[Christ acted] not from fear but to take away their malice and soften their envy. He was indeed able to restrain them when they came against him, but he did not want to be found doing this all the time. Otherwise people might not believe his incarnation in the flesh was real. For if he was always being seized, only to then escape, this would have raised a lot of suspicion. Therefore, for the most part, he did things in a human way instead.

Certainly, if the Pharisees’ knowledge that our Lord was making more disciples and baptizing more than John had been such as to lead them wholeheartedly to follow him and desire baptism by him, he would not have left Judea; rather, he would have remained for their sake. But seeing, as he did that this knowledge about him was coupled with envy, making them persecutors instead of followers, he left. He also could have stayed among them, if he had wanted to, and escaped their hands…. But he wanted to provide himself as an example for believers in time to come, that it was no sin for a servant of God to seek refuge from the fury of persecutors. … He did it like a good teacher, not out of fear for himself but for our instruction.

It may perhaps surprise you that it is said, Jesus baptized more than John, and after this was added, although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples did. What then? Was the statement made false, and then corrected by this addition?^[1]… Or are both true, that is, that Jesus both did and also did not baptize? He did in fact baptize, because it was he who cleansed. And he also did not baptize, because it was not he who touched. The disciples supplied the ministry of the body; he afforded the aid of his majesty. Now, when could he cease from baptizing, so long as he did not cease from cleansing? In fact, John the Baptist said about him, This is he that baptizes. Jesus, therefore, is still baptizing. And so long as we continue to be baptized, Jesus baptizes. Let a person come without fear to the minister below, for he has a master above.

You are not better than John, but the baptism given through you is better than that of John, seeing that the one is Christ’s but the other is that of John. And that which was given by Paul and that which was given by Peter is Christ’s. And if baptism was given by Judas, it was Christ’s too. Judas baptized, and after Judas baptism was not repeated. John baptized, and baptism was repeated after John. Because, if Judas baptized, it was the baptism of Christ. But when John baptized, it was only John’s baptism. We do not prefer Judas to John. But the baptism of Christ, even when given by the hand of Judas, is preferred over the baptism of John, even though John rightly administered it. For it was said of the Lord, before he suffered, that he baptized more than John. Then it was added: Although Jesus himself did not baptize, but his disciples. He, and not he: he by power, they by ministry. They performed the service of baptizing. The power of baptizing remained in Christ. His disciples, then, baptized, and Judas was still among his disciples. And were those, then, whom Judas baptized not baptized again and those whom John baptized were baptized again? Plainly there was a repetition, but not a repetition of the same baptism. For those whom John baptized, John baptized; those whom Judas baptized, Christ baptized. In a similar way, then, those whom a drunk baptized, those whom a murderer baptized, those whom an adulterer baptized, if it was the baptism of Christ, they were baptized by Christ. I do not fear the adulterer, the drunk or the murderer because I pay attention to the dove through whom it is said to me, This is he who baptizes.

But we must believe that the disciples of Christ were already baptized themselves, either with John’s baptism or, as is more probable, with Christ’s. For he who had stooped to the humble service of washing his disciples’ feet had not failed to administer baptism to his servants, who would thus be enabled in their turn to baptize others.

The three Evangelists have not made any statement opposed to the Evangelist John but only left unrecorded the Lord’s first advent in Galilee after his baptism. On this occasion he turned the water into wine there. For at that period John had not yet been cast into prison. And we are also to understand that these three Evangelists have introduced into the context of these narratives an account of another journey of his into Galilee that took place after John’s imprisonment, regarding which return into Galilee the Evangelist John himself furnishes the following notice: When, therefore, Jesus knew how the Pharisees had heard that Jesus makes and baptizes more disciples than John (though Jesus himself baptized not, but his disciples), he left Judea and departed again into Galilee. So, then, we perceive that by this time John had been already cast into prison, and further, that the Jews had heard that he was making and baptizing more disciples than John had made and baptized.

Jesus only takes up Samaria along the way, as the evangelist implies by saying, He had to pass through Samaria. As the apostles, when expelled by the Jews went to the Gentiles, so Christ, when the Jews drove him out, goes to the Samaritans …. He did this in order to deprive the Jews of any excuse and so that they might not be able to say, He left us and went to the uncircumcised.

This necessity to go [through Samaria] gave the opportunity and the beginning to his narrative. John did not report this fact in vain. He does not say as he went to Judea or as he returned to Galilee from Judea, so he also came to the Samaritans. Because of the Samaritans’ separation from the Jews he certainly avoided giving an occasion for the Jews’ just complaint. And so, he did all this as though he were passing through, so that those who were worthy among the Jews might not be deprived of his benefit. He acted for their benefit so that it might be thought that he did what he did there by happenstance. In this way also he appeared to extend good will to the Samaritans, for whom a mere passing through [of the Lord] was sufficient to recognize the truth, while for the Jews not even his long stay among them brought about any results.

Why is the Evangelist so exact about this place? It is so that when you hear the woman say, Jacob our father gave us this well, you will not think it strange. For Sychar was the place where Simeon and Levi brought about a great slaughter because of their anger over what happened to Dinah…. And from where did the Samaritans get their name? Samaria receives its name from Somer, a mountain there, so called from the name of a former possessor of it.^[1]… The inhabitants of the country were formerly not Samaritans but Israelites. But in due time, they fell under God’s wrath and the [king of Assyria] … transplanted them to Babylon and Media, placing Gentiles from various parts in Samaria in their place…. God, however, sent lions to afflict the barbarians in order to show that it was not for lack of power on his part that he delivered up the Jews, but rather for the sins of the people themselves. The king was told this, and he sent a priest to instruct them in God’s law. But not even then did they entirely discontinue their iniquity but only effected a half-hearted change. In due time, they abandoned their idols and worshiped God. At this point, the Jews returned but were always jealous toward them as strangers and enemies, naming them Samaritans after the mountain.

