And this is what was said: 'But the Spirit was not yet given': that is, it had not yet so appeared that all might confess it to have been given. Just as the Lord too was not yet glorified among men, and yet His eternal glorification never ceased to be. Just as also His coming is called that very manifestation in mortal flesh. For He came thither where He was: because 'He came into His own; and He was in this world, and the world was made through Him' (John 1:11, 10). As, therefore, the Lord's coming is understood to be a bodily manifestation, yet before this manifestation He Himself spoke in all the holy Prophets as the Word of God and the Wisdom of God:
so also the coming of the Holy Spirit is a manifestation—of the Holy Spirit even to the very fleshly eyes—when fire was seen divided over them, and they began to speak with tongues (Acts 2:3, 4). For if the Holy Spirit was not in men before the Lord's visible glorification, how could David have said, 'And take not Your Holy Spirit from me' (Ps. 50:13)? Or how were Elizabeth and Zacharias her husband filled so that they prophesied, and Anna, and Simeon—of all of whom it is written that, filled with the Holy Spirit, they said the things which we read in the Gospel (Luke 1:41-45, 60-79, and 2:25-38)?
That God works some things secretly and others visibly through a visible creature belongs to the governance of His providence, whereby all the divine actions are carried out in the most beautiful order and distinction of places and times, while the Godhead itself is neither confined to nor migrates among places, nor is stretched out nor varied by times. But just as the Lord Himself certainly had the Holy Spirit with Him in the very man He bore, when He came to John to be baptized, and yet after He was baptized the Holy Spirit was seen to descend upon Him in the form of a dove (Matt. III, 13-16):
so too it is to be understood that even before the manifest and visible coming of the Holy Spirit, whatever holy men there were could have possessed Him secretly. We have said this indeed in such a way that we understand that even by this very visible manifestation of the Holy Spirit—which is called His coming—His fullness was, in an ineffable manner, poured out more abundantly, and even in an inconceivable way, into the hearts of men. LXIII. On the Word. In the beginning was the Word (John I, 1). What in Greek is called logos, in Latin signifies both 'reason' and 'word.' But in this place we better interpret it as 'word,' so that not only the relation to the Father may be signified, but also the operative power over those things which were made through the Word. Yet 'reason,' even though nothing be made through it, is rightly called reason.
LXIV. On the Samaritan Woman. 1. The evangelical mysteries, sealed in the words and deeds of our Lord Jesus Christ, do not lie open to all; and some, by interpreting less carefully and less soberly, very often bring destruction in place of salvation, and error in place of the knowledge of truth. Among these is that mystery which is written: that the Lord came to Jacob's well at the sixth hour of the day, and, weary from the journey, sat down, and asked drink of a Samaritan woman, and the other things which are set forth to be examined and treated in that same passage of the Scriptures. Concerning this matter, this must first be held—which must be guarded with the greatest vigilance in all the Scriptures—that the exposition of a divine mystery must be according to the faith. 2.
At the sixth hour of the day, therefore, our Lord came to the well. In the well I behold a dark depth. I am thus admonished to understand the lowest parts of this world, that is, the earthly parts, whither the Lord Jesus came at the sixth hour, that is, in the sixth age of the human race, as it were in the old age of the old man, which we are bidden to put off, that we may be clothed with the new man, who is created according to God (Eph. IV, 22-24). For the sixth age is old age; since the first is infancy, the second boyhood, the third adolescence, the fourth youth, the fifth maturity. And so the life of the old man, which is passed according to the flesh in a temporal condition, is concluded in the sixth age, old age.
