Commentary on the Gospel of John 13 part 1/6

Perhaps it might seem good to you, most God-loving and most pious Ambrose, that the discourse concerning the Samaritan woman should not be cut in two, so that one part of it would be in the twelfth book, and the rest in the thirteenth.

But since we saw that the twelfth of the commentaries had received a sufficient compass, it seemed good to us to conclude at the discourse of the Samaritan woman concerning the well spoken of by her, how Jacob knew it and he himself drank from it, and his sons, and his cattle, so that we might begin the thirteenth from the answer of our Lord to her. — Jesus answered and said to her: 'Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water which I will give him ... will become a spring in him of water leaping up into eternal life.'

This is the second time Jesus answers the Samaritan woman: at first saying, 'If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, Give me to drink, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water'; and now, as urging her on to ask for the living water, he speaks the words set forth above.

And at the first she did not say this, but the Samaritan woman is perplexed about the comparison of the waters; but after the second answer of the Lord, having accepted what was said, she says: 'Give me this water.'

For perhaps it is a certain teaching that no one receives a divine gift among those who do not ask for it. And indeed the Father urges the Savior himself, through the Psalm, to ask, that he may grant it to him — as the Son himself teaches us, saying: 'The Lord said to me: You are my Son; ask of me, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance, and the ends of the earth as your possession.' And the Savior says:

'Ask, and it will be given to you; for everyone who asks receives.' The Samaritan woman, then, is persuaded to ask Jesus for water — being, as we said before, an image of the disposition of those who hold heterodox opinions while occupying themselves with the divine scriptures — when she hears about the comparison of the two waters.

And observe, from what she had experienced, how, drinking from the well which she considered to be deep, she found no rest, nor was freed from her thirst.

Let us see, then, what is signified by 'Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again.' Now from the word 'to thirst' and 'to hunger,' taken bodily, there are two things signified: one, according to which we need food, having been emptied and desiring it because the vital moisture is failing within us; the other, according to which often the poor, and those in want of necessities, though already sated, speak of hungering or thirsting.

And there is testimony for the first in Exodus, when, being in want of food on the nineteenth day, in the second month after they had come out of the land of Egypt, the whole congregation of the sons of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron. And the sons of Israel said to them: 'Would that we had died, struck by the Lord, in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat and ate bread to the full — for you have brought us out into this wilderness, to kill this whole congregation with famine.' And the Lord said to Moses: 'Behold, I will rain bread upon you from heaven, and the people shall go out and gather a day's portion for each day, that I may test them whether they will walk in my law or not.'

For those who hunger and are in want of necessary food, as far as ... these words go. But also, being in want of water and thirsting, they murmured against Moses: 'What shall we drink?' — when Moses cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a tree, and he cast it into the water, and the water was made sweet.

And a little later, when he came to Rephidim, it is written that 'The people thirsted there for water, and the people murmured there against Moses.'

An example of the second of the two meanings will seem to be found in Paul, who says: 'Even to the present hour we both hunger and thirst and are poorly clothed.' The first, then — hungering and thirsting — happens necessarily to healthy bodies; but the second happens to those who have endured hardship.

We must inquire, then, also from 'Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again,' in what sense it is said that he will thirst — first, as concerning the bodily sense, or also ... perhaps what is indicated is that even if for the present he is satisfied, yet as soon as the drink has subsided, the one who drank will suffer the same experience, that is, he will thirst again, being restored to the same state as at the beginning.

He adds, then: 'But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him, it will become in him a spring of water leaping up into eternal life.' Now who, having a spring within himself, will be able to thirst?

The principal thing indicated, however, would be this: he who partakes ... of, he says, the depth of the teachings — even if he rests for a little while, having accepted as most profound the notions drawn up and seeming to be discovered — will nevertheless, upon reflecting a second time, again be perplexed concerning these very things by which ... he had rested, for ... the depth supposed by him is not able to furnish a clear and definite comprehension concerning the things sought.

Therefore, even if someone, being carried away, assents to the plausibility of the things said, yet later he will find the same perplexity occurring in him which he had before learning these particular things. But I hold such an account as this: that the spring of the living drink comes to be in the one who accepts the things announced by me; and to such an extent will the one who has received my water be benefited, that a spring finding out all the things sought will well up in him, with waters leaping upward, the mind leaping and flying most swiftly along with this easily-moving water, its very leaping and springing bearing it upward, to eternal life.

