Глава 5.

ИИСУС И САМАРЯНКА. ИСЦЕЛЕНИЕ В КАПЕРНАУМЕ

В 4-й главе Евангелия от Иоанна рассказывается о встрече Иисуса с женщиной-самарянкой, о том довольно долгом, сложном и необычном разговоре, который ведут у колодца двое — Иисус и женщина, имя которой нам неизвестно. В Византии считали, что ее звали Фотиния или Фотина, хотя это маловероятно, поскольку, конечно, она носила какое-то еврейское имя. Что же касается имени Фотина (от греческого «фотос» — «свет»), то, скорее всего, оно было связано с Евангелием от Иоанна именно по той причине, что одной из его главных тем является «Свет, который пришел в мир» и «светит во тьме», Свет для язычников, грешников, заблуждающихся и падающих. Самарянка была одной из тех, кто заблуждался, поэтому этот Свет был явлен и ей…

В Ветхом Завете колодец как особое, значимое место встречается нередко. Именно близ колодца постоянно происходят важные встречи. И это не случайно, потому что из колодца черпают воду для питья. Ибо вода из озера, моря и даже из реки для этой цели, как правило, не пригодна: она может быть не только грязной, зловонной или соленой — даже ядовитой. В водоеме — вода мертвая, символизирующая смерть, вода, в которой человек тонет, погибает; она засасывает его и лишает жизни, наоборот, вода колодца или источника — это вода, дающая и возвращающая жизнь, вода, с которой для человека связаны абсолютно новые возможности. Это вода живая как источник жизни.

В книге Чисел есть рассказ об источнике. Народ Божий, собравшийся вокруг колодца в пустыне, призывает этот колодец наполниться водой (Чис. 21:16—17), потому что вода дает жизнь. В книге пророка Иеремии Бог устами пророка говорит о том, что люди отвергли Его, «источник воды живой», и выкопали себе «водоемы разбитые, которые не могут держать воды», и влага уходит, остается лишь зловонная жижа (Иер. 2:13). О том, что Бог — источник воды живой, говорится и в Евангелии от Иоанна. Иисус восклицает: «Кто верует в Меня, у того, как сказано в Писании, из чрева потекут реки воды живой» (Ин. 7:38).

La sete natural che mai non sazia se non con l'acqua onde la femminetta samaritana domando la grazia, mi travagliava…

«Меня терзала, — говорит Данте в начале XXI песни «Чистилища», — естественная жажда, которая никогда не утоляется, если только не водой из того источника, близ которого женщина-самарянка попросила о благодатном даре». La sete naturale, или «естественная жажда», о которой говорит Данте, — это вовсе не жажда физическая, но жажда познания, а вернее, той мудрости, что исходит от Бога. Сам поэт разъясняет это в начале своего трактата «Пир» (I, 1), где он пишет: «Все люди от природы стремятся к познанию… как блаженны те немногие, что восседают за той трапезой, где вкушается хлеб ангельский… те, кто знают это, всегда щедро делятся своим благим богатством с истинными бедняками, являясь как бы живым источником (fonte vivo), чья вода утоляет естественную жажду (la naturale sete)».

This thirst, which Pushkin calls spiritual in The Prophet, is "natural" for Dante, because, from his point of view, it is inherent in all people. Everyone thirsts, but mai non si sazia nostro intellecto, that is, "our reason is never satisfied" (see Paradise, VI, 124 ff.), unless the Truth (il Vero) enlightens, outside of which there is no truth. In the Gospel, Jesus Himself appears at the fountain of living water, Who can give this water to anyone who comes here and seeks it.

From the story of the conversation with the Samaritan woman, it is known that Jesus, tired from the journey, sat down by the well. "It was about six o'clock." Probably, He was waiting for something, thirsting for something. Because in the Scriptures, living water is always associated with the thirst that a person or an animal feels in the wilderness. The psalm comes to mind: "As a deer longs for streams of water, so my soul longs for You, O God. My soul thirsts for the strong and living God" (Psalm 41:2-3). And what does Jesus crave when He sits by the well? This is very well expressed in a medieval Latin hymn: Quaerens me sedisti lassus, that is, "Tired, Thou hast sat down looking for me"... Jesus longs for a person who will answer His word, longs for our faith, longs for us to come out to meet Him. This is probably what we are talking about here. Jesus is looking for a man, He goes out like the good shepherd in search of the lost sheep and finds it.