Our Lord Jesus Christ came to the field that holy Jacob had left to his son, Joseph. I do not think that this field was left to Joseph as much as to Christ, whom holy Joseph the patriarch prefigured, for truly the sun and moon adore him, while all the stars bless him. For this reason the Lord came to this field in order that the Samaritans, who were longing to claim for themselves the inheritance of the patriarch of Israel, might recognize their owner and be converted to Christ who became the legitimate heir of the patriarch.

Having crossed the borders of Judea and being now among strangers, the Savior rests at Jacob’s well. He shows us again as in a type and darkly that the preaching of the gospel should depart from Jerusalem and the divine word in time would extend to the Gentiles. However, this does not signify that the patriarchs are to be any less revered. Christ shall embrace them again and shall again be refreshed and rest, as in his saints, preserving to them the pristine unfading grace.

Many things we read and believe, in the light of the sacrament of the incarnation. Even in the very affections of our human nature we behold the divine majesty. Jesus is wearied with his journey, that he may refresh the weary. He desires to drink when about to give spiritual drink to the thirsty; he was hungry, when about to supply the food of salvation to the hungry.

If we do not understand the mystery of his tears, hunger and thirst, let us remember that… he who thirsted gave from himself rivers of living water…. When he ate and drank, it was a concession not to his own necessities but to our habits.

The prophet Isaiah has said about the divine nature, He will not be hungry, nor will he grow weary,^[1] and so on, and the Evangelist says, Jesus grew weary from the journey and therefore sat down by the well. Now the phrase he will not grow weary^[2] is the opposite of growing weary. The prophecy therefore [appears to] contradict the account of the Gospels. But they are not really contradictory since they both come from one God. Not growing weary pertains, therefore, to the infinite nature, because it fills all things. But movement is proper to the body that is finite. And when that which moves is forced to walk, it becomes subject to the weariness of the journey. It was the body, therefore, that walked and grew weary. For the union did not mix the natures together.

Could the power of God be exhausted? Certainly not. But he was wearied because he could not find the people faithful. Christ was wearied, then, because he recognized no virtue in his people. Today, too, our disobedience wearies him, as does also our weakness. For we are weak when we do not pursue the things that are strong and enduring but follow what is temporal and fleeting.

Christ,… the source of the breath of life for all, when He was

Weary from a journey, sat down near a spring of Samaria.

And it was the season of burning heat. It was the sixth hour, as the Scripture says,

It was the middle of the day when the Messiah came to illumine those in darkness.

The Spring came upon the spring, not to drink but to cleanse.

The fountain of immortality was near the stream of the wretched woman as though it were in need.

He is tired from walking, He who tirelessly walked on the sea,^[1]

He who furnishes

Exceeding great joy and redemption. KONTAKION ^[1]

He came wearied, because he carried weak flesh. At the sixth hour, because he was in the sixth age of the world. To a well, because he came to the depth of this our habitation. For this reason it is said in the psalm, From the depth have I cried to you, O Lord.^[1] He sat, as I said, because he was humbled.

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.

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.

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.

Our Lord came to the spring of water like a hunter. He asked for water in order to give water, with water as a pretext. He sought something to drink, like a thirsty person, so that the way could be opened for him to quench thirst. He asked from her in order to teach her, and she in turn would ask from him. He was not ashamed as a rich person to ask like one in need, to teach poverty how to make a petition. He was not afraid of reproach because he was speaking to a woman by herself, in order to teach me that whoever keeps to the truth will not be shaken. They were indeed amazed that he was standing and talking with a woman. He had dismissed his disciples from his presence so that they would not chase his prey away. He had cast bait for the dove so that by means of her he might capture the entire flock. He asked her in a way that was opposite to the real situation, so that she could answer honestly. Give me water to drink. Here was the beginning of the meeting. He asked for water, and he made a promise about living water. He made a request, and he ceased from his request, even as she also left her pitcher. He ceased pretexts because she came to the truth, for the sake of which the pretexts [had arisen].

It is evident that the blessed John wanted to reveal the virtue of the woman through this story. This request for water was not to be taken lightly. She instead first brings up the rules of the law. With great honesty she did not tolerate this infringement of the law even with strangers, even though it could have happened easily and almost necessarily [because of the thirst needing to be quenched]. Therefore, in order that it might not appear that the woman did not want to give water to the foreigner out of meanness or hostility, the Evangelist added these words: Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans, so that we might know that she refused to give him water not as to someone who was a stranger to her religion but because she wanted to warn him not to transgress the rules of the law by being led by his thirst. At this stage our Lord took this answer of the woman as the right opportunity for his teaching.

After the Jews returned from their captivity, they were jealous of the Samaritans whom they regarded as outsiders and enemies…. The Samaritans did not use all the Scriptures, but only the writings of Moses, and made little use of the prophets. They were eager to claim their Jewish origin and prided themselves on Abraham, whom they called their forefather since he was from Chaldea, and also Jacob since they were his descendants. But the Jews considered them Gentiles and thought they were as much an abomination as the rest of the Gentile world…. And so the woman, on being told, Give me a drink, very naturally asks, How is it that you, being a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?… She knew he was a Jew from his appearance and speech. Observe how considerate she is here. For even if our Lord had been bound to abstain from dealing with her, that was his concern, not hers. The Evangelist does not say that the Samaritans would have no dealings with the Jews but that the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. The woman, however, though not at fault herself, wished to correct what she thought was done unlawfully.

The Jews would not even use [the Samaritans’] vessels. And as the woman brought with her a vessel to draw the water, it made her wonder that a Jew sought a drink from her—something Jews were not accustomed to do.

But why did Christ ask for a drink when the law did not permit it? It is no answer to say that he knew ahead of time that she would not give it, for in that case, he clearly should not have asked for it. Rather, his very reason for asking was to show his indifference to such observances since, if he was going to induce others to abolish them, then it was even more important for him to pass them by.

He asks for a drink and promises to give a drink. He longs as one about to receive; he abounds as one about to satisfy. If you knew, he says, the gift of God. The gift of God is the Holy Spirit.