As it were ... that the goal of the leaping, as he says, is eternal life; just as, indeed, speaking about the bridegroom in the Song of Songs, Solomon says: 'Behold, this one comes, leaping upon the mountains, bounding upon the hills.'

For as there the bridegroom leaps upon the more nobly-natured and more divine souls, called mountains, and bounds upon the lesser ones, called hills, so here the spring that comes to be in the one who has drunk of the water which Jesus gives leaps up into eternal life.

And perhaps it will also leap, after eternal life, unto the Father who is above eternal life; for Christ is life, and he who is greater than Christ is greater than life.

Then the one who has drunk of the water which Jesus will give will have the spring that has come to be in him, of water leaping up into eternal life, when the promise is fulfilled for the one who is blessed for hungering and thirsting after righteousness.

For the word says: 'Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.'

And perhaps, since it will be necessary to hunger and thirst for righteousness before being satisfied, one must produce in oneself the hungering and the thirsting for the sake of being satisfied, so that we may say: 'As the deer longs for the springs of water, so my soul longs for you, O God. My soul has thirsted for the strong, living God: when shall I come and appear before the face of God?'

So that we may thirst, then, it is good to drink first from the spring of Jacob, not calling it, like the Samaritan woman, a 'well.' At any rate, the Savior, even now, in responding to her statement, does not say that the water is from a well, but simply says: 'Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again.'

For if nothing useful came from drinking from the spring, neither would Jesus have sat down at the spring, nor would he have said to the Samaritan woman, 'Give me to drink.'

It must be observed, then, that even when the Samaritan woman asked Jesus for the water, he as it were promised to provide it not in any other place but at the spring, saying to her: 'Go, call your husband, and come here.'

We shall further consider whether it can be shown that the benefit of those who will converse with and be present with the Truth itself is of a different kind from the benefit which we suppose comes to us from the scriptures, even if these are understood accurately — this being shown from the fact that the one who has drunk from the spring of Jacob thirsts again, whereas the one who has drunk from the water which Jesus gives has within himself a spring of water leaping up into eternal life.

For indeed, of the more sovereign and more divine mysteries of God, some scripture has not contained, and some not even human speech, according to the customary manner of meanings, nor human language itself; for 'there are also many other things which Jesus did, which, if they should be written one by one, I do not think the world itself would contain the books that would be written.'

And as for the things which the seven thunders spoke, John, about to write them, is forbidden; and Paul says that he heard unspeakable words — not meaning words which it was not lawful for anyone to speak; for it was lawful for angels to speak them, but for men it was not lawful.

'For all things are lawful, but not all things are helpful.' But the unspeakable words which he heard, it is not lawful, he says, for man to speak.

I think that all the Scriptures, even if they should be understood very precisely, are but certain very small elements and very brief introductions of the whole of knowledge.

See therefore whether Jacob's well, from which Jacob once drank but no longer drinks now — and his sons also drank but now have a better drink than that — and their flocks also drank from it, can be the whole of Scripture; while Jesus' water is that which is above what is written.

But it is not permitted to all to search into the things that are above what is written, unless one has made himself like them, lest he be rebuked on hearing: 'Seek not what is too hard for you, and search not what is too strong for you.'

But if we say that someone knows the things that are above what is written, we do not mean by this that they can be known to the many, but known to John, who heard them and was not permitted to write them — such as were the words of the thunders — and who learned them and, out of sparing the world, did not write them;

for he supposed that not even the world itself could contain the books that would be written. But also the unspeakable words which Paul learned are above what is written, if indeed the things that are written are things men have spoken; and the things which 'eye has not seen' are above the things that are written, and the things which 'ear has not heard' cannot be written.

And the things that have not 'arisen in the heart of man' are greater than the well of Jacob, being manifested — from the well of water leaping up into eternal life — to those who no longer have the heart of man, but who are able to say: 'But we have the mind of Christ, that we may know the things graciously given to us by God, which we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit.'

And consider whether it is possible not to call 'human wisdom' the false doctrines, but rather the elementary teachings of truth that reach as far as those who are still merely men; while the things taught by the Spirit are perhaps the well of the water leaping up into eternal life.

The Scriptures, then, are introductions, from which — once precisely understood, now being called the well of Jacob — one must ascend to Jesus, so that he may grant to us the well of the water leaping up into eternal life.

