652 Then when he says, For here the saying is verified, we are given a proverb. As if to say: For here , i.e., in this fact, the saying is verified, i.e., the proverb in current use among the Jews is fulfilled: One man sows, another reaps. This proverb seems to have grown out of a statement in Leviticus (26:16): “You will sow your seed in vain for it will be devoured by your enemies.” As a result, the Jews used this proverb when one person labored on something, but another received the pleasure from it. This then is what our Lord says: The proverb is verified here because it was the prophets who sowed and labored, while you are the ones to reap and rejoice.
Another interpretation would be this. For here the saying is verified, i.e. what I am saying to you, One man sows, another reaps, because you will reap the fruits of the labor of the prophets. Now the prophets and the apostles are different, but not in faith, for they both had faith: “But now the justice of God has been manifested outside the law; the law and the prophets bore witness to it” (Rom 3:21). They are different in their manner of life, for the prophets lived under the ceremonies of the law, from which the apostles and Christians have been freed: “When we were children, we were slaves under the elements of this world. But when the fulness of time came, God sent his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we could receive adoption as sons” (Gal 4:3). And although the apostles and prophets labor at different times, nevertheless they will rejoice equally and receive wages for eternal life, so that the sower can rejoice at the same time as the reaper. This was prefigured in the transfiguration of Christ, where all had their own glory, both the fathers of the Old Testament, that is, Moses and Elijah, and the fathers of the New Testament, that is, Peter, John and James. We see from this that the just of the New and of the Old Testaments will rejoice together in the glory to come.
653 Then (v 38), he applies the proverb. First, he calls the apostles reapers. Secondly, he says they are laborers (v 38b).
654 he says concerning the first: I say that it is one who reaps, because you are reapers, and another who sows, for I have sent you to reap what you have not worked for. He does not say, “I will send you,” but I have sent you. He says this because he sent them twice. One time was before his passion, when he sent them to the Jews, saying: “Do not go on the roads of the Gentiles... but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Mt 10:5). In this case, they were sent to reap that on which they did not work, that is, to convert the Jews, among whom the prophets worked. After the resurrection, Christ sent them to the Gentiles, saying: “Go to the whole world, and preach the good news to every creature,” as we find in Mark (16:15). This time they were sent to sow for the first time; for as the Apostle says: “I have preached the good news, but not where Christ was already known, so as not to build on another’s foundation. But as it is written: ‘They to whom he was not proclaimed will see, and they who have not heard will understand.’” (Rom 15:20). And so Christ says, I have sent you, referring to the first time they were sent. This is the way, then, the apostles are reapers, and others, the prophets, are the sowers.
655 Accordingly, he says, Others have done the work, by sowing the beginnings of the doctrine of Christ, and you have entered into their labors, to collect the fruit: “The fruit of good labors is glorious” (Wis 3:15). The prophets labored, I say, to bring men to Christ: “If you believed Moses, you would perhaps believe me, for he wrote of me” (below 5:46). If you do not believe his written words, how will you believe my spoken words? But the prophets did not reap the fruit; so Isaiah said with this in mind: “I have labored for nothing and without reason; in vain I have exhausted my strength” (Is 49:4).
LECTURE 5
39 Many Samaritans of that town believed in him on the testimony of the woman who said, “He told me everything I ever did.” 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they begged him to stay with them awhile. So he stayed there two days. 41 And many more believed in him because of his own words. 42 And they said to the woman, “Now we believe not just because of your story, but because we have heard him ourselves, and we know that.here is truly the Savior of the world.”
656 Above, the Lord foretold to the apostles the fruit to be produced among the Samaritans by the woman’s witness. Now the Evangelist deals with this fruit. First, the fruit of the woman’s witness is given. Secondly, the growth of this fruit produced by Christ (v 41). The fruit of the woman’s witness is shown in three ways.
657 First, by the faith of the Samaritans, for they believed in Christ. Thus he says, Many Samaritans of that town, to which the woman had returned, believed in him, and this, on the testimony of the woman, from whom Christ asked for a drink of water, who said, He told me everything I ever did: for this testimony was sufficient inducement to believe Christ. For since Christ had disclosed her failures, she would not have mentioned them if she had not been brought to believe. And so the Samaritans believed as soon as they heard her. This indicates that faith comes by hearing.
658 Secondly, the fruit of her witness is shown in their coming to Christ: for faith gives rise to a desire for the thing believed. Accordingly, after they believed, they came to Christ, to be perfected by him. So he says, So when the Samaritans came to him. “Come to him, and be enlightened” (Ps 33:6); “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you” (Mt 11:28).
659 Thirdly, the fruit of her witness is shown in their desire: for a believer must not only come to Christ, but desire that Christ remain with him. So he says, they begged him to stay with them awhile. So he stayed there two days.
