Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 10.djvu/857

Rh ANALYSIS.] ing thereby the bodily things which are the objects of the outward senses ” (Alle_(/ories, iii. 8). But there is also an appropriateness in the use of the name (iv. 5) “Sychar.” For whether the name be a corruption of “Sliechem” or of “ Askar” (Sanday, Fem‘!/i Gospel, p. 93), in either case the name contains a possible reference to “ drunkenness” (Isaiah, xxviii. 1, 7 ; Diet. of Bible, s.v.), and serves as a suitable contrast to the Living Water. The next point for consideration is the “ﬁve husbands” of the woman of Samaria. Is there any special meaning in the number “five 2” Turning again to Pliilo, we ﬁnd, a little after the passage about wells quoted above, the statement that “the number ﬁve is appropriate to the outward sense” (Planting, 32), and that it represents material enjoyment. This is cer- tainly a natural use of the number, if it is to be used eni- blematically.‘ Further, the number “five” is connected also by Philo, not indeed with “l1usbands,"’ but with “seducers.” Philo (Allegories, iii. 88) says that the lawful husband is the mind (1/oils), the unlawful husband or seducer (<;b0opci5;) is represented by the ﬁve objects of the senses working through the ﬁve senses.‘-’ Immediately before the passage, Philo adopts the i11ore common metaphor of the Old Testa- ment in speaking, not of the mind, but of the Lord Himself, as the Husband, being the Father of the perfect nature, and sewing and begettiiig happiness in the soul. Samaria is supposed by Justin (Dial. lxxviii.) to represent in Isaiah (viii. 4) “sinful and unjust power,” but here it rather typiﬁes seiise-wrapped ignorant unbelief. The whole of GOSPELS 833 uttered by Jesus in Galilee (Mat. xiii. 57; Mk. vi. 4; Lu. iv. 2-1) afler the unexpected rejection of Him by His country- men; and Mark adds one of those passages which were early “ stiimbling-blocks ” to the church, viz., that “ He was not able to do there any mighty work, . . . and He marvelled because of their uiibelief.” Not content with Luke's considerable modiﬁcation of this passage, the author of the Fourth Gospel boldly places this saying of Jesus before the visit to Galilee, and assigns it as a reason for His going tliit/ier: “ After two (lays He departed thence (from Samaria) and went into Galilee ; for Jesus Himself testiﬁed that a prophet hath no honour in his own country ” (iv. 44). The motive is obvious: Jesus is desirous of escaping from notoriety. He has found that the Pliarisees (iv. 1) are aware of His superiority to John the Baptist, and that His disciples exceed J olii1’s in number ; and for this very reason He leaves J udaea, and comes to Samaria, a hostile district. Even here, however, He cannot help making converts. But having made them, He leaves them and goes into Galilee, where at least He is sure to ﬁnd “no honour.” Yet even here, adds the author, He was honoured; for “ the Galileaiis received Him, having seen all the things that He did at Jerusalem at the feast” (iv. 44). Thus skilfully, after his manner, the author takes those very sayings and traditions which had been turned against Jesus, and, by his delicate handling, uses them to enhance the glory of the Messiah, “ who knew what was in man” (ii. 25). this imagery seems so well connected and so appropriately Passing over the cure of the i1obleinan’s son, which Iias The transferred from the pages of Philo to the pages of the been discussed above, we come to the first “ sign ” wrought P°%1°f e u -4 Fourth Gospel, that one hesitates to accept another ex- planation (Keim) which would otherwise seem extremely probable—an explanation borrowed from the ﬁve religions of the ﬁve nations of Samaria (2 Kings xvii. 30-37). In either case, the sixth “husband” may very well refer to Simon Magus, who, as we know from the Acts of the Apostles (Acts viii. 11), had very early in the history of the church “ for a long time ” held the Samaritans “ bound with his enchantn1ents.”3 Like all the other narratives of our evangelist, this narrative is in the highest degree dramatic. From her previous repellent attitude, the woman of Samaria is