Cyril of Alexandria

Conceiving that the Lord is in truth a Prophet and a Jew, she boasts exceedingly of the customs of her country, and asserts that the Samaritans are far superior in wisdom to the Jews. For the Jews admitting too gross notions of the Divine and Incorporeal Nature, contended that in Jerusalem alone, or its neighbour Sion, ought the God over all to be worshipped, as though the whole Ineffable and Incomprehensible Nature had once for all there taken abode, and was enclosed in temples made with hands. Wherefore they were convicted of being utterly without understanding, by the voice of the Prophets, God saying, Heaven is My Throne and earth is My Footstool, what house will ye build Me, saith the Lord, or what is the place of My rest? The Samaritans again little remote from the folly of the Jews, bordering both in country alike and uninstructedness, supposing that in the mount called Gerizim they ought both to pray and worship, rightly escape not being laughed at. But the plea to them also of their senselessness was, that the blessing was given in Mount Gerizim, as we find written in Deuteronomy. This question the woman proposes to the Saviour, as some great and difficult problem, saying, Our fathers worshipped in this mountain,

CHAPTER V. That the Son is not in the number of worshippers, in that He is Word and God, but rather is worshipped with the Father.

He speaks again as a Jew and a man, since the economy of the matter in hand demands now too this mode of speaking (for Christ would not have missed meet opportunity): yet does He attribute something more in respect of understanding to the worship of the Jews. For the Samaritans worship God simply and without search, but the Jews having received through the Law and Prophets the knowledge of Him Who is, as far as they were able. Therefore He says that the Samaritans know not, but that the Jews have good knowledge, of whom He affirms, that salvation shall be revealed, that is Himself. For Christ was of the seed of David according to the flesh, David of the tribe of Judah. Amongst the worshippers again as Man does He class Himself, Who together with God the Father is worshipped both by us and the holy angels. For since He had put on the garb of a servant, He fulfilleth the ministry befitting a servant, having not lost the being God and Lord and to be worshipped. For He abideth the Same, even though He hath become Man, retaining throughout the plan of the dispensation after the Flesh.

And even though thou see an abasement great and supernatural, approach wondering, not accusing, not faultfinding, but rather imitating. For such Paul desireth to see us, saying, Let this mind be in each of you, which was also in Christ Jesus, Who, being in the Form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God; but emptied Himself: taking upon Him the form of a servant, made in the likeness of men, and being found in fashion as a Man, He humbled Himself. Seest thou how the Son became to us a Pattern of lowliness, being in Equality and Form of the Father as it is written: yet descended for our sakes to a voluntary obedience and lowliness? How then could the garb of obedience, how could that of lowliness appear, otherwise than through deeds and words beneath His God-befitting Dignity, and having a great inferiority to those wherein He was while yet bare Word with the Father, and not involved in the form of a servant? How shall we say that He has at all descended, if we allow Him nothing unworthy of Him? How was He made in the likeness of men, according to the voice of Paul, if He imitated not what befits man? But a thing most befitting men is worship, regarded in the light of a debt, and offered by us to God. Therefore He worshippeth as Man, when He became Man; He is worshipped ever with the Father, since He was and is and will be, God by Nature and Very.

But our opponent will not endure this, but will withstand us, saying: "Think it not strange when we say that the Son worships: for we do not suppose that the Son ought to worship the Father, in the same way as we or the angels, for example: but the worship of the Son is something special and far better than ours."

What then shall we reply to these things? Thou thinkest, fellow, to mislead us, by putting a most noble bondage about the Only-Begotten, and gilding over the dignity of a servant by certain words of deceit. Cease from glorifying the Son with dishonour, that thou mayest continue to honour the Father. For he that honoureth not the Son, neither doth he honour the Father, as it is written. For what (tell me) will it profit the Only-Begotten in respect of freedom, that His worship of the Father should be made more excellent than ours? For so long as He is found among worshippers, He will be altogether a bondman, and even though He be conceived of as a superior worshipper, yet will He by no means differ from creatures in respect of being originate, but only in the remaining excellencies, as to men is superior Michael or any other of the holy and reasonable powers, to whom superiority to those upon earth seems essentially to belong, either in respect of holiness or any superabundance of glory, it having been so decreed by the Chief Artificer of all things, God: but the being classed with things originate, as having been created, is common to them with the rest. The Word then Who is in the Father and of the Father by Nature will never escape being originate, even though He be said to worship in a more excellent way. Then how will that which is made be yet Son, or how will the bondman and worshipper be by Nature Lord? For I suppose that the royal and lordly dignity is pre-eminent in being worshipped: but the office of servant and slave is defined in his paying worship. We confess then by being subject that we hold ourselves bound to worship the Nature which is superior and above all. Wherefore it was proclaimed to the whole creation by the all-wise Moses, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and Him only shalt thou serve. So that to whatsoever servitude belongs by nature, and whatever boweth under the yoke of the Godhead, this full surely must needs worship, and submit to the garb of adoration. For in saying Lord, he defines the bond, in saying God, the creature. For together are they conceived of, and contrasted, the bond with Him who is by Nature Lord, and that which is brought into being, with the Inoriginate Godhead.