Is it shown in the sacred books that the Holy Spirit is called the gift of God? If people look for this too, we have in the Gospel according to John the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, who says, If anyone thirst, let him come to me and drink: he that believes on me, as the Scripture says, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. And the Evangelist has gone on further to add, And this he spoke of the Spirit, which they should receive who believe in him.^[1] And hence Paul the apostle also says, And we have all been made to drink into one Spirit.^[2] The question then is whether that water is called the gift of God, which is the Holy Spirit. But as we find here that this water is the Holy Spirit, so we find elsewhere in the Gospel itself that this water is called the gift of God. For when the same Lord was talking with the woman of Samaria at the well, to whom he had said, Give me to drink, and she had answered that the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans, Jesus answered and said to her, If you had known the gift of God and who it is that says to you, ‘Give me to drink,’ you would have asked of him, and he would have given you living water.… Because this living water, then, as the Evangelist has explained to us, is the Holy Spirit, without doubt the Spirit is the gift of God, of which the Lord says here, If you had known the gift of God, and who it is that says to you, ‘Give me to drink,’ you would have asked of him, and he would have given you living water. For that which is in the one passage, Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water, is in the other, shall be in him a fountain of water springing up to eternal life.

And in that day it says, Living water shall come forth out of Jerusalem.^[1] This is that spiritual, sweet, life-giving and saving drink of the teaching of Christ. He speaks of it in the Gospel according to John, when instructing the Samaritan woman…. What was this drink, then, that came forth from Jerusalem? For it was there that its gospel went forth and its heralds filled the world. This is what is meant by the words The living water shall go forth to the first sea and the last sea,^[2] by which is meant the bounds of the whole world. That which is toward the eastern ocean is called the first sea, that toward the west is meant by the last sea, which, indeed, the living water of the saving gospel teaching has filled.^[3] He also taught about this when he said, Whosoever shall drink of the water, which I shall give him, shall never thirst.

And in them too the rest of the prophecy was fulfilled, when on the day of our Savior’s coming living water came forth from Jerusalem.^[1] The fruitful living word of Jerusalem, yes, from Jerusalem itself, and was spread over all the earth, even to the utmost bounds of the world. The Lord and Savior himself speaks of this water to the Samaritan woman…. And he goes on to teach what advantage would accrue to everyone who tastes of the living spiritual spring. Those that drink of it, denying the many evil demons who ruled them of old, will confess their one Lord and King, and that the Lord, who once was known only to the Hebrews, will become King of all nations that believe in him from all the earth, and that his name will be one, encircling all the earth and the wilderness. And who is not struck at seeing this fulfilled? For the Christian name, derived from the name of Christ (and Christ was indeed the Lord) has encircled every place and city and land and the very nations that dwell in the wilderness and at the ends of the earth, as the prophecy foretold.

Water issuing from a spring is what is commonly called living water. Water collected from rain in pools and cisterns is not called living water. It may have originally flowed from a spring; yet if it collects in some place and is left to stand without any connection to its source, separated, as it were, from the channel of the spring. It is not called living water. Water is designated as living when it is taken as it flows. This is the kind of water that was in that fountain. ^[1] THE LIVING WATER IS CHRIST’S SPIRIT AND POWER. HERACLEON (VIA ORIGEN): [Heracleon] is not wrong when he says that the water that the Savior gives is of his spirit and power. And he has explained the statement But he shall not thirst forever as follows with these very words: For the life he gives is eternal and never perishes, as, indeed, does the first life that comes from the well; the life he gives remains. For the grace and the gift of our Savior is not to be taken away, nor is it consumed, nor does it perish, when one partakes of it.… Now [Heracleon’s] interpretation of the leaping water is not unconvincing. He takes it to refer to those who partake of that which is richly supplied to them from above and who themselves cause what is supplied to them to gush out for the eternal life of others. But he also praises the Samaritan woman because she demonstrated a faith that was unhesitating and appropriate to her nature, when she had no doubt about what he said to her. ^[1]

Jesus calls the quickening gift of the Spirit living water because mere human nature is parched to its very roots, now rendered dry and barren of all virtue by the crimes of the devil. But now human nature runs back to its pristine beauty, and drinking in that which is life-giving, it is made beautiful with a variety of good things and, budding into a virtuous life, it sends out healthy shoots of love toward God.

Not everyone knows the gift of God, because not all desire the living water, for if they did desire it they would never postpone the sacrament of baptism…. Do not delay the remedies of your salvation because you do not know when your soul may be demanded of you.

Already, our Lord raises the woman’s low opinion of him, making her realize that he was no common person. She addresses him reverentially by the title of Lord.

However, since the woman did not yet understand these words and did not know what living water was, she said to him, Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? The tone of her conversation changed. Above she had said daringly, How is it that you, a Jew; now she conveniently set the appellation sir before her words. Before she talked to him, suspecting that he would have transgressed the law because of his strong thirst. Then, when she understood from his answer and his peaceful words that he had not asked for water because he was oppressed by thirst, she attributed the right honor to his words. From where do you give me, [she says], that living water? You have no bucket, and the well is deep.

Before the coming of the Lord, the well was also deep, and without a pail no one could draw water for himself. Our Lord, the living fountain, came to cleanse the hearts of all people, to quench their thirst and to satisfy their souls. Moreover, he did not look for a pail to draw the water, but of his own accord he poured himself into the minds of each one.

The Scriptures, therefore, are introductions, and are called Jacob’s well. Once they have now been accurately understood, one must go up from them to Jesus, that he may freely give us the fountain of water that leaps into eternal life. But everyone does not draw water from Jacob’s well in the same way…. Some who are wise in the Scriptures drink as Jacob and his sons. But others who are simpler and more innocent, the so-called sheep of Christ,^[1] drink as Jacob’s livestock. And others, misunderstanding the Scriptures and maintaining certain irreverent things on the pretext that they have apprehended the Scriptures, drink as the Samaritan woman drank before she believed in Jesus.

