Commentary on the Gospel of John 13 part 3/6

See, too, what Heracleon says. For he says that the assembly was awaiting the Christ and was convinced concerning him, that he alone knows all things. 'Jesus says to her: I am he, who is speaking to you.' And at this his disciples came, and marveled that he was speaking with a woman; yet no one said, 'What do you seek?' or 'Why do you speak with her?'

It must be inquired whether Christ anywhere proclaimed himself as good news, and these passages must be compared with one another, such as: 'I am he who bears witness concerning myself, and the Father who sent me bears witness concerning me,' and in the passage 'If you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote about me' — and whatever is said similar to these in any of the Gospels.

But insofar as pertains to the literal text, let us learn from it, and from this passage too, that he is meek and humble in heart, not disdaining to discuss such great matters with a woman carrying water, who because of great poverty went out from the city and was toiling to draw water.

The disciples, too, when they arrived, marveled, having previously perceived the greatness of the divinity in him, and they marvel in what manner one so great was speaking with a woman. But we, led by arrogance and by pride, look down upon the more lowly, forgetting that in each individual person there applies the saying: 'Let us make man according to our image and our likeness.'

And not remembering him who formed us in the womb, and who alone formed the hearts of all people, and who understands all their works, we do not know that he is the God of the humble and helper of the lesser, the supporter of the weak, the protector of those who have lost hope, and the savior of the despairing.

And he uses this woman, as it were, as an apostle to those in the city, having so kindled her by his words that, leaving her water-jar, the woman went away into the city and said to the people: 'Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?' When they went out of the city, they were coming to him. And to such a one, not later, but at that very time, the Logos most clearly manifests himself — so that when the disciples came, they marveled that this woman, being a certain female and one easily deceived, had been deemed worthy to obtain conversation with the Logos.

However, the disciples, being well persuaded by the Logos that all things come to be [through him], neither rebuke him nor express perplexity concerning the discussion with the Samaritan woman and the conversation with her.

Perhaps, too, they were astounded at the great goodness of the Logos condescending to a soul that despised Zion and trusted in the mountain of Samaria; wherefore it is written: "They marveled that he was speaking with a woman."

And Heracleon, too, says regarding "I am he, the one speaking to you": since the Samaritan woman was persuaded concerning the Christ that when he came he would announce all things to her, he says, "Know that I, the one speaking to you, am he whom you expect." And when she had confessed that the expected one had come, "the disciples came to him" — he says — on whose account he had come into Samaria. But how had he come into Samaria on account of the disciples, who indeed had already been with him before? "So the woman left her water jar and went away into the city and says to the people: Come, see a man who told me all that I did; can this be the Christ?"

I think the evangelist did not record in vain also the matter concerning the leaving behind of the water jar, which the woman left as she went away into the city; according to the letter, then, it shows greater eagerness on the part of the Samaritan woman in leaving behind the water jar, and that she was not so concerned with the bodily and lowlier duty as with the benefit of the many; for she was moved most benevolently, wishing to announce the good news of the Christ to her fellow citizens, bearing witness to him who had spoken to her —

— all that he had done. And she calls them to see a man possessing a word greater than a man's; for what was visible to his eyes was a man. We too, then, must forget the more bodily things and, letting them go, hasten to impart to others the benefit of which we have partaken; for it is to this end that the evangelist, in recording the deed of the woman, calls forth praise from those who know how to read.

With regard to the anagogical sense, however, we must consider what the water jar is, which the Samaritan woman leaves behind, having in some way received the words of Jesus; and perhaps she sets aside the vessel of that which prides itself on the depth of the water — the teaching she previously held — belittling it, having received, in something better than the water jar, from the water already come to be in her, a beginning of water leaping up into eternal life;

for how, if she had not partaken of this water, could she have preached Christ benevolently to her fellow citizens, marveling at him for announcing all that she had done, unless she had partaken, through what she heard, of the water of salvation?

Rebecca too, herself having a water jar upon her shoulders, before Abraham's servant had finished speaking in his mind, came out, a virgin fair to look upon; and since she did not draw water in the same way as the Samaritan woman, she goes down to the spring and fills the water jar, and as she came up, Abraham's servant ran to meet her and said: "Give me a little water to drink from your water jar."

