John 5:2Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

We see that much in the Old Testament was also performed by means of water for this purpose. But let us return to our subject.

As I said, God first established purification by water for bodily impurities, and afterward for various diseases as well. Wishing to bring us nearer and nearer to the grace of baptism, He now heals not only impurities, but also diseases.

Indeed, images nearer to the truth, that is, nearer in time to the New Testament, were generally clearer than the more ancient types. This is true regarding baptism, the Passion, and other matters.

As the shield-bearers nearest the king shine more brightly than those standing far away from him, so it was also with the foreshadowings.

An angel descended and troubled the water, giving it healing power, in order to teach the Jews that the Lord of angels can all the more heal every disease of the soul.

Here, it was not simply the natural power of water that healed. Otherwise this would have happened always. Rather, it healed through the action of the angel.

So also with us, the water does not act by itself. When it receives the grace of the Spirit, then it cleanses all sins.

Around this pool lay a great multitude of the sick, the blind, the lame, and the withered, waiting for the movement of the water.

Then weakness hindered the one who wished to receive healing. Now everyone may approach freely.

It is not an angel who troubles the water, but the Lord of angels who accomplishes all this. No sick man can now say, “I have no man, and when I am coming, another steps down before me” (Jn 5:7).

Even if the whole world were to gather, grace is not diminished and its power is not exhausted. It remains always the same as before.

As the rays of the sun shine every day and are not exhausted, so even more the power of the Spirit is not diminished at all by the multitude of those who receive it.

This was done so that those who saw bodily diseases healed by water, and experienced this for a long time, might more readily believe that diseases of the soul can also be healed.

From Dan to Beersheba the ordinances were proclaimed through Moses, while Angels ministered on Mount Sinai on the day later established as holy Pentecost. For this reason the water of the pool was troubled at no other time, showing through this the descent of the holy Angels into it.

After the water was troubled, the one who was able would throw himself in, and he alone was healed. Whoever went in after him did so in vain.

What does this mean, if not that Christ came, the Only One, to the Jewish people? By doing great things and teaching what was profitable, He troubled sinners, troubling the water by His presence and provoking it even to His Passion.

Yet He troubled it secretly. “For if they had known, would they have crucified the Lord of glory?” (1 Cor 2:8).

Therefore to go down into the troubled water means to believe humbly in the Passion of the Lord.

See Rev 17:15; Augustine of Hippo, Tractate on the Gospel of John 6.11.

Some manuscripts of the Gospel of John have an addition in verse 4, which says that an angel descended and troubled the water in the pool. The oldest manuscripts do not contain this verse. Augustine’s text does not require knowledge of this addition, but very clearly presupposes it.

The inward parts are the foul-smelling passions that appeared later in the human race. True repentance turns away from them and allows the soul to return to its original condition.

This repentance has five covered porticoes, because there are five ways of repentance: abstinence from evils, the doing of good works, remembrance of one’s sins, confession, and constant contrition.

Those who are infirm through sins approach these five ways of repentance and find rest. The one who first plunges into the water of repentance returns to the health of soul.

He casts away from himself every disease-bearing passion, whether fornication, adultery, injustice, or remembrance of wrongs.

All sinful deeds, when thrown into the water of repentance, sink and perish in it.

The thoughts imprinted on the soul after sin has been committed in act are also erased by tears of repentance and confession.

The soul that is contrite, weeping, and repentant over the evil deeds it has committed hates the uncleanness of its shameful deeds and turns away from them completely.

Just as a dirty garment, thrown into water and carefully washed by the hands, becomes white again, so the soul that carries an unclean thought within itself becomes pure again through confession and contrition.

“By the Sheep Gate.” These are mentioned in the book of Nehemiah (Neh 3:1, 32; Neh 12:39). They were on the northeastern side of the city wall, on the road across the Kidron brook to Gethsemane and the Mount of Olives, now the gate of St. Stephen.

They were probably called Sheep Gates because sacrificial animals were driven through them to the temple. Or nearby there was a market where these sacrificial animals were sold and bought, and from there were driven to the temple for sacrifice.

“A pool” is a small reservoir in which people washed or bathed. Probably there was a spring here that formed this reservoir, from which the water again flowed down into the earth.

“In Hebrew, Bethesda,” which means house of mercy or of grace, that is, of God’s mercy. For the spring had healing water, which God in His mercy had given to His people.

“Five covered porticoes” means galleries in which the sick could walk, sit, or lie, protected from bad weather and the heat of the sun.

“Bethzatha, or Bethesda, is still shown even now,” says Eusebius. In the fifth century the five porticoes of the pool were still being shown.

Therefore the Russian translation correctly expresses the thought of the original: “There is a pool by the Sheep Gate.” Bethesda, beth chisda, means house of beneficence.

Eusebius wrote of the pool: “The pool is shown even now in the same two basins, each of which is filled by the yearly rains. Each contains water of a strangely colored kind” (Onomasticon).

The words of verse 4 are absent from some manuscripts, according to Origen. Some remark: “It is not characteristic of John to introduce information that has no connection with his main thought” (Tholuck).

But this remark is incorrect. The information about the special character of the reservoir is connected with the miracle.

The Syriac translation, the Vulgate, Chrysostom, Cyril, Augustine, and an ancient scholion on Matthew read the fourth verse.

Whether the angel descended into the reservoir at a fixed time, at Passover, as Cyril of Alexandria thought, or at an undefined time, according to God’s will, as Zigabenus held, St. John gives no information.

He speaks indefinitely: “An angel at certain times,” κατὰ καιρόν, “went down into the pool.” In any case, the healing action of the water depended not on the water, but on the angel. This means that it was miraculous, as Tertullian and Chrysostom say.