In this old age, as I have said, our Lord came to us—the Creator and Restorer of the human race—so that, when the old man dies, He might establish the new man in Himself, and, stripped of its earthly stain, might transport it into the heavenly kingdom. So then the well, as has been said, signifies by its dark depth the earthly toil and error of this world. And since the outer man is the old man, and the inner the new—for it was said by the Apostle: And though our outer man is corrupted, yet the inner is renewed day by day—
most rightly of all (since all visible things pertain to the outer man, to which things Christian discipline renounces) the Lord came to the well at the sixth hour, that is, at midday, from which this visible sun now begins to decline toward its setting; because in us too, called by Christ, delight in visible things is diminished, so that the inner man, restored by love of things invisible, may return to that inner light which never sets, according to the apostolic teaching, not seeking the things which are seen, but the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal (2 Cor. IV, 16, 18). 3. But that He came weary to the well signifies the infirmity of the flesh; that He sat, humility:
for He both took upon Himself the weakness of the flesh for our sake, and deigned as a man to appear to men so humbly. Concerning this infirmity of the flesh the prophet says: A man set in affliction, and knowing how to bear weakness (Isa. LIII, 3). But of humility the Apostle speaks, saying: He humbled Himself, being made subject even unto death (Phil. II, 8). Although the fact that He sat, since teachers are wont to sit, may by another understanding demonstrate not the modesty of humility, but the person of a master. 4. But it may be asked why He asked to drink from the Samaritan woman, who had come for the sake of filling her water-jar, when He Himself later proclaimed that He could give the abundance of a spiritual fountain to those who ask Him?
But surely the Lord thirsted for the faith of that woman, who, since she was a Samaritan—and Samaria is wont to bear the image of idolatry (for they, separated from the people of the Jews, had devoted the glory of their souls to the images of dumb animals, that is, to golden calves)—well, our Lord Jesus had come to lead the multitude of the nations, which served images, to the stronghold of the Christian faith and of incorrupt religion. For, He says, they that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick (Matt. IX, 12). He therefore thirsts for the faith of those for whom He shed His blood. Jesus therefore said to her: Woman, give me to drink. And that you may know what
our Lord thirsted, a little later His disciples come, who had gone into the city to buy food, and they say to Him: Rabbi, eat. But He said to them: I have food to eat which you know not. The disciples therefore said to one another: Has anyone brought Him something to eat? Jesus said to them: My food is that I should do the will of Him that sent me, and that I should perfect His work. Is there here understood any other will of the Father, who sent Him, and any other work of His which He answered that He willed to perfect, than that He should convert us to His own faith away from the destructive error of the world? Such, then, as is His food, so also is His drink.
Wherefore this was what He thirsted for in that woman: to do in her the will of the Father, and to perfect His work. But she, understanding carnally, answered: You, being a Jew, how do you ask drink of me, since I am a Samaritan woman? For the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. To her our Lord said: If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that says to you, Give me to drink, you would rather have asked of Him, and He would have given you living water; that He might thereby show her that He had not asked for such water as she had understood, but that He Himself was thirsting for her faith, and desired to give the Holy Spirit to her as she thirsted. For this we rightly understand to be the living water, which is the gift of God, as He Himself says: If you knew the gift of God.
And as the same evangelist John testifies in another place, saying: that Jesus stood and cried, If any man thirst, let him come and drink; he that believes in me, as the Scripture says, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. Most consistently he says, He that believes in me, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water: because we first believe, that we may merit these gifts. These rivers of living water, therefore, which He willed to give to that woman, are the reward of the faith which He first thirsted for in her. The interpretation of which living water he thus adds: But this, he says, He spoke of the Spirit whom they that believed in Him were to receive. For the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified (John VII, 37-39).
This, then, is the gift of the Holy Spirit, which after His glorification He gave to the Church, as another Scripture says: Ascending on high, He led captivity captive; He gave gifts to men (Ps. LXVII, 19; Eph. IV, 8). 5. But still that woman is minded carnally; for thus she answered: Lord, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep; whence then have you living water to give me? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us this well, and himself drank of it, and his sons, and his cattle? Now indeed the Lord explains what He had said. Everyone, He says, who drinks of this water shall thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give shall not thirst forever;
but the water that I shall give will become in him a fountain of water springing up unto life eternal. But still the woman embraces the prudence of the flesh. For what does she answer? Lord, give me this water, that I may neither thirst, nor come here to draw. Jesus says to her: Go, call your husband, and come here. Since He knew she had no husband, it is asked why He said this. For when the woman had said, I have no husband, Jesus says to her, You have well said that you have no husband: for you have had five husbands, and he whom you now have is not your husband; this you have said truly. But these things are not to be taken carnally, lest we seem to be like this same Samaritan woman still.
But if we have already tasted something of that gift of God, let us treat these matters spiritually. 6. Some take the five husbands to be the five books which were administered through Moses. And as for what was said, And he whom you now have is not your husband, they understand the Lord to have said it of Himself, so that this is the meaning: First you served the five books of Moses, as it were five husbands; but now the one you have—that is, the one you hear, who speaks with you—is not your husband, because you have not yet believed in Him.