This well is clearly the grace of the Spirit, a stream proceeding from the living fountain. The Holy Spirit, then, is also the fountain of eternal life…. This water, the grace of the Spirit, is so refreshing. Who will give this fountain to my breast? Let it spring up in me, let what gives eternal life flow on me. Let that fountain overflow on us and not flow away…. How shall I keep this water so that it does not flow or glide away?

The Samaritans then were aliens (for they were colonists of the Babylonians), but they call Jacob their father for two reasons. They inhabited a country bordering on Jewish land and so, as neighbors, they were influenced by their worship and were accustomed to boast of the Jews’ ancestors. Besides, it was really true that the greater number of the inhabitants of Samaria were sprung from the root of Jacob. For Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, having gathered together ten tribes of Israel and the half-tribe of Ephraim, departed from Jerusalem in the time of the kingdom of the son of Solomon, and took Samaria and built houses and cities there.

When the woman objects, Are you greater than our father Jacob? Jesus does not reply, Actually, I am greater, which would make him sound like he is boasting since there was no proof at this point. Nonetheless, his answer implies it…. It is as if he said, If Jacob is honored because he gave you this water, what would you say if I give you far better water than this?… He makes the comparison, however, not to put Jacob down but to honor himself. Notice, Jesus does not say that the water is inferior or vile. Rather, he asserts a simple fact of nature: whoever drinks of this water shall thirst again.

It is as if she said, you cannot say that Jacob gave us this spring and then used another for himself. For he and his descendants drank from it, which they would not have done if they had another well that was better. Therefore, you cannot then give me water from this spring. And you do not have a better spring, unless you confess that you are greater than Jacob. Where then does the water come from then that you promise to give us?

There is a great difference, he says, between that water [in the well] and the water I promise to give. That [water], after they have drunk it, extinguishes their thirst for a short time. But then, when it has been consumed according to its nature, it leaves the one who shortly before had drunk it thirsty again. The water that I give is such in its nature that not only is it not consumed and does not leave the one who drinks it oppressed by thirst, but on the contrary, it becomes in him like a spring gushing up forever. The water from a spring does not run out, nor does it need to be brought from another place or to be introduced, but it constantly offers perpetual nourishment to those who want it. In a similar way also the virtue of this water provides the one who receives it with perpetual help and will always preserve him and not allow him to perish. Therefore the one who receives this grace will never reach death. He said what he did for good reason, because this is what the virtue of the Spirit is. And so we also receive from him the firstfruits of the Spirit with the hope of the future resurrection. Since now this operation is performed symbolically, we hope then to receive the perfect grace when, through his participation, we will remain imperishable.

One must investigate what is meant by will thirst in the statement Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again.… What is meant in the first place would be something like this: he who partakes of supposedly profound thoughts, even if he is satisfied for a little while and accepts the ideas that are drawn out and that he thinks he has discovered to be most profound, will, however, when he has reconsidered them, raise new questions…. But [the Word] says, I have the teaching that becomes a fountain of living water in the one who has received what I have declared. And he who has received of my water will receive so great a benefit that a fountain capable of discovering everything that is investigated will gush forth within him. The waters will leap upward. His understanding also will spring up and fly as swiftly as possible in accordance with this briskly flowing water, the springing and leaping itself carrying him to that higher life that is eternal.

Let us not overlook the fact that it is something spiritual that the Lord was promising. What does he mean when he says, Whoever shall drink of this water shall thirst again? It is true both for this water and what the water signified. Since the water in the well is the pleasure of the world in its dark depth: from this people draw it with the vessel of lusts. Stooping forward, they let down the lust to reach the pleasure fetched from the depth of the well, and they enjoy the pleasure and the preceding lust that they let down to fetch it. For he who has not dispatched his lust in advance cannot get to the pleasure. Consider lust, then, as the vessel and pleasure as the water from the depth of the well. When one has gotten into the pleasure of this world, whether it be food or drink, a bath, a show, an affair, is there any way he or she will not thirst again? Therefore, whoever shall drink of this water, he said will thirst again. But if he receives water from me, he shall never thirst. We shall be satisfied, it says, with the good things of your house.^[1] Of what water, then, is [Jesus] to give except of which it is said, With you is the fountain of life?^[2] For how shall they thirst who shall be drunk with the fatness of your house?^[3]

He says that visible water can quench one’s thirst for a little while, but the unseen water cures one of thirst altogether because there is no longer a thirst for life when immortality is gushing forth on you. What follows clearly demonstrates that the Holy Spirit is what is freely being promised here, as the spiritual water spoken of here corresponds with the physical water spoken of…. The Spirit of wisdom, whose presence is unceasing, gives of its abundance freely.

Sometimes Scripture calls the grace of the Spirit fire, other times it calls it water. In this way, it shows that these names are not descriptive of its essence but of its operation. For the Spirit, which is invisible and simple, cannot be made up of different substances…. In the same way that he calls the Spirit by the name of fire, alluding to the rousing and warming property of grace and its power of destroying sins, he calls it water in order to highlight the cleansing it does and the great refreshment it provides those minds that receive it. For it makes the willing soul like a kind of garden, thick with all kinds of fruitful and productive trees, allowing it neither to feel despondency nor the plots of Satan. It quenches all the fiery darts of the wicked one.

Frequently indeed we see that water poured out extinguishes a fire. But sometimes we see the opposite—that huge balls of fire consume streams of water and that the flames grow more vehement, drawing strength from the water as if from food, so that the water does not seem to put out the burning but to aggravate it. What, then, is that water that consumes flames but is not itself consumed? It is, I think, that which, flowing in the bath from the fountain of Christ is not consumed by sins but consumes the fires of Gehenna, and which, once poured out on people in baptism, itself both lives in them and puts out the fire of hell. It is clear that it lives in people from what the Lord says [here]…. But in a wonderful way the water of Christ both vivifies and extinguishes by one and the same operation. For it vivifies souls and extinguishes sins. The souls are renewed by the refreshment of its bath; the sins are consumed by its surging stream. And as far as the higher grace of baptism is concerned, in the heavens a mystery is celebrated and in hell Gehenna is extinguished. In the one the waters flow; in the other the fire grows cold. In the one we are submerged in the bath; in the other we are set free from the underworld. Yet there is nothing astonishing if hell is opened by the sacrament of baptism since heaven is also unlocked. For these places are opened so that freedom and grace might come together in the bath of Christ— grace from heaven and freedom from hell.