For since he was Abraham's servant, he was glad to receive even a little water from Rebecca's water jar. "And Rebecca hastened and let down her water jar upon her arm and gave him to drink, until he ceased drinking"; since, then, Rebecca's water jar was praiseworthy, it is not left behind by her, whereas the Samaritan woman's, not being so, is left behind at the sixth hour.

Here, then, a woman announces the good news of the Christ to the Samaritans, while at the end of the Gospels a woman who saw him before all others relates the resurrection of the Savior to the apostles.

But this woman, too, is not given thanks by the Samaritans as having announced the fullness of faith, since they say: "No longer do we believe because of your speaking; for we ourselves have heard and know that this one is truly the Savior of the world"; and that other woman is not entrusted with the first-fruits of touching the Christ, he saying to her, "Do not touch me"; for Thomas was about to hear: "Bring your finger here and see my hands, and bring your hand and put it into my side."

Now all that the woman had done was the association with the five men, and after them the concession to the sixth, illegitimate man, whom she renounced; and leaving behind the water jar also, she rests solemnly in the seventh; procuring benefit also for those who, from her former opinions, dwell in the city built upon the edifice of unsound teachings — the same city as the woman's — for whom she also becomes the cause of going out of the city and coming to Jesus.

And very carefully, in what follows, the Samaritans ask Jesus not that he remain in the city, but with them — that is, that he come to be in their ruling faculty; for perhaps it was not possible for him to remain in their city, since they too, doing well, went out of the city and were coming to him.

That such things are indicated most precisely for the anagogical interpretations, the evangelist giving us the occasions for this, is to be judged from what follows.

First it is written: "They went out of the city and were coming to him," and shortly after: "And from that city many of the Samaritans believed in him because of the word of the woman testifying, 'He told me all that I did'"; as, then, the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to remain with them.

So, first they were coming to him from the city. And a second time the Samaritans came to him, while he was still at Jacob's well (for he does not appear to have moved from there), and they asked him to remain with them; but it is not written after this that he entered the city, but rather "he remained there two days."

Moreover, in what follows it is not said, "And after the two days he went out of the city," but "And he went out from there"; for as far as the intelligible sense goes, the whole dispensation of benefit for the Samaritans took place at Jacob's well.

Heracleon, however, supposes that the water jar receptive of life is a disposition and conception of the power that comes from the Savior, which, he says, leaving it behind with him — that is, having with the Savior such a vessel, in which she had come to receive the living water — she returned to the world, announcing the good news of the coming of Christ to those who are called; for it is through the Spirit and by the Spirit that the soul is brought to the Savior.

But consider whether this water jar, being left behind altogether, can happen to be praised; for it says: "The woman left her water jar." For it is not added —

— that she left it with the Savior. But is it not also implausible that, having left behind this very disposition receptive of life and the conception of the power that comes from the Savior, and the vessel in which she had come to receive the living water, she should have gone away into the world without these to announce the good news of the coming of Christ to those who are called?

And how is it that the spiritual woman, after so many words, is not clearly persuaded concerning the Christ, but says, "Can this be the Christ?"

And "they went out of the city" he explained as referring to their former manner of life, which was worldly; "and they were coming," he says, through faith, to the Savior.

But it must be said to him: how does he remain with them the two days? For he has not observed what we set forth beforehand, that it is not recorded that he had remained in the city for the two days. "Meanwhile the disciples asked him, saying: Rabbi, eat."

After the dispensation concerning the drink and the teaching about the difference of waters, it was fitting that the matters concerning food also be recorded.

The Samaritan woman, then, being asked for a drink, through her perplexities, as it were …… but for the sake of the one who asked; for she did not have anything worthy to give Jesus to drink, unless he too, in that she who had been asked was to offer it, wished by this means to benefit her who had given him to drink.

It was already fitting …… on the part of the Samaritan woman. But the disciples ……, having gone away into the city that they might buy food, either having found suitable food among those of different belief — certain fitting words —, …… to him, "Eat"; thinking it a suitable time for food for him, the interval between the woman's having gone into the city and the Samaritans' having come to him; for they were not setting food before him from any stranger, since the Samaritan woman would perhaps have been vexed had she seen the disciples wishing to set before the teacher provisions, whether real or supposed, from her city.

