John 4:44Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

We do see this, of course, but one must not judge by rare cases. If some have been honored in their own country, they are honored much more in a foreign one, because familiarity makes people treat them with contempt.

For we have the habit of counting as nothing what is familiar, even if it is great and glorious. The Savior, of course, did not wish to seek honors from them as a man who loves glory and honor.

But He clearly knew that, for those who do not think it right to honor a teacher at all, the word of faith can no longer be sweet. Nor will it be well received by them.

Therefore He rightly passes by, not deeming it fitting to spend vain labors on those who would receive no benefit from them. Nor would He thereby hand over grace to those who despise it.

Certainly it would have been unjust for them to reach such crimes and do this without punishment. It is acknowledged and beyond dispute that those accustomed to despise Him, and contemptuously reject so wondrous a gift, must undergo the highest punishments.

If He so quickly left Samaria and came into Galilee, where He had been brought up, what do the words testify: "A prophet has no honor in his own country" (Jn 4:44)? It seems that He might rather have testified that a prophet had no honor in his own country if He had refused to go into Galilee and had remained in Samaria.

Pay attention, beloved. Here the Lord entrusts and sets before us a great mystery, about which I must speak. You have learned the question. Now learn the answer. Yet let us repeat the question, so that we may answer it more easily.

We are troubled by why the Evangelist said, "For Jesus Himself testified that a prophet has no honor in his own country." Since this perplexes us, we must return again to the preceding words, to discover why the Evangelist wished to say this.

We find the words he spoke before, when he narrated that after two days Jesus left Samaria for Galilee. Is it for this reason, O Evangelist, that you said Jesus testified, "A prophet has no honor in his own country"? Was it because, after two days, He left Samaria and hastened into Galilee?

On the contrary, it seems to me that one should rather think this: if Jesus had no honor in His own country, He should not have hastened there after leaving Samaria.

Yet if I am not mistaken, or rather, because this is true and I am not mistaken, the Evangelist understands what he says better than I do. He received the truth better than I did, having drunk it from the Lord's breast.

For John the Evangelist is the one who, of all the disciples, reclined on the Lord's breast (cf. Jn 13:25). Though the Lord had to love all, He nevertheless loved him more than the others (cf. Jn 21:20).

What then? Was he mistaken, while I think rightly? On the contrary, if I think piously, then I humbly listen to what he said, so that I may deserve to think as he thought.

Therefore hear, beloved, what I think about this question, allowing that you may think otherwise and even better than I. For we have one Teacher, and we are all fellow disciples in one school.

This, then, is my opinion. Consider whether my opinion is true, and whether it is close to the truth. He spent two days in Samaria, and the Samaritans believed in Him. He spent so many days in Galilee, and yet the Galileans did not believe in Him.

Turn back in your minds and recall yesterday's reading and sermon. He came to Samaria, where that woman first announced Him. While speaking with her at Jacob's well, He revealed great mysteries.

When the Samaritans saw and heard Him, they already believed in Him because of the woman's word. They believed still more firmly because of His own word, and many believed. So it is written (Jn 4:39-42).

After two days, in which the number of the two commandments is mystically conveyed, upon which the whole Law and the Prophets depend (cf. Mt 22:37-40), as you remember we mentioned yesterday, He goes into Galilee. He enters Cana of Galilee, where He turned water into wine (cf. Jn 4:46).

Luke likewise points to the effect of Jesus Christ's teaching. When Jesus returned to Galilee, the report of Him spread everywhere. Ordinarily He taught in the synagogues, and all glorified Him for His wisdom.

The Evangelist explains this power of Jesus Christ's word by saying that Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, which He had received at baptism. After indicating the place of Jesus Christ's activity, Matthew gives the substance of His initial preaching in Galilee (v. 17).

Mark does the same. According to their concordant testimony, Jesus Christ began His work, like John the Baptist, by a call to repentance and by the good tidings that the time appointed by God for the opening of the kingdom of God had been fulfilled.

At the same time Mark calls what Jesus Christ preached the Gospel of the kingdom of God. He adds that together with repentance the Lord called men to faith in this Gospel.

Jesus Christ stayed two days in Samaria among the inhabitants of Sychar, and then set out for Galilee. To understand the Evangelist's remark in verse 44, one must keep in mind that Nazareth is called the country of Jesus Christ.

It was the place of His upbringing and of His life until the age of thirty (Mt 13:54 and parallels). Consequently, Nazareth is contrasted with what the Evangelist calls Galilee.

Galilee was divided into upper and lower. In the proper sense, Galilee meant upper Galilee. Nazareth was in lower Galilee. Consequently, the Evangelist speaks here of Galilee in the narrower sense.

He says that Jesus Christ chose upper Galilee, not lower Galilee where Nazareth was, as the chief place of His activity. Why? Because He Himself later confirmed the truth of the popular saying: a prophet has no honor in his own country (Lk 4:24).

By contrast, the inhabitants of upper Galilee received Him sympathetically, with readiness to believe in Him, having seen all that He had done in Jerusalem at the feast.

He comes so as not to deprive of His divine teaching even those with whom He had lived so long, and who, it would seem, ought to have been the first to believe in Him.

He apparently delayed His coming to Nazareth intentionally for a long time. By this He gave the inhabitants of that city time and opportunity to learn what extraordinary miracles He had performed, what crowds of people constantly followed Him, and how many had already acknowledged in Him the long-awaited Messiah-Christ.

According to this interpretation, the meaning is as follows. The Lord went from Samaria into Galilee, but passed by His city, Nazareth, because He Himself said that a prophet has no honor in his own country. He went to other parts of Galilee, and the Galileans received Him, and so on.