We must know again that the Savior here calls the grace of the Holy Spirit water. If anyone drinks of this water, he will have the gift of the divine teaching constantly welling up from within him. He needs no admonition from others. Rather, it is enough to exhort those who thirst after the divine and heavenly Word that they are yet living in this present life and on earth along with the holy prophets and apostles. They are heirs of their ministrations of whom it was written, And you shall draw water with joy out of the wells of salvation.^[1]

The woman immediately believed, showing that she was not only much wiser than Nicodemus but also more courageous. For when he heard ten thousand things like this, he neither invited any others to hear what he heard, nor did he himself speak openly [about his encounter]. But she exhibited the actions of an apostle, preaching the gospel to everyone she could and calling them to Jesus. She even drew out a whole city to hear him. When Nicodemus heard Jesus, his reaction was, How can these things be? And when Christ set before him a clear illustration utilizing the wind, even then he did not receive the Word. But this is not the case with the woman. At first she doubted, but afterwards, receiving the Word not by any regular demonstration but in the form of an assertion, she immediately hurried to embrace it. For when Christ said, It shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life, immediately the woman said, Give me this water so that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.

See how the woman is led step by step to a higher understanding. First, she thought Jesus was some lax Jew who was transgressing the law…. Then, when she heard about the living water, she thought it meant material water. Afterwards, she understands it as spoken spiritually and believes that it can take away thirst. However, she does not yet know what it is, only understanding that it was superior to material things… The woman says to him, ‘Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst nor come here to draw.’ Observe how she prefers him to the patriarch Jacob for whom she previously had had such veneration.

The woman is still focused on her bodily needs. She is delighted with the idea that she will never thirst again and takes this promise of our Lord in this way. And this too will be the case, although she will have to wait until the resurrection of the dead. But she wanted this now. God had indeed once allowed Elijah to neither hunger nor thirst for forty days, and if he could grant this for forty days, why not forever? This is what she longed for, to lack nothing and to be spared her hard labor, because she was coming to that fountain day after day, burdened with that heavy weight on her shoulders that was supposed to supply what she lacked…. Her poverty obliged her to work beyond what her strength could handle. If only she could hear the invitation, Come unto me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you!^[1] This is, in fact, what Jesus was saying to her. He was telling her that she did not need to work like this any longer, but she did not yet understand.

She already had, as it were, something of the water that leaps into eternal life since she had said… I have no husband, having condemned herself on the basis of her association with such a husband.

Since the woman demonstrates some urgency in asking for the promised water, Jesus says to her, Go, call your husband, to show that he too ought to have a share in these things. But she was in a hurry to receive the gift and wanted to conceal her guilt (for she still imagined she was speaking to a man). The woman answered and said, ‘I have no husband.’ Christ answers her with a timely rebuke, exposing her in regard to her former husbands and as to her present one whom she had concealed.

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.

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. ^[1] [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,^[1]

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,^[2] 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^[3] from the filth of my sins

That I may receive

Exceeding great joy and redemption. KONTAKION ^[1]

The woman is not offended at Christ’s rebuke. She does not leave him and go away—far from it. Her admiration for him is raised: The woman said to him, ‘Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet.’… I perceive means You appear to me to be a prophet. And having come to this belief [that Jesus was a prophet], she does not ask any questions relating to life, health or sickness of the body…. She is not troubled about thirst; rather, she is eager to be taught.

By our fathers, she means Abraham, who is said to have offered up Isaac here.^[1]

On the statement our fathers and what follows one must understand the disagreement between the Samaritans and the Jews over the place they considered holy. For the Samaritans worship God on the mountain called Gerizim, because they consider it to be holy. Moses refers to this mountain in Deuteronomy when he says, And Moses commanded the people in that day saying, ‘These shall stand on Mount Gerizim to bless the people, when you have crossed the Jordan.’^[1]… The Jews, on the other hand, because they think Zion is divine and God’s dwelling place, think it has been chosen by the Father of all. For this reason they say Solomon built the temple on Zion, and all the levitical and priestly service is performed there. As a consequence of these assumptions, each nation has considered its fathers to have worshiped God, but one on this mountain and one on the other.

Everywhere, beloved, we have need of faith. Faith is the mother of all good, the medicine of salvation in order to obtain any real good. Without it, it is impossible to possess any of the great doctrines. Those who try anything without it are like those who venture on the sea without a boat and are drowned because they can barely swim…. Similarly, those who try to figure things out before they have learned anything are prone to suffer shipwreck…. To insure that this does not happen to us, let us hold fast to the sacred anchor^[1] by which Christ brings over the Samaritan woman now.

Jesus equally condemns the foolishness of all, saying that the worship of both Jews and Samaritans shall be transformed to a truer worship. Jesus in effect says that people will no longer seek after a particular place where God properly dwells. Rather, Jesus is both able to fill and able to contain all things. And so, they shall worship the Lord every one from his place,^[1] as one of the holy prophets says. Jesus implies that his own sojourn in the world with a body is the time and season for a change of such customs.

The Jews stand for those who think intelligently and salvation is from them. The Samaritans represent the heterodox. So they deify Gerizim, which means separation or division. . . . The Jews, on the other hand, revere Zion, which signifies watchtower.… Inasmuch, then, as the hour mentioned by the Lord has not yet come when they worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem, one must flee the mountain of the Samaritans and worship God on Zion, where Jerusalem lies. Christ calls this Jerusalem the city of the great king.^[1] And what else would the city of the great king, the true Jerusalem, be than the church that is built of living stones? This is the place of the holy priesthood, the place where spiritual sacrifices are offered to God by people who are spiritual and who have understood the spiritual law.^[2] But when the fullness of time is imminent,^[3] when one is no longer in the flesh but is in the Spirit and everyone is no longer still in the type but is in truth, then one must no longer bring true worship and perfect piety to Jerusalem to be offered. Such a person has been prepared so that he is like those whom God seeks to worship him.