But not everyone draws in the same way from the well of Jacob; for if Jacob drank from it, and his sons and his flocks, while the Samaritan woman also, being thirsty, comes to it and draws, perhaps Jacob together with his sons drank in one way, and with understanding; while his flocks drank in another way, more simply and more like beasts; and the Samaritan woman drank in yet another way, different from Jacob and his sons and his flocks.

For those who are wise according to the Scriptures drink as Jacob and his sons did; while those who are simpler and more guileless, who are called the sheep of Christ, drink as Jacob's flocks did; but those who misapprehend the Scriptures and put forward certain blasphemous notions under the pretext of having understood them drink as the Samaritan woman drank before believing in Jesus. — The woman says to him: 'Lord, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.'

Already for the second time the Samaritan woman proclaims the Savior 'Lord': first, when she says, 'Lord, you have no bucket, and the well is deep,' when she also asks where he has the living water from, and whether he is greater than Jacob, whom she considers her father; and now, when she also asks for the water that becomes, in the one who drinks it, a well of water leaping up into eternal life.

And if it is true that 'you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water,' it is clear that by saying, 'Give me this water,' she received the living water, so that she would no longer be at a loss with thirst, nor go to Jacob's well to draw, but would be able, apart from Jacob's water, to contemplate the truth angelically and above man. For not even the angels need Jacob's well in order to drink, but each one has in himself a well of water leaping up into eternal life, brought into being and revealed by the Word himself and by Wisdom herself.

It is not possible, however, to receive the other water — different from that of Jacob's well — which is given by the Word, without having occupied oneself most diligently, out of thirsting, with going to and drawing from this well; so that in this respect there is much lacking to the many, compared with those more extensively trained in drawing from Jacob's well. — He says to her: 'Go, call your husband, and come here.' The woman answered and said: 'I have no husband.'

We have said also above that the ruling principle of the soul — the law to which each person has subjected himself — is the husband. And now we shall also cite as testimony to this the Apostle, from the Epistle to the Romans, where he says: 'Or do you not know, brothers (for I am speaking to those who know the law), that the law has dominion over a man for as long as he lives?' Who indeed lives? Taking 'the law' as the [supplied] common subject, it is the law [that lives].

Then he immediately says: 'For the married woman is bound by law to her living husband,' as if he were saying 'to the living husband,' whoever that husband, who is the law, may be.

Then again he says: 'But if the husband dies, she is released from the law of the husband'; as it were, the woman is released when the law, as husband, has died, and no longer does what belongs to a wife in relation to a husband.

Then he says: 'So then, while her husband lives, she will be called an adulteress if she belongs to another man; but if her husband dies, she is free from the law, so that she is not an adulteress if she belongs to another man.'

But the law according to the letter has died, and the soul is not an adulteress if she belongs to another — the law according to the spirit; and when the husband has died to the wife, in some sense the wife too might be said to have died to the husband, so that we should understand in this way: 'So that, my brothers, you also were put to death to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, that we might bear fruit for God.'

If, then, the husband is the law, the Samaritan woman also has a certain husband, having subjected herself, according to the misapprehension of the sound words, to a certain law by which each of the heterodox wishes to live. The divine Word wishes here that the heterodox soul, presenting the law that rules over her, be refuted, so that, coming to despise it as not a lawful husband, she may seek another husband, to become another's — the Word's, who is to rise from the dead — a husband not overthrown nor to die, but remaining eternal and reigning, subjecting all his enemies; for Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more; death no longer has dominion over him; for that which died, died to sin once for all; but that which lives, lives to God, being at his right hand, until all his enemies are placed as a footstool under him.

But where should the supposed husband of the Samaritan woman be shown by Jesus, beside Jacob's well, to be no husband, if the woman did not of herself deny having the husband? For this reason Jesus says to her: 'Go, call your husband and come here.'

As having already something of the water leaping up into eternal life, because she had said, 'Give me this water,' and because the one who had promised beforehand, 'You would have asked him and he would have given you living water,' does not lie, the woman answered — condemning herself for her association with such a husband — and said: 'I have no husband.' — Jesus says to her: 'You have said well, "I have no husband"; for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband; this you have said truly.'

I think that every soul that is being introduced, through the Scriptures, into piety in Christ, beginning from the things called sensible and bodily, has the five husbands, a husband coming to be for each of the senses; but when, after having consorted with sensible things, one, wishing to raise himself up and being urged on toward intelligible things, encounters an unsound doctrine put forward under the pretext of allegory and spiritual things, this one, after the five husbands, comes to another, giving, so to speak, a bill of divorce to the former five, and deciding to cohabit with the sixth.