But not even in the presence of the Samaritans would they fittingly have said, "Rabbi, eat," when it was necessary for the Samaritans to leave their own city. For this reason it is rightly added: "Meanwhile the disciples asked him, saying: Rabbi, eat."

But why they were asking him, and not …… — worth examining —; for otherwise it would have been written: "And meanwhile the disciples were saying to him: Rabbi, eat."

And the fact that they both ask that he eat and entreat …… and beseech, perhaps indicates something — sometimes before, and sometimes also after the examination. And observe whether they are wary lest …… the Logos, by its own …… , or being strengthened by foods, and he himself …… found …… to be consumed; for the disciples always wish to nourish the Logos with whatever they find, so that, being strengthened and invigorated and empowered, he may remain the longer with those who nourish him, in turn nourishing those who set food before him.

For this reason it says he stands at the door and knocks, so that if anyone opens the door he may come in to him and dine with him, so that afterward the one who provided the dinner may in turn be dined upon by the Logos who had dined with the man.

Heracleon says that they wished to share with him from what they had bought and brought from Samaria. And he says these things so that some …… the five foolish virgins …… from the bridegroom.

But how, I think, …… to have the same things …… they are said …… to the foolish virgins who were shut out — worth examining — as containing an accusation against the disciples for sleeping alongside the same foolish virgins.

Moreover, the dissimilarity of light to food, and of oil to foodstuffs …… should be blamed for the misunderstanding; or, if he were at all able to make the matter clear, he ought to have offered further explanation at greater length, establishing his own interpretation. "But he said to them: I have food to eat that you do not know."

That which lacks nothing has no need of food, but that which needs food is not without need. And it is clear that he who eats does not eat without needing food, but eats because he needs and requires it.

And bodies, being by nature in flux, are nourished by the food that fills the place of what flows away; but the things better than body are nourished by incorporeal thoughts and words and healthy actions — not that they would be dissolved into non-being if unnourished (for not even bodies, when unnourished, are dissolved into non-being); but the things of a nature different from bodies lose that particular mode of being when they are not nourished by such things.

And just as bodies needing food are not nourished by things of every quality, nor does the same quantity of food suffice for all, so must it also be understood concerning the things better than bodies. For these too need, some more, some less, food, not being capable of the same amounts.

Nor, moreover, is the quality of the nourishing words and thoughts that belong to contemplation, and of the actions fitting to these, the same for all souls.

For indeed, both vegetables and solid food do not nourish, at the same time, those who need the improvement that comes from them.

For newborn infants, as Peter says, should long for the pure, rational milk; and if anyone still has the infancy of the Corinthians, to whom Paul says: "I gave you milk to drink, not solid food."

But let the one who is weak through lack of belief eat vegetables; and this too Paul teaches, saying: "One believes he may eat all things, but the one who is weak eats vegetables."

And there is indeed sometimes a better hospitality of vegetables, offered for friendship and grace, than fattened calves from the stall offered with enmity. Solid food belongs to the perfect, who through habituation have their senses trained for the discernment of good and evil; and there is also a certain poisonous food, which we learn of from the Fourth Book of Kingdoms, where some say to Elisha: "Death is in the pot, O man of God."

And there is a certain grass-like spiritual food for the more irrational souls, and another — hay or chaff — signified by: "The Lord shepherds me, and I shall lack nothing."

"In a place of green grass he made me dwell; by the water of rest he nourished me." And Isaiah also says: "And the lion shall eat chaff like an ox." But hay too was set before the cattle in the house of Rebecca, for the servant of Abraham.

But if someone is more rational, and for this reason also an intelligible man, he eats the intelligible bread, as it is written in the Psalms: "Bread strengthens the heart of man"; and he is gladdened by intelligible wine, no differently than is said of man: "For wine gladdens the heart of man."

And our discourse must ascend from the irrational creatures and from men, even to the angels, who also are themselves nourished; for they are not altogether without need. "Man ate the bread of angels" — blessed indeed is Abraham, who was able to set unleavened bread baked in ashes before the three who appeared to him.

But we must now proceed to the topic before us, concerning the food of Christ, which the disciples then did not know; for Jesus speaks truly, saying: "I have food to eat that you do not know."