Divergent walls have come to the cornerstone, the Jews from there, the Gentiles from here. You have seen and you know that the further walls are from the corner, the further they are from each other. As they approach the corner, so they approach each other. When they reach the corner, they join each other. Christ [as cornerstone] has joined Jews and Gentiles, who were far away from each other….

Those who came from the Jews are to be counted as being part of a good wall because those who came did not remain in the ruin.^[1] We have become one, they and we; but in the One, not in ourselves. Of what lineage was Christ born? Of the Jews. That is what you find written: Salvation is from the Jews, but not only for the Jews. He did not say, after all, Salvation is for the Jews but Salvation is from the Jews.

The you refers literally to the Samaritans but anagogically to all who are heterodox regarding the Scriptures. The we literally means the Jews, but allegorically it means, I, the Word, and all who are changed by me receive salvation from the Jewish Scriptures. For the mystery now revealed was revealed both through the prophetic Scriptures and through the appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ.

It is proper for Jesus to say now, Believe me, after he had clearly demonstrated the truth of the words that he had spoken to her before. The hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. This, he says, is what you want to be instructed about. Know then that there will be a time when both places will end. However in order that it might not appear that Jews and Samaritans had to be considered equal (because he predicted the end of both their sanctuaries) he says, You worship what you do not know, that is, you Samaritans; We worship what we know, that is, we Jews. Then he adds, For salvation is from the Jews. He did not say in the Jews but from the Jews. In fact, salvation was not in them but from them because Christ in flesh came from them. Therefore, he says, the truth is by the Jews, but both sanctuaries will be emptied out.

Twice it is written, The hour is coming. The first time it is written without the addition of and now is. I think the first alludes to that purely spiritual worship that will begin at the time of perfection. The second, however, means, I think, the worship of those being perfected in this life so far as it is possible for human nature to progress. It is possible, therefore, to worship the Father in spirit and in truth not only when the hour comes but also when it now is.… For just as the angels do not worship the Father in Jerusalem because they worship the Father in a better way than those in Jerusalem, so those who can already be like the angels^[1] in their attitude will not worship the Father in Jerusalem but in a better way than those in Jerusalem….

When, however, someone worships neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem, once the hour has come he worships the Father boldly because he has become a son. Therefore it is not said, worship God but worship the Father.…

True worshipers worship the Father in spirit and truth not only in the coming hour but also in the present. But those who worship in spirit, since they worship as they have received, worship at present in the pledge of the Spirit.^[2] But when they shall receive the Spirit in his fullness, they will worship the Father in spirit.

She learned the divine mysteries: that God is spirit and is adored not in a place but in spirit. She also learned that Christ is the Messiah and therefore that he who was still awaited by the Jews had already come. Hearing these things, that woman, who manifests the beauty of the church, learned and believed the mysteries of the law.

What does it mean, then, that the Father is worshiped in Christ, except that the Father is in Christ and the Father speaks in Christ and abides in Christ? He does not abide, indeed, as a body in a body, for God is not a body…. So not an engrafting of a body is meant, but unity of power. Therefore, by unity of power, Christ is jointly worshiped in the Father when God the Father is worshiped in Christ. In the same way then, by unity of the same power the Spirit is jointly worshiped in God when God is worshiped in the Spirit…. When God is said to be worshiped in truth (by the proper meaning of the word itself often expressed after the same manner), it ought to be understood that the Son too is worshiped. So, in the same way, the Spirit is also worshiped because God is worshiped in Spirit. Therefore the Father is worshiped both with the Son and with the Spirit, because the Trinity is worshiped.

If the Father seeks true worshipers, he seeks them through the Son, who came to seek and to save that which was lost, purifying and educating those whom he equips to be true worshipers through the Word and sound doctrine….

God is a Spirit…. God, who brings us into the true life, is called Spirit, and in the Scriptures, the Spirit is said to make us alive.^[1] It is clear from this that making alive refers not only to ordinary life but to what is more divine.

In the language of the Gospel itself, it is declared that God is a Spirit.… To the opinion of the woman that God is rightly worshiped according to the privileges of the different localities… the Savior answered that anyone who would follow the Lord must lay aside all preference for particular places. He expressed himself as follows: The hour is coming when neither in Jerusalem nor on this mountain shall the true worshipers worship the Father. God is a Spirit, and they who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. Observe how logically he has joined together the spirit and the truth. He called God a Spirit so that he might distinguish him from bodies; and he named him the truth in order to distinguish him from a shadow or an image. For they who worshiped in Jerusalem worshiped God neither in truth nor in spirit, being in subjection to the shadow or image of heavenly things. And such also was the case with those who worshiped on Mount Gerizim. Having refuted, then, as well as we could, every notion that might suggest that we were to think of God as in any degree corporeal, we go on to say that, according to strict truth, God is incomprehensible and incapable of being measured.

Since God cannot be seen, his incorporeal nature follows directly on his invisibility. For if God is unseen, then he must be incorporeal. And if this is the case, then the Spirit spoken of here cannot be air that has been set in motion. For among people a body reveals its spirit; however, we cannot say the same about God. Just as the Light spoken of here is not a physical light, but an intellectual light since it illuminates the mind, not the face, and just as he who is called Love is not a disposition but rather a Being who loves what he has made and takes care of it, so he does not address the Spirit as a blast of wind, but rather presents him as an incorporeal and life-giving Being. Everyone who has learned that God is spirit worships him spiritually in spirit and truth and no longer worships the God of all under the shadows of types. He makes a distinction between the letter and the spirit and distinguishes between the type and the truth. The letter and the type were useful for a time, but when the truth came, that is, when Christ arrived, all these things came to an end.

