ACC ~ John 4 v17 - 18

AN ILLICIT UNION

AUGUSTINE: Understand that the woman did not have a lawful husband but had rather formed an illicit [1] union with someone who was not her lawful husband…. And, just in case the woman might suppose that the Lord knew about this because he had learned this from someone— and not because he knew it by his own divinity—[he says], Listen to something that you have not said, “For you have had five husbands, and he whom you now have is not your husband.” TRACTATES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 15.20. [2]

[1] Or”irregular.”

[2] NPNF 1 7:104*.

CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE IS BLAMELESS

CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA: The Savior was not ignorant that she had no lawful husband, and his inquiry about her husband was not the plea of one who needed hidden things revealed…. He had full knowledge of her circumstances and helpfully affirms her comment that she has no husband, although she had had so many. For it is not the union of pleasure but the approval of the law and the bond of pure love that makes marriage blameless. COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 2.4. [1]

SHE MEETS HER SIXTH HUSBAND

ROMANUS MELODUS:

[Jesus says] “If you wish that I give you the streams of pure water,

Go, and call your husband; I shall not imitate your reproach;

I shall not say: ‘You are a woman of Samaria, and how is it that you ask for water?’

I do not increase your thirst; for I have brought you to thirst through thirst.

I exaggerated being thirsty and I was tormented by thirst in order that I might reveal you as thirsty.

Go, then, and call your husband and return.”

The woman said, “I think that I have no husband,” and the Creator said to her:

“Truly do you have none? You have five, the sixth you do not possess, [2]

So that you may receive

Exceeding great joy and redemption.”

O wise enigmas! O wise characteristics!

In the faith of the holy woman is pictured

All the features of the church in true colors which do not grow old;

For the way in which the woman denied a husband when she had many,

Is just the way the church denied many gods, like husbands,

And left them and became betrothed to one Master in coming forth from the water.

She had five husbands and the sixth she did not have; and leaving the five

Husbands of impiety, she now takes Thee, as the sixth, as she comes

From the water,

Exceeding great joy and redemption….

The espoused church of the nations, [3] then, left these things,

And she hurries here to the well of the baptismal font

And denies the things of the past, just as the woman of Samaria did;

For she did not conceal what had formerly been true from Him who knows all in advance,

But she said, “… Even if I formerly had husbands, I do not now wish to have

These husbands which I did have; for I now possess Thee who hast now taken me in Thy net;

And I am by faith rescued [4] from the filth of my sins

That I may receive

Exceeding great joy and redemption.”

KONTAKION ON THE WOMAN OF SAMARIA 9.11-12, 14. [5]

[1] LF 43:210**. Augustine makes an allegorical comparison between the five husbands and the five books of the law. See Tractates on the Gospel of John 15.21.

[2] Christ, in this case, is the sixth. The church is his bride.

[3] “The woman of the nations” is the church, which reaches out beyond Jews to Samaria.

[4] Lit.”to bail out,” pointing to the act of drawing water from the well. It also connotes”to be exhausted from.”

[5] KRBM 1:91-93.