The spring spoken of in the book of Numbers, to which the people of God sing a hymn, is called a "gift of God" in the Aramaic translation of the Pentateuch, which indicates that the very appearance of this source is understood as a gift from God. And Jesus says these very words to the Samaritan woman: "If you only knew the gift of God..." (John 4:10). Thus, the point here is that God not only reveals to us what thirst is, but also quenches it. A woman, hearing Jesus' words that everyone who drinks "this water will thirst again," and "whoever drinks the water that I will give him will never thirst" (John 4:14), turns to Him: "Give me this water." Then the conversation takes a new turn. Jesus says, "Call your husband." And she answers: "I have no husband." It turns out that this woman had five husbands, and Jesus knows it. And she exclaims: "Lord! I see that you are a prophet."

At the beginning of this dialogue, in verse 9, this woman, believing that she was a Jew, says: "How can you, being a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, to drink? for the Jews have no fellowship with the Samaritans." The Samaritans are the inhabitants of Samaria, the northern part of Palestine, the country through which one must pass when one goes from Judea to the north, to Galilee. Jesus passes through Samaria as he goes from Judea, from Jerusalem, to Galilee. The main population of this part of Palestine was made up of people who had lived here since the time of the Babylonian captivity. They were not taken into captivity, they remained here, they mixed with the pagans, and therefore their religion was more like the religion of ancient times, before the Babylonian captivity or the era of the First Temple, but with a strong admixture of pagan beliefs. From the point of view of orthodox Jews, the Samaritans are almost pagans, they have fallen away from the people of God, they misunderstand God, so it is undesirable to communicate with them, and so on.

But Jesus speaks to the Samaritan woman — and this alone surprises her. However, if in verse 9 He is just a Jew for her, then in verse 12 He is, from her point of view, already Someone more than "our father Jacob". In verse 19 she thinks she's talking to a prophet, in verses 25 and 26 she begins to guess that she's the Messiah, or Christ, and then becomes convinced of it. Finally, at the end of the chapter, in verse 42, the woman declares that He is the "Savior of the world"... The truth becomes clear gradually. This is very important to understand, because it often happens that, on the contrary, it seems to us that we immediately accept Christ as God, but in fact we accept a certain scheme, a lifeless image, and not His living one. As a result, it turns out that we, as V.V. Rozanov said, "worship the dark face" without feeling His real presence in our lives. (Rozanov's Dark Face is a terrible, at times very cruel book about Orthodoxy. Its essence boils down to the fact that we, not feeling Christ, not hearing His voice, not knowing and not loving Him, worship the "dark face" as an old, sooty icon, in general, not even suspecting Who is depicted on it.) In the 4th chapter of the Gospel of John, a completely different path is depicted. Gradually, step by step, the woman enters the depths of the dialogue with Jesus and finally understands that the Messiah is in front of her.

This woman had five husbands and lives with a sixth. From the point of view of Eastern morality in general and Judaism in particular, it is not only impossible to talk to such a woman, but when you meet her on the street, you need to turn away and spit disgustedly. And He speaks to her, and, as if breaking down all barriers, rejecting all conventions, He stretches out His hand to a person who, from the point of view of morality and religion of that time (and not only of that time), died and should be rejected by society. Perhaps this is no less a challenge than when Jesus, at the very beginning of the Gospel of Mark (1:41), touches a leper with His hand, which seemed to His contemporaries to be an extremely dangerous and insane act.

To understand the depth of this story, one must take the position of a Jew of that time. Male debauchery, male debauchery was perceived as something almost natural, but the same in relation to a woman testified to such a depth of her fall that it was shameful not only to talk about it, but to think about it. And He is talking to her, and in private, the longest face-to-face dialogue in all of Scripture. It is safe to say that there is no more profound one-on-one dialogue in the entire Bible than this conversation between Jesus and the Samaritan woman.