Since we are made alive by the spirit^[1] as far as ordinary life is concerned—and what we usually mean by the term life concerns when the spirit that is in us draws, what is called, in the literal sense, the breath of life^[2]—I suppose it has been understood from this that God, who brings us to true life, is called spirit. In the scriptures, the spirit is said to make alive. It is clear that this making alive refers not to the ordinary life, but to the more divine life. For the letter also kills and produces death, but it is not death in the sense of separation of the soul from the body, but death in the sense of the separation of the soul from God, and from the Lord himself, and from the Holy Spirit.

God is of an incorporeal nature and cannot be circumscribed into any one place. Rather, he is everywhere, and it is necessary that he be worshiped according to this understanding. The true worshiper is the one who honors him with the right intention and believes with a pure conscience that everywhere he can speak with the one who is incomprehensible.

We see that the woman, her mind full of inherited tradition, thought that God must be worshiped either on a mountain, as at Samaria, or in a temple, as at Jerusalem…. The prejudices of both confined the all-embracing and illimitable God to the crest of a hill or the vault of a building. God is invisible, incomprehensible, immeasurable. The Lord said that the time had come when God should be worshiped neither on mountain nor in temple. For the Spirit cannot be shut up, as if in a cabin, or confined. It is omnipresent in space and time, and under all conditions it is present in its fullness. Therefore he said that they are the true worshipers who shall worship in the Spirit and in truth. And these who are to worship God the Spirit in the Spirit shall have the One for the means,^[1] the Other for the object,^[2] of their reverence. For each of the two stand in a different relation to the worshiper. The words God is Spirit do not alter the fact that the Holy Spirit has a name of his own and that he is the gift to us…. The imparted gift and the object of reverence were clearly shown when Christ taught that God, being Spirit, must be worshiped in the Spirit, and revealed what freedom and knowledge, what boundless scope for adoration, lay in this worship of God the Spirit, in the Spirit.

In the [First] Book of Kings, the Spirit of the Lord, who came to Elijah, makes the following suggestions concerning God: For he said, you shall go out tomorrow and stand before the Lord on the mountain. Beyond, the Lord will pass by as a great and strong wind^[1] destroying mountains and crushing rocks before the Lord. The Lord is not in the wind (but in other texts we find: in the spirit of the Lord). After the wind, an earthquake; the Lord is not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake, a fire; the Lord is not in the fire. And after the fire, the sound of a gentle breeze.^[2] Perhaps, indeed, these words reveal how many must experience the fire of the direct apprehension of the Lord…. But who could more properly tell us about whom God is than the Son? For no one has known the Father except the Son.^[3] We too aspire to know how God is spirit as the Son reveals it, and to worship God in the spirit that gives life and not in the letter that kills. We want to honor God in truth and no longer in types, shadows and examples^[4] even as the angels do not serve God in examples and the shadow of heavenly realities but in realities that belong to the spiritual and heavenly order.

If you wish to pray, you have need of God, who gives prayer to him who prays.^[1] Invoke him, then, saying, Hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come^[2]—that is, the Holy Spirit and your only begotten Son. For this is what he taught us, saying, Worship the Father in spirit and in truth. He who prays in spirit and in truth is no longer dependent on created things when honoring the Creator but praises him for and in himself.^[3] If you are a theologian, you will pray truly. And if you pray truly, you are a theologian.

If there are many who profess to worship the Creator, there are some who are no longer in the flesh but in the spirit, because they walk in the spirit and do not fulfill the desire of the flesh.^[1] And there are others who are not in the spirit but in the flesh and wage war according to the flesh.^[2] If this is so, then one must say that those who worship the Father in spirit and not in flesh, in truth and not in types, are the true worshipers, and that those who do not so worship are not true worshipers.

To worship in the Spirit implies that our intelligence has been enlightened. Consider the words spoken to the Samaritan woman. She was deceived by local custom into believing that worship could only be offered in a specific place. But the Lord, attempting to correct her, said that worship ought to be offered in Spirit and in truth. By truth he clearly meant himself. If we say that worship offered in the Son (the truth) is worship offered in the Father’s image, we can say the same about worship offered in the Spirit since the Spirit in himself reveals the divinity of the Lord. The Holy Spirit cannot be divided from the Father and the Son in worship. If you remain outside the Spirit, you cannot worship at all, and if you are in him you cannot separate him from God. Light cannot be separated from what it makes visible, and it is impossible for you to recognize Christ, the image of the invisible God, unless the Spirit enlightens you. Once you see the image, you cannot ignore the light; you see the light and the image simultaneously. It is fitting that when we see Christ, the brightness of God’s glory, it is always through the illumination of the Spirit. Through Christ the image, may we be led to the Father, for he bears the seal of the Father’s very likeness.

O for a mountain to pray on, you cry, high and inaccessible so that I may be nearer to God and God may hear me better. For he dwells on high.… Yes, God dwells on high, but he is also considerate of the humble…. Come down so that you may come near him. But do you want to ascend? Ascend, but do not seek a mountain. The ascents, it said, are in his heart, in the valley of weeping.^[1] A valley has humility. Therefore, do everything within. Even if perhaps you seek some lofty place, some holy place, make yourself a temple for god within yourself. For the temple of God is holy, which means you.^[2] Would you pray in a temple? Pray in yourself. But first be a temple of God, for he in his temple hears the one who prays.

Do not imagine, my beloved, that prayer consists solely of words or that it can be learned by means of words. No, listen to the truth of the matter from our Lord: spiritual prayer is not learned and does not reach fullness as a result of either learning or the repetition of words. For it is not to a man that you are praying, before whom you can repeat a well-composed speech. It is to him who is Spirit that you are directing the movements of prayer. You should pray, therefore, in spirit, seeing that he is spirit. He shows that no special place or vocal utterance is required for someone who prays in fullness to God.^[1]

How is it that the Samaritans expected Christ’s coming, since they only acknowledged the books of Moses? Their expectation came from the writings of Moses themselves…. Jacob prophesies of Christ, The scepter shall not depart from Judah nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet until he comes to whom it belongs, and he is the expectation of nations.^[1] And Moses says, The Lord your God shall raise up a prophet from the midst of you, of your brothers.^[2]

She says in effect, The Jews now contend for the temple, we for the mountain. But he, when he comes, will level the mountain, overthrow the temple and teach us how to pray in spirit and in truth. She knew who could teach her, but she did not yet know him that was now teaching her…. The Hebrew Messias is in Greek Christ and means in Latin the anointed one.

The Samaritan woman, who accepts only the Pentateuch of Moses, expects the coming of Christ as announced only by the law. The Samaritans probably expected the visitation on the basis of Jacob’s blessing on Judah, when he said… A ruler shall not fail from Judah.^[1]… We must not fail to remark that, as Jesus arose from among the Jews, not only saying that he was the Christ but also proving it, so also a certain Dositheus arose from among the Samaritans and declared himself to be the Christ who had been prophesied.

And if you are a king, how is it that you are asking me for water? It was not in this way that he first made reference about himself to her, but rather first as a Jew, and then as a prophet, and thereafter as the Messiah. Step by step he brought and placed her at the highest level. At first, she saw him as a thirsty person, then as a Jew, then a prophet, and afterwards as God. As he was thirsting, she was persuading him; as he was a Jew, she loathed him; as he was a person of learning, she made enquiry of him; in his being a prophet, she was rebuked by him; as he was the Messiah, she worshiped him.

Our God did not begin to be in time: He alone is without beginning, and he himself is the beginning of all things. God is a Spirit [Jn 4:24], not pervading matter, but the maker of material spirits, and of the forms that are in matter; he is invisible, impalpable, being himself the Father of visible and invisible things.

That we are not atheists—as we acknowledge one God, uncreated, eternal, invisible, impassible, incomprehensible, illimitable, who is apprehended only by the understanding and the reason, who is encompassed by light, and beauty, and spirit, and power ineffable, by whom the universe has been created through his Logos , and set in order, and is kept in being—I have sufficiently demonstrated.

For the Father of all is far from the affections and passions that operate among men. He is a simple being, not compounded together, without diverse members, and completely like and equal to himself, since he is wholly understanding, and wholly spirit, and wholly thought, and wholly intelligence, and wholly reason, and wholly hearing, and wholly seeing, and wholly light, and the whole source of all that is good—just as the religious and pious speak about God.

The first substance is everything that subsists by itself, as a stone is called a substance. The second is a substance capable of increase, as a plant grows and decays. The third is animated and sentient substance, as an animal, a horse. The fourth is animate, sentient, rational substance, as man. Therefore each one of us is made of all, having an immaterial soul and a mind, which is the image of God.

Being is in God. God is divine being, eternal and without beginning, unbodied and limitless, and the cause of what exists. Being is what wholly subsists. Nature is the truth of things, or their inner reality. According to others, it is the production of what has come into existence; and according to still others, it is the providence of God that causes the being, and the manner of being, in the things that are produced.

What is God? “God,” as the Lord says, “is a spirit.” Now spirit is properly substance, incorporeal and without limit. What does not consist of a body, or whose existence is not according to breadth, length, and depth, is incorporeal. What has no place, what is wholly in all, and in each entire, and the same in itself, is limitless.

No one can correctly express him wholly. Because of his greatness he is ranked as the all, and is the Father of the universe. Nor are there any parts of him. For the One is indivisible; therefore it is also infinite, and without dimensions, and not having a limit. And therefore it is without form and name.

Though our understanding is unable to behold God as he is, it knows the Father of the world from the beauty of his works and the comeliness of his creatures. God, therefore, is not to be thought of as being a body or existing in a body, but as a uncompounded intellectual nature, admitting in himself no addition of any kind.

John, in his Gospel, when asserting that “no one has seen God at any time,” declares to all who are capable of understanding that there is no nature to which God is visible: he is not a being who is visible by nature, but escaped or baffled the view of a frailer creature; by the nature of his being it is impossible for him to be seen.

First it must be remembered that God is incorporeal. He does not consist of certain parts and distinct members, making up one body. For we read in the Gospel that God is a spirit: invisible, therefore, and an eternal nature, immeasurable and self-sufficient. It is also written that a spirit does not have flesh and bones. Of these the members of a body consist, and of these the substance of God has no need. God, however, who is everywhere and in all things, is all-hearing, all-seeing, all-doing, and all-assisting.

God is simple and of an incomposite and spiritual nature, having neither ears nor organs of speech. A solitary essence and without limit, he is composed of no numbers and parts.

The operations are various, and the essence simple, but we say that we know our God from his operations, but do not undertake to approach near to his essence.

[H]ow can there be any created nature in God? God has an uncompounded nature; nothing can be added to him, and only what is divine is in his nature; filling all things, yet nowhere himself compounded with anything; penetrating all things, yet himself nowhere to be penetrated; present in all his fullness at one and the same moment, in heaven, in earth, in the deepest depth of the sea, to sight invisible, by speech not to be declared, by feeling not to be measured; to be followed by faith, to be adored with devotion; so that whatever title excels in depth of spiritual import, in setting forth glory and honor, in exalting power, this belongs to God.

But there is not, neither shall there be, in the Church of God a teaching such as that which can make One who is single and incomposite not only multiform and patchwork, but also the combination of opposites. The simplicity of the true faith assumes God to be what he is.

To those who accuse us of a doctrine of three gods, let it be stated that we confess one God, not in number but in nature. For what is said to be one numerically is not one absolutely, nor is it simple in nature. It is universally confessed, however, that God is simple and not made of parts.

For in created and changeable things, what is not said according to substance, must, by necessary alternative, be said according to accident. . . . But in God nothing is said to be according to accident, because in him nothing is changeable.

We are not by nature simple; but the divine nature, perfectly simple and incomposite, has in itself the abundance of all perfection and is in need of nothing.