But since, not yet believing in Christ, she was still assuredly held in the conjunction of those five husbands, that is, of the five books, it may raise the question how it could be said, You have had five husbands, as if she no longer had them, when she still assuredly lived subject to them. Then, since the five books of Moses proclaim nothing other than Christ, as He Himself says: If you believed Moses, you would perhaps believe me also; for he wrote of me (John V, 46); how can it be understood that a man withdraws from those five books in order to pass over to Christ, when he who believes in Christ embraces those five books all the more eagerly—not as things to be forsaken, but as things to be understood spiritually?
There is therefore another understanding, whereby the five husbands are understood to be the five senses of the body: one which pertains to the eyes, by which we perceive this visible light and any colors and forms of bodies; a second of the ears, by which we sense the movements of voices and of all sounds; a third of the nostrils, by which we are delighted with the varied sweetness of odors; a fourth, taste in the mouth, which senses sweet and bitter things, and has the assaying of all flavors; a fifth, which throughout the whole body distinguishes by touch hot and cold, soft and hard, smooth and rough, and whatever else there is that we sense by touching.
By these carnal, that is, five, senses, then, is the first age of man imbued, by the necessity of mortal nature, whereby we are born after the sin of the first man in such a way that, the light of the mind not yet being restored, subjected to the carnal senses, we pass through a carnal life without any understanding of the truth. Such of necessity must infants and little children be, who cannot yet receive reason. And because these senses are natural, which govern the first age, and were bestowed on us by God the artificer, they are rightly called husbands, that is, spouses, as it were lawful ones; since it is not error by its own fault, but the artifice of God, that has assigned them to our nature.
But when anyone comes to that age at which he can now be capable of reason, if he is able at once to comprehend the truth, he will no longer use those senses as rulers, but will have a husband—the rational spirit—to which he reduces those senses into servitude, subjecting his own body to bondage: when the soul is no longer subject to five husbands, that is, the five senses of the body, but has the divine Word as its lawful husband; to whom, joined and clinging, when the very spirit of man has also clung to Christ, since the head of the man is Christ (1 Cor. XI, 3), it enjoys eternal life in a spiritual embrace, without any fear of separation. For who shall separate us from the love of Christ (Rom. VIII, 35)?
But since that woman was held by an error which signified the multitude of the world subjugated to vain superstitions, after that time of the five carnal senses, by which the first age, as we have said, is governed, the Word of God had not received her into marriage, but the devil possessed her in an adulterous embrace. And so the Lord says to her, seeing that she is carnal, that is, is minded carnally: Go, call your husband, and come here; that is, remove yourself from the carnal affection in which you are now placed, whence you cannot understand what I say; and call your husband, that is, be present with the spirit of understanding. For the spirit of man is, as it were, in a certain manner the husband of the soul, which governs the animal affection as a spouse.
Not that Holy Spirit who remains unchangeably with the Father and the Son, and is given unchangeably to worthy souls; but the spirit of man, of whom the Apostle says: No one knows the things that are in a man, save the spirit of man. For that Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God, of whom again he speaks thus: And the things of God no one knows, but the Spirit of God (1 Cor. II, 11). This spirit of man, therefore, when it is present, that is, intent, and subjects itself in piety to God, a man understands the things that are spoken spiritually. But when the error of the devil, as though the understanding were absent, rules in the soul, it is an adulterer.
Call therefore, He says, your husband, that is, the spirit which is in you, by which a man can understand spiritual things, if the light of truth illumine it; let it be present when I speak with you, that you may be able to receive the spiritual water. And when she said, I have no husband, Well, He says, have you said: for you have had five husbands, that is, the five senses of the flesh, which ruled you in the first age; and he whom you now have is not your husband, because there is not in you a spirit that understands God, with whom you might have a lawful wedlock; but rather the error of the devil dominates, which corrupts you with an adulterous defilement. 8.
