus stayed in Shechem, or Sychar, for two days. The Evangelist does not say that Jesus performed any miracle there. Therefore one must suppose that the Samaritans did not demand signs from Him, or proofs of His divine authority, as the Jews demanded.

This circumstance places the Samaritans far above the Jews in receptivity to the truth. From the later narratives of the Evangelists we also know that when Jesus Christ healed ten lepers, only one thanked Him, and he was a Samaritan.

Likewise, it was again a Samaritan who cared for the man robbed and wounded by thieves. The Jews, in the persons of their highest representatives, treated his misfortune with indifference.

Personal conversation with Christ convinced many of the Samaritans far more deeply than the story of the woman to whom He first revealed Himself. It convinced them that He was indeed the long-awaited Savior of the world, the Christ.

Mercifully condescending to their request that He stay with them, Jesus Christ remained there two days with His disciples. This two-day teaching was certainly the chief cause of many later conversions to Christ among them (Acts 8:5).

For His part, Christ more than once rewarded this faith of the Samaritans, presenting them as more virtuous than the Jews hardened in their narrow legalism. Thus, in the immortal parable about love for one's neighbor, He set forth precisely a Samaritan as its example.

The faith of these many was expressed in their asking the Lord to stay with them. They did so, of course, in order to hear His teaching, to draw still greater strengthening for their faith from their very intercourse with Him, and to learn His teaching more fully.

39-42. The sincerity and self-denial with which the Samaritan woman spoke to the Shechemites about Jesus drew them to Him. They earnestly asked Jesus to remain with them, and He stayed with them two days. In that short time the number of believers among them greatly increased.

"We ourselves have heard and know that He is truly the Savior of the world, the Christ," they said.

It is astonishing how differently the Shechemites treated Jesus from the Jews. The Savior proclaims the heavenly kingdom to the Jews, and they thrust Him away from themselves. He almost seemed unwilling to go to the Samaritans, yet they themselves begged Him to come to them.

The former had been nourished by the fullness of the ancient revelation. The Samaritans were left only with the Pentateuch.

"The former remain incorrigible even after all the miracles. These, without miracles, showed great faith in Him. Thus in everything a well-disposed soul is needed. If truth touches such a soul, it easily takes possession of it" (Chrysostom).

Verses 39-42 depict those fields, white and ripe for harvest, of which the Lord spoke. At first the crowd of Samaritans who came from the city "because of the woman's word" believed, on the basis of the Samaritan woman's story, that a great prophet had appeared within their borders.

Moved by spiritual thirst, the inhabitants of Sychar asked the Lord to remain with them for a time. They wished to hear words of grace, able to illumine their hearts with joy and reveal to them the mysteries of the kingdom of God.

Then, hearing from the lips of the divine Teacher words of love, so sharply different from the narrow and malicious teaching of the Jews, they understood with their simple childlike hearts that these words were truly the words of God.