For what Jesus was indeed doing — doing the will of him who sent him and completing his work — this the disciples did not know. But that it may be understood —

— more clearly, "I have food to eat that you do not know," let Paul also say this to the Corinthians, who have need of milk and not solid food, and who are given milk to drink and not food, because they are not yet able to partake of food: "I have food to eat that you do not know."

And always the one who excels will say to those who are inferior and unable to contemplate the same things as those who are better —

— "I have food to eat that you do not know." And it is not absurd to say that not only men and angels are in need of intelligible foods, but also the Christ of God; for he too, if I may so put it, is always being supplied by the Father, who alone is without need and self-sufficient to himself.

Now the great mass of those being taught receive their food from the disciples of Jesus, who are bidden to set it before the crowds; but the disciples of Jesus receive it from Jesus himself, except sometimes also from holy angels; while the Son of God receives his food from the Father alone, not through any intermediary.

Nor is it absurd to say that the Holy Spirit too is nourished; but we must seek out a scriptural passage that suggests this to us. The whole mystery of the calling and the election is the food at the great banquet; for it says: "A man was making a great banquet, and at the hour of the banquet he sent to call those who had been invited."

— those who had been invited. And we must also gather up from the Gospels the parables concerning banquets. But also through Isaiah the promises are of eating and drinking, as he says: "Behold, those who serve me shall eat, but you shall hunger; behold, those who serve me shall drink, but you shall thirst."

Furthermore, in Genesis, God places man in the paradise of food, giving laws about eating certain things and not eating certain things. And man would have remained immortal had he eaten for food from every tree in paradise, but not eaten from the tree of knowing good and evil.

Observe also what is said in the twenty-first Psalm concerning those who worship because they have eaten: "For they ate," it says, "and all the fat ones of the earth worshiped"; wherefore: "The Lord will not let a righteous soul starve, but when we become unjust, he will send a famine upon the land — not a famine of bread nor a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the word of the Lord."

So, to the extent that we advance, we shall eat better and more, until perhaps we shall reach the point of eating the same food as the Son of God, which the disciples for the present do not know. But on this text Heracleon said nothing. "The disciples therefore said to one another: Has someone brought him something to eat?"

Whether Heracleon supposes these words to have been spoken by the disciples in a fleshly manner, as men still thinking rather lowly and imitating the Samaritan woman when she said, "You have no bucket, and the well is deep," is worth our examining — or whether perhaps, seeing something more divine, the disciples say to one another —

— "Has someone brought him something to eat?" For perhaps they suspected that some angelic power had brought him something to eat; and it is likely that for this reason they were being taught that the food he had to eat was something greater, namely, to do the will of him who sent him and to complete his work. "Jesus says to them: My food is that I may do the will of him who sent me and complete his work."

A fitting food for the Son of God, when he becomes the doer of the Father's will, doing in himself this very willing which was also in the Father, so that the will of God is in the will of the Son, and the will of the Son becomes indistinguishable from the will of the Father, so that there are no longer two wills but one will; and this one will was the cause of the Son's saying, "I and the Father are one"; and because of this will, he who has seen him has seen the Son, and has also seen him who sent him.

And it is more fitting that we understand it thus, that the will of the Father is accomplished by the Son — a will from which even the external things outside the one willing came to be well — rather than that we, without carefully examining the matters concerning the will, should suppose that doing the will of him who sent him consists in merely doing certain external things.

For that external act, I mean that which comes to be by the one who wills apart from the aforementioned will, is not the whole will of the Father; but the whole will of the Father comes to be through the Son, when the willing of God, having come to be in the Son, does those things which the will of God wishes.

Only the Son does the whole will, having made room for the Father; wherefore he is also his image. But we must also examine the matter concerning the Holy Spirit: the other holy beings will do nothing contrary to the will of God, and indeed all that they do, they will do according to the will of God; yet they are not sufficient to be shaped according to the whole will.

And this holy being, compared with that holy being, will receive from the Father's will something greater, or more, or more fully expressed, by comparison with another; and again, beyond that one there will be yet another receiving differently; but the whole and entire will of God will be done by him who said: "It is mine, that I may do the will of God who sent me."

After this, at any rate, he speaks gratefully concerning God: "The Son can do nothing of himself unless he sees the Father doing it; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son likewise does. The Father loves the Son and shows him all things that he himself does."