But seeing the Son is eternally in the Father and is Lord as God, I am at a loss to show whence He can appear to owe worship. But let them proceed with their babbling: "The Only Begotten (says he) will worship the Father, neither as bond nor created, but as a Son the Father." We must therefore take adoration into the definition of Sonship, and say that it altogether behoves the Son to worship the Father, for that in this consists His being, even as does ours in being reasonable mortal creatures, recipient of mind and knowledge, rather than in committing ourselves to motions external and impulsive, and to the mere swayings of will. For if there have been implanted by Nature into the Only Begotten, the duty wholly and of necessity to worship, and they so hold and say, how will they not be caught in naked blasphemy against the Father Himself? For it is altogether necessary to conceive of Him too as such, since the Son is His Image and Impress, and whatever things are in exact likeness, these full surely will differ in nothing. But if they say that the Son pays worship to the Father in will alone, they are guessers, rather than knowers of the truth. For what would hinder others too from saying, fabricating a hazardous piety, that it was the will of the Father to worship the Son, though not a worshipper by Nature?

"But (says he) fitness itself will remove the Person of the Father, will subject the Son to this, His worship of the Father not unwilled."

What sayest thou, o sir? Dost thou again bring forth to us oracles as from shrines, or Greek tripods, or comest thou like that Shemaiah the Nehelamite, belching forth out of thine own heart, and not out of the mouth of the Lord? and dost thou not blush, opposing to us fitness, as though invincible in these matters? For dost thou not think it befits Him Who is by. Nature God, to have the Word begotten of Him God, and that He Whom the whole creation worships, should be called and be by Nature the Father of a Son Who is worshipped, rather than a worshipper? But I think I say nothing displeasing to the truly wise. But how shall we define that it also befits that the Father be worshipped by His Own offspring, when such a conception as to Both endures so great damage? For in the first place that which worships not will be neither in equality of dignity, nor in exact Image of nature with that which worships. For it worships as inferior, and that not measurable by quantity, in respect of any natural quality (for He That is God or Lord will not be lesser), but as differing in the definition of mode of being. Then how will He be shown to be true in saying, He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father? how doth He say that He ought to be honoured in no less degree than the Father, if He be not His Equal in glory by reason of His worshipping? Then besides, the Father will Himself too appear to be in no slight unseemliness. For it is His glory to beget such as Himself is by Nature: on the other hand it is no slight disgrace, to have a son of another kind and alien, and to be in such case as even the very nature of things originate shrinks from. For they that have received power to bear, bear not worse than themselves, by the ordinance and will of the Artificer of all things. For, saith He, let the earth bring forth grass, the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind and after his likeness. The Godhead then will be in worse case than things originate, since they are thus, It not so, but that which was adjudged alike to befit and to have been well arranged for the successions of things which are, this It Alone will be found without.

Who then, most excellent sirs, will endure you saying, that it befits the Son to worship His Father? But when it has been added to those words of yours, that neither is this unwilled by the Only-Begotten, and this gratuitous argument of yours ye fortify merely by fitness; come, let us consider this too from the Divine Scriptures, whence I think one ought zealously to look for proof on every disputed point. The law therefore enjoined the half of a didrachm to be paid by every one of the Jews to Him Who is God over all, not as devising a way of getting wealth, nor contributions of money to no purpose, but imparting us instruction by clearest types: first, that no one is lord of his own head, but that we all have one Lord, enrolled unto servitude by the deposit of tribute; next, depicting the mental and spiritual fruits, as in a grosser representation and act. For (says he) Honour the Lord with thy righteous labours, and render Him the first fruits of thy fruits of righteousness, which came to pass through the Gospel teaching, the worship after the law being at last closed. For no longer do we think we ought to worship with external offerings the Lord of all, pressing to pay the didrachm of corruptible matter: but being true worshippers, we worship God the Father in Spirit and in. truth. This meaning we must suppose to lie hid in the letter of the law.