And perhaps, in order to indicate to those who understand that the five aforementioned bodily senses are signified by the name of five husbands, after five carnal replies this woman in her sixth reply names Christ. For her first reply is, You, being a Jew, how do you ask drink of me? The second, Lord, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. The third, Lord, give me this water, that I may neither thirst, nor come here to draw. The fourth, I have no husband. The fifth, I see that you are a prophet: our fathers worshipped on this mountain. For this reply too is carnal. For to carnal men an earthly place had been given where they might pray; but the Lord said that spiritual men would worship in spirit and in truth.
After He had spoken this, the woman's sixth reply confesses Christ to be the teacher of all these things: for she says, I know that Messiah comes, who is called Christ: when He comes, He will announce to us all things. But still she errs, because she does not see that He whom she hopes will come has already come. Nevertheless, by the mercy of the Lord this error is now cast out like an adulterer. For Jesus says to her: I am He that speaks with you. Hearing which, she did not reply, but at once, leaving her water-jar, went into the city in haste, that she might not only believe the Gospel and the Lord's coming, but also proclaim it. Nor is the fact that she departed leaving her water-jar to be passed over negligently.
For the water-jar perhaps signifies the love of this world, that is, cupidity, whereby men draw for themselves pleasure out of the dark depth—whose image the well bears—that is, out of earthly conversation; which pleasure, once received, they burn again with desire for it, just as He says of that water, He who drinks of it shall thirst again (John IV, 5-34). But it behooved that, believing in Christ, she should renounce the world, and, leaving her water-jar, should show that she had left worldly cupidity behind; not only believing with the heart unto righteousness, but also being about to confess and proclaim with the mouth what she believed, unto salvation (Rom. X, 10). LXV. On the Resurrection of Lazarus. Although according to the evangelical history we hold with full faith that Lazarus was raised;
nevertheless I do not doubt that it also signifies something in allegory. Nor, when deeds that were done are allegorized, do the deeds lose the faith of their having happened. Just as Paul expounds the allegory of Abraham's two sons to be the two Testaments (Gal. IV, 22-24); does it follow from this that either Abraham did not exist, or did not have those sons? Therefore in the allegory too let us take Lazarus in the tomb to be the soul buried under earthly sins, that is, the whole human race; which in another place the Lord signifies by the lost sheep, for the liberation of which He says that He descended, leaving the ninety-nine on the mountains (Luke XV, 4). But as for His questioning, saying, Where have you laid him? I think it signifies our calling which is done in secret.
For the predestination of our calling is hidden; a sign of which secret is the Lord's questioning, as though not knowing, when it is we ourselves who do not know; as the Apostle says: That I may know, even as also I am known (1 Cor. XIII, 12). Or the Lord shows in another place that He does not know sinners, saying: I never knew you (Matt. VII, 23); which the buried Lazarus signified, because in His discipline and precepts there are no sins. Like to this questioning is that in Genesis: Adam, where are you? (Gen. III, 9). Since he had sinned, and had hidden himself from the face of God. Which concealment the burial here signifies: that the dying man may have the likeness of a sinner; buried, of one hidden from the face of God.
But as for what He says, Take away the stone, I think it signifies those who wished to impose the burden of circumcision on those coming to the Church from the Gentiles; against whom the Apostle writes in many ways (Gal. II): or those who live corruptly in the Church, and are a stumbling-block to those willing to believe. Martha says to Him: Lord, by now it is the fourth day, and he stinks. The last of the four elements is earth: it signifies therefore the stench of earthly sins, that is, of carnal cupidities. You are earth, the Lord says to Adam when he had sinned, and unto earth you shall go (Gen. III, 19). And when the stone was taken away, he came forth from the tomb, bound hand and foot, and his face was covered with a napkin.
But that he came forth from the tomb signifies the soul withdrawing from carnal vices. But that he was wrapped in bandages—this is because even we, who withdraw from carnal things and serve the law of God with the mind, being still set in the body, cannot be free from the troubles of the flesh; as the Apostle says: With the mind I serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin (Rom. VII, 25). But that his face was covered with a napkin—this is because in this life we cannot have full knowledge, as the Apostle says: Now we see through a glass in a riddle, but then face to face (1 Cor. XIII, 12). And Jesus said: Loose him, and let him go (John XI, 1-44):
this is because after this life all veils will be taken away, that we may see face to face. But how great the difference is between the man whom the Wisdom of God bore, through whom we were set free, and other men, is understood from this: that Lazarus is not loosed unless he comes forth from the tomb; that is, even a soul reborn cannot be free from all sin and ignorance except by the dissolution of the body, so long as it sees the Lord through a glass and in a riddle; but the linen cloths and the napkin of Him who did no sin, and was ignorant of nothing, were found in the tomb (John XX, 7). For He alone in the flesh was not only not oppressed by the tomb, so that any sin might be found in Him (Isa.