Second, if one understands the country as all Galilee, as the context seems to require, and not only Nazareth, the passage is explained as follows. If, as the Lord testified, a prophet has no honor in his own country, then He had to acquire it outside His country, in a foreign place.

The Lord did this. In Judea, in Jerusalem, He gained for Himself the respect and faith, and therefore the honor, of the Galileans who had come there for the feast. This was what they refused the prophet at home, in His own country.

Thus He now returned with honor and glory from a foreign place to His own country. This is why the Galileans now received Him, for they had seen His miracles in Jerusalem and now rendered Him due honor.

Third, Blessed Theophylact explains it thus: "The Lord, after leaving Samaria, comes into Galilee. Then, lest someone begin to inquire and be perplexed as to why He did not always remain in Galilee, but came there at intervals, though He seemed to come from Galilee, he says: He did not live in Galilee because the Galileans did not show Him honor. For Jesus Himself testified that a prophet does not enjoy honor in his own country."

Whichever of these proposals we accept, they sufficiently resolve the difficult combination of ideas in the verses under consideration.

"He went into Galilee": see the note on Mt 2:22. "Jesus Himself testified," and so on: the Lord uttered similar testimonies later (see Mt 13:57; Mk 6:4; Lk 4:23), not at this time.

But the Evangelist, writing long after the events, recalls here this testimony of the Lord, uttered at another time, to explain why the Lord now went into Galilee. For the meaning of the testimony itself, see the note on Mt 13:57 and parallels.

"They received Him" means with the honor due to an extraordinary messenger of God. Such honor a prophet does not have in his own country, and such honor He had now acquired by His deeds in Jerusalem, where the Galileans who went to the feast had seen Him.

"Having seen everything," and so on, refers to the miracles John mentioned (Jn 2:23), and to all His actions and teaching there. "For they also had gone": on the journeys of the Jews to the feasts in Jerusalem, see the note on Lk 2:41 and following.

The Lord Jesus Christ chose Galilee as the chief place of His preaching activity, visiting Jerusalem only briefly, at the great feasts. He did this because the Galileans were not blinded by Pharisaic prejudices and responded more trustfully to the preaching of Christ.

Moreover, in Galilee many pagans lived among the Jews, including Phoenicians, Greeks, Arabs, Egyptians, and others. Thus the preaching of Jesus Christ here also influenced the pagan world.

Because of Galilee's commercial ties with world markets, this preaching spread far beyond the borders of Galilee.

The Evangelists Matthew, Mark, and Luke describe in detail the activity of Jesus Christ in Galilee, His teaching, and His miracles. Therefore the Evangelist John only briefly notes Jesus Christ's visits to Galilee, dwelling in detail on events that took place in Jerusalem.

The Galileans received the passing Jesus with respect. This was precisely because, when they were in Jerusalem for the feast of Pascha according to the commandment of the Law (Deut 16:16; Ex 34:29), they had witnessed the great works Jesus performed at Pascha (Jn 2:13).

There were also those Jews gathered in the synagogue of Capernaum and in other cities, to whom the Lord said these very words: "A prophet is not without honor except in his own country" (Mk 6:4). They opposed the Lord, as in Mt 9, Mk 3, and Lk 13.

In other words, this was that part of Galilee's population which treated the Lord with malice. It was permeated with the views and aims of Jerusalem and the Pharisees.

But besides them, poor and unlearned Galileans also went to the feast. Unlike the scribes, they are everywhere called the people. This very people received the Lord joyfully.

The Lord had compassion on this people, seeing that they were harassed and scattered, like "sheep without a shepherd" (Mt 9:36). And the Galilean people "rejoiced over all the glorious things done by the Lord" (Lk 13:17).

Therefore it seems that the Lord's words about a prophet having no honor in his own country refer not to Galilee and the Galileans, but to the Jews in the broad sense. Wherever they lived, they are called His own in John 1, and they "did not receive the Lord": "He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him."

Therefore the Lord's country, indicated in the saying, is in the broad sense Judea, Jerusalem, and Bethlehem, where the Lord was born (Mt 2:5). It is the people who had been God's people and rejected their God.

More especially, it is that spirit of Judaism which "rejected the will of God for the sake of its tradition" (Mt 15:3). This spirit was embodied in the educated class of the people, in the scribes and Pharisees, who were considered the people's guides.

Individual persons were saved by the Lord. But the Jews, as a nation and as an educated class, were rejected by the Lord.

Perhaps in a narrower sense the saying mentioned above should also refer to the family circle of Joseph's sons, who did not believe in the Lord. It should also refer to those synagogues where they asked, "Is this not the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, Joses, Judas, and Simon?" (Mk 6:3; Mt 13:55).

It also refers to the cities of Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum, which the Lord rebuked (Mt 11:21-23; Lk 10:13-15).

Yet the most terrible judgment was pronounced by the Lord upon Jerusalem (Mt 23:37; Lk 13:34). That city, where the Lord's temple stood, is the true spiritual country of the incarnate Son of God, whom "His own did not receive."

This country of the Lord who had received human flesh was ruled by men who had forgotten the will of God, the spirit of the Lord's law, and even the principles of all morality. They became a band of murderers, striving by every means to kill the Righteous One (Jn 5:16-18; 7:1, 19, 32; 8:40, 59; 10:31; 11:53).

These Jews are "the country in which a prophet has no honor." Therefore "their house is left desolate until they say, 'Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord'" (Lk 13:35).