When then the Lord was in Jerusalem, the gatherers of the didrachm were asking of Peter, saying, Doth not your Master pay the didrachm? But when he was come into the house, as it is written, Jesus prevented him, saying, of whom do the kings of the earth take custom or tribute? of their own. children or of strangers? When he said, Of strangers, Jesus said, Then are the children free; yet lest we should offend them, go thou to the sea, and cast an hook, and take up the fish that first cometh up; and when thou hast opened his mouth, thou shalt find a stater: that take and give unto them for Me and thee. Seest thou that the Son endured not to be under tribute, and as one of those under' the yoke of bondage, to undergo a servile thing? For knowing the free dignity of His Own Nature He affirms that He owes nothing servile to God the Father: for He says, The children are free. How then hath He the worship befitting a slave, and that of His own will? He who shrank at even the bare type of the thing, how could He accept the verity? For shall we not reckon worship as a tribute and spiritual fruit-bearing, and say that it is a kind of service? For why did the law join service to worship, saying, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and Him only shalt thou serve? For worship is so to say the gate and way to service in deed, being the beginning of servitude to God. Wherefore the Psalmist says to some, O come, let us worship and fall down, and weep before the Lord our Maker. Seest thou how the duty of falling down follows upon, and is joined to, worshipping? than which what will be more befitting a servant, at least in the estimation of those who rightly weigh the qualities of things, I cannot say.

But if our opponents persist, bearing themselves haughtily in yet unbroken impudence, and cease not from their uninstructed reasonings on these subjects, let them going through the whole Holy Scripture, show us the Son worshipping God the Father, while He was yet bare Word, before the times of the Incarnation and the garb of servitude. For now as Man, He worships unblamed: but then, not yet so. But they will not be able to show this from the Divine and sacred Scriptures, but heaping up conjectures and surmisings of corrupt imaginations, will with reason hear. Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the glory of the Only Begotten. For that He does not worship in that He is Word and God, but having become as we, He undertook to endure this too as befits man, by reason of the dispensation of the Flesh----; the proof shall not be sought by us from without, but we shall know it from His own Words. For what is it that He is saying to the woman of Samaria? YE worship ye know not what, WE know what we worship. Is it not hence too clear to every body that in using the plural number and numbering Himself with those who worship of necessity and as bond, that it is as made in human nature which is bond that He is saying this? For what (tell me) would hinder His drawing the worship apart into His own Person, if He wished to be conceived of by us as a worshipper? for He should rather have said, I know what I worship, in order that, unclassed with the rest, He might appropriate the force of the utterance to Himself alone. But, now most excellently and with all security He says WE, as already ranked among the bond by reason of His Manhood, as numbered among the worshippers, as a Jew by country.

Not to untutored or wholly ignorant souls doth Christ reveal Himself, bat shines upon and appears the rather to those who are more ready to desire to learn, and travailing with the beginning of the faith in simple words, press forward to the knowledge of what is more perfect. Such an one as this was the woman of Samaria also shown to us, giving her mind more grossly than she ought to the truly Divine ideas, but not entirely removed from the desire of understanding somewhat. For first, on Christ asking for drink, she does not readily give it: but beholding Him breaking (as far as one can speak humanly) the national customs of the Jews, she begins to seek first the reason of this, all but, by her mentioning it, inviting the Lord to an explanation: How is it (says she) that THOU being a Jew askest drink of me which am a woman of Samaria? But when during the progress of questioning, she at length begun to confess that He was a Prophet, having received His reproof a medicine unto salvation, she added another inquiry saying with zeal for learning: Our fathers worshipped in this mountain, and YE say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. But He was teaching this again, that the time shall come, yea, is already present, when the true worshippers, rejecting worship on the mountains of earth, shall offer the higher and spiritual worship to God the Father. She attributing the best of all as the due of the Christ alone, and keeping the more perfect knowledge for those times, says, We know that Messias cometh Which is called Christ; when He is come, He will tell us all things. Seest thou how ready to believe the woman was already getting, and as though ascending a staircase, springs up from little questions to a higher condition? It was right then to lay open to her with now clearer voice what she longed for, telling her that that which was preserved in good hope is at length set before her in sight, I that speak unto thee am He.