And until Jesus, coming, leads us to an awareness of such a husband, we cohabit with him; but when the Lord the Word has come and conversed with us, denying that husband we say: 'I have no husband'; at which time also the Lord praises us, saying: 'You have said well, "I have no husband."'

But 'This you have said truly' is, as it were, a refutation, implying that her former statements had not been spoken truly by her. And perhaps it was not even true that 'Jews do not associate with Samaritans.'

At any rate, Jesus himself, as we have said in what precedes, associates with Samaritans, in order that he might also benefit them.

Nor is it true, what she said: 'You have no bucket, and the well is deep.'

Perhaps also it is not true that 'Jacob drank from the well, and his sons and his flocks.' For if Jacob and his sons and his flocks did not drink in the same way as the Samaritan woman, and yet the Samaritan woman supposes that she has drunk a drink similar to, and altogether the same as, that of Jacob and his sons and his flocks, it is clear that this is false.

Let us also look at Heracleon's comments on these passages. He says that that life was feeble, temporary, and defective, and likewise the opinion according to it; 'for it was worldly,' he says; and he thinks he offers proof that it was worldly from the fact that Jacob's flocks drank from it.

And if by 'feeble, temporary, and defective' he meant partial knowledge — that is, the knowledge from the Scriptures compared with the unspeakable words which it is not permitted for man to utter — or all the knowledge that now comes about 'through a mirror and in an enigma,' which is to be done away when the perfect comes, we would not find fault with this. But if he does this in order to slander the old things, he would be blameworthy.

But the water which the Savior gives, he says is from his Spirit and his power — and in this he does not speak falsely.

And on 'he will never thirst forever,' he has given an explanation in these very words: 'for his life is eternal and never perishing, unlike the first life, that from the well, but abiding; for the grace and the gift of our Savior is not taken away, and is not consumed nor does it perish in the one who partakes of it.'

In representing the first life as perishable, if he meant the life according to the letter, seeking and finding the life according to the spirit that comes about through the removal of the veil, he would speak soundly; but if he charges the old Scriptures with corruption altogether, it is clear that he does this because he does not see that those things have the shadow of the good things to come.

Not implausibly, however, he has explained 'leaping up' to mean that those who partake of what is richly supplied from above also themselves gush forth, into the eternal life of others, the things that have been supplied to them.

But he also praises the Samaritan woman as having shown the unhesitating faith proper to her nature, not doubting concerning the things he was saying to her.

If, then, he were approving her free choice, hinting at nothing about a nature being different, we too would agree; but if he attributes the cause of her assent to a natural constitution, as though this were not present in everyone, his argument must be overturned.

But I do not know how Heracleon, taking up what is not written, says regarding 'Give me this water' that, having been pierced through a little by the Word, she then also hated the place of that so-called living water.

Further, on 'Give me this water, that I may not thirst nor come here to draw,' he says: 'The woman says these things, showing forth the toilsome, hard-to-obtain, and non-nourishing character of that water.' But how can he demonstrate that Jacob's water is non-nourishing?

Further, Heracleon, on 'He says to her,' says: 'Clearly saying something like this: If you wish to receive this water, go, call your husband'; and he thinks that the husband spoken of by the Savior for the Samaritan woman is her Fullness, so that, coming to be together with him in the presence of the Savior, she might be able to receive from him the power and the union and the mingling with her Fullness; for, he says, he was not speaking to her about a worldly husband, that she should call him, since he was not ignorant that she had no lawful husband.

But here he is plainly doing violence to the text, saying that the Savior said to her, 'Call your husband and come here,' meaning the consort from the Fullness. For if this were really so, [it must be explained] who the husband was and in what way he was to be called * * * , so that she might come to be with him in the presence of the Savior.

But since, as Heracleon says, in the higher sense she was ignorant of her own husband, while in the plain sense she was ashamed to say that she had an adulterer, not a husband, how is it not in vain that he who says, 'Go, call your husband, and come here,' will be giving a command?

Then, on 'You have said truly, "I have no husband,"' he says: 'because in the world the Samaritan woman had no husband.'

