When therefore the Lord knew how the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John,
All Commentaries on John 4:1 Go To John 4
Alcuin of York
AD 804
The question is often asked, whether the Holy Spirit was given by the baptism of the disciples; when below it is said, The Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. We reply, that the Spirit was given, though not in so manifest a way as he was after the Ascension, in the shape of fiery tongues. For, as Christ Himself in His human nature ever possessed the Spirit, and yet afterwards at His baptism the Spirit descended visibly upon Him in the form of a dove; so before the manifest and visible coming of the Holy Spirit, all saints might possess the Spirit secretly.
Our Lord left Judea also mystically, i.e. He left the unbelief of those who condemned Him, and by His Apostles, went into Galilee, i.e. Into the fickleness of the world; thus teaching His disciples to pass from vices to virtues. The parcel of ground I conceive to have been left not so much to Joseph, as to Christ, of whom Joseph was a type; whom the sun, and moon, and all the stars truly adore. To this parcel of ground our Lord came, that the Samaritans, who claimed to be inheritors of the Patriarch Israel, might recognize Him, and be converted to Christ, the legal heir of the Patriarch.