Let them therefore who have the care of teaching in the Churches commit to the new-born disciples, the word of teaching to be digested, and so at length let them show them Jesus, bringing them up from slight instruction to the more perfect knowledge of the faith. But let them who, taking hold of the alien and so proselyte, and bringing him within the inner veil, suffer him to offer the Lamb with hands yet unwashen, and crown with the dignity of the Priesthood him who is not yet instructed, prepare for a mighty account in the day of judgment. It is sufficient for me only to say this.

The woman now shows herself superior to and above the cares of the body, who two or three days ago was the wife of many, and she who ofttimes was easily taken captive by vain pleasures, now overreaches the flesh of its necessary want, disregarding alike thirst and drink, and is re-wrought unto another habit through faith. Forthwith doth she, exercising love the fairest of all virtues, and neighbourly-affection, diligently proclaiming to others also the good which appeared to her, hasten quickly into the city. For probably the Saviour was telling her, and secretly whispering in her mind, Freely ye received, freely give. Learn we hereby, not to imitate that sloth-loving servant, and who therefore hid his talent in the earth, but rather let us be diligent to trade with it. Which thing too that much-talked-of woman well doing, communicates to the rest the good which fell to her, no longer taking the water which she came to draw, from its fountain-depths, nor carrying home her waterpot of the earth, but rather with Divine and heavenly grace and the all-wise teaching of the Saviour filling the garners of her understanding.

We must hence learn, as in a type and outline, that by thoroughly despising little and corporal things, we shall receive of God things manifold more and better. For what is earthly water, compared with Heavenly wisdom?

They went out of the city, and came unto Him. The obedience of the Samaritans is a conviction of the hardness of heart of the Jews, and their inhumanity is clearly shown in the gentleness of these. And let the seeker of learning see again the difference of habit in both, that he may justly wonder at Jesus, departing from the Synagogue of the Jews, and giving Himself rather to the aliens. For that Christ should come to the Jews, and for what causes He should be revealed, the law of Moses declared to us, the all-august choir of the Prophets did proclaim, and did point Him out at length all but present at the doors, saying, Behold your God, Behold the Lord; and last of all John, the great among them that are born of women, did manifest Him already appeared, and dwelling among us, saying, Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world; and (yet more wonderfully than all) the Saviour was revealing Himself through many deeds of power and God-befitting authority. What then do these men unbridled unto strange counsels at last meditate yet? They devise murder unjustly, they plot impiously, they envy stubbornly, they drive forth of their land and city, the Life, the Light, the Salvation of all, the Way to the kingdom, the Remission of sins, the Bestower of sonship. Wherefore rightly said the Saviour, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the Prophets and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Behold your house is left unto you. But the Samaritans show themselves superior to the folly of the Jews, and by obedience victorious over their innate unlearning, having given ear to one miracle only, they flock quickly to Jesus, not persuaded thereto by the voices of the holy Prophets, or by the proclamations of Moses, nor yet the actual pointings of John, but one only woman and she a sinner telling them of Him. With reason then, let us too admiring the sentence of the Saviour against them, say, Righteous art Thou, o Lord, and upright Thy Judgment.

Most excellently doth the Divine Evangelist manage the compilation of this book, and omits nothing which he believes will at all be of use to the readers. Hear therefore how he introduces Jesus again as the Ensample of a most note-worthy act. For I do not think that any thing has been put in vain in the writings of the saints, but what any man deems small, he sometimes finds pregnant with no contemptible profit. The conversion of the Samaritans being then begun, and they on the point of looking for Him (for He knew as God that they would come): wholly and entirely is He intent upon the salvation of them which are called, and makes no account of bodily food, although wearied with His journey, as it is written: that hereby again He might profit the teachers in the Churches, and persuade them to disregard all fatigue, and use more diligent zeal for those who are being saved, than for the care of their bodies. For Cursed, saith the Prophet, be he that doeth the work of the Lord negligently. In order then that we may learn that the Lord was accustomed to go without food at such times, he introduces the disciples, begging and all but on their knees, that He would take a little of their provisions, as inevitable and necessary food. For they had gone away into the city to buy meat which they had now got and come with.