ACC ~ John 4 v7

THE WOMAN IS THE CHURCH

AUGUSTINE: It is pertinent to the image of the reality that this woman, who bore the type of the church, comes from strangers, for the church was to come from the Gentiles, an alien from the race of the Jews. In that woman, then, let us hear ourselves, and in her acknowledge ourselves and in her give thanks to God for ourselves. TRACTATES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 15.10. [1]

[1] NPNF 1 7:101-2*.

JESUS’ THIRST FOR THE WOMAN’S FAITH

AUGUSTINE: His “drink” was to do the will of him that sent him. That was why he said, “I thirst; give me to drink,” namely, to work faith in her and to drink of her faith and transplant her into his own body, for his body is the church. TRACTATES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 15.31. [1]

[1] NPNF 1 7:107*.

JESUS THIRSTS FOR HER AND THE WORLD’S SALVATION

MAXIMUS OF TURIN: The Savior asks for water from the woman, then, and feigns thirst so that he might give eternal grace to the thirsty. For the source was not able to be thirsty, [1] nor was he in whom there is living water able to draw water full of earthly sediment. Did Christ thirst, then? He thirsted, to be sure, but for salvation and not [merely] for human drink. He was thirsty not for the water of this world but for the redemption of the human race. [2] In a wonderful way, therefore, the source sitting by the well produces streams of mercy in that very place, and with flowing, living water he purifies the woman who is fornicating with a sixth man, not her husband but an adulterer. And in a new kind of miracle the woman who had come to the well of Samaria as a prostitute returned chaste from the source of Christ. She who had come to look for water brought back chastity. As soon as the Lord points her sins out to her she acknowledges them, confesses Christ and announces the Savior. Abandoning her pitcher she brings not water but grace back to the city. She seems, indeed, to return without a burden, but she returns full of holiness. She returns full, I say, because she who had come as a sinner goes back as a proclaimer, and she who had left her pitcher behind brought back the fullness of Christ, without the slightest loss to her city. For even if she did not bring water to the townspeople, still she brought in the source of salvation. Sanctified, then, by faith in Christ, the woman goes back home. SERMON 22.2. [3]

[1] The reference to Christ’s having feigned (simulat) his thirst and having been unable to drink is undoubtedly to be taken in a rhetorical way, contra Clement of Alexandria Stromateis 6.9.71. See also Maximus’s Sermon 51.1 and contrast this with Ambrose De Fide 5.4.53 and Augustine’s Sermon 78.6, where “the source descended so that he might thirst.” See also comments on Jn 4:6.

[2] See Sermon 2.2 and 66.4.

[3] ACW 50:54-55.