LIII, 9), but not even entangled in the linens, so that anything might lie hidden from Him, or delay Him from His journey. LXVI. On that which is written: Or do you not know, brethren (for I speak to them that know the Law), that the Law has dominion over a man as long as he lives? up to the place where it is written: He will quicken also your mortal bodies through His Spirit that dwells in you (Rom. VII–VIII, 11). 1. The Apostle in this similitude, in which he speaks of a husband and a wife—since the wife is bound by the law of her husband—commends three things to be considered: the wife, the husband, and the law: namely the wife subjugated to the husband by the bond of the law, by which bond she is freed at the husband's death, so that she may marry whom she wills. For thus he says:
For a woman under a husband, while her husband lives, is joined to the law; but if her husband die, she is loosed from the law of the husband. Therefore, while her husband lives, she shall be called an adulteress if she be with another man; but if her husband die, she is freed from the law, so that she is not an adulteress, if she be with another man. Thus far is the similitude. Then he begins to speak of the matter, for the explaining and proving of which he introduced the similitude. In which matter also three things are similarly to be attended to: man, sin, and law. For he says that man is under the law so long as he lives to sin; just as the woman is under the law of the husband so long as the husband lives. But this sin is here to be understood as that which came in through the law. Which sin he says is beyond measure;
since, when it now appears to be sin, it is nevertheless committed, and, with transgression added, is heaped up. For where there is no law, neither is there transgression (Rom. IV, 15). And this is what he says: That it might become beyond measure a sinner, or sin, through the commandment. Wherefore the law, although it forbids from sinning, he nevertheless does not say was given in such a way as to free from sin, but to demonstrate sin, to which the soul, serving, ought to convert itself to the grace of the Liberator, that we may be freed from sin. For through the law is the knowledge of sin (Rom. III, 20). And in another place he says: But sin, that it might appear sin, through good wrought death in me. Where, therefore, there is not the grace of the Liberator, the prohibition of sins increases the desire of sinning.
Which indeed is useful for this, that the soul may perceive that it is not itself sufficient to draw itself out of the servitude of sin; and in this way, when all pride is deflated and extinguished, it may submit itself to its Liberator, and a man may sincerely say: My soul clave after you (Ps. LXII, 9): which is now to be no longer under the law of sin, but in the law of righteousness. But the law of sin is so called, not because the law itself is sin, but because it is imposed on sinners. Therefore also the law of death, because the wages of sin is death (Rom. VI, 23); the sting of death is sin, but the strength of sin is the law (1 Cor. XV, 56). For by sinning we slip down to death. For we sin more vehemently when the law forbids, than if we were forbidden by no law.
But when grace comes, the very thing which the law had burdensomely commanded, we now fulfill without burden and most willingly. The law of sin and death, therefore—that is, which is imposed on those who sin and die—only commands that we not covet, and yet we covet. But the law of the spirit of life, which pertains to grace and frees from the law of sin and death, brings it about that we do not covet, and that we fulfill the commands of the law, no longer as slaves of the law through fear, but as friends through charity, and as servants of the righteousness from which that law was promulgated. But righteousness is to be served not slavishly, but freely, that is, by charity rather than by fear. And therefore it was most truly said: Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: but we establish the law (Rom.
III, 31). For this is what faith effects, which the law commands. The law, therefore, is established through faith: but if this faith be not present, the law only commands, and holds those who do not fulfill its commands as guilty, that at some time it may convert to the grace of the Liberator those who groan and are not able to fulfill what has been commanded. 2. Since, therefore, we see three things in that similitude—the wife, the husband, and the law; and again in this matter for the sake of which the similitude was applied, three—the soul, sin, and the law of sin: this alone here is different, that in that similitude the husband dies, so that the wife may marry whom she wills, and be loosed from the law of the husband; but here the soul itself dies to sin, that it may marry Christ; and when it dies to sin, it dies also to the law of sin.