'For her husband was in the Aeon.' Now we have read: 'You have had five husbands'; but in Heracleon we found:

'You have had six husbands.' And indeed he interprets this to mean that all material wickedness is signified by the six husbands, with which she had been entangled and had consorted — fornicating contrary to reason, and being insulted, and rejected, and abandoned by them.

But it must be said against him that if the spiritual woman was fornicating, the spiritual woman was sinning; and if the spiritual woman was sinning, the spiritual woman was not a good tree; for according to the Gospel: 'A good tree cannot bear evil fruit.'

And it is clear that their myth-making collapses. But if it is impossible for a good tree to bear evil fruit, and the Samaritan woman is a good tree, being spiritual, it follows for him that either her fornication was not a sin, or it was not she who fornicated. — The woman says to him: 'Lord, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain; and you say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship.'

For the third time now the Samaritan woman proclaims our Savior 'Lord,' at the point where it is also recorded that she said this to him for the last time; yet she does not yet think him to be greater than the prophets, nor the one prophesied of, but merely a certain prophet.

And so too the heterodox opinion of those who grovel around the Scriptures: her former five husbands having been refuted, along with the one after them who seemed to be a husband but was abandoned by her, being unable from the outset to see what the refuting Word actually is, she says he is a prophet — as it were something divine and having something greater than human, yet not so much as he actually was. For this reason she says, as it were having somewhat looked up and having supposed herself to have come into a state of contemplation: 'I perceive that you are a prophet.'

Now regarding 'Our fathers' and what follows, one must know the dissension between the Samaritans and the Jews concerning the place they consider holy; for the Samaritans, considering the mountain called Gerizim to be holy, worship God on it, which Moses mentions in Deuteronomy, saying thus: 'And Moses commanded the people on that day, saying: These shall stand to bless the people on Mount Gerizim, having crossed the Jordan: Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph, and Benjamin; and these shall stand for the curse on Mount Ebal: Reuben, Gad, Asher, Zebulun, Dan, and Naphtali.'

But the Jews, having considered Zion something divine and belonging to God, think that it is the place chosen by the Father of all, and for this reason say that the temple was built on it by Solomon, and that the whole Levitical and priestly service is performed there.

Consequently, in accordance with these suppositions, each nation has held that the fathers worshiped God on this mountain or that.

And even now, if to this day Samaritans and Jews should ever condescend to discuss with one another, each will raise difficulties against the other, and the Samaritan will indeed say to the Jew the word of the woman recorded here: 'Our fathers worshiped on this mountain' — pointing to Gerizim — 'but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship.'

But since the Jews (for salvation is from them) are images of those who think sound words, while the Samaritans are images of the heterodox, accordingly the Samaritans deify Gerizim, which is interpreted 'Cutting off' or 'Division' — and the historical cutting off and division of the ten tribes, divided from the remaining two, took place in the days of Jeroboam, who himself is interpreted 'Division of the people'; while the Jews deify Zion, which is 'Watchtower.' It is likely that someone will raise the difficulty of why, according to Moses, the blessings are pronounced on Gerizim.

To this too it must be said that, since the word 'Gerizim' signifies 'cutting off' or 'division,' the sense of 'cutting off' is to be taken as applying when the people are split by Jeroboam and the king dwells in Samaria; while the sense of 'division' applies in the case of the blessing, since the wise make orderly use of division in each of the problems they examine, which is necessary for the understanding of the truth.

Now insofar as the hour spoken of by the Lord has not yet come, when they will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem, the mountain of the Samaritans is to be avoided, and one must worship God in Zion, where Jerusalem is — which Jerusalem is said by Christ, the great King, to be his city.

But what would the city of the great King, the true Jerusalem, be, other than the Church, built of living stones, where there is a holy priesthood, and spiritual sacrifices are offered to God by the spiritual, who have understood the spiritual law?

But when the fullness of time arrives, then one must no longer suppose that the true worship and perfect piety is performed in Jerusalem any longer, when someone comes to be in no way in the flesh but in the spirit, and no longer at all in type but wholly in truth, so constituted as to be made like the worshipers whom God seeks.

'The hour is coming' is written twice; and in the first instance 'and now is' is not added, but in the second the evangelist says: 'But the hour is coming, and now is.'

And I think that the first indicates the worship apart from bodies that will come to pass according to perfection; while the second indicates the worship of those, in this life, who — so far as is possible according to human nature — are being perfected as they progress.