LECTURE XII.

THE WOMAN OF SAMARIA.

JOHN iv. 1-14.

XII.

OUR Lord's success in baptizing so many seems LECT. to have given greater umbrage to the Pharisees than even to John's disciples. These latter complained in their zeal for their Master, and his explanation doubtless soon satisfied them: but with the former, enmity to Christ Himself was the moving principle. Therefore knowing this, and "to avoid anticipating that which should be," our Lord left Judæa, and departed again into Galilee.

He left Judæa, the scene of this success, which was subject to the authority of the Sanhedrim or great council of the Jews, and where consequently the Pharisees might have opportunity of prematurely manifesting their malice. His hour was not yet come. When it came, He was led as a lamb to the slaughter: but until it came, He would avoid His enemies; for in the meanwhile He had a great work to do.

He avoided them too, we may see, in the ordinary way. He did not see good to preserve Himself, as He doubtless might have done, by a continued succession of miracles. There is a divine

a Bloomfield ad loc.

LECT. economy in the exercise of these displays: they XII. are as their name implies, extra-ordinary-only to be employed where the ordinary means would fail.

Our Lord knew that the Pharisees knew of His success, without being informed by any one'. He knew it by His divine omniscience. He knew that they had heard it as soon as they heard it: and knowing it, He acted at once accordingly.

Our Evangelist tells us, that Jesus Himself baptized not, but His disciples. If He had done so, those who received the rite at His hands might have set an undue value upon the circumstance, and have set themselves above those who had been baptized by the disciples; in a similar spirit to that which St. Paul afterwards reproves in the Corinthians d. Therefore the Lord left the administration of this rite entirely to His disciples: teaching us that the effect of God's ordinance does not depend upon those who minister it; and that what is done by His ministers, in His name, is virtually done by Himself.

And now we are come to one of those memorable passages recorded by St. John alone of the Evangelists. It is one of those touching episodes in the history of our Lord's human life, which help us to

b" Quia vero cognovit eorum scientiam, simul cognovit et invidentiam, quia non hoc propterea didicerunt ut sequerentur, sed ut persequerentur; abiit inde.....in omni re quam gessit ut homo, hominibus in se credituris præbebat exemplum." Aug. in Jo. Tr. xv. 2. See what is offered on v. 7. inf.

In v. 1, the word Jesus is used instead of the pronoun He designedly. It is not tautology. The proper name is employed "because the report which the Pharisees had heard is given verbatim: the 7 is 'recitantis' merely." Alford. The verbs, it will be noticed, are in the present tense. d 1 Cor. i. 10 et sq.

e The xxvith Article.

realize, more fully than in any other way, the LECT. character of Him" who went about doing good."

Our Lord then is on His way again into Galilee, where He had been before, and in one of whose towns, Cana, He had wrought the miracle of turning the water into wine. His way thither lay through Samaria, a country lying in the midst between Judæa and Galilee. So they journeyed, He and His disciples, making their daily march towards the place whither they went, as any other wayfaring men; and halting every now and then to procure their daily bread, or to take their necessary repose. On the way they came into the neighbourhood of a city called Sychar, or, as it is generally in the Old Testament, Shechem': the territory mentioned in the Book of Joshua", where we read, " And the bones of Joseph, which the children of Israel brought up out of Egypt, buried they in Shechem, in a parcel of ground which Jacob bought of the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem, for an hundred pieces of silver: and it became the inheritance of the children of Joseph."

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A well was there, called Jacob's well; which tradition handed down as dug by the patriarch himself. In that dry and thirsty land water is precious to a degree that we can hardly realize in this land of ours, and the man who digs a well there is a public benefactor. These wells are usually inclosed with a low wall, which affords

f 1 Kings xii. 25. et al.

gch. xxiv. 32. There is an interesting disquisition upon this place in "A Plain Commentary," ad loc.

b v. 12.

XII.

H

XII.

LECT. a seat to the weary wayfaring man, who usually seeks such a spot for his halting place, where he can at once procure rest, refreshment, and shade. Such a traveller was the Lord of all at this time'; and accordingly, like any other traveller, He sat Himself down on the well side. He had been marching, probably, from the early dawn, until they drew nigh the city in that sultry noon : for it was about the sixth hour, mid-day, when the sun was at its highest, and when consequently such a place would feel especially grateful'. From the grey dawn He had been travelling, under a tropical, burning sky", a weary "wayfaring

"Ideo fatigatus ab itinere, quid est aliud quam fatigatus in carne." Aug. in Jo. Tr. xv. 7.

"Illius infirmitas nostra est fortitudo." Ibid. 8.

k "Oτws addit μμnrik@s, ut gestus exprimat hominis lassi." Erasm. "Ita ut lassus erat, vel idcirco quia lassus erat." Beza, who cites Acts xx. 11.

Οὐκ ἐπὶ προσκεφαλαίου, ἀλλ ̓ ἁπλῶς καὶ ὡς ἔτυχεν ἐπ ̓ ἐδάφους. Chrys. De Dieu seems to explain it away, "quum lassus erat Jesus ab itinere, tum sedit ad fontem." The Vulgate renders "sedebat sic." Those who have visited the Chapel of Trinity College, Cambridge, will remember the 'sic sedebat" of Bacon's monument.

1 "Sextam horam expressit ut intelligeremus Dominum non solum itineris labore verum etiam æstu meridiano fuisse fatigatum." Erasm. “Lassus erat de via, et instabat meridies, maximus videlicet diei æstus.” Beza.

"Causam sitis ostendit, quia et multum itineris fecerat et jam erat meridies." Grotius.

The reasons for regarding this as six o'clock in the evening are ably stated by Dr. Wordsworth.

This view, however, seems sufficiently answered by Dean Alford. q. v. The reader of "The Christian Year" will call to mind the passage, (Second Sunday after Christmas.)

"Thou who didst sit on Jacob's well

The weary hour of noon,

The languid pulses Thou canst tell,

The nerveless spirit tune."

m Lampe, citing here the opinions of others, has, " quod licet Christus defatigatus ex itinere fessum ceperit, ob sitim tamen ex calore contractam fontem petierit," &c.

XII.

man, a stranger in the land;" and He was doubt- LECT. less foot-sore and fatigued from the long journey, and the labours which had preceded". And so while His disciples repaired to the neighbouring city to buy them a supply of food, He, "being wearied, sat thus on the well;" not only to rest this His wearied body, but, as the sequel shews, to enable other wearied and heavy laden to find rest unto their souls.

Meanwhile there came one of the women of the neighbouring city, as they still come, pitcher in hand or on the head, to draw water-an office. which in the East still falls to the woman-and the Lord begins that conversation which ends in the deliverance of her soul: begins by asking for the water of this well of her to whom He presently gave of the water of the well of life; leading her, as was His wont, from things below to things above; making material things to minister spiritual sustenance; putting a tongue into these waters, and causing them to utter "a still small voice;" the temporal blessing made to discourse of the eternal. So our Lord, designing to do her good, takes for His text, according as He was wont, the subject before

The interest of the narrative very naturally is concentrated on the person of our Lord. The eye is fixed on Him alone, His disciples being entirely subordinate, and in the back ground. It is only incidentally we learn that they were with Him. It is not till the parenthesis of v. 8. we discover this. Till then, and after that, we see no man but Jesus only, vv. 1-7. 40 sqq. We may add, that if He were more wearied than they, He had more to weary Him than they.

0

"A terrestri re incipit, ut viam paulatim ad sublimiora sternat." Lampe. In his exordium (Tr. xv.) Augustine says of what is to come, "Dicta enim ibi sunt magna mysteria, et magnarum similitudines rerum."