The Lord remains with us through charity: “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word” (below 14:23), and further on he adds, “and we will make our abode with him.” The Lord remains for two days because there are two precepts of charity: the love of God and the love of our neighbor, “On these two commandments all the law and the prophets depend” (Mt 22:40). But the third day is the day of glory: “He will revive us after two days; on the third day he will raise us up” (Hos 6:3). Christ did not remain there for that day because the Samaritans were not yet capable of glory.
660 Then (v 41), the Evangelist says that the fruit resulting from the witness of the woman was increased by the presence of Christ; and this in three ways. First, in the number of those who believed. Secondly, in their reason for believing. Thirdly, in the truth they believed.
661 The fruit was increased as to the number of those who believed because while many believed in Christ on account of the woman, many more believed in him because of his own words, i.e., Christ’s own words. This signifies that although many believed becatise of the prophets, many more were converted to the faith after Christ came, according to the Psalm (7:7): “Rise up, O Lord, in the command you have given, and a congregation of people will surround you.”
662 Secondly, this fruit was increased because of the way in which they believed: for they say to the woman: Now we believe not just because of your story.
Here we should note that three things are necessary for the perfection of faith; and they are given here in order. First, faith should be right; secondly, it should be prompt; and thirdly, it should be certain.
Now faith is right when it obeys the truth not for some alien reason, but for the truth itself; and as to this he says that they said to the woman, Now we believe, the truth, not just because of your story, but because of the truth itself. Three things lead us to believe in Christ. First of all, natural reason: “Since the creation of the world the invisible things of God are clearly known by the things that have been made” (Rom 1:20). Secondly, the testimony of the law and the prophets: “But now justification from God has been manifested outside the law; the law and the prophets bore witness to it” (Rom 3:21). Thirdly, the preaching of the apostles and others: “How will they believe without someone to preach to them?” as Romans (10:14) says. Yet when a person, having been thus instructed, believes, he can then say that it is not for any of these reasons that he believes: i.e., neither on account of natural reason, nor the testimony of the law, nor the preaching of others, but solely on account of the truth itself: “Abram believed God, who regarded this as his justification” (Gn 15:6).
Faith is prompt if it believes quickly; and this was verified in these Samaritans because they were converted to God by merely hearing him; so they say: we have heard him ourselves, and believe in him, and we know that here is truly the Savior of the world, without seeing miracles, as the Jews saw. And although to believe men quickly is an indication of thoughtlessness, according to Sirach (19:4): “He who believes easily is frivolous,” yet to believe God quickly is more praisworthy: “When they heard me, they obeyed me” (Ps 17:45).
Faith should be certain, because one who doubts in the faith is an unbeliever: “Ask with faith, without any doubting” (Jas 1:6). And so their faith was certain; thus they say, and we know. Sometimes, one who believes is said to know ( scire ), as here, because scientia [science, knowledge in a more perfect state] and faith agree in that both are certain. For just as scientia is certain, so is faith; indeed, the latter is much more so, because the certainty of scientia rests on human reason, which can be decieved, while the certainty of faith rests on divine reason, which cannot be contradicted. However they differ in mode: because faith possesses its certainty due to a divinely infused light, while scientia possesses its certainty due to a natural light. For as the certitude of scientia rests on first principles naturally known, so the principles of faith are known from a light divinely infused: “You are saved by grace, through faith; and this is not due to yourselves, for it is the gift of God” (Eph 2:8).
663 Thirdly, the fruit was increased in the truth believed; so they say, here is truly the Savior of the world. Here they are affirming that Christ is the unique, true and universal Savior.
He is the unique Savior for they assert that he is different from others when they say, here is, i.e., here he alone is who has come to save: “Truly, you are a hidden God, the God of Israel, the Savior” (Is 45:15); “There is no other name under heaven given to men, by which we are saved” (Acts 4:12).
They affirm that Christ is the true Savior when they say, truly. For since salvation, as Dionysius says, is deliverance from evil and preservation in good, there are two kinds of salvation: one is true, and the other is not true. Salvation is true when we are freed from true evils and preserved in true goods. In the Old Testament, however, although certain saviors had been sent, they did not truly bring salvation, for they set men free from temporal evils, which are not truly evils, nor true goods, because they do not last. But Christ is truly the Savior, because he frees men from true evils, that is, sins: “He will save his people from their sins” (Mt 1:21), and he preserves them in true goods, that is, spiritual goods.
They affirm that he is the universal Savior because he is not just for some, i.e., for the Jews alone, but is the Savior of the world. “God did not send his Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him” (above 3:17).
LECTURE 6
43 After two days he left that place and went to Galilee. 44 Jesus himself had testified that a prophet has no honor in his own country. 45 When however he arrived in Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him, because they had seen all the things he had done in Jerusalem on the festive day, where they too had gone. 46a He therefore went to Cana in Galilee once more, where he had made the water wine.