And perhaps for these reasons he is "the image of the invisible God"; for the will in him is an image of the First Will, and the deity in him is an image of the true deity; and being also the image of the Father's goodness, he says: "Why do you call me good?" And this will, indeed, is the food proper to the Son himself, the food on account of which he is what he is.

That the will concerns the inner disposition is shown by the ensuing text, which speaks, secondly, after the doing of the will, of the completing of the work of God.

We must consider this further, so that we may know what "I may complete his work" means. Now one will say, more simply, that it is the appointed work, which belongs to the one who appointed it — …… just as, to use examples, we would say that builders or farmers "complete the work" of the one who took them on for the work, by doing that for which they were taken on; but another will say that if the work of God is completed by the Christ, it is clear that this, before being completed, was incomplete; but how could it be incomplete, being a work belonging to God?

And how is the work of God completed by him who said, "The Father who sent me is greater than I"? The completion of the work was the completion of the rational creature; for it was to make this — being incomplete — complete, that the Logos who became flesh came.

Was the work, then, created incomplete, and is the Savior sent to complete the incomplete? And how is it not absurd that the Father should have become the maker of something incomplete, while the Savior completed the incomplete thing that had been created incomplete?

I think, indeed, that in these passages a deeper mystery lies hidden; for perhaps the rational creature was not altogether incomplete at the very moment it was placed in paradise.

For how could God have placed him in paradise, wholly imperfect, to work it and keep it? For he who is able to work the tree of life and all the things that God planted and that afterward sprang up would not reasonably be called imperfect.

Perhaps, then, being perfect, he somehow became imperfect through disobedience, and needed one to perfect him out of his imperfection; and for this reason the Savior was sent — first, that he might do the will of him who sent him, becoming a laborer here too; and second, that he might perfect the work of God, and that each one, having been perfected, might become accustomed to solid food and be conversant with wisdom. Now solid food belongs to the perfect, to those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern good and evil. And he who speaks wisdom says: "But we speak wisdom among them that are perfect."

And when each of us, being the work of God, has been perfected by Jesus, he will say: "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith; henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness."

And it is not man alone who fell from the perfect to the imperfect, but also the sons of God, who saw the daughters of men, that they were fair, and took to themselves wives of all whom they chose; and, quite simply, all who abandoned their own dwelling and did not keep their own first estate.

By "first estate" I mean not that which is compared to authority, but that which stands opposed to "end" and lies next to "first" — so that, just as for man the beginning was to be in paradise, while the end was perhaps to be down in Hades or some such place, so also to each of those who have fallen there happens to be given some proper beginning of his own.

Yet Jesus, in perfecting the work of God — I mean all rational beings, and not man alone — perfects it in the same manner: for the more blessed ones, being obedient to reason and not needing toil, are perfected by reason alone; but others, having disobeyed reason, need toils, so that after the toils, being brought to reason, they might afterward at some time be perfected by these.

Yet both of these together are one food proper to Jesus: both to do the will of him who sent him, and to perfect his work.

Heracleon says that through "My food is to do the will of him who sent me," the Savior is explaining to the disciples that this was what he had been discussing with the woman, calling "proper food" the will of the Father; for this, he says, was his nourishment and rest and power.

And by the Father's will he meant that men should know the Father and be saved, which was the work of the Savior, sent for this reason into Samaria, that is, into the world. He thus took "food" to mean this, and also the discussion with the Samaritan woman — which, I think, is plainly seen by everyone to have been grasped in a mean and forced manner.

But he did not clearly show how the will of the Father is food for the Savior; nor how the will of the Father is also rest. For the Lord says elsewhere, as though the paternal will is not altogether his rest: "Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not what I will, but what you will." And whence, moreover, is it shown that the will of God is the Savior's power? "Do you not say, There are yet four months, and then comes the harvest? Behold, I say to you, Lift up your eyes and look on the fields, for they are white already to harvest."

Against those who suppose that "Do you not say, There are yet four months, and then comes the harvest?" was spoken more simply and in a more bodily sense, these difficulties must be raised, so that they may be persuaded that the Savior often spoke intelligible things bare of sensible and bodily reference.

For if the time when Jesus said these things was four months before the harvest, it is clear that it was winter. Now in Judea the harvest begins around the month called by the Hebrews Nisan, when the Passover is kept, so that sometimes they make the unleavened bread from the new grain.