led, first into wonder, then into interest, then into convic- tion of sin (becoming ashamed of her false husbands), and into admiration of the New Prophet; lastly, she receives from the Messiah a draught of that spiritual water which alone can satisfy the longing soul ; and in the climax she is brought to the very brink of the eternal foiiiitaii1— “I that speak unto thee am He.” The journey into Galilee adds one more to the in- stances in which the Fourth Gospel corrects the synoptists. The saying that “ a prophet is not without honour save in his own country ” is stated by the synoptists to have been 1 Origeii (Comm. in Ev. Jomm., xiii. 9) speaks of “the ﬁve hus- bands as corresponding to the five senses ; ” and he says that Samaria is the type of a soul which has once been wedded to the objects of sense, but has recently divorced herself from these and allied herself to a “sixth husband,” a false semblance of spiritual truth. If this stood by itself, we might regard it as one of many other specimens of Origen’s baseless allegory; but it assumes importance when we find Philo, who wrote long before the composition of this Dialogue of the Well, using nearly the same language as Origen, who wrote after it and (apparently) withont any knowledge of Philo’s pre-existing metaphor. 9 Elsewhere (I|I:'_r/ration of Abraham, 37) he says that the “ﬁve d-uigliters” of Salpaad represent the “outward senses." The same thine: is represented (Abraham, 5) by “ the ﬁve cities of Sodom." 3 Yet the “sixth husband ’ may possibly be illustrated by the coii- trast which Philo (Abraham, 5) draws between the “ scventli power,” the “ l"“V9“ Of PC3003‘ and the “ six powers of turbulence," which coii- sist of "the ﬁve senses” and uttered “speech.” (6 vrpoqﬁopixbs A6705) llll'l] pratcs of things that should not be uttered (axaxlyig o‘7'¢i,.ta1'i iwpia 1:311 '7)a'uxao"re'wi/ e’KAa)¢2w): see Rev. xiii. 5. on the sabbath (v. 2—9). Once more there is a contrast between the water of the law and the fountain of the Messiah. The rejection of this divine act of mercy, simply because it was wrought on the sabbath, introduces, almost for the first time, the conception of “judgment” or “con- demnation.” The word “judgment” had been mentioned in the dialogue with Nicodemus, as a necessary result, though not an object, of the coming of the Light, which, by its very presence, distinguishes and “judges” those who love the darkness (iii. 17-21) ; and now we have an example of the way in which the Light divides all who hold it into two classes——those who love it, and those who hate it. This is in accordance with the spirit of the synoptists, who (Mat xxiii. 13; Mk. xii. 40 ; Lu. xx. 47) describe Jesus as addressing the sabbatarian sign- liindereras "hypocrite,” and as pronouncing on “hypocrites” greater “judgment ” or condemnation (71-cpicroé-rcpov xpipa). But that part of the discourse in which Christ describes Himself, in the presence of the multitude, as having received all power to judge and to quicken the dead, does not re- semble anything in the synoptic narrative, except the dis- course—“ All things are delivered unto Me of My Father” (Mat. xi. '27; Lu. x. 22) ; and that was uttered privately to the disciples, after their return from their mission. It is possible that the author here (as elsewhere) sets down, as a public discourse, some sayings that may have been uttered privately; and the words “that all men should honour the S011, even as they honour the Father,” remind us at once of the synoptic saying, “ He that receiveth you receivetli Me, and He that receivetli Me receiveth Him that sent Me ” (Mk. ix. 37, &c.) ; which again, in the synoptists, was a private, not a public saying. The author's ﬁdelity to the spirit rather than to the letter of the words of Jesus appears also in the reference to the quickeiiing and raising from the dead, Jesus had in Matthew (x. 8) bidden His disciples to “ raise the dear ,” and this precept is ampliﬁed, in the Fourth Gospel, into “The hour is coming and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God ; and they that hear shall live” (v. 25),——a saying that would n.'iturally be inter- esda